Goodbye, My Mate

Chapter 216

Lycidas' POV

Lucian shook his head, his eyes closing as if the effort of speaking was too much.

Late afternoon light slashed through barred windows, gilding dust motes that swirled like trapped spirits above Lucian's bed. My brother's once-indomitable frame now sank into feather pillows as if the mattress conspired to swallow him whole. His labored breaths syncopated with the grandfather clock's metronome tick-tock, tick-tock from the western wall - a sound that had scored every pivotal moment of our cursed lineage. I counted them as one counts heartbeats before execution: thirty-seven ticks since he'd last spoken. Seventy-three since I'd entered this tomb disguised as a king's quarters.

When Lucian finally stirred, his eyelids lifted like rusted portcullises. Sunlight caught the silver threads in his black beard - premature aging, or the Moon Goddess' fingerprints? "Lycidas," he exhaled, the name disintegrating into a wet cough. I watched his throat convulse, that proud column now corded with veins pulsing blue-black beneath papery skin. How many moons until mine mirrors this decay? The clock hissed its answer: Not enough.

"In this life…" He paused, gathering strength from some hidden reservoir. "I failed as a son to our father. Failed as a king to our people." A moth battered itself against the windowpane behind him, wings snick-snicking in time to the clock's tyranny. "I will not fail now… as your brother." His fingers plucked at the ermine-trimmed blanket - a kingly shroud already claiming him. "Your exile ends. The crown's privileges… restored. Lands. Title. Bloodright."

Muscle memory had me bowing before I registered the movement - knees striking cold flagstones, forehead nearly brushing his bedframe. Yet my voice emerged flayed and feral - "At what price?" Old lessons die hard. At seven winters, I'd watched Mother trade emerald earrings for Father's silence about her "indiscretions." At twelve, I found my wolfhound's carcass dumped in the moat after questioning hunting strategies. Our family built thrones on transaction ledgers, each affection weighted, each mercy invoiced.

Lucian's chuckle became a rattling storm in his chest. "Still the shrewd negotiator." He turned his face toward the window where dusk bruised the horizon. "Never seek Jalin's harm. Never pry into what binds us." A pause. The clock devoured three more seconds. "And when my hourglass empties… if he still draws breath… swear to guard him until his bones return to moonlight."

Jalin. The name ignited pyres behind my ribs. That honey-tongued viper who'd poisoned councils, who'd slithered into my brother's bedchamber wearing concern like a second skin. My claws unsheathed, scoring grooves into palm flesh. "You ask me to protect the cancer devouring you?"

"I ask," Lucian wheezed, sudden fire kindling in his clouded eyes, "for peace between the man I owe and the brother I'm entrusting him to." His hand shot out, cold as a grave-soil relic, clamping my wrist. "Swear it. By the blood we spilled chasing each other through these very halls. By the oak where we buried Mother's songbirds."

The memories ambushed me - Lucian at fifteen, pressing a handkerchief to my split lip after Father backhanded me for "sniveling." Lucian smuggling honeycakes into my exile cell on winter solstice. Lucian's roar shaking the throne room when Father ordered my branding. My north star. My betrayer. My king.

Stone grit bit through my trousers as I knelt lower. "Brother. My king." The titles bled together - a confession and a curse. "You are the constellation by which I've charted every ruinous path. I pledge fealty" - my throat tightened around the lie I let him swallow- "not to your crown, but to the boy who taught me star names when Father's fists made night eternal."

His thumb stroked my knuckles - a phantom touch from childhood nightmares soothed. "Good." The word barely escaped before his body spasmed, a marionette jerked by death's impatient strings. When the fit passed, his voice hardened into the blade that once cleaved battlefield enemies: "Our father cast you out not for your rage… nor the secrets you stumbled upon that bloodied night…"

I clasped his skeletal hands, marveling at how something so brittle could still leash unimaginable power. "We're Lycans," I countered, willing conviction into the words. "We dominate. We control..."

"Not destiny." His laugh was a deathwatch beetle's dirge. "The Moon Goddess cursed our line when Grandfather defiled her temple - a drunken brute who thought divinity bowed to noble blood." A crimson droplet escaped his nostril, tracing the creases of his sneer. "That poison flows in us still. Father drowned it in madness… and sacrifices… to claim the throne."

The clock's pendulum caught my eye - a brass scythe slicing seconds from the air. Tick. Grandfather's portrait in the east gallery, eyes gouged out by Father's claws. Tock. Mother's luncheon laughter cut short by a backhanded blow. Tick. Lucian's coronation robes hanging loose where muscle had wasted to bone. Tock. My own reflection in the chamber's gilded mirror - a ghost prince haunting his corpse.

"He knew," Lucian rasped, yanking me from the rhythm of doom. "Father knew I refused kingship… because I'd uncovered the curse's heart." His breath stuttered, each word a boulder rolled uphill. "To wear the crown… a son must bathe it in his sire's blood - as Father did to Grandfather… as I…" A cough wracked him, speckling the sheets with rubies. "But on that day, I couldn't do it. Our father fell by Lucas Farrow's fangs… not mine. The Goddess punishes false kings… with puppet strings. I rule as Jalin's marionette… until the true heir claims me."

Ice spiderwebbed through my veins. Lucas - Leah's mate, Finn's bastard kin - our father-slayer? The clock accelerated, or perhaps my pulse did. "Why would the Moon Goddess let an outsider..."

"She didn't." Lucian's nails pierced my arm, anchoring me to his nightmare. "Lucas defied her design. For that… she hollowed his chest… left an echo chamber where his heart beat." His pupils dilated, swallowing irises whole. "She also twisted Leah's soul to loathe him and me… Leah now thought I wanted her dead and that's why she ran into the human world. Now the Moon Goddess wrath demands fresh blood. My blood. But I can't die in vain. Now, I want you to go back to the human world and bring Leah back to me. And then, she will end my life."

Tick-tock became war drums. Three hundred beats until dawn? Three thousand until his last breath? "You want me to deliver Leah for your execution? How does this placate..."

"Because she's my daughter." he said in a monotonic voice. "When she kills her own father, she will become the next Lycan Queen. And the curse of a son killing his own father to get the throne will be ended."

The world fractured. Somewhere, the clock struck a phantom hour, its chimes vibrating in my teeth like a graveyard carillon. I stared at the stranger who wore my brother's face. When had he become a ghost? When had I?