Page 72 of Where We Belong

Mari sighs. “I suspect the poor soul has not had his own thoughts since he was a child.”

My chest aches at her words. I spent so long hating Aiden for the things he said, the things he did, the way he treated people. How he wanted me dead. But was it all a reflection of the King’s desires? All I can picture is a little boy with a crown on his head and someone else’s voice inside it. Someone else’s thoughts. Someone else’s control. How lonely that must be. To spend your whole life not knowing where you end and somebody else begins.

Summer places a hand on his head before her eyes turn an icy white. “There is a great war within this mind.” Goosebumps race across my skin at her voice, now an entire choir, like her vocal cords have been sliced into a hundred different pieces. “Two halves of a bond that cannot meet, a broken body, a King’s control and what little is left of his own self, trying to push through for freedom. How it longs to be free. To love and be loved. But these fractions do not know how.”

I thought my uncle loved me. I trusted him. Believed him. The fraud wearing my father’s face tried to take my life. Take Aiden’s. And if he could deceive me so completely and hurt me so deeply, what must this be doing to my brother? I look at the broken shape of him on the floor.

“We have to go and get Nyk,” Eira says hoarsely, looking at Kaed, then Summer.

Normally, Aiden would flinch at that. Argue. Blink. Command. But he doesn’t.

His green eyes remain distant, fixed on nothing, as if no one is speaking at all.

Chapter 65

Kaed

He guides our steps and makes us wise,

through prayer and study both,

A few days pass without anything that feels like healing. We send word to the palace that we need time, that there is too much to learn and Cinder is making us jump through hoops for the information. Such is their reputation. The King accepts it. Or pretends to. Now that he knows we survived his ambush and have passed it off as a trial, I am curious what his next move will be. Cinder Cliffs becomes our purgatory while we try to remember how to breathe again.

Aiden locks himself in his bedroom and refuses food or conversation. He sends for wine instead. Again and again. Until the servants no longer bother to hide their concern. He sends for females too. They are silent and gone within the hour. Eira stands outside his door more than once, calling his name with no reply and I lie awake at night beside Ashley. Staring at the ceiling. Listening to the distant buzz of magic in the cliffs and wondering how a kingdom survives when its heart has been hollowed out from the inside. Tossing and turning with the same thoughts on repeat. How long have I been a pawn? How many of my choices were ever mine? All memories feel suspect now. Every command, every loyalty, every time I thought I failed, or I was being strong, when really, I was being steered.

Ashley is the only thought I trust now. The only memory untouched by doubt. She is real. Certain. Mine. When the noise in my mind grows too loud, I reach for her in the darkness beside me just to remind myself there is something true. But the thoughts keep breaking through anyway. The King’s voice. His questions. Do you think you can keep them safe? I remember how certain I was when we journeyed here. How fiercely I believed I could protect them all. Protect her. And now I realise he knew exactly what was coming. Knew an army waited in the shadows with poison meant for Ashley. He took my hand and planted confidence in me like a weapon, sending me marching straight toward her death. And what is a life without Ashley, if not another grave for me to crawl into?

I hold her when she fights tears, because she really believed she had finally found someone safe. Last night, she bolted upright beside me, tears and cold sweat clinging to her skin as she fought for breath in the dark. She would not tell me what haunted her. But I know it was the attacker she killed during the ambush. I know because she has not looked at the blade the same way since. Cook tries to make jokes here and there, but I see the cracks. He keeps asking why the King would bother controlling him, what use he could possibly have in this grand scheme. One morning, he announces he’s going to see his mother for a few days. I know he’s looking for answers we can’t give him, so I tell him to be careful with who he shares intel with.

Eira moves like a storm about to break, though her heart and mine have been settled at least with the update that Nyk still lives. We know we cannot risk telling him what we’ve learned — not when the King could use Cursewater on him and force it from his mind. His instinct was right in keeping it from us and sending us here. So, as I try to adjust to what the world looks like now, I keep coming back to the same question. Who am I?

Chapter 66

Aiden

…

Chapter 67

Ashley

He is steadfast, just and endlessly kind,

so I slave to this new oath.

I wake up with something sharp in my chest that isn’t grief. It’s anger. There was that wild, reckless anger that I’ve been trying to sand down for months. It isn’t that. And it isn’t the defiance I learned was childish and dangerous. It’s the part of me that refuses to bow. The part that refuses injustice despite the consequences. I thought it made me difficult. Impatient. Unlovable. Un-hirable. But today I’ve decided to see it differently. I just need to aim it properly. And I’ve found the perfect target.

“We need a plan.” I drag Eira and Kaed from their rooms and into our living area. “We can’t sit here drowning in our feelings.” Eira looks ready to snap at me, but I hold up a hand. “I know you’ve lived under this longer than I have. And I wasn’t as affected by his mind magic as you. I’m not pretending I understand how it feels. But we have to do something.” Kaed studies me with a fire in his eyes I can’t place. Good. Let him see me. All of me. Just like I see all of him. And I don’t know when exactly I started doing that, cataloguing him. Filing things away. Like the way he sits on the edge of every chair, as if taking up the whole of it costs something he’s not willing to pay again. Or how his laugh starts somewhere deep in his chest and then escapes all at once, or when he folds his arms when he’s listening. Like now. But I don’t wait for his full agreement before marching straight to Aiden’s door and shoving it open. He’s sprawled naked across the bed. White sheets thrown lazily over his hips, a glass of wine in each hand, sipping from them one at a time. A beautifully curvy and very naked servant sits across the room in a brown leather chair. Her legs are spread as she reads Romeo and Juliet in a sultry voice. Aiden’s eyes roam her body, tongue resting on his lower lip, like someone trying to feel something they can’t quite reach. The room smells of wine and something sour.

“Ashley,” he drags out my name, lifting both glasses in greeting.

“Get up,” I say, closing the door behind me.

“No,” he says. “Leave.”

“No,” I reply, planting my hands on my hips, “Get up.”

We stare at each other across the room, neither of us willing to be the first to back down. His dark curls are a fluffy mess. And his face carries more emotion than I’ve seen before. Pain, confusion, shame, fear, all plastered together. He looks like a normal male who has been shattered and doesn’t know how to put himself back together. My stomach drops.