by K. A. Linde
But Kael was looking between them. He held his side. Saw the formidable team that they had become. That she wasn’t the easy mark he had expected. The young girl she had been when he coaxed her into the darkness. When she had been so broken by Maelia’s death that she went willingly.
No longer.
She was so much more than that now.
So much more than he could ever understand.
And today, she stood before him, ready to end it.
He must have seen it flickering in her eyes. Not rage, but purpose. Not anger, but resolution. This was the end.
Then without a word, blackness blossomed all around him. A cloud so thick and dark that it shielded him completely from her sight. She rushed forward, pushing the cloud of smoke aside with her air magic. She pushed straight through the smoke. Heedless of if it could contain a toxin or worse. But then she was on the other side.
And Kael was gone.
With Shadowbreaker.
Cyrene screamed, unable to control the burst of emotion that lashed through her body. He was gone. He was just gone.
“How…” Dean began.
“Self-portaling.” She ran a hand back through her dark brown locks and stared at the now-dissipating black smoke and the empty space where Kael should have been. “Malysa must have taught him how to do it.”
“He couldn’t have gotten far,” Dean reasoned. “We could go after him.”
“How? I can’t feel the bond,” she confessed. “I can’t find him. He’s gone. And with my sword.”
“Creator,” Kaliana whispered behind them.
Cyrene clenched her fists. “The coward. He couldn’t face us both, and so he just fled. How dare he.”
“Self-preservation is his strong suit,” Kaliana reasoned.
Of course it was. Kael always chose himself over everything else. They could have taken him in that moment, and he knew it. Which made him all the more dangerous. What would he do to get the power he needed to beat them?
Her fury ran rampant for the bastard who was to marry her sister. But it was nothing compared to what she turned on Killian.
“How could you do this?” she demanded of this king. She ignored the guards that had been shriveling in the corners at her fight with Kael and now came to attention when she directed her attention to Killian. “How could you have been so foolish to invite him into your home?”
“It’s reasonable to look at all the options,” he said clearly as if he hadn’t nearly wet himself at the magic display.
“Look at your options?” she snarled low and unforgiving. “Kael Dremylon is a monster. You invited darkness into your home and claim him an option while I stand here, offering you nearly everything you have asked for to ally with us. What can he give you? He won’t give you immunity. Not when the goddess of destruction herself walks free on this earth, hoping to cleanse all who refuse to bow to her.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Killian said. He bristled at her accusation and straightened, looking more like a king and less like a chastised boy. “But the powers that were displayed, the fight you had in my own throne room, as far as I’m concerned, you’re all monsters.”
Cyrene strode toward him. She flickered her wrists, and the guards were cast aside, allowing her access to His Majesty. She stepped right up onto the dais and glared at him. “I could have swaggered in here with my magic and had you on your knees within minutes, Killian,” she raged. “But I did not. I came with diplomacy. I followed your customs. I offered an alliance, not your head on a platter. Compare me again to the mass murderer. I dare you.”
Killian gulped. She watched his hands tremble, but to his credit, he did not back down. “Perhaps I was too forceful.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed with bared teeth.
“But you still lied to me. You might have come here with diplomacy, but you treated me like a fool. You had magic and did not disclose it.”
“You didn’t even believe in magic, and you would have seen it as a threat. As you do now.”
“And your captain,” he said, gesturing to Dean. “A prince?” He narrowed his eyes further. “Of Eleysia, I presume. You hid his position from me.”
“He is the captain of my guard,” she told him. “Where he hails from now is meaningless. What we fight for is all the matters. We are one. We are Doma.”
Killian just stood and shook his head. “You came under false pretenses. You believed that I was a weak king who would see a pretty face and bend to your will. I am no fool. Tiek does not belong in this war. We do not have magic, and after that display, I see no reason to see more of it in this world or any. There is no alliance. You are dismissed.”
Cyrene gritted her teeth and was about to throw expletives at him.
But then a man came racing into the throne room, screaming, “Dragons! Dragons! Majesty, there are dragons!”
Killian’s eyes widened in horror. “Dragons aren’t…real.”
“They’re sitting on a parapet. I…I think they mean to attack. How should we proceed?” the messenger gasped out.
Killian turned to her. “You! You did this.”
“So, I guess no marriage alliance, huh?” she quipped with an eye roll.
Then she strode off of the dais, leaving a quaking Killian behind. There was no alliance. There was no army. There was only a fool in the place of a king. A fool who would collapse under the weight of indecision in this war. She had done all she could do. She would not lower herself to beg him to change his mind. He was a man used to getting what he wanted. She knew he wouldn’t come around to her side with another bat of her eyelashes, and she was tired of being anything less than she was.
She was the Domina. She let the glow of her magic radiate around her as Dean and Kaliana fell into step with her. And they strode out of the castle toward their awaiting dragons, leaving Tiek behind.
