☆

Lucy was being pulled in all directions. Aelurians wanting answers, Aelurians demanding vengeance, healers quick with their potions and poultices looking to him before they moved Cerine to an empty bed in the castle because it was too dangerous to send him home. Guards awaiting Lucy's orders regarding what must next be done with the prisoner.

The prisoner. Vicrum. A human who'd been dragged here and was now embroiled in Aelurian affairs. Who'd been branded a traitor within the past five minutes, Aelurians screaming for his execution.

And yet, he still hadn't come to his senses. Crum waged war in the guard's arms, his unleashed fury unable to be tempered. He flailed and spat, snarled and yowled. Dug his nails into the guard's leather armor. All traces of the Crum Lucy knew vanished.

Someone, Lucy knew not who, ushered him toward the door. "My king, you must return to your rooms."

Behind, Reven's voice crashed over him as he barked commands. "Take him to the dungeon. Be sure to shackle him until he calms."

"Clean up this mess." This command Reven directed at the servants huddled near their exit, who exchanged glances and offered up prayers to whatever deities the common folk prayed to.

"Lords and Ladies," Reven continued, his words kinder now, "my apologies, but tonight's festivities must be cut short. Delhen Gorga--" a cat-man of spotted black and white fur, who gleamed in silver breastplate and pauldrons, stood arrow-straight "--will provide you extra security if you seek it on your journeys home. The nobility's safety is the crown's top priority."

Lucy snorted. His priorities had nothing to do with ensuring a bunch of rich, snobs made it safely back to their mansions. He was concerned with Crum, and rooting out tonight's true culprit. That was it.

As yells returned to murmurs and the crowd dispersed, Lucy turned around, the servants bustling around the feasting tables, gathering trays, mopping up wine, wiping away the spills. Soon nothing of the scuffle would be left. Anything to prove Crum's innocence lost to soap and water and the rigorous hands of the kitchen staff.

"What Cerine has done here will be seen as heroic. An Aelurian giving his life for his king, can no greater sacrifice be made? He will be rewarded, his name whispered throughout the cities for cycles. You will have to honor him, appeasing his vanity for the foreseeable future. After, of course, the war is won. I do not envy you, my king."

Lucy ignored the voice that registered as Lady Cordan's in his mind. Instead, he kept his eyes glued to the feasting table. Red stains were buffed out of existence where before Lucy couldn't tell the difference between wine and blood.

One of the servants moved to begin clearing away the goblets, most of which had toppled during Crum's fit. Two remained upright, one being the goblet Crum had offered him, the one Reven had kept Lucy from drinking.

And maybe he'd done so with good reason.

Lucy staggered forward, twisting free of Cordan's claws, and screamed. "Don't you dare!"

His voice, so loud, so commanding, hushed those still milling about the room. The servant looked at him with frightened eyes, her pupils no longer slits but round like the empty platter wedged underneath her arm.

She offered him the cup, which he took, keeping it at arm's length like the very metal had been slathered in poison.

Reven stopped giving orders to stare at him. "My king?"

"He is rattled, Reven." Cordan stroked her whiskers, each of them adorned in red teardrop-shaped gems. "Best accompany him to his rooms."

The advisor nodded toward the guards, who turned on their heels, Crum in custody, and headed toward the servants' stairwell at the far end of the room.

"Come." The advisor's instruction came as gently as a breeze to Lucy's ears. Warm hands closed around Lucy's arm, Reven guiding him toward the exit. Lucy tightened his grip on the cup, the advisor's gaze swimming with questions about it, though never amplifying them with his voice. Slowly, they made their way across the hall. "You must be in shock."

But that wasn't it. Lucy wasn't in shock. He'd seen violence before. In fact, he'd seen it in that very room. Nocturnis condemning a family to death while the Moonborn houses stood around and gaffed, but did nothing.

