Chapter Forty-Nine: No Promises

Before the sunrise, there was birdsong.

It didn’t come as a surprise when Osmund awoke, aching and bug-bitten, in a cave. It would’ve been too cruel to let himself believe during the night, even for a moment, that he was curled against Cemil’s back en route home to Şebyan.

Since despair wasn’t an option, first things first. Satisfied to see that Emre was, in fact, still alive (and not a ghost!), he sidled to the other man’s half of the cave and started shamelessly rifling through his belongings.

Emre stirred, his slack face scrunching in pain as he came back to consciousness. “What are you doing?” he groused.

“Just looking for anything useful.”

This didn’t draw more than a resigned noise. Emre seemed more annoyed at Osmund waking him than by the plundering of his personal possessions.

“How are you feeling?” Osmund asked distractedly while he inspected every item, turning over several mysterious vials and trinkets in his hand. “Better? Worse?”

“Like shit.” Emre winced again, rubbing his eyes and looking as bad as he felt. “Just…give up. You aren’t going to find some tidy solution in there.”

“You don’t have any food?”

“I’m out.”

“What was your plan, since you won’t go to Cemil? Sit around waiting to die?”

“I don’t know.”

It was a surprisingly forthright admission. Osmund set the turned-out pack aside and kneeled over Emre. The smaller man was shifting painfully as if bracing to stand. “You really shouldn’t be moving,” Osmund pointed out mildly.

“I’m not going to rot in a cave,” Emre declared as he rose to his feet (and swatted away attempts to help). “We may be headed for the rocks, but I’m going to watch the sunrise. Come on.”

They made an odd pair indeed as they stumbled from their shelter into the creeping dawn. The skies were just beginning to lighten and pink, and the pale moon lingered. At least there was this beauty.

Emre gingerly sat himself down on a stony outcrop on the incline’s grassy slope. If not for the endless rows of tall trees, they’d likely have a view overlooking the distant camp. “What are you going to do?” he asked after a long pause.

Osmund—with the sword loosely hanging from his hand—took a seat beside him. He would afford himself this one final respite. “I have to at least try and warn Cemil, don’t I?”

“Directly after your betrayal?” Emre looked at him oddly. “That was never factored into my plan. Mentally, he could be in any state now. If you assume he wouldn’t execute someone for an offense like this, you’re wrong. Are you really prepared to die?”

The romantic part of Osmund longed to say yes. That of course, any chance to help the man he loved was worth taking, even if the outcome was near-certain death. But he just couldn’t. He couldn’t be so cavalier about his one and only life.

“Even if Cemil forgives you—and even if he listens to you—and even if he’s in his right mind,” Emre rattled off, making it abundantly clear how unlikely he considered each of these conditions individually, let alone together, “you really think he’d pull his entire army away and let Bayram and his allies stay in possession of such weapons?”

“And if I don’t go?” Osmund challenged, suddenly animated. “I’ll wind up alone surrounded by corpses! Even you won’t survive without Cemil’s healing magic.”

It was the truth, and they both knew it. “You still don’t have to,” Emre finally mumbled. “It’s going to be a massacre down there. If I were you, I’d get as far away as I could.”

For once, Osmund realized, Emre stood to gain nothing at all from his own proposition. In fact, if Osmund were to listen to him, he’d be only sentencing the other man to die alone with no one left to grieve his passing. It was terribly selfless, and far too terribly sad.

“I’m going to try anyway,” he decided, recognizing he might not live to regret it. “But no promises.”

“I’ll assume you’re dead, so no pressure. It’ll be a pleasant surprise if you make it back.”

As they sat here prolonging this last moment, Osmund felt a sensation in his chest. Perhaps they’d arrived at something like friendship—or simply, understanding. It was a comfort, at least, that someone out there knew exactly the stakes he’d be facing today. Certainly it was easier than marching towards death alone.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” Emre said out of nowhere.

“About what?”

“How you touched that dagger while it was drawing energy from the gryphon.” He swiveled inelegantly on the stone to face him, avoiding movement on his injured shoulder. “I was wondering…do you mind? I want to see something.”

Osmund hesitantly held out his hand at Emre’s urging, confused. “What is it?”

Emre met his eyes in a seeking glance, evidently wanting to touch. Osmund gave a tiny nod and watched, his confusion growing, as Emre closed a hand over his arm. “Now you do the same to me,” the other man instructed.

