Saving the Immortal

Chapter Forty-Four: What The Silence Meant

They sent me back to our chambers within the hour, a guard explaining, with careful courtesy, that the physicians required space to work and that a princess's presence, however well-intentioned, would only complicate matters best left to those with proper training.

I did not argue.

I retreated to our quarters and sat before the fire, waiting, the hours stretching long and unbearable, every distant sound through the palace corridors sending fresh dread rippling through me — footsteps hurrying past, voices raised in urgent murmurs, the particular hush that settles over a household bracing itself for news it does not wish to receive.

I did not sleep.

I sat there through the entire long day and into the deepening night, my hands twisting together in my lap, praying with a fervor I had not managed since the war's declaration months earlier — not for the king I had watched humiliate his own son so thoroughly, but for the fragile peace that his continued life still represented, for whatever time remained before the custom Delia had warned me of finally, terribly, came due.

Ruselon returned well past midnight.

I heard the door open and rose immediately, searching his face for whatever news he carried, and found, before he had spoken a single word, my answer already written plainly across his features.

"He is gone," Ruselon said quietly, his voice hollow, stripped of every composure I had grown accustomed to seeing him maintain even through the worst of his own grief. "The physicians could not save him. He passed just after midnight."

I did not properly decide to collapse.

My legs simply gave way beneath me, the weight of that single sentence carrying more devastation than I had properly prepared myself for, and I found myself sobbing against him before I had fully registered moving at all, my whole body shaking with a grief that surprised even me, given how complicated my own feelings toward the dead king had always been.

Ruselon caught me, holding me upright, and I felt, pressed against him, that he was shaking as well — his own tears finally breaking free, quiet and raw, the particular grief of a son who had never received the love he deserved from a father now permanently beyond any hope of ever receiving it.

"He never told me he was sorry," Ruselon said, his voice cracking. "Not properly. Not in any way that mattered. And now he never will."

"I am so sorry," I said, holding him just as tightly, understanding, even through my own grief, that his carried a weight considerably more complicated than simple loss. "Whatever passed between you, Ruselon, I am so deeply sorry."

We held each other there for a long while, both of us weeping, the fire burning low beside us, the whole weight of that terrible night settling over the chamber like something physical.

"Ivy," he said eventually, his voice steadying though the grief remained plain beneath it, "you understand what this means."

I pulled back to look at him properly, and saw, beneath the grief, something considerably darker taking shape — fear, real and immediate, the particular dread of a man who understood exactly what danger now stood between himself and any peace remaining to him.

"The custom," I said quietly. "Delia told me of it weeks ago. Brother against brother, until only one remains to claim the throne."

"Yes," he said, his jaw tightening. "It begins now, Ivy. Perhaps within days. Fennick has spent his entire life preparing for exactly this moment, and Caspian and Marrow will not simply stand aside and allow either of us the throne without a fight of their own."

"You said either of us," I said slowly. "Do you intend to claim it?"

"I do not want it," he said. "I never have. But my father's death changes what safety we might have hoped for regardless. If I refuse to contest it, whoever wins will hold absolute power over every remaining member of this family — including you, Ivy. I cannot simply step aside and trust that mercy will follow."

I felt a fresh wave of fear settle over me, considerably colder than grief.

"Then you must fight," I said, my voice steadier now despite the trembling still running through me. "Whatever it costs. I will not lose you to a throne you never wanted, but I will not lose you to your brothers' ambition either."

"It will be dangerous," he said. "Not simply for me, Ivy. For you as well. Whatever brother claims that throne will remember exactly how you spoke against our father in that very room. Whatever loyalty you have shown me will not go unpunished, should the wrong man win."

"Then we survive it together," I said fiercely, echoing every promise I had made him since that very first day. "Whatever comes, Ruselon. I am not leaving your side, not now, not through whatever this contest demands of either of us."

He pulled me close again, holding on with a desperate gratitude that carried within it both grief and fear in equal measure, and I held him back just as fiercely, understanding, with a clarity that settled deep into my bones, that whatever peace we had found in these past weeks had now, with a single death, been placed squarely in the path of a danger neither of us could properly escape.