He knew violence ruled Aelurus. The gods wouldn't have gifted them fangs and claws if they didn't expect them to be used, to be turned on each other, gouging and gashing flesh and throats, gobbling up whoever or whatever stood in the way.

No, Lucy wasn't shocked. Or surprised. Appalled. Saddened, even. He was livid.

And he made that anger known the moment he stepped inside his room, picking up the nearest thing to where he stood and slamming it against the wall. The small box that had become his conduit for his rage shattered, its contents spilled across the floor. Ribbons. It'd been a box of ribbons stowed away for safekeeping. Despite his brother being adamant about hating them, he'd sure gone out of his way to keep them protected.

And now Lucy'd destroyed the box. And failed to protect Crum and make the realm safer for his brother's return. Oh, and he'd helped start a war between Aelurus and the Cloude.

"My king," Reven said, softly closing the door behind him. "You must calm yourself."

"Calm?" Lucy growled. "You don't walk up to a storm and ask it politely to calm itself. You let it rage."

"And you hope it passes before it lays waste to the city. But you are no storm. You are a king and need to behave like one."

"I am not my brother!"

Torn clothes and tattered scraps flew as Lucy ripped the fine silks and expensive threads beneath his claws, no enjoyment derived from the act because he was not Sebbi.

He'd never been a cat who awoke at dawn to tear at the latest drapes, who thought constantly of knocking over dusty antiques or who sought the death of Ms. Seiver's seedlings. He never reveled in the destruction he wrought.

Because Lucy was not his brother. And he was no king. "I am not the rightful heir to this throne."

Suddenly, he felt overwhelmed by the weight of the crown. His body seemed small and ill-fitting, his worth shriveled and not enough. The whole of him restricted under the metal ring.

Focusing all his hostility on this symbol of Aelurus, Lucy snatched it off, catching the edge of his ear in the process, the flesh tearing as he tossed the crown to the floor, where junk like it belonged. A husk that should have been left to rust ages ago. "Crum's innocent."

"Hundreds of Aelurians would beg to disagree."

Reven shuffled across the floor, taking his usual seat next to the hearth.

"They don't know him like I do."

"I thought you didn't much like him. You merely tolerated his existence because your hemma acquaintance fancied him."

"Family," Lucy spat. "Abby is not an acquaintance." He extended his claws. "She is family. My family."

"Very well." Reven tapped his finger against the edge of his glasses, unfazed.

"And I know Vic. He wasn't himself." Lucy's gaze drifted toward the goblet. "Poison." The word whistling through his teeth as he held the goblet up for Reven's inspection, though the advisor kept his gaze trained on the hearth, on the ashen logs and soot-stained brick. Perhaps glimpsing a fire that had burned out long ago. "It had to be poison."

Reven shook his head. "Poison makes for corpses not would-be assassins."

"Then—" Lucy glanced at the goblet, at the wooden drawers, the walk-in closet, the bureaus filled with tunics and trousers. He eyed the ribbons on the floor, splayed and splattered like guts. The remains of the box that kept them safe. The mirror that reflected how out of sorts he was–stray fur in front of his eyes, his chest heaving because he could not do as Reven instructed and calm. His fingers shook, erratic swishing had seized control of his tail. Fangs gnawed at his lip, desperate to draw blood, to know what had transpired had not been a nightmare. Whiskers dripped sweat, drool bubbled at the corners of his mouth. He'd never looked so undone in his life. "Then—" If not poison, what had caused Crum's turn?

"Perhaps his majesty didn't know the hemma as well as he thought. When offered the sweetest nectar, even the bees here will sting their queen."

The goblet grew heavy in Lucy's hands and then; he raised it again, shoving it in Reven's face so it could no longer be overlooked. "Magick."

Reven blinked. "What?"

"It's magick then."

"Ben'nessren," Reven started, pushing himself from his chair. "You can't possibly think—"

Lucy turned and made for the door. "Where's Menna? I'll have her look into it. Study the goblet. See if she uncovers anything strange—"

"Menna's on her way to the Order."

