Page 62 of Nemesis Mine
“You owe me your allegiance,” he said, very softly. “And so I will give you a chance to earn my forgiveness. I want the finest offerings. The very best of everything. And maybe, I will consider sparing Ranragh my wrath.”
Cyrus couldn’t resist the urge to glance over his shoulder, to where Maximillian knelt at the shoreline, one hand still cupped to his head, dripping wet and staring after him.
There were too many watching. Cyrus couldn’t drop the hostile mask, not for a second. He hoped Maximillian understood the words he couldn’t say.I’ll be waiting.
Then he turned and walked away, leaving Ranragh to stunned silence behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
It was evening by the time a knock sounded at the door to his lair. Fire crackled in the grate, shadows dancing on the walls. Cyrus had bathed and redressed, damp hair tied back off his face. He’d draped black silk like armour, unable to bear the thought of Maximillian finding him in his pyjamas. It felt too vulnerable, like baring his throat.
Maximillian was massaging his temples outside, visibly weary. He had changed too, his sage shirt turned juniper in the faded light of dusk.
“They’re my travelling clothes,” he said in lieu of greeting, catching Cyrus’s look. “I had them in Lysander’s saddlebag.”
Cyrus didn’t answer. For a second he wondered if Maximillian had spent the rest of the afternoon being fussed over by the people of Ranragh, frustration and despair stirring at the thought. The next, he wondered if Maximillian had packed a change of clothes in anticipation of staying over at Cyrus’s lair.
He moved aside wordlessly. Maximillian looked at him carefully, then stepped inside.
Neither spoke. With the door closed behind them, Cyrus moved towards the kitchen. A drink might help ease whatever conversation was headed their way, and he knew Maximillian’s preferences.
“Ah,” Maximillian said, as Cyrus garnished the goblet of Bloody Wrongdoer with a sprig of rosemary.
Cyrus glanced up. The champion was looking at his new makeshift dart board, tacked to the wall opposite his brooding chair. He’d fashioned the missiles himself out of sharp little twigs. Stretched over the central target was the cartoon of Maximillian’s face he’d found on the Hoopsy Daisy box, a beaming caricature now featuring cross-eyes and a lolling tongue courtesy of Cyrus’s quill.
Maximillian turned to stare at him.
Cyrus stared back. “Got bored,” he said.
Maximillian winced. Taking his drink, he sank onto the couch. Cyrus sat too, leaving more distance than usual.
Silence, again. Evening was drawing in, the light from the rough-hewn window growing dim. Shadows thrown out by the fire twisted across Maximillian’s features as he tapped his fingers against the side of his goblet.
“So,” he said, at long last. “That happened.”
Cyrus sipped his cocktail and suppressed a cough. Stronger than intended. But perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. He had the terrible, doom-laden feeling that he might have to talk about emotions tonight. Frankly, he’d rather stick his own darts in his eyeballs.
He threw Maximillian a sidelong look. There were bags under his eyes, and his mouth twisted down as he stared into his drink. Cyrus wondered what the champion hadbeen filling his time with whilst he’d been taking his temper out on pastry.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. To say that emotions were not his thing was akin to suggesting that Maximillian grimly endured outpourings of adoration or that Cyrus only tolerated the mayhem he caused. But. Perhaps he could try.
“You said you wanted to talk in person,” he said haltingly. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Maximillian lifted his gaze. “To ask why you left. I thought I must have done something, or that you—” He stopped, swallowed. There was something else there, but Cyrus didn’t know how to dig into it. “I had to be seen in Heliarth that morning, putting on an outraged act, making sure my council knew I was intent on finding you. Journalists were sniffing around, and of course they wanted to speak to me.” The glance he threw Cyrus was frank, and slightly challenging. “I’m not sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean a word of it, but I was trying to do some damage control after the brewery disaster. We both have reputations to look after.”
Cyrus processed that, trying to work out how he felt. There was an undeniable trickle of relief that Maximillian didn’t truly doubt his magic, yes. He hadn’t read the interview, so he wasn’t to know how the journalist had conveyed those comments to the masses, but he’d more than solidified Ranragh’s fear of him today.
Less of a relief: If this fight wasn’t about his magic, then it was about them. What had changed between them, the line they’d blurred and crossed. Where they went from here.
“I got rid of the journalist and went upstairs to find you, and you were gone,” Maximillian said quietly. “No note, nothing to say you’d be back, or that you wanted to hear from me again. Just a load of ripped-up pillows and a dagger thrown on the bed, and I thought—”
There it was again, a splinter lurking under the façade of Maximillian’s confidence. Cyrus sensed that dragging it free would bring a rush of emotion alongside.
Anybody else, any other situation, and Cyrus would have fled his own lair rather than face up to that. But not here. Not with Maximillian.
He made himself ask the question, clumsy as it felt in his mouth. “What did you think?”
Maximillian closed his eyes. “I thought maybe you’d planned it.” His voice came out small. “All of it. The longer I spent on my own, the more I started to second-guess everything. You’re a wrongdoer. What better way to get one up on a champion than to make him...” His mouth pursed with frustration, a hand rising to wave inarticulately in the air. “Make him fall for you, as a joke. Mess with his head. Then laugh like hell after. I came to Ranragh because I couldn’t bear wondering. I had to know.”