Osmund closed his hand around Emre’s arm in turn, so that they were linked. It was a remarkably fraternal gesture, almost like a handshake, but then he felt the first tingle over his skin and shuddered. Was that…? Emre was sending some of his magic into him!

It was peculiar, not warm and pleasant like Cemil’s healing, but it didn’t hurt. He felt it circulating through him like his own blood. At last Emre drew away. “You really do have no magical ability,” he concluded.

“I could have told you that.”

“You have no magical ability, but,” he continued, “if you are the former prince of Valcrest, the royal family has been selecting for magical affinity in your bloodline for hundreds of years, going back generations. I’ve read books about it. Kings and queens used to take the kingdom’s most powerful mages as their consorts, rather than hunt for suitable nobles.”

In spite of everything, Osmund nearly jumped in surprise. He somehow had managed to forget that Emre knew who he really was. “I turned out quite the disappointment,” he muttered once he recovered from the shock. “Myself and my older sister. We were born with no magic at all.”

“That’s not strictly true,” Emre corrected. “Affinity is different; magic is quite literally in your blood. You have a very deep wellspring of magical power in your body, among the deepest I’ve ever sensed from my time in the Imperial Mage Academy. You may not be able to actively tap into it like a ‘real’ mage would, but it must provide you with a level of natural resistance that rivals that of a magical creature. It isn’t nothing.”

Quite honestly, Osmund didn’t know what to make of this. Had Father known all along? And his tutor? …But even if they had, it wouldn’t change a thing. The magic they valued was the kind that could be used to dominate others. Power that he couldn’t even access might as well be worthless.

“You’re quiet,” Emre noted. “You really weren’t aware?”

Come to think of it… “A friend said something like that too,” Osmund realized. “An illusionist trapped me inside that ‘safehouse’ you pointed me towards with your map in Kaliany. Apparently it was surprising that I managed to escape.”

At this mention, Emre darkened. “You should know something about that illusionist,” he muttered. “She’s down there right now. In the camp.”

It was a blow. Osmund felt his odds of success dwindling yet again. “Who is she?”

“Either a woman who faked her death, or a puppet being controlled by necromancy. I don’t care which. Her name is Zeyni. Code name Örümcek.”

So Cemil and Sakina had recognized her from my description after all. It was an intriguing mystery—or it would be in one of his novels. Osmund just prayed he didn’t have to encounter her again. And he didn’t want to think about the possible involvement of a necromancer somewhere in the mix, either. He’d had more than enough trouble with those. “Emre, um,” he began falteringly.

“Yes?”

What he was about to ask had no bearing on the mission. And yet, he felt he had to anyway. “You’re his brother. Do you think Cemil…well, do you think he secretly suspects about who I am?”

For once, Emre didn’t call him out on the stupid question, or say something quippy like I haven’t even spoken to him, why are you asking me?, or some such. “No,” he said.

“Why are you so sure?”

Emre gave a weary sigh. “Look, I’m not saying my brother’s affection for you isn’t genuine in some way,” he allowed, which wasn’t a promising start, “but when he looks at you, or me, or anyone he lets in, he doesn’t see someone with an equal share of destiny. It doesn’t even occur to him. If we’re important, it’s because of his favor. If we’re relevant, it’s because of our proximity to him. That’s by design; it keeps him from having to question himself and his role. If you want my advice? On the off chance we all make it out of this alive, and you’re serious about leaving it all in the past, don’t ever tell him who you are.”

Hearing his fears confirmed was almost worse than everything that came before. “Cemil likes being the one who saved you,” Emre added as the silence dragged long. “The one who made you into someone. He may stubbornly deny it, but that’s what he wants. Someone he owns. Someone loyal to the last breath.”

Osmund absorbed this advice, still not saying a word. On one note, it rang true. Cemil’s treatment of his oldest, dearest friend—after she’d tried to sacrifice her life for him against his orders—was evidence of that. He was someone truly born to be a prince, someone who expected absolute loyalty, no matter what. He couldn’t falter, nor could he accept inconstancy in others.

But then…he was also more than just that fated prince. He was the kind, complex, caring man Osmund had come to know.

“Guess I’ll worry about that later,” Osmund resolved, tidily shoving it all aside for now. “First, I have to find out if he’s mad enough to kill me.”

Emre just looked at him. Osmund couldn’t tell if he was impressed, or a little disturbed. “Yeah. Know what? What the hell. Go down there and make the impossible happen. I’m rooting for you, you weird fucking bastard.”