“My brother-”
“What the fuck-”
“Holy-”
Beth was the first of the cast of thousands to get to him, her hands going to his shoulders as warm blood dripped down his nose.
Other hands reached him through the darkness, the hands of his brothers, the hands of the shellans in the house, all gentle, worried, compassionate hands.
In a furious punch, he shoved them all away and tried to get to his feet. Without any orientation to ground him, though, he ended up with one shitkicker up on the last stair-which pitched him wildly off balance. Grabbing for the handrail, he somehow managed to get his boots level and shuffled backward, unsure whether he was heading toward the front door or the billiards room or the library or the dining room. He was utterly lost in a space he knew very well.
“I’m okay,” he barked. “I’m all right.”
Everyone went silent around him, his commanding voice unmitigated by his blindness, his authority as king unassailable even though he couldn’t see a fucking thing-
His back slammed against a wall and a crystal sconce above him twinkled from the impact, the delicate noise rising up into all the quiet.
Jesus…Christ. He couldn’t go on like this, bumper-car-ing around, slamming into things, falling down. But it wasn’t like he got a vote.
Ever since his lights had gone out, he’d been waiting for his eyes to start working again. As time passed, though, and Havers had no concrete answers, and Doc Jane was mystified, what he knew to be the truth in his heart started to make its way up to his brain: This darkness he found himself in was the new earth upon which he strode.
Or fell all over, as the case was.
As the sconce stilled above his head, every part of him was screaming, and he prayed that no one, even Beth, tried to touch him or talk to him or tell him everything was going to be all right.
It wasn’t going to be all right ever again. He wasn’t getting his vision back, no matter what the doctors might try to do to him, no matter how many times he fed, no matter how often he rested or how well he looked after himself. For shit’s sake, even before V had laid out what he had foreseen, Wrath knew this was coming: His sight had been declining over the centuries, the acuity washing out gradually over time. And he’d been getting the headaches for years, with increasing severity over the last twelve months.
He’d known this was going to be where he ended up. His whole life, he’d known and ignored it, but the reality was here.
“Wrath.” Mary, Rhage’s shellan, was the one who broke the silence, her voice even and quiet and not at all frustrated or flustered. The contrast with the chaos in his mind had him turning toward the sound even though he couldn’t say anything back to her because he had no voice. “Wrath, I want you to reach out your left hand. You’ll find the doorjamb to the library. Move yourself over and take four steps backward into the room. I’m going to talk with you, and Beth is coming with me.”
The words were so level and reasonable that they were like a map through a jungle of thorny growth, and he followed the directions with all the desperation of a lost traveler. He put his hand out…and yes, there was the uneven pattern of the molding around the doorway. Shuffling himself to the side, he used both hands to find his way beyond the jambs, and then he took four steps back.
There were quiet footfalls. Two sets. And the library doors were shut.
He sensed where the females were by the subtle sounds of their breathing, and neither of them crowded him, which was good.
“Wrath, I think we need to make some temporary changes.” Mary’s voice came from the right. “In the event that your sight doesn’t return soon.”
Smart packaging job, he thought.
“Like what,” he muttered.
Beth answered, making him aware that the two had evidently already talked about this. “A walking stick to help with your balance, and a structure of staffing coverage in your study so you can get back to work.”
“And perhaps some other kinds of help,” Mary tacked on.
As he absorbed their words, the sound of his heartbeat roared in his ears, and he tried not to hear it so much. Yeah, good luck with that. When a cold sweat splashed over him, pooling on his upper lip and under his armpits, he wasn’t sure whether it was from fear or the effort of keeping himself from breaking down in front of them.
Probably both. The thing was, not being able to see was bad, but what was really killing him was the claustrophobia. Without a sight reference, he was trapped in the tight, crowded space beneath his layer of skin, imprisoned in his body with no way out-and he didn’t do well with shit like that. Reminded him way too much of being locked in a crawl space by his father when he had been young…locked in while he watched his parents get murdered by lessers…