Saving the Immortal

Chapter Forty-Six: Keep Him Safe

The days following the king's burial passed beneath a tension I had never before witnessed within that palace — every corridor thick with unspoken hostility, every meal shared between the brothers charged with the specific menace of men already calculating precisely how they intended to eliminate one another.

Fennick's household trained openly now, no longer bothering to disguise their preparations. Caspian gathered his own allies among the court's more ambitious lords. Marrow, quieter than his brothers though no less dangerous for it, spent his days closeted away with advisors whose loyalties I could not properly discern.

Ruselon, for his part, prepared as well — though with considerably less enthusiasm than his brothers, the particular grim resignation of a man facing a battle he had never wanted but could no longer avoid.

It was late one evening, Ruselon already asleep beside me, exhausted from another day spent in careful negotiation with allies whose loyalty remained uncertain, when a soft knock came at my chamber door.

I opened it to find Bram standing there, his expression carrying a fear considerably more mature than his fifteen years should reasonably bear.

"Bram," I said quietly, ushering him inside with a glance back toward Ruselon's sleeping form. "What troubles you at this hour?"

"My father," Bram said, his voice barely above a whisper, glancing nervously toward the sleeping figure across the room. "He speaks of Uncle Ruselon in ways I have never heard before. Not simple cruelty, Ivy — genuine plans. He believes he has found a way to weaken him properly, some manner of trapping his power before the formal contest even begins."

I felt cold settle through my chest.

"What manner of trap," I asked.

"I do not know the full details," Bram admitted. "I overheard only fragments — something about ancient bindings, magic older than our own bloodline's power, capable of restraining even someone of Uncle Ruselon's strength. My father intends to use it before the contest, to ensure his own victory regardless of fairness."

"That would violate every custom this contest is meant to uphold," I said, fury rising alongside my fear.

"My father has never much cared for custom," Bram said bitterly. "Only for winning."

I looked toward Ruselon, still sleeping peacefully, unaware of the danger his own brother was quietly plotting even now.

"I know he is immortal," Bram continued, his young voice carrying genuine desperation now. "I know his blood makes him considerably harder to kill than any ordinary man. But Ivy, immortal does not mean invulnerable. If my father finds some way to bind his power entirely, to strip away every advantage his nature grants him—"

"He could still be killed by ordinary means," I finished quietly, understanding fully now the shape of the danger.

"Yes," Bram said. "Please, Ivy. You must find some way to keep him safe. I cannot lose him. He is the only person in this entire family who has ever shown me genuine kindness, and I refuse to simply stand by while my own father schemes to destroy him unfairly."

I crossed to Bram and took his hands, grateful beyond measure for this boy's fierce, uncomplicated loyalty in a family that offered so little of it freely.

"I will do everything within my power," I promised him. "Whatever it takes, Bram, I will not let your father's schemes succeed. Ruselon has survived far worse than his own family's cruelty. He will survive this as well."

"You promise," Bram said, something young and desperate entering his voice now, the careful maturity he had shown moments earlier finally cracking beneath simple, honest fear for someone he loved.

"I promise," I said firmly. "I will find a way to learn more of this trap your father intends. Whatever ancient magic he seeks to use, I will discover a means of countering it before he ever has the chance to deploy it."

Bram nodded, some of the tension easing from his young shoulders, though the worry did not fully leave his expression.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "I should return before my absence is noticed."

He slipped out into the dark corridor as quietly as he had arrived, and I stood there a long while afterward, watching Ruselon sleep peacefully, entirely unaware of the fresh danger now gathering against him.

I will keep you safe, I thought, crossing to sit beside him, brushing a strand of dark hair back from his forehead with a gentleness born of everything I had come to feel for him. Whatever it costs me, Ruselon, I intend to keep that promise.