Reven's words stopped Lucy cold. His ears twitched.

"Does his majesty not remember? She departed earlier, to oversee the burial of her mother and help the Keldaer choose a new leader."

Lucy ground his teeth together, his hands tightening around the goblet, wringing its golden neck as he wished it would snap beneath its fingers so he could know he held the power to do something. Anything. "Then I go to her."

"Do think about this."

Reven's calm, his coolness, his indifference pissed Lucy off. Was there nothing he could do to rile the advisor? To crack the facade and glimpse the Aelurian he was beneath it? Were death and violence as easy for him to swallow as a sleeping draft? A bit of raw meat? Did nothing rattle the king's advisor?

"It is a few days journey to the Order, even if you leave now. By that time, Cerine's house will have amassed its army, one I'm sure the other Moonborns will gleefully bolster with their own. They'll put the hemma to the ax."

"Then stop it."

"What?"

Lucy stormed toward Reven and grabbed the smaller cat-man by his robes, picking him off the floor with ease. Reven squirmed, worry welling in the wrinkles of flesh around his eyes and muzzle. "You think me the king Aelurus deserves?"

Reven swallowed before nodding, his claws on Lucy's wrist. "Then consider this your king's first decree and protect Vicrum at all costs. Do what you must."

"I'll do what's within my power, but if I overstep, I could lose my life."

Lucy's mouth split wide into a snarl. "If you fail me, I'll kill you myself."

He placed Reven back on the ground, heart hammering. Never had he made such a threat. Worse, Lucy knew he'd make good on it. He refused to let someone else suffer because they'd been dragged to Aelurus because of him. The fire and all it had taken had stripped Abby of her smile for years.

Hestor's loss had dampened Margo's radiance. Leaving Sebbi behind to rule had left Lucy lost and stagnant. Always searching for his place in whatever arms welcomed him into their embrace. Without a brother to wander the world at his side, Lucy didn't know where he belonged. He would not give more to this blighted realm. Not if he could help it.

Reven must have sensed his conviction, because he simply bowed, ignoring the rumpled state of his robes. "I'll have a carriage summoned, your highness."

He turned, making to leave when Lucy spoke next. "Reven."

The cat-man paused, though he did not turn around. Such an act would be considered a slight, punishable by a stint in the dungeons, or the removal of the offending appendage. In this case, Reven's eye. "Yes, your highness?"

"Aelurus is not my home."

And it wasn't. It would never be. This vast, empty, mostly dark realm with its poison seas and treetop cities was nothing like home. It was foreign and strange and bloodthirsty. Lacking warmth and beauty. All sharp edges with nothing soft to balance out its hard. It was a place full of memories that soured each time Lucy thought of them.

Of his mother giving her people everything, only to have them demand more. Of a father who withered away, eclipsed by his mate's shadow, jealousy, and resentment blossoming into a bloody bid for the throne. An uncle allied with shadows, before being killed and replaced. Images of monster after monster rising, one after another. No heroes among the stories told here, no victors. Just suffering and those who suffered.

"No, I suppose it's not," Reven said, shooting him a sideways glance. To Lucy's surprise, the corner of his lips was upturned. "But you fight for it like it is. And as long as you do, I will do what I can to aid you."

"Even if you die?"

"Giving up one's life for the crown, is there no nobler a sacrifice?" This time, Reven turned, Lucy able to make out the smirk on his lips, and the fire in his eyes. "Return safely, my king. And you will find the hemma boy alive and well."

He placed a fist on his chest, saluting him the way he'd never done before. Aelurian law didn't demand advisors salute the king. All Reven's rank required of him was a bow, but Reven saluted, regardless, a choice he'd made. A show of allegiance and respect.

It was something Lucy didn't have to return, but did anyway. His fist heavy as he pressed it into his chest, Reven holding his gaze. "I'll come back," he said.

Reven nodded. "I'll be waiting."