Kitt’s knees hit the floor right beside my own.
I can’t think. I can’t feel. I can’t hear anything but the sickening sound of my brother’s flesh tearing, over and over again in my mind.
Rage consumes me, swallowing all sanity. I feel myself wavering on the edge of some irreversible darkness, like a gaping hole my soul is slowly slipping into. But I cling to that flickering light within me, that piece of Kitt he’s planted there, and beg it not to burn out.
He sways on trembling knees before beginning an agonizing topple toward the floor. I catch him, my arm curling around his back as I lay him down gently.
This cannot be happening.
None of this is right, not the crazed break in my brother’s character or the ashy stoker skewering him.
A puddle of blood crawls slowly across the rug beneath his shuddering body, and I can hardly feel its sticky warmth lapping around my knees. “You were supposed to dodge,” I say again, my words heavy with guilt. “I thought you were going to dodge.”
The delirium that was clutching Kitt so tightly begins to slip away. “I forgot. I… I can’t even remember myself.”
I try to ignore the tears welling in my eyes as I press trembling hands to his wound. Blood oozes between my fingers. “I’m gonna fix this, okay?” Now it is I who sounds hysterical. “You’re going to be just fine.”
Paedyn sits stiffly at my side, her eyes wide and glassy. Kitt’s eyes drift distantly to his queen. “I did care for you. I—I don’t want to be a monster.”
My hands cup Kitt’s face, turning it toward my stern one. “Hey, I am the monster. Not you, all right?”
His voice is thick with pain, with something cold I don’t dare identify as Death’s arrival. “You’re a pawn. But I’m… I’m the king who plays you. Though I don’t remember most of my moves.”
I force a shaky laugh because the alternative is far too damning. “Always the dramatics with you, Kitty.” My throat tightens as I grab his bloody hand. “I’m going to make this right.”
A tear rolls down my cheek as I shut my eyes in search of a Healer’s power.
Dual bleeding out before me. Hydro down the hall.
I dig further, reaching out into the corridors beyond.
Gust. Shield. Veil.
Every Imperial outside the door is utterly useless to me. I fight against my ability, urging it toward the other end of this sprawling castle where I know the Healers reside—where every one of them is uselessly out of my reach. A wall slams into my power, and terror grips my heart.
No. No.
I rail against it, my head pounding with the force. Father used to push my ability to the point of failure, and this is what it felt like. A wave of exhaustion crashes over me, evidence of my weakness. Evidence of a fabricated Plague and its flaws.
Kitt’s salvation lies just beyond my reach.
“There are no Healers,” I gasp. “I need a Healer!”
The shout bounces around the study, replaying my helplessness over and over. Desperation tears from my throat again. “Paedyn, go find me a Healer.”
She nods, face pale. “Keep him awake until I get back.”
And then she is tearing out of the room.
I look down at Kitt and his loosening grip on my fingers. “You’re going to be just fine, you hear me?” It’s all the comfort I can muster for him as I will the words to be true.
Green eyes grow blurry. His head shakes, a violent rock of his skull against the bloody floor. A whisper leaves me in ruins. “I haven’t felt right for… a while. I don’t… remember. But I’m scared, Kai.”
A sob spills out of me.
I duck my head, shoulders shaking in time to the beat of my shattering heart. “I’m right here.” My voice breaks. “You’re going to be fine.”
“It was all for us. I remember that,” he murmurs weakly. “I j-just wanted my brother back.”
“You never lost me.” My words are a plea I desperately need him to understand. “I have always been right at your side—your brother, no matter our blood.”
“No.” Kitt’s soft smile displays the blood seeping onto his lips. That crazed haze seems to have cracked, leaving only the shell of my brother behind. “You were somewhere between us. N-never able to decide who you loved more.”
I shake my head. Tears spatter his bloody chest. “I can love more than one person, Kitt.”
