by R. A. Rock
Then she would take a breath and try to figure out what to do. Her life in Ahlenerra was over. With both the monarchs after her, she would eventually be caught. But she didn’t want to leave. This was her home. She loved it. She didn’t want to have to go somewhere else in Esper and be an outsider for the rest of her life.
Tess stopped that train of thought.
She would go mad if she thought of all she had lost.
No, she needed to focus on her plan.
Get across the Chasm. Travel north. Hide in the Borderlands.
After that, she would figure out the rest. So, first things first, she needed to cross back over the Chasm to get back into the Unseelie lands, so she could travel north to the Borderlands. And to do that, she needed the bracelet the queen had given her that would allow her to cross the Chasm.
She searched her pockets.
Nothing.
Where were the bracelets?
With a groan, she sat down on the boulder, her head in her hands.
Finn had the bracelets in his satchel.
And there was no way he ever wanted to see her again, never mind help her.
Her plan would never work.
Her life was in shambles.
Tess drew in a shaky breath.
Shadows take me, but I am so screwed.
Chapter 33
It was morning, but it appeared to be just after dusk as Tess trudged to the gazebo in the middle of the island. When she reached it, she sat down on the bench that ran along the circular wall. She gazed around at the Twilight Forest that surrounded her. It was the most beautiful place in all the Seelie lands — in all of Ahlenerra, she would wage. The trees were tall and lofty, with short branches that grew beginning seven or eight feet off the ground all to the top. The canopy was dense, and the treetops had grown together so as to completely block out the sky.
Each branch drooped, heavy with fruit that hung in bunches of white, oblong globes. The fruit’s white skin and shape were quite ordinary. But the fact that it glowed from the moment it began to grow until it died and shriveled was quite extraordinary.
The entire forest would have been as dark as night due to the thick canopy, but because of the glowing fruit, it was in a state of constant twilight that was quite pretty.
Tess had sent a summoning spell to Finn, explaining that she needed his help one more time and after that he wouldn’t ever have to see her again. She didn’t really expect him to come. But she intended to stay all day, just in case he took pity on her.
The day went by slowly, with no indication of the passage of time since Tess couldn’t see the sun or the sky. Eventually, her stomach told her it was supper. And her despair told her that he wasn’t coming.
She decided to wait until nightfall. Maybe she would even stay overnight. Just in case.
She knew it was stupid.
Finn didn’t ever want to see her again.
He wouldn’t want to help her.
She sighed deeply and lay down on the bench.
It seemed as though she had only just closed her eyes when she heard a voice.
“Tess.”
She sat up quickly.
It was Finn.
“Finn,” Tessa said, swallowing hard. “You came.”
Finn steeled his heart against the brightness in her eyes that was probably unshed tears. He had spent his time since he had seen her last trying to erase any sign of the past few months that he had spent with her. He had bought new clothes and shaved. His hair was cut. He had traded a couple of his more valuable spelled objects for a horse. But he couldn’t erase Tess from his heart, no matter how much he tried.
“I don’t want to talk,” he said, his jaw tight. “I don’t want an explanation. Just tell me what you need. I owe you my life. So I’m going to help you. Then we’ll be even. And I never want to see you again.”
She nodded, several quick fast nods.
“I need the bracelets. I need to cross the Chasm because—”
But Finn held up his hand.
“I don’t care,” he said, fishing around in his satchel and pulling out the bracelets. “Here.”
He held them out, and Tess slowly approached.
She glanced up at him, but he kept his face impassive. When she reached out her hand, he dropped them in her palm so he wouldn’t have to touch her.
There. He had done his duty.
Been a good person.
Repaid her for saving his life.
And now he could go on his way, never to see her again.
At the thought, a lump formed in his own throat. He spun on his heel and started walking away before he did something stupid like take her in his arms.
“Finn,” she said in a small voice.
He stopped. Something pulled him back to her, in spite of how angry he felt at Tess for deceiving him and lying to him all this time.
“Please, I owe you an apology.”
“I don’t want one,” he said, not turning around but not walking away either.
“Finn, please.”
“Fine,” he said, spinning around. “You have two minutes.”
“I’m so sorry that I lied to you and that I deceived you. It’s been my life for so long…” She pressed her palms together in front of her lips, and the stone wall he had put up around his heart cracked a little. “But that doesn’t make it right. I should have told you. After Perdira’s Mire. After we fought the Char. I should have told you the truth.”
“But you didn’t,” he pointed out, trying to shore up the wall. He couldn’t let her back in. It would hurt too much if she lied to him again.
“But I didn’t,” she repeated, pressing her lips together before she went on. “I was so scared you were going to react like this that I couldn’t. I was a coward. I didn’t want to see you looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I really am everything you thought I was the first time we met.”
Finn didn’t say anything, not trusting his voice.
She gave a humorless chuckle. “Maybe I am. Maybe Nyall is right. I’ve been in the Dark Court for so long. I’ve done terrible things for the Dark Queen. Maybe I am the evil Fae you thought I was.”
