I raised my brow at him. “The queen. That sounds formal.”
Usually he’d call her Fiona or Aunt Fi, or simply “your mother,” so his mention of her official title concerned me.
“It is official business she wishes to discuss with you.”
“Can I just—” I pointed toward the near-permanent buffet that stretched the length of the dining room. It never really emptied so much as went through a metamorphosis as it merged from breakfast to lunch and then into dinner and desserts over the course of the day as sections emptied and were refilled.
“I will send for some food for you, but you are requested to arrive promptly.”
I lifted my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”
I cast one last longing look back at the buffet and then headed in the opposite direction, toward Mom’s chambers.
When I arrived, Lou and Eth were still there, as was Mackenzie. The cheer and decorations that had filled the room to celebrate mine and Lou’s birthday earlier that day had already all been packed away.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Please sit,” Mom said. Her normally luminescent skin was dull and worry danced with sorrow in her cornflower irises. The oversized gray chair she sat in looked almost stately—like the throne of a king or queen in a land of couch potatoes. “We have much to discuss now that Evelyn is out of the woods.”
Her gaze brushed over me. She wasn’t using so many words to say it, but it was clear I was the reason for the delay. A few people had tried to coax me from Evie’s bedside, but until Mackenzie had drawn me away for the birthday celebrations earlier that day, no one had been successful. I dropped my gaze as my stomach twisted. If there was anything bad happening that could have been dealt with sooner if I hadn’t been ignoring the world, then any consequences would be my fault.
Swallowing down my guilt and the fear that shook my limbs, I glanced around the room. Lou sat in one half of a matching sofa to Mom’s right and Eth sat across from her with Mackenzie beside him. I slipped into place beside Lou and waited for Mom to speak.
“You are probably wondering why I called you together, especially in such a solemn way after such a happy occasion earlier this morning. However, I have matters to discuss that affect each and every one of you. None more than you, Louise, and you, Mackenzie.”
She started a story about how she’d met Dad and what had happened after Dad had stolen Eth, Lou, and me away. It was a story of heartache and loss. So many of the emotions were familiar—things I had felt each time Evie and I were torn apart over the years. The tale she told was one of a mother desperate to reconnect with her children.
“When I returned home, I had an instant support network, but not one of them was willing to go against the Rain to find you three.” Her gaze swept across Lou, Eth, and me. “So I turned to an old flame. An Unseelie whom I had parted ways with many years earlier after he contributed to the deaths of almost a hundred people.”
My gaze sought out Mackenzie to see if she was coping with the information. I’d heard that part of the story before, and I wondered whether she’d make the connection to her father.
“Reconnecting with him was . . . difficult. The friends of his whom had attempted to take my life were not willing to forgive my transgression of informing my mother of their plan. My actions had seen many of them banned from stepping foot in our court and tore apart a couple of unions, including one between the prince of their court and an artist fairy in ours. Caelan though, he decided to go against their desires and meet with me anyway. He swore that he would find my fledglings and that together we would form a family.” She gave a wistful sigh. “I believed him. Each day, he would tell me we were closer to finding you three than ever. One day, he even brought home a teddy bear that belonged to you, Louise.”
We all sat basically motionless, enraptured with her story. I could only guess at what the others were thinking, but despite the way things had started with Mom, I could easily empathize with her situation. What she had done had been for love—love for her children. She’d believed love would be enough to save us, just like she’d told me during our first meeting in her chambers.
“Obviously by then, he was already helping Troy to bind your powers.” Mom’s brow scrunched and the poise she almost always showed was washed away by a grief so ancient all of us rushed to be closer to her. She didn’t take the comfort we offered. Instead, she reached out to cup Lou’s cheek. “If I had any idea what was happening, I would never have allowed any harm to come to you, my precious daughter. I will never forgive myself for sending Caelan on your path. All that has come to pass as a result of his actions will rest heavily on my conscience. I will never forget the harm that has come to you all because of this. I will spend the rest of my days making it up to each of you.”
Denials and reassurances were on all of our lips as she spoke. Her only fault was in trusting the wrong people, and that wasn’t something she needed to be punished for.
Over the course of the story, and because we’d rushed closer to comfort her, we were all squeezed up to one end of the two couches, close enough that she could reach us. She touched her hand to each of our cheeks in turn, and the deep frown and lines on her face lifted.
A warmth spread over my limbs when she met my eye, and a moment of unspoken regard passed between us. It took a second for me to understand, but when I did, I saw she had reached for my mind through the hive of the court. The reassurances she uttered without words wiped away the regret and remorse over the doubt I’d felt when she’d walked back into my life. It offered understanding on both of our sides for the mistakes we’d made and the regrets we shared.
With a sigh, she started her story again, this time skipping forward a few years. “Even though I had Mackenzie and was happy as a single mother, I never forgot you. When my mother abdicated the crown and passed it on to me, I—” She cut off and drew back into herself, creating a new distance between us all. “I abused my position. I used the court resources to renew my search. I sent my personal guard, Samuel, to look for you three. When he located you, he tried to get close enough to talk to you, to tell you the truth and see if you would be willing to come meet me, but he was captured. For days he was tortured as your father and his family tried to gather information about the location of our court.” A shudder raced through her. “We saw it all.”