32
The Princess
Avoca
The woods smelled like home long before she could see the great Leif city of Eldora. Memories flashed before her eyes. Of training and hunting and fighting. Of her precious Six Team and how she had come to command it. Of the life she had built here. The princess she had been in a world that no longer believed any Fae existed. A fairy tale to tell children of changelings and tricks and terror.
And now, she was about to ask them to give up that life. As she had. To be known to the outside world again.
She had known the minute Cyrene saved her life with her energy burst that day in the woods so long ago that everything was going to change. She had wanted it. Desperately. Could she ask her people to do the same?
It had been foolish to come on foot. She was wasting time that they didn’t have as she traipsed through the Hidden Forest back home. It was as much for healing as for the reason she had given Cyrene. Ahlvie was still in that beast. He was not fully Indres. She didn’t know how to reach him. Only that she had no other option. Her blood debt was to Cyrene. But she knew she would use it to save Ahlvie if it came to that.
With a sigh, she soldiered on until the walls of Eldora appeared in her vision. Until her Leif family appeared on the top of the walled fortress. Their elegantly pointed ears, smooth fighting leathers, and youthful expressions that betrayed disbelief at her appearance.
A call went out to open the gates. The same order she had given the night that Ceis’f appeared in Eldora after the destruction of his people in Aonia.
And then, to her astonishment, there he was.
Tall and muscularly built. His silver hair braided at the front in the traditional Aonian style. The rest a wave down his back. Those vivid gold eyes looking at her with both wonder and disbelief. Awe and worship and obsession. Love somewhere wrapped up in it.
He pushed through the gates as soon as he was able and pulled her into his arms, crushing her to his chest. “Ava,” he breathed.
Her arms came around him without thinking. He might have been her betrothed once. Someone she had hated for so long. An all
y and a prejudiced asshole. But never the enemy. She had seen him through his worst. In that way, they would always be united.
“You’ve returned,” he said in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“I knew that you would come to your senses,” Ceis’f said. “That you would get rid of those humans and return to your people. Take your rightful place.”
Avoca pulled back from him and shuddered at the comment. That she had gotten rid of the humans. As if Cyrene and Ahlvie and Orden were so easily replaceable. As if her duty to them was not as strong as to the others. “I have not returned for that.”
Ceis’f’s face darkened. “You still wish to be one of them.”
Avoca straightened. She had endured too much to be chastised for her decisions by Ceis’f. “I must speak to my mother.”
Something crossed his face then. Horror. No…devastation.
“Ava…she’s…”
Her eyes rounded at his inability to find words. He always had a clever comeback. A quip to cut.
“What?”
“She’s sick,” he said softly, painfully. “I returned after Aonia, and she ordered me as regent until your return.”
Avoca mirrored his horrified look. “Where is she?”
“Let me take you to her.”
Ceis’f started for her home built straight into the forest. Trees so large that they had been hollowed out and used for houses. Ladders and bridges connected the homes and common spaces. Everyone lived up in the trees, far removed from the outside world.
“She will be glad to finally see you,” he continued as they approached the royal home. “We can still marry while she lives,” he said as if there were no other possibility. “As we always should have.”
Avoca stopped him before they could enter the queen’s residence. Her words were firm but tender. “I have already married.”
Ceis’f reared back in shock and horror. He had no words. He just stared at her as if he had never met her. As if she had shattered his world. And perhaps she truly had. He had always held out hope that she would change her mind. That their betrothal would go through.
“You married that mongrel?” he demanded, his voice cold. Unforgiving.
She touched his hand. “You are not bound to me just because you are the last prince of Aonia. The last of Aonia. You should have your own life. Your own love. You deserve it.”
He wrenched back. “You are wrong. We are bound, Ava. In blood and suffering. In every way that actually matters.”
Avoca sighed as he strode off. She didn’t have the time to coddle him. War was coming. He would learn the extent of it soon enough. She had always counted him on her side. But, with what he saw as her greatest betrayal—marrying a human—she didn’t know if he could forgive her enough to fight this one with her. She hoped that she was making the right choice. The way forward seemed set in stone, but watching him walk away again hurt more than she cared to admit. Not out of the kind of love he had always wanted from her, but from a deeper love, a familial love. He was her family, and before this was over, she would have to find out how to fix this with him.
But first, her mother.
Avoca strode through the royal chambers until she found her mother. She was lying in her giant bed, looking as if her two thousand years had finally caught up with her. Her body seemed so frail. As if she had shrunk in on herself in the two years since Avoca left. Not the great Queen Shira who had successfully brought them out of the fall of magic, but just a woman.
Avoca had a sense of déjà vu. She had seen this exact moment with Cyrene in their binding ceremony. She’d had to choose Cyrene and their bond above all else…even her family and duty. But Cyrene wasn’t here this time. It was just her staring at her dying mother.
She rushed to her side, sinking to her knees next to her mother. “Mother,” she whispered. “Mother, it’s me, Avoca. I’m home. I’m here.”
