by May Dawson
“Will it show me some of your secrets too?” I asked lightly.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said, just as lightly, but I had the feeling that he meant it.
Chapter Forty
Tiron
Azrael and I procured ourselves an automobile.
“How do you know where Merlin lives?” I asked. “You’d think the world’s most famous wizard wouldn’t want to be found.”
“Well, no one believes he’s alive, so he’s not too intense about security these days,” Az answered.
“Red light,” I said, my voice urgent, and he braked quickly. I lurched forward against my seatbelt.
Azrael was amazing at many things, but driving wasn’t on that list. Now I understood why Duncan always made sure he got his hands on the keys.
“Anyway, I’ve got a Fae friend in the mortal world,” Az added. “Mavearichadagh. Northern court.”
“That’s quite the name.”
“I’m not really one to criticize,” Az said. “Anyway, he had run into some Otherworlders here in the mortal realm and one of them told him about Merlin, and he told me.”
“Sounds like one giant prank,” I said. “Also? When there are Otherworlders wandering through rips and portals constantly for sightseeing trips, is it really fair to call their world dirtside?”
Azrael shrugged. “I doubt they’d mind.”
“I’d love to take a survey on that one,” I muttered. “All right, let’s see this wizard of yours.”
Az glanced at me sideways. “Sometimes I think Duncan’s grim attitude is rubbing off on you.”
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing? I thought the positive vibes just annoyed the two of you.”
“I find optimism a little stressful,” Azrael admitted. “We’ll meet Merlin, see what he knows, and get to the tarot shop. We can be back in our world by nightfall.”
“How do you know Merlin’s going to be willing to help us? If he’s even really rattling around on the mortal coil?”
“You’re really filling in Duncan’s role on the pessimism front, aren’t you?”
I shrugged.
“Why’d you really give Alisa that bracelet?” Azrael glanced at me curiously again from the corner of his eye.
“Please watch the road,” I said. “You’re not going to start interrogating me now, are you? Every time you look away from the road, it’s basically a form of torture.”
“Good,” he said. “Giving her something enchanted without her knowledge—it was without her knowledge, wasn’t it? You stalled, you didn’t want to tell me. That was out of line.”
“Really?” I turned to him skeptically, raising my eyebrows, even though I had felt as if one of us had to remain interested in the road. “You kidnapped her back into our world! Carried her through that portal!”
Azrael at least looked abashed. “I had to.”
“Well, I had to know she was safe,” I said.
And I had to keep track of her, because she was my plan to save the winter court.
“Why?” he demanded. “The enchantment certainly does more than that. There’s a reason most people check gifts for magical strings, but Alisa didn’t know.”
“The fact that this is a common Fae practice makes me worry about our people,” I said.
“Don’t take that joking tone with me. Not now.” Anger bled into Azrael’s voice, surprising me.
“You would do the same,” I snapped. “And I did tell her, actually. Aren’t you glad we know she’s safe?”
He glanced at me sideways, and he didn’t seem any less furious than he had before. “You can track her location, but more than that, you can feel ripples of her feelings. Face-to-face, you could use that to manipulate her.”
I hadn’t told her about that side effect of the enchantment, and I hated that Azrael apparently read me so easily.
“I don’t want to manipulate Alisa,” I said, my tone just as angry as his.
I didn’t want to, but I would—for the sake of the winter court. No matter how much I was coming to fall in love with her.
“That’s not normal behavior between two people who care about each other, Tiron,” he warned me.
“What would you know about normal?” I demanded.
He huffed a disbelieving laugh.
“Nothing about you and Alisa is normal, or healthy,” I reminded him.
“Nope,” he said. “And my relationship with Duncan is a little twisted when it comes down to it, but I think we did fine, given how our father tried to pit us against each other. And I’m more like an absent father to Zora than a big brother and that is also a whole fucked-up scenario. I don’t really have a lot of wholesome relationship experience, Tiron, but at least I can see each mess clearly.”
He glanced at me. “And I can also see your mess clearly. There’s something else going on here.”
My heart pounded in my chest at how close he was to unwinding my long-guarded secrets.
And then my heart pounded more because we were about to crash into the backend of an eighteen-wheeler that had stopped abruptly on the road ahead.
“Stop!” I grabbed the strap above the door, clinging to it for dear life.
Azrael swerved into the opposite lane, and the two of us swayed back and forth as he made his way back into the lane, leaving the eighteen wheeler behind us.
As part of my training to be a knight, I’d been put through merciless simulated torture, but it really held little bite compared to a drive with Azrael.
“Okay, okay,” I said, desperate to get him to let the subject go. “You’re right. I just—I couldn’t not know that she was still alive and breathing every minute, Az.”
I let the truth of it bleed into my voice. It was true—it just wasn’t the whole truth.
“You know my parents are both gone,” I said. That was true; they were statues now in Faer’s garden. But I had to lie about the truth of my own siblings: “Five older brothers. Two younger sisters. I was the only survivor out of that whole house. I can’t even walk into the home where I was born and grew up because their ghosts are…” I trailed off, shaking my head.
