I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Chapter 25: Chapter 25: Tomorrow

Elian had it laid out by Thursday evening.

Everything on the table. The letter. The banquet. The timing of the spirit’s escalation mapped against Veylan’s movements through the palace over the past year. The eastern contacts. The eleven years of access.

Sable sat across from him and looked at it.

"It’s enough to present," she said.

"It’s enough to present," Elian agreed.

"You’re going to tell Caelian."

"Tomorrow." He looked at the table. "I’ll tell him tomorrow. Show him the evidence, give him the name, let him handle it from there." A pause. "He’ll know what to do with it."

Sable nodded. "And the body."

"We still need the body. But once Caelian moves on Veylan, whoever is running this will know the game is up. They’ll either run or they’ll escalate." He straightened the pages. "Either way it ends."

"Or they escalate before you can tell him," Sable said.

"Which is why I’m telling him tomorrow. Not next week."

She looked at him. "Tonight might be better."

"He has a council dinner tonight. I’m not doing this in the middle of a council dinner." Elian stacked the pages. "Tomorrow morning. First thing."

Sable looked like she wanted to argue.

She didn’t.

"Tomorrow," she said.

"Tomorrow," Elian confirmed.

He went to bed feeling, for the first time in weeks, like the ground was solid under him.

He had a name. He had evidence. He had a plan.

He lay down beside Caelian and looked at the ceiling and let himself feel the relief of it — quiet, careful, the relief of a man who didn’t want to celebrate before the thing was done but couldn’t help noticing that it was almost done.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow it’s over.

He closed his eyes.

He woke to the balcony doors open.

He was across the room before he was fully conscious. Through the doors. Hand closing around Caelian’s arm.

Pulling.

They went down onto the balcony floor together.

Elian got his knees under him and looked at Caelian’s face.

His eyes were white.

The snake at his neck had tightened so severely the skin beneath it had gone dark. The bracelets on his wrists had gone black — all the beads, every one, darkening simultaneously. He heard them crack. One, then several, then all of them splitting apart against Caelian’s wrists.

Not tonight, Elian thought. Not tonight, not when I’m this close—

He pulled his mala over his head and pressed it against Caelian’s chest and started chanting.

He chanted until his arms shook.

He chanted until something broke loose and Caelian gasped and came back.

He sat on the balcony floor afterward with the broken beads scattered around them and Caelian breathing carefully beside him and the evidence still stacked neatly on the table inside.

Tomorrow, he’d said.

He looked at his hands.

Tomorrow, he thought again. But it felt different now. Thinner. Like a word that had been stretched too far.

He sat on the floor and didn’t move for a long time.

He sat on the balcony floor for a long time.

Caelian was breathing. That was the main thing. Elian kept coming back to that — the specific fact of breath, in and out, the body doing what it was supposed to do.

The broken beads were scattered around them both. He counted them without meaning to. Twenty-seven. All of them. Every single one cracked.

He’d spent days on that bracelet. The intent behind each bead, the sequence of the chanting. All of it burned through in — how long had it taken. Minutes. Less than that.

I should have given him two, he thought. I should have made more. I should have—

He stopped.

Stop, he told himself. What happened happened. What do you do next.

He got Caelian inside. Got him sitting. Got him water.

Sat beside him and watched his face come back — the white gone from his eyes, the expression returning, the disorientation fading into something that looked almost like normal exhaustion.

"Are you alright," Elian said.

"I don’t know," Caelian said honestly.

That was new. Caelian saying I don’t know instead of fine or nothing at all.

"You’re going to be alright," Elian said.

He didn’t know if that was true. But he said it with enough certainty that it sounded like fact, and Caelian looked at him and something in his face settled slightly, and that was enough for right now.

He sat awake until Caelian’s breathing evened out into sleep.

Then he sat awake a while longer.

He looked at the evidence still stacked on the table. The letter. The banquet notes. The timeline. All of it pointing to Veylan, clean and clear and — wrong.

Tomorrow, he’d said.

Tomorrow it’s over.

He looked at the broken beads on the floor.

The spirit had moved faster tonight than it ever had before. Possessed. Past every protection. Past the bracelet, past the mala, past everything he’d put in place.

Someone fed it tonight, he thought. Someone went back to the grave and pushed it. That’s why it escalated. That’s why tonight.

He thought about Veylan.

Did you do this, he thought. Did you go back to the grave tonight.

He looked at the evidence on the table.

Tomorrow, he thought again. But quieter this time. Less certain.

He watched Caelian sleep.

He started making a new bracelet in the dark, working by feel, the beads and cord from the pouch he always kept now. His hands knew the sequence. He chanted under his breath, barely sound at all, just intent. frёeωebɳovel.com

By the time it was done the sky was starting to grey.

He fastened it gently around Caelian’s wrist without waking him.

Sat back.

Tomorrow, he thought one last time.

He was not going to let there not be a tomorrow.

The new bracelet was done before sunrise.

He fastened it on Caelian’s sleeping wrist as carefully as he could without waking him. Adjusted it. Checked each bead.

Then he sat back against the headboard and watched the window go from black to grey.

Tomorrow, he’d said. And then tonight had happened. And now it was tomorrow and he hadn’t told Caelian anything and the evidence was on the desk and Veylan had a name and a face and a job in this palace and was apparently comfortable enough to push the spirit to possession while Elian slept six feet away.

He’s confident, Elian thought. That’s what that says. He’s not afraid of being caught.

He doesn’t know I’m looking.

Caelian’s breathing was even. The new bracelet sat on his wrist, twenty-seven beads, all whole.

I’m going to tell you, Elian thought. Today. I’m going to sit you down and tell you enough of it that you understand why I need you to trust me a little longer.

He looked at the window.

And then we find the body, he thought. And then we burn it. And then the sending loses its anchor.

And then.

He stopped himself. One thing at a time.

He sat in the early light and watched Caelian sleep and thought about twenty-seven whole beads and how long he had to keep them that way.

He’d keep them as long as it took.

That was the only answer he had.