Shira turned her face toward her daughter. Her eyes were perfectly clear. As if not a day had gone by. Her body was failing, but her eyes held centuries of intelligence. “Avoca, my daughter.” She put her hand onto Avoca’s cheek.
“Why didn’t you call for me? You’re sick. I would have come.”
Shira smiled. “I know you would have, but this is not your destiny. She is. The prophesied one.”
“I came here for her,” Avoca confessed. “I didn’t know what was happening here. But the world out there is at war. We need allies. We need the troops. But, Mother, I cannot ask it of you.”
“You don’t have to,” Shira said. She reached onto her right hand and removed the signet ring from her finger, a solid sapphire the size of a robin’s egg on a gold band that had been passed down from queen to queen for as long as time.
“No,” Avoca breathed.
Shira took Avoca’s hand without acknowledging her comment and placed the royal ring on her finger. She patted her hand now. “This has always belonged to you. You are the bright light of the Leifs. You will bring them out of this dark age. You have always been our best hope.”
Tears slipped down Avoca’s cheeks. “Mother, please.”
Shira wiped the tears from her face. “You were born for this.” She smiled at her. “I am sorry that I forced the betrothal. It is my one regret. Forgive me?”
She nodded through her tears. “Of course. Of course. You thought you were doing what was best.”
“I see now that it was another,” Shira said as if looking into the future. “But they come from the same place, do they not?”
“They did,” Avoca whispered. Her mother had always had a bit of foresight. Not a considerable amount, but enough to see and interpret. “You saw…Ahlvie.”
Shira smiled then. “Ahlvie. You love him.”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Good. That is all I’ve ever wanted for you,” Shira told her. “I got you one last present. It was meant to be a wedding gift.” She gestured to a table with a package on it, but Avoca couldn’t leave her mother’s side.
“You saw my wedding?” she murmured.
Shira didn’t answer. She rarely spoke of the future or what was now the past. She always said that what she saw was too risky to discuss. This was more than her mother had ever confessed.
“You are queen now,” Shira told her. She closed her hand around Avoca’s. “The troops are yours. Bring us back into the light.”
Then Shira fell into a deep sleep. Avoca could see her chest barely rising and falling. Her pulse was even but faint. She was dying. She would not make it to the new moon. And Avoca could not stay and live out these next moments with her. She could not sacrifice Cyrene and the rest of the world for another week with her ailing mother.
But, Creator, she wanted to.
With a gasp, she clutched at her chest and strode away from the bedside. She found the package her mother had said was a wedding present. She had known all along.
Her hands shook as she unwrapped the carefully swathed parcel. Tears ran harder as she realized what was inside. Marriage blades. Two each for the couple was a traditional wedding gift among her people. One to always honor thyself and one to always honor the other. They were ice white. An upgraded set to the ones she had carried out of Eldora. That she now only had one of after Malysa had destroyed one of them. Her new pair was more delicate with hints of the cerulean blue of her eyes on the handle. Ahlvie’s was perfectly proportioned to his human size with the gold of his Indres irises cut into the handles.
She swallowed and then carefully strapped her new blades into her wrist gauntlets. Then she belted Ahlvie’s set to her thighs. She would get them to him one way or another.
A princess had walked into the royal chambers.
A queen stepped out.
Her head held high.
Her tears scrubbed clean from her face.
A sapphire signet ring indicating her new rank.
Ceis’f had returned. He stood at the entrance with a handful of military men she had trained with from the last hun
dred years. As one, they dropped to a knee before their queen.
“Ready the troops,” she commanded them. “We march to the Domina at first light.”
33
The Shift
Ahlvie
Ahlvie shifted.
He came to himself, gasping. His human form shuddered. And that dark thing crawled under his skin, waiting for the moment to wrest control back.
He was naked. He had been nothing but naked for so long. Too long. He’d lost track of time. He had been a beast forever. A sick, deranged killer.
And now, he was himself.
Mercifully so.
A set of clothes sat to his right, and he drew them on with a killing calm. They were bigger than he remembered ever having worn. But they fit like a second skin. The beast within had bulked him up. His shoulders were broader. His chest and arms full of muscle. His legs tree trunks of solid force.
He wasn’t sure he liked the change. He had always been a mendicant. A storyteller, unassuming gambler, and cheat. A friendly smile and quick joke could steal money out of anyone’s pockets. But no one would see him as anything but a brute now.
“Come now. You don’t look so bad,” Malysa trilled behind him.
Ahlvie stiffened.
She hadn’t been in the room when he got there. Her self-portaling had gotten even better. Quieter. Stealthier. She was getting stronger. Impossibly stronger for someone who had been chained to this Creator-forsaken mountain for more than two thousand years.
“Don’t look so upset about it,” Malysa said.
He turned to find her settling into a chair like a queen. The darkness seemed to pull in toward her. It was still hard to see her in Matilde’s body. One who had been a friend and now was just…this.
He gritted his teeth in disgust and barely contained rage.