Finn couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. One part of him wanted to never forgive her. She had done a terrible thing to lie to him to his face for so long. She was an awful person.
But the other part of him, the stupid, irrational part of him wanted to forgive her for everything, to hold her and tell her that she wasn’t that person, that he knew the heart of her, so the surface stuff didn’t matter.
And yet, he kept silent.
She had hurt him too much.
After Emmy, he hadn’t let anyone into his heart. And now he had been dumb enough to allow Tess in, and she had destroyed his faith in her. In love. How could he ever trust again?
“Or maybe I was just doing my job,” she said, her voice sounding a little stronger. She held his gaze. “Maybe I was saving our land from destruction. I don’t know how many times I have prevented the Dark Court from destroying the Light Court. I don’t know how many lives I’ve saved. Hopefully, more than the ones I’ve destroyed.”
“Tessa,” he said, unable to keep quite any longer.
“No, Finn. There are things that I’ve done that I am ashamed of, but being a spy in the Dark Court isn’t one of them. Saving our land and our people over and over from a war that would mean losing so many lives isn’t one of them either.”
Finn dropped his eyes and stared at the elegant swirls in the tiles that made up the floor of the gazebo.
“And I have a feeling that if you were me, you would have done the same,” she said.
She was right.
Finn knew she was right.
But how could he forgive her? How could he trust her?
Tess moved closer. She gazed up at him.
“I want to forgive you, Tess,” he said, his voice rough. “But how can I ever trust you again?”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me, Finn. I don’t blame you at all.”
“Tess,” he said, his heart aching.
“But I can give you this.” She reached out tentatively and took his hands. He let her, and she lifted them, pressing her palms to his.
“No, Tess, you don’t have to,” he started, but she interlaced their fingers, holding on tight, and he let her.
“I swear that I will never lie to you or deceive you again in any way, ever,” she said, her voice strong and true. “I’m so sorry, Finn. And I don’t want you to forgive me, but I want you to know that you can trust me. The palm vow will make sure of that. And even if I hadn’t made it, I would never lie to you again.”
She pulled her hands away.
Finn stared at her.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.
“I wanted to,” she told him. “I owe you that, at the very least. And like I said, I don’t want your forgiveness.”
She stared off into the forest.
“I’m going to go now,” she said, giving him one last, sad smile. “Thank you for the bracelet. And may the Stars shine their light upon you wherever you go, Finn Noble. Because you deserve it.”
She stepped around him and walked slowly across the gazebo toward the steps.
Finn felt as though his heart was shattered.
That was when he realized… he was in love with Tess. He wouldn’t be feeling so much pain for someone he didn’t care about.
And this agony was almost worse than losing Emmy. His first love had been that of a young man—pure and true, but lacking depth. This? This was hard, and messy, and full of tears and blood and sweat. But it was also real. It wasn’t going anywhere. And he knew it could weather some tough storms.
Because it wasn’t based on illusion.
Then the idea struck him that, though he didn’t know her true story, his feelings for Tessa were real. How he felt was real, no matter who she was.
But he had no clue who she was. He reminded himself that she had lied about everything. What was he thinking? He couldn’t be in love with her.
Yet he was.
And he couldn’t let her go. Not now. Not like this.
“Tessa,” he said, and she turned around, clearly not wanting to hope. “Maybe you could tell me the whole story.”
Chapter 34
“Well,” Tessa began as they sat down on the bench in the gazebo. “I grew up like a princess.”
There was a flare of light as the palm vow for Tessa to tell him the truth was satisfied.
“You,” Finn said, in disbelief. “A princess?”
“I’m not a princess,” she said, trying to explain. “I grew up like a princess.”
The morning sun came through the window creating a square of light on the floor, and Tessa kept her eyes on it as she told her story.
She explained how her father was the advisor to the King. As the advisor, he was the one who would be in charge if anything ever happened to the King. And if anything ever happened to Tessa’s father, then Tessa’s sister would be in charge.
“And, Stars forbid, if anything ever happened to my sister, then I would… well,” she said, gesturing helplessly. “I guess I would rule the land.”
“Chasm and Severance,” Finn said, completely taken aback.
“Which made us something like heirs to the throne. And we were treated as such. Pampered and protected as much as any princess of the realm would have been.”
“That must have been nice,” Finn commented.
“It was comfortable,” Tessa said, trying to explain. “I was happy for a time. But it was like I was a china doll. Set upon the mantle and not to be touched in case of being broken. I never really lived.”
“Is that why you became a spy?” Finn guessed.
Tessa nodded. “Yes. I wanted to be useful. You don’t know what it’s like to be a burden to everyone. To have no purpose. To be constantly handled with kid gloves. Some days, I thought I would go insane, start screaming and tearing my hair out.”
Tessa took a deep breath and let the feeling of being trapped drain out of her.
