Page 32 of Renegade Kingdom
Maddox
Iwaited until the others were asleep before I went to see my brother.
It was early. The grey light of predawn was just starting to filter through the porthole of our cabin, casting everything in muted shadows. Alyssa was tucked between Dean and Ryder, all three of them dead to the world after whatever had happened between them last night. I’d felt it through the bond. The warmth, the pleasure, the magic. It had washed over me and Tank in waves while we’d been sorting through Rhidian’s maps, and Tank had given me a knowing look that I’d deliberately ignored.
They deserved that moment. All of them did. There was precious little joy to be found in this mess, and I wasn’t going to begrudge them for finding some.
But sleep hadn’t come for me. Not last night. Not really any night since the battle.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Rhidian.
The way he’d looked at me in those final moments. Not with fear or anger or resentment. With gratitude. Like I was doinghim a favour by driving my blade into his chest. Like dying at the hands of a friend was somehow better than dying at the hands of an enemy.
Maybe it was. I didn’t know. I just knew that the weight of it was crushing me, and the only person I wanted to talk to about it was chained up in the hold of this ship with a monster living inside his head.
The hold was dark and quiet as I descended the ladder. The smell hit me first. Damp wood and salt and the stale air of a space that never saw sunlight. And beneath it, the faint scent of my brother. Changed now, different from how he used to smell, but still unmistakably Damon.
He was sitting against the far wall, his chains pooled around him like iron snakes. His eyes were open, watching me as I approached.
“Maddox.” His voice was rough but present. Himself. I could tell the difference now. The nightmare had a particular quality to it, like hearing someone speak through water. This was just Damon, tired and worn down but still here.
“Hey.” I lowered myself to sit across from him, close enough to reach out and touch if I wanted to but far enough that the chains would stop him if the nightmare surged forward. I hated that I had to think like that. Hated that I couldn’t just sit beside my brother without calculating escape routes.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Can’t stop thinking.”
“About what?”
I almost laughed. About what. Like there was just one thing keeping me awake, one singular problem I could identify and solve and move on from. As if my entire world hadn’t been ripped apart and rebuilt into something I barely recognised.
“Rhidian,” I said simply.
Damon’s expression shifted. Not pity, not exactly. Something more like understanding.
“Tell me,” he said.
And gods help me, I did.
It all came pouring out. Everything I’d been holding in since the battlefield, since the moment I’d felt the blade slide between Rhidian’s ribs and watched the light leave his eyes. I told Damon about the choice Rhidian had forced on me. How Rhidian had been dying already, had known that if Arik claimed his death, the Summer Court magic would pass to the enemy. How he’d begged me to do it, to take the kill and the magic with it so that Arik couldn’t have it.
“And I did it,” I said, staring at my hands. The Summer Court marks swirled across my skin, golden and gleaming, but all I could see was blood. “I killed him, Damon. I looked him in the eye as the blade drove into his heart, and now I carry his magic like it’s some kind of prize.”
“It wasn’t a prize,” Damon said quietly. “It was a gift. He chose you.”
“It doesn’t feel like a gift.” My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. “It feels like a stain. And the worst part is that I know it was the right thing to do. I know Rhidian made the only call he could make. I know that if I hadn’t done it, Arik would have the Summer Court’s power right now and we’d all be even more screwed than we already are.”
I looked up at my brother, and I knew my eyes were shining with unshed tears.
“But I feel selfish for wishing it hadn’t been me. He was dying, and all I could think was that I didn’t want to be the one holding the blade. What kind of person does that make me?”
“Human,” Damon said. “It makes you human, Maddox.”
“Except I’m not anymore.” I flexed my hand, watching the Summer mark ripple across my skin. “Not entirely.”
Damon was quiet for a moment, watching me with those too-knowing eyes.
“You always did carry other people’s pain,” he said. “Even when we were kids. Remember when Dean first showed up? Feral and furious, lashing out at anyone who got close. I was the one who sat up with him at night, but you were the one who cried for him. Who felt everything he was feeling and took it on as your own.”