“It seems so strange that the house is still standing while they’re all gone,” I finished.
The Rock Castle where I’d grown up soared above the snowy peaks of the mountains at the far north of the Winter court, where it was coldest. I hadn’t been back there since Herrick dragged my parents away and turned them into statues since Perin and Dala hid me away.
Perin and Dala had taken me to the house of the real Tiron, who had perished with his brothers, and showed me the graves, led me inside that fine house, still furnished and decorated for the winter solstice, that would always stand empty now.
“I’m sorry, Tiron,” Azrael said.
I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. We’ve all lost so much. I shouldn’t—”
“We don’t speak of it all enough,” Azrael said gently. “Ignoring the past isn’t soothing the pain for any of us. Just burying it.”
Relief flooded my chest. He believed me.
Then he said, “We’ve got a long drive. Tell me about your brothers, your sisters, your parents. I’ve been a poor friend—I should’ve been helping you hold onto those memories all along.”
“That’s a kind thought,” I said, but avoided going on. I had learned their names, of course, and what Dala had been able to unearth about them.
But I didn’t want to test my knowledge. Besides, I hated being an imposter; the real Tiron had died of disease in one of the winter refugee camps.
Dala had sat with him as the light went out in his eyes, and promised him that we would make something of his death—that in a way, he would help save his people. Maybe that had brought him comfort, but he’d been just a boy, as I was then.
When she told me that story when I was young, I’d seen him as a hero. Now I could see him as nothing but a child who had deserved a better world.
And by taking the throne, I’d take the f
irst steps to rebuilding that world—to protect the children of Winter from continuing to suffer.
“I don’t think we’ve ever discussed this, but I knew Tirick and Rycron,” he said. “Your brothers were fine warriors. They came to our court to participate in some of the games.”
My heart jolted into my throat. I nodded as if I appreciated that detail. “I barely remember them.”
“That’s a pity,” he said. “I forget sometimes that you’re a little younger than Duncan or me. Maybe because we’ve been such terrible friends and hardly celebrate your birthday.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“We should start,” he said. “Now that Alisa’s in our lives, she reminds me that we should find our joy where we can. She’s always had a knack for that, no matter how dark the world looks.”
“That’s true,” I admitted.
After being trapped in the car with Azrael for several hours, it was a relief to arrive at Merlin’s home, hidden behind rows of trees. A murderous, immortal magician seemed easier to deal with than Az and his little questions. He was growing warm and fuzzy with Alisa around, but that sudden tender-heartedness endangered my cover story.
And I hated to lie to him, anyway. He’d saved my life from Faer a dozen times; sometimes I wondered if Faer saw through my story, because he’d seemed to hate me on sight. I’d waited at first for him to unmask me, but instead, he almost seemed to live to use me to force Azrael into compromises and deals. It was the same way he used Duncan.
I’d thought at first that Az protected me for Duncan’s sake, but I glanced at his profile and wondered if I’d ever truly read him right. He was a good friend, a valiant prince, someone I’d come to admire.
He didn’t deserve my lies or my betrayal.
But my court didn’t deserve for me to betray them either.
Chapter Forty-One
Alisa
Raile took me to a garden under the sea. It was full of gorgeous coral and statues.
“This is so beautiful,” I said.
“And my favorite part about it is that the statues are actually statues,” he said.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Unlike in your garden,” he said. “Where they’re enemies of the Summer court?”
I stared at him in shock, and he said, “I guess I should have kept that to myself.”
“No, no, you certainly shouldn’t have. Did I… I….” I steeled myself; I couldn’t make the past any better by denying who I’d been and what my court had done. “Did I turn any of them?”
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s an old Summer court tradition. Turning your enemies into statues, making them look like something else, covering them with flowers. Making the ugly into something beautiful, that’s what Faer said about it once.”
“That is nightmarish,” I said. I remembered the statutes I’d walked by in that garden, the fountain in the center, and shuddered. “I played around there when I was a little girl. Surrounded by… corpses?”
“Oh, they’re not dead,” Raile said. “They’re just… trapped.”
“Why didn’t I free them?” I asked.
“Free centuries-old enemies?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Alisa, you grew up in that court, in this realm. You have some mortal sensibilities now, but when you were growing up, it’s no surprise you didn’t think twice about those things you know call nightmares. How could you have?”
“I could have been a decent person even though I grew up in that world.” I was shocked by the thought. Part of me wanted to deny it was even true, but how could I ever be a decent person if I pretended the Summer court had never done anything cruel? How could I ever be a better queen?
“You seem almost decent now,” he observed.
“Yeah, and apparently I had to lose a kingdom, and my memories, and fuck over a whole lot of people to have my awakening.” My voice heated, and then I felt Raile staring at me, gauging me coolly as he did, and I pressed my lips together.
He shrugged. “You are Fae. We aren’t exactly the sweetest people.”
