Page 2 of Renegade Kingdom
Silence stretched across the battlefield. Then, slowly, a woman near the front, her armour half-removed, her face streaked with ash and tears, rose to her feet. Then she gave me a single, shaky nod.
It wasn’t much. But it was something.
The tension around us broke. The accusing glares seemed to lessen and for a moment, a single fragile moment, a glimmer of hope sparked inside me.
“Tonight, we honour our dead,” I continued. “We grieve. We honour. Tomorrow, you decide your own fate.”
I turned away before any of them could see how close I was to breaking. My legs felt like they might give out at any moment, and my hands had started to shake. I needed to find somewhere quiet. Somewhere I could scream until my throat was raw. Where the tears could flow and I could just stop pretending that I had everything figured out.
But then I saw Dean, Ryder, and Maddox making their way toward me through the debris, and I knew I wasn’t going to get that reprieve.
Dean’s jaw was set in that hard line I’d come to recognize. The one that meant he was holding something back, something that was eating at him from the inside. His gaze kept flickering toward the far edge of the camp, where I knew Damon was being held. Where his brother sat in chains, a monster wearing his face.
Ryder tried to catch my eye with something approaching his usual irreverent smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The humor that normally danced there had gone flat, replaced by something hollow.
And Maddox...
I’d reached the far end of myself, the place where all the feelings had just stopped being bearable and became something dull and distant.
And I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the look on Maddox’s face. The tightness in his jaw, the grim determination coupled with the sheer horror in his eyes.
It wasn’t over yet.
I wanted to collapse. I wanted to shake my head and cover my ears as if the childish action could keep it all away.
But it couldn’t.
Nothing could.
Tank moved to my back, his hands on my shoulders as his thumbs gently rubbed across my tension-filled muscles. I knew all of this would be making his bear shake the confines of his mind, roaring in displeasure at not being able to protect me from this. But there was nothing left to fight here.
“Tell me,” I said. I couldn’t keep the quiver out of my voice.
But whatever it was that was haunting one of the men I loved, I needed to hear it now. I didn’t want to taint anywhere else with the horror of what had happened here. If there was more, more madness, more grief, more blows to be dealt, let it be here in this gods forsaken place that needed to burn from the face of this realm.
Maddox’s hands hung at his sides, and for the first time I noticed they were covered in blood. It had dried in the creases of his palms, gathered beneath his fingernails. He stared at them for a moment like they belonged to someone else, then he looked up determination clashing with the horror as he pulled in a ragged breath.
“Rhidian’s gone.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. My chest seized, the air refusing to enter my lungs. The guilt swiftly followed. I hadn’tlooked for him. I’d been so wrapped up in my own pain that I didn’t even wonder what had happened to him.
“Gone?” I heard myself ask, though the word sounded distant, like it came from somewhere outside my body.
“We got separated. I couldn’t reach him in time. He was already down on the ground when The Endless caught up with him. He was dying.” Maddox’s voice was barely above a whisper, rough and fractured. “The wound from The Endless... there was no saving him. He knew it. We both did.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “He asked me to... he made me promise...”
Maddox trailed off, his gaze still fixed on those bloodstained hands. Ryder grasped his shoulder in support and I wanted so much to go to him. To tell him that he didn’t need to tell me. But my body was locked in place. It was taking everything I had just to stand in this one spot. I was failing him, just like I’d failed all the other people lying dead on the ground.
“He didn’t want Arik to claim the Summer Court through him,” Maddox continued, each word dragged out of him like it cost something vital. “If The Endless killed him, if they were the one to end the Summer line... Rhidian couldn’t let that happen. So he asked me to…” His voice cracked. “His last thoughts were of you, Alyssa. He wanted you to know that.”
The grief I’d been holding back threatened to drown me. Rhidian. The Summer court heir who’d loved me in his quiet, steady way, even when I couldn’t love him back. He’d never pushed, never demanded, he’d simply been there. And now he was gone, and Maddox…
I looked at Maddox and saw a man who was barely holding himself together. The guilt was etched into every line of his face, weighing down his shoulders like a physical burden.
I didn’t think. I just moved. His pain sparked something deep inside me and it was impossible to keep away from him.
My arms wrapped around Maddox, pulling him close, and I felt the shudder that ran through his entire body.
“You did the right thing,” I said into his shoulder. “You hear me? You honoured what he wanted. You gave him a choice when Arik wanted to take even that from him.”