“I offered to become a spy for the Light Court. My family disapproved, and the King wouldn’t give his permission, so I decided that I would show him that I could be useful. I would go to the Dark Court and get some important intelligence. When I brought the information back to the King, he would have to let me be a spy. I ran away that night.”
“Just up and took off? Did you say goodbye to anyone?”
Tessa dropped her eyes. “No. I didn’t say goodbye. I couldn’t. They would have tried to stop me. I haven’t seen any of them but Nyall since I left.”
“Wait,” Finn said, thinking. “How did you cross the Chasm?”
Tessa’s eyes clouded at the memory.
“I traded an extremely valuable family heirloom and some of my own Starlight for a Dark Magic spell that would let me cross. The Dark Mage who gave me the spell to get across the Chasm also gave me a magic mirror to communicate with the King.”
“Are you kidding?” Finn asked. “You made a deal with a Dark Mage?”
“It was no joking matter, Finn. I assure you. I thought the Dark Mage was going to drain my Starlight dry.”
“You could have died giving your own Starlight like that, Tess.”
“I know, Finn. Why do you think I was so nervous when you paid Isadore for the Otherworld sheath? Of course, I didn’t realize the risk at the time.”
Finn shook his head.
“Stars above, Tess, it all must have been so hard.”
Tessa drew a deep breath.
“Not as hard as what came next,” she said, her face dismal.
“The Dark Court,” Finn said.
“The Dark Court,” Tessa said. “I was caught skulking around Direwood Castle and dragged before the queen.”
“Been there. Done that. Wait, skulking?” Finn gave her a half smile.
“I suppose I thought I was being stealthy. I was trying to act like a spy.” Tessa could cry for the innocent and naive young woman that she had been. “They found me on the second day.”
Finn was silent. He looked like he didn’t want to hear what came next.
“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The queen could have had me killed by one of her monsters for her amusement. But something I must have said convinced her, and she let me join the royal guard.”
“That can’t have been easy for an almost-princess,” Finn said.
“It wasn’t. I wanted to leave every second from the time I arrived, but I stuck it out. And soon, I earned my place. The others stopped picking on me. Once I got the King the first useful piece of intel, he sure changed his mind about me. I moved up the ranks. It took a hundred years, but finally, the Dark Queen appointed me as her Captain of the Guard.”
“And then your real work began, I bet.”
“Yes. Whenever the queen planned any attack on the Light Court, I alerted the King. We didn’t want it to be too obvious that they had been warned, so lives were still lost.” She sighed deeply. “But many more were saved, and I counted that as a win. That the balance was kept between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts.”
“Talk about playing the long game,” Finn said, staring out the window.
They were quiet for a while after she finished that part of her tale.
Finn felt conflicted. Sure, he had wanted to know everything. But he hadn’t counted on how it would affect him to think of a young Tessa, a Light Fae—never mind that, a princess—who had never known hardship, thrown into the cesspool that was the Dark Court. He couldn’t imagine what she had been through, and he didn’t want to. His heart softened even more, knowing that she had been trying to protect her people. The same way she had in Perdira’s Mire. The same way she had when she had tried to get the Scroll.
She still just wanted to help.
“I had just come back from my yearly visit to the Light Court to report in to the King when
you and I first met.”
Finn smiled a little, remembering how he had boasted that he would beat Ransetta’s best warrior. And he had. Barely.
Tessa smiled a little, too.
“I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,” Finn said, with regret. “I was just trying to save my life.”
“And it worked,” Tessa said, trying to reassure him. “I respect that. I didn’t want to go on that quest, but now I have an immensely useful new weapon that also has magical properties that can greatly help me.”
“Tess…”
“I know I said I wished it all hadn’t happened. But then we wouldn’t have met and… In the end, it was all for the best, Finn.” She nodded, her expression earnest. “I wanted to tell you so many times. I wanted to tell you everything. But I knew it would destroy the only relationship I had had in three hundred years.”
Relationship? Finn’s breath caught in his throat.
But Tessa was staring down at the stone tiles of the gazebo where she was fiddling with the edge of her shirt. Then she looked up with those blue eyes of hers.
“I wanted to tell you. But I just couldn’t do it. I knew it would all end sometime. But I wanted it to last as long as possible. I’m sorry, Finn. I was selfish. I should have told you the truth a long time ago.”
All of a sudden, a few things came clear for Finn.
“I couldn’t figure out at the beginning why you seemed to be such a contradiction,” he said. “How you could swear that you were loyal to your monarch and yet save my life. I couldn’t understand how someone who clearly had a strong allegiance to the Dark Queen and did her bidding could have nearly given her own life to save mine.”
He stopped.
“But that’s why. I get it now. You were loyal to the King. Your true monarch. Everything you did makes sense now. I thought I didn’t know you anymore. But all that, it’s just history. It’s not you.” He leaned forward and took her hand, holding it between both of his. “All along, you’ve been a good person, Tessa. Trying to do what’s right. And that’s why I need to…”