“But I cannot,” he whispers. “You were the only person that loved me, Kai. And I—I was… losing you to her.”
I hang my head in hands slicked with my brother’s blood. “This is all my fault. It should have been me!” I choke on the emotion clogging my throat. “This is my fate. I’m supposed to protect you.”
Kitt sucks in a rattling breath. “I think…” His eyes flutter shut. “My fate was to save you from me.”
“Don’t say that,” I choke. “You are the king. You are my brother.” A sob weaves between each word to follow. “And we promised to always stay together. Grow old enough that the only thing we remember is each other, and that would be okay, because you are worth every one of my memories. You promised me that, Kitt.” I pull at my hair with a bloody hand. “Dammit, you promised!”
Kitt lifts his head from the ground, golden hair matted with blood. My knees soak in the pool of it as I reach to cradle his neck. He looks up at me, eyes warm when they land on mine—just as they have always been. “I don’t want… to be a monster,” he whispers. “I—I just wanted to be great.”
Tears stream down my face. “You don’t need to be great, Kitt. You are good. You’ve always been good.”
He shakes his head, and the movement has a rasping cough falling from bloodied lips. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be,” I say roughly. “Because you’re going to be fine. Me and you, Kitt. Always. You… you promised me that.” I lift my head to let another futile cry rip from my throat. “Help! I need a Healer!”
“Kai.”
It’s weak, my name from his lips. But the quiet contentment in which he says it is enough to make me weep.
He has accepted this fate. Broken a promise. Doomed me to a life without him.
“Bury me…” Kitt takes several shallow breaths. Then he smiles. “Under the willow tree. I… I won’t be lonely there.”
My very soul feels as though it is splitting in two. “I can’t do this without you, Kitt. Please. Please.”
He says nothing. His eyes drift shut.
“Stay with me, Kitt!” I pat his cheek, though I can hardly see him through my steady stream of tears. “I need you to stay awake.”
His bleary gaze finds mine again. Then he’s lifting shaking hands to fumble with the wedding ring on his finger. My voice quivers. “What are you—?”
Kitt slips that steel band free. And with the last of his dwindling strength, whispers, “Love each other for me.”
Then the ring is pressed into my palm.
“No.” The word is defiant. “No!” This one drips with anguish. “I need you with me, Kitt!”
His gaze trails upward. Rests on the silver shadows that cling to the ceiling, staring down on us. “I wrote you l-letters.” The words are nearly lost on Death’s chill. “So you can see why I’m… a monster.”
There is a sudden widening of the green eyes that so easily crinkled with laughter. They grow distant, pinned on a phantom beside me. Breath rattles in his chest. “I’m scared, Kai.”
I squeeze his hand, pressing it to my forehead with a whimper. “I’m right here.” I think I might be dying right beside him. “You’re okay.”
A ripple of relief washes over him. His mind seems clear for the first time in weeks, but his words fade away. “I just want to be great.”
“You are,” I breathe. The tears are falling faster now. “You will be remembered as Ilya’s greatest king. I promise you that, Brother.”
Blood blossoms from beneath his body, like a peaceful pool surrounding a gruesome scene. It stains his hair, turning the tips of each blond strand into a delicate crown, as though Death himself has placed it upon his brow.
“Forgive me, Kitt,” I beg.
The quiet words he aims over my shoulder aren’t meant for me. “I’ll go gently. For you.”
Then his gaze is fixed on the world beyond.
Mine goes quiet without him in it.
“You and me,” I whisper against his bloody chest.
Peace is forever pressed into his features.
Anguish rips me raw from the inside out.
“Please… don’t leave me…”
I am numb.
I am dead beside him but cursed to keep living.
Grief is my equal. Misery a mirror.
I call sorrow by its name and speak my own.
My head falls back with a roar of agony.
My brother.
My brother.
My brother.
And when Paedyn throws open the door, a Healer at her side, I am lifeless on the floor beside my brother.
