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“I was going to go see her, show her how I could act for your wedding, but then I went to see Father instead.” I stopped, heart pinching as my mind continued to run over what I had seen in those rooms.
“How did you get in there?” Batian asked, he almost sounded more upset than Mother had. “No one is allowed in there. No one–” he stopped himself, shaking his head as though he was stopping himself from saying something he shouldn’t.
My gut twisted violently as Mother’s sneer recoiled in my memory. ‘It’s a royal matter.’
“Batian, do you know where Uncle Jahn is?” I asked, shifting my weight to face him.
Batian sat there, his eyes narrowed.
“Father’s Catalyst, you mean. Catalysts don’t have names, Elara. They lose those in the vow.”
“Uncle Jahn has a name,” I corrected. “They all have names. Where is Uncle Jahn?”
“What about him?” Batian’s eyes dipped to the color of coal, if that was possible, his nostrils flaring. I had seen the facade of the Crown Prince that he put on only once or twice in my life, one of which being a few days ago. But there it was, staring again. The vice that was still clenched around my rib cage tightened even more as mother’s voice echoed in my head. ‘It’s a royal matter.’
Royal like Batian, but not like me.
I pushed the thought away, continuing on.
“I visited Father, Batian. His room is a mess, and his Catalysts’ quarters were bare. They had been for a while, Uncle Jahn was gone.” I wanted to add that Father was clearly going mad without his Catalyst there, and that something needed to be done, but the way Batian was looking at me with those eyes like coals, and a face that was more King than brother made me pause.
I was suddenly having trouble breathing, whether from corset or panic, I wasn’t sure. Maybe both.
“Uncle Jahn,” he said after a minute, his voice biting slightly as if the words were tough to say, “had to be removed.”
“Removed?” He wasn’t there, yes, but the way Batian said the word made it sound like something more.
“Yes,” Batian exhaled, and some of the hardness on his face left. “You’ve noticed that Father is not well.” I nodded, prompting him to continue. “He’s been getting worse lately. He gets confused, he doesn't know where he is, or who he is.” He paused, and I waited, everything feeling heavy at the truth there.
“He attacked his Catalyst, so we moved him. The Ramal’s Catalyst is close, but it wasn’t safe for him to be near the Ramal anymore.”
All of that time when I could have been with him, when he would have known me, it had been taken from me, too. That pressure in my chest was growing.
“How long ago did they move Uncle Jahn?” I had stopped swinging my legs, the swirling fabric of my dress dancing around them in the biting wind.
“A year, maybe more,” he whispered, and I nodded as though I understood. Father had started to decline before then, but he had also gotten worse since then.
“Don’t you think it’s making him worse, having his Catalyst away from him?”
Batian shook his head, “He’s only away at nights, which does make him worse in the morning, which is what you saw. He tends to be better by nightfall.”
“He gets better when his Catalyst is with him?” Again, he nodded. “So why keep him away at all?”
As much as everything fit with Father’s decline, not everything was adding up.
“Elara.” Great. His Ramal voice was back. “This isn’t something that you are expected to know. We have it handled. We are helping him. We even brought a healer from the Izyare Kingdom–”
“A witch?” I interrupted him, everyone knew what really lived in the Kingdom of Izyare, and it wasn’t healers. “You brought a witch? Here?”
I almost fell off the side of the turret in shock. There was only one creature in this world that was worse than the Fae: a witch. The withered women worked in blood and spells and old magic that connected the Ether with the underworld. The old women had sided with the Sister, Cassia, and the vile Fae in the Black War. It may have been centuries ago, but they were still known as bloodthirsty monsters. And they had brought one to the Runturin.
“This witch is not a danger, trust me. Besides, we needed to help him,” Batian said quickly, clearly registering the shock and panic on my face. Not that his reasoning did anything to calm me.
What in the world were they thinking?
“Which she did, she was the one who suggested we remove the Catalyst.” He truly believed that, but I was still reeling from the fact that they had brought a witch to the Runturin and given them access to the Ramal.
I opened my mouth to tell Batian just that, but he stopped me with a scowl, those eyes hardening to stones again.
