Invisible String - Cregan Stark

Twenty two~ Talion

Moonlight struck his face.

Erryk.

His eyes found mine at once, and in them I saw everything—grief raw as an open wound, horror clawing at the edges of duty, love that had not died with his brother, only curdled into something unbearable. The weight of what he had done pressed upon him like a mountain, bowing his shoulders, hollowing his gaze.

He took a single step toward me.

"Princess," he exhaled. His voice was broken beyond mending.

Something in my chest gave way. "Erryk," I whispered, and nothing more followed. There were no words left that could bear the shape of this moment.

He stopped.

"Forgive me," he cried, his face contorting as if the plea itself were flaying him alive.

"Erryk—" His name fell from me wrong, thin and pleading, already too late.

Steel met flesh.

The sound will follow me to my grave.

For a heartbeat I did not know the scream was mine. It tore from my chest when his sword went in his own stomach—sharp, feral, a sound dragged up from somewhere old and instinctive. Erryk's eyes never left mine. There was no flourish. No hesitation. Only a resolve so absolute it frightened me more than blood ever could.

He folded slowly, like a man kneeling to pray.

My body moved before thought. I was on my knees before I felt them strike the stone, catching him as he fell. His weight hit me all at once—too real, too warm, too human.

Blood soaked through my fingers, slick and hot, and I pressed harder, uselessly, desperately, as though my hands might argue with fate.

"No," I whispered. Then louder, breaking. "No, no, no—please—"

I felt him.

Gods help me, I felt him.

The echo of his brother's death screamed inside him still—the love, the horror, the unbearable certainty that there was no world left for him to stand in. And beneath it all—relief.

A quiet, awful relief that he would not have to carry it anymore.

That was what shattered me.

"I'm sorry," I said, my breath splintering. "I'm so sorry."

His fingers twitched once against my sleeve. His eyes softened—not toward death, but toward peace—and then whatever tether bound him here slipped away, leaving nothing in my hands but weight and blood and silence.

Someone spoke my name. Once. Twice. It did not reach me.

Hands touched my shoulders. I shook them away. I folded forward over Erryk's body, as though I could shield him now, when I had failed him before.

"I won't leave him," I whispered.

Then Eliab was there.

His arms came around me—firm, unyielding, real—anchoring me when I had no wish to be anchored. He said my name low and steady, as though speaking it might pull me back into my body. Inch by inch he drew me away, prying my fingers free from blood-slick cloth.

I sobbed like something torn open, the sound breaking loose only when Erryk's weight was no longer in my arms. My face pressed into Eliab's chest, breath hitching, grief ripping through me in waves so violent I thought I might split apart.

He held me while the world collapsed to pain.

Behind us, Erryk lay still.

A man who had loved his brother more than his own life. A man who had chosen loyalty. A man who had paid for it with everything.