“I’m not talking about being sweet, or nice. Just being… not evil.”
He didn’t answer me, but not evil seemed like a pretty low bar. “Come on. Let’s go see if the garden has answers today.”
“What kind of magic is in your garden?” I clasped his hand and let him tow me through the water. He moved through the water so easily, even more gracefully than the merfolk.
“This isn’t my garden,” he said. “It was Poseidon’s long ago, before she decided to peace out of the realms. Anyway, when I was a child, it was completely concealed by old walls, all grown over and covered with coral and mollusks. I found a way in one day, and ever since then, I’ve come here when I need to figure things out. When I took the throne, I had the walls torn down. Now anyone can come here.”
“It’s nice that you share,” I teased.
“I can share,” he promised, and something flared in his gaze.
My breath froze in my chest. He looked at me as if he might kiss me, and I wasn’t sure if I would let him or not, but then he straightened subtly, putting space between us.
“It’s not my magic, it’s still hers that lingers here,” he said. “Or a shadow of her magic, anyway.”
The two of us walked further and further into the garden. A flicker of movement caught my eye and I whirled, just as Raile cursed.
“What is it?” I asked in a whisper.
I’d already shifted into a fighting stance, and Raile glanced me over. “Ready to defend me?”
“Maybe. From what?”
“It’s just a ghost.” He put his hand on my shoulder and jiggled me back and forth, as if to loosen my stance.
“If you touch me again without being asked, Raile, you’ll be running to the mermaids asking them to defend you.”
His lips quirked. I knew he was going to say something glib, and I cut him off. “My ghost? Or yours?”
“Mine,” he admitted. He sighed and grabbed my hand—apparently, my threats had little effect on Raile—and pulled me along through the water and around a corner.
A boy with waving dark hair—barely more than a child—hid behind one of the garden beds.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“It’s me,” he said. He glanced at me, then added, “I didn’t just find the garden. I was running.”
“From what?”
“My older brothers.” He glanced over his shoulder, and I followed his gaze; we’d swum into the gardens freely, but now an immense wall of coral surrounded it. Two dark haired Fae squeezed through a crack in the coral. They were much bigger than Raile had been—full grown males—and both of them carried long, wicked javelins.
“What did you do to them?” I asked, despite how horrified I was at the scene in the front of me. There was nothing a child could have done to deserve to be hunted the way Raile’s brothers had hunted him.
“I was a pretty horrible brat,” he mused, “but that day, it was mostly my temerity in existing. They were just trying to take some of the easy pieces off the board that day.”
“Off the board?”
“The game board, in my family’s war for who would take the throne. There were fifteen sons,” he explained to me. “I was the second to youngest.”
He stopped and didn’t seem inclined to continue.
“Go on,” I prompted.
He sighed. “Our mothers were at peace for a while, then the oldest son, the original heir, died in a duel, and our father was humiliated. He was not a very kind man. He said his heir would be whoever proved himself worthy—whoever survived to the end of the game.”
I turned back to the young version of Raile, hidden in the garden. His lips were moving, his eyes pressed together tightly, and I thought for a second he was praying; he looked terrified. He was so little that my heart ached for him, even though tall, dangerous Raile was standing right beside me.
Raile glanced at me, and then his hand foun
d my shoulder. Just then, I wasn’t going to threaten him.
He said, “Just watch.”
Young Raile managed to catch one of his brothers by surprise. He slashed out at his Achilles, then leapt to cut his throat. His brother managed to get his fingers around Raile’s throat, and he began to choke him to death. But his brother was dying too, and his grip finally loosened. Raile fell beside him, his hand on his throat, struggling for breath.
But he didn’t have long to recover, because his other brother charged in, javelin in hand, and Raile swam frantically for the other side of the garden with his brother in pursuit.
“This isn’t working out how I planned,” he muttered. “We need answers for you.”
“Are there answers here in these memories for you?” I asked, because it seemed like nothing but pain, but maybe I was wrong.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. I was alone for a long time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Royal Fae families are terrible.”
“Wealth and greed and power doesn’t bring out the best in many people, in any realm.” He rubbed his face wearily. “I’d like to leave all these memories in my past. But maybe I’ve tried to find the wrong way to escape that sense of being…alone.”
“You mean maybe you shouldn’t kidnap a pain-in-the-ass princess and drag her under the sea?” I asked.
“Oh, no regrets there,” he said. “I was thinking I should have my own harem.”
He was back to teasing, and I let the serious moment go, smacking him in the chest. “Good luck. I would never share.”
He looked at me strangely and I realized what I’d accidentally just implied.
I started to make some glib remark to cover the slip, but he pulled me forward. “Come on. Let’s leave the melodrama of life under the sea. There’s a statue I really want you to see.”
“Lead on,” I said doubtfully.
The two of us swam through the gardens until we reached an enormous statue of a beautiful female, with a trident in her hand and her hair waving around her face.
Then she came to life, rising from her immense marble throne. When I took a stutter step back, Raile steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.