“What do you mean you saw it all?” I could barely find my voice, and it looked like my brother and sisters were having the same struggle. In fact, I’d never seen Ethan so quiet for so long. His face was white, and he stared into the distance as if haunted by a specter from the past. I pushed the image aside, more concerned with finding out the details of Fiona’s story.
“Entwined auras are very rare.” She stared at me as she said the words, and I was thrown for a moment. “But you and Evie are not the first I know of, nor the strongest. Your bonds are tied by other circumstances and situations. The entwining is diluted because neither of you are completely fae. The other pairing I have seen was one shared by two pure fae. They were not merely connected in soul, but in heart, body, and mind as well. Our ability to track our loved ones is intensified in entwining.” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “They were connected, and through Ariella, we witnessed all of Samuel’s suffering.”
“She felt it too,” Lou said, reaching the same conclusion I’d been coming to. I had something of a connection to her and also to Evie and could sometimes get a reliable sense of what they were feeling when we were nearby. If true entwined auras strengthened that link . . .
I could only imagine the horrors of feeling every injury and hearing the panic of a loved one and being unable to do anything about it. The thought alone made my stomach churn. It had been hard enough having to witness Evie’s injuries from the outside.
“I put together a small team to rescue Samuel. Ariella insisted on being part of it. She was in pain because of Samuel, but wouldn’t take no for an answer. I could not deny her anything, not when his i
njuries were because of me.” Her lips barely moved as she recounted the story in a haunted tone. “I should have insisted she remain in the court where they could keep her safe. When he saw us, your father scrambled a team to destroy us all. The area was covered in wardings, and the noise in our heads was overwhelming. Still, we fought through as we tried to rescue Samuel. None of us could get close enough to help though, least of all Ariella. Y-your father’s mother, she wanted to make an example of Samuel, to send a warning so I would never attempt to contact you again. She—” Mom cut off with a half sob.
“She shot him,” Eth said. It was the first time he’d spoken during the meeting, and his voice held the same haunted quality as Mom’s. It wasn’t a question either, that much was clear. “She shot him, and then with a scream of a banshee, Ariella rushed at Nana with her sword raised. I couldn’t let her get to Nana. I couldn’t let her kill my family.” Eth clenched his jaw.
Mom’s sobs grew heavier.
“I shot her,” he continued. “Three times. It wasn’t enough though. She didn’t stop. Her momentum carried her sword into Nana’s heart.”
Mackenzie and Lou both gasped.
Eth’s gaze flicked to Mom. “I thought it was the Unseelie court. We were told they’d look like Mom and her family because they were doppelgangers coming to hurt us.”
He clearly knew something I didn’t. Neither Lou nor I were with Nana Jacobs when she’d died. All we knew was what Eth and Dad had told us when they’d returned home from the hunt: an attack by Unseelie fae had left her dead.
“Who was she?” Eth asked Mom.
She clutched at her chest and spoke between the heaving sobs that racked her body. “Ariella. Was. My sister. And. I. Got. Her. Killed.”
I closed my eyes as my hatred for Dad boiled over again. He’d knowingly let his son murder his aunt. There was no way I believed that he’d genuinely thought it was doppelgangers, not with all the other lies he’d told us. The assertion that it was Unseelies sounded like little more than a convenient excuse to rile Eth’s young teen hormones into a frenzy of rage. Eth was so full of anger at that age as it was, mostly because Lou and I had clung to his every story about Mom for so many years. We’d asked him to tell us everything he knew over and over so that all of his precious memories had become nothing more than an irritation to him. If we’d known the same things he did—had our own memories of her beyond vague recollections—he never would’ve had to expend so much of himself in sharing her.
Nana’s death had been the incident that had seen us undergo our sanctification at a younger age than anyone else in the Rain ever had.
And it had all been fabrications and lies.
I shoved off the sofa and stalked to the other end of the room. “That fucking bastard,” I growled. Even as I said the words, something hit me. We’d never met any of Mom’s other family, hadn’t really gone into too much detail about it at all in the short time we’d known each other. I spun. “How many siblings do you have?”
The way Mom crumbled answered my question. She’d had the one.
“Aiden . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence as the reality struck me.
“Was their son,” Mom finished for me. “He lost his mother and his father because of my selfish desires.”
“Does he know?” Mackenzie asked.
Mom gave one single nod. “After Evelyn left the court, when he told me about Clay, I explained it all to him. He was . . . angry at first. Understandably. He lost some of his innocence that day. However, we have discussed it at length in the time since, and he has advised he holds no ill will toward our family. He even went so far to say I should forgive myself. However, that is impossible. For me, it is as if my sister died at my hand.”
“She didn’t though,” Eth said. “She died at mine.”
“You were not to know who she was to you,” Mom said.
“No one can blame you, Eth,” Lou said at the same time Mom issued her reassurance.
“It’s in the past,” I said as the information wrapped around the history I already knew. As far as I was concerned, there were only two people who were culpable in the whole mess. Two people who needed to pay the price. Dad and Caelan. Caelan had already paid with his life, which just left Dad. I found my way back to the seat at Lou’s side.
“Still, I’m sorry I shot her,” Eth said. “And I’m sorry I shot at you too.”
Mom reached her hand out to him. “I regret that you were ever put into a situation where you had to make that choice.”
“Dad’s the one who needs to apologize for that,” he said, echoing my thoughts.
“Dad’s got a lot to answer for,” Lou said, tracing the scars on her arms.
I rested my hand over hers as a way of showing my solidarity. The instant my skin connected with hers, the buzzing I’d experienced in Bayview rang in my head. I recognized it at once, the anti-fae charms. It struck me that the scars on her arms were the same anti-fae symbols that adorned the walls of Bayview. Ones we’d drawn all our life to keep ourselves safe from the fae.
Dad knew she was fae, and he’d still done that to her.
My gaze snapped to hers. Her ice-blue irises flashed with fear and her eyes widened as our gazes locked. An unspoken moment passed between us where I understood that the pain I felt was what she always lived with.
“He needs to pay,” I said to her. If anyone else thought I was shifting the conversation, they didn’t say anything.
“There is something else I needed to discuss with you all,” Mom said, “and that is the tradition of lineage.”
We all turned back toward her.
“Mackenzie has been trained for her entire life to be poised to take over the court on my abdication or death. However, convention dictates that you, Louise, are the rightful heir to the throne.”
Both Mackenzie and Louise went to speak at the same time, but Mom raised one hand to silence them.
“I will not listen to any discussions regarding who should or should not take over the role of queen for the time being. For now, the default is Louise as court tradition decrees it.” She turned to glance at Louise. “As such, I expect you to be trained in the traditions of the court and to take an interest in the politics involved here. I will ensure of course that it does not interfere with your need for private time with young Benjamin, or whoever else you decide to spend quiet time with.
“However, Mackenzie,”—she turned to my half-sister—“I will also expect you to continue to act as crown princess in case your sister chooses to abdicate the throne as soon as she receives it.”
“What if I don’t want to do it?” Lou asked.
“I think even if you have no interest in becoming queen, learning about the court will help you discover more about yourself and the traditions that govern you. I believe it will give you a sense of self you may feel is lacking after the discovery of Caelan’s deception.”
When Lou’s breath caught and her lips mashed closer, I assumed Mom had hit the mark firmly.
“Ethan, Clay, I expect you to show your sisters the deference they deserve while they are performing official duties. Just as you show me the respect of the matriarch when we are together in an official capacity.”
Both Eth and I agreed without question. Despite the revelations that had gone down, I couldn’t help fighting a smile.
“What is it?” Lou asked.
I chuckled. “I always said you were a princess. Now we know for sure.”
She punched my shoulder.
“That’s not very befitting of a princess,” I complained.
“Au contraire,” Mom said. “Part of the training in our court for any upcoming queen includes combat training. How can a royal expect the court to protect her if she cannot offer the same in return?”
“Yeah, Clay,” Lou said, before poking her tongue out at me.
“However, that behavior is not very befitting of a princess,” Mom said with a chuckle.
“I have one favor to ask you guys,” I
said. “I would prefer it if what we spoke about here doesn’t get back to Evie. At least not yet.”
I had a few sets of eyes fall on me. “I just . . . Aiden’s her friend. If he hasn’t told her this, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t or she would’ve mentioned it by now, he obviously doesn’t want her to know. Perhaps he doesn’t think she’d have the faith in us that she does now if she found out how his parents died. Or maybe he just wants it left in the past. Either way, I think it’s his place to decide if and when to tell her.” I hated keeping secrets from her, but there were times where it simply wasn’t my place to say anything.
“I understand and agree,” Mom said.
Everyone else murmured their agreement before Mom talked a little more about what Lou could expect now that she was heir apparent, and also what would be expected of Eth and me when it came to dealing with Mackenzie and Lou in public.
By the time we were interrupted with food, the atmosphere in the room was closer to the celebration earlier that morning than the somber occasion I’d walked into.
CHAPTER THREE
IN THE MONTH and a half that followed, everything changed.
It took only three words to do it. “Clay . . . I’m pregnant.”
I’d never expected to hear those words from Evie. Never dared hope that we could start our own family that way. Those words were a catalyst for change though, leaving us with a number of decisions to make within a now-fixed timeframe.
“Do you know whether there are any protected communities in New York?” The question on my lips was probably a little rude; I’d barely said hello to my mom before it sprung from me. Still, I figured as the queen she would be informed about the likelihood of there being communities where Evie and I could move to that would offer Evie the protection she needed in her current condition.
Her current pregnant condition.
The words still seemed odd to me. We’d barely settled into life together when she’d sprung the news on me.
Living with Embers: (Son of Rain #4) Page 2