by Skye Horn
“She took on Malachi alone.” Kieran’s answer was instant. He remembered, although there had been some other life-changing things that had happened between those two events that he didn’t feel appropriate talking about with Ethel, no matter how much older she dressed.
“Exactly.” Ethel crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I should have told her that coming here was a mistake, but she was so hopeful…”
Kieran’s breath caught, eyes widening as Ethel’s words sank straight to the pit of his aching stomach. He thought he might be sick.
“She came here because of me?” he choked out.
Kieran had assumed Thea had traveled to Gimmerwich to meet Declan under the command of her High Council and THEN discovered he was here. The idea that she’d come here to see him had never crossed his mind, and he hadn’t even given her a chance to tell him— You are the biggest idiot, Haven’s voice reminded him as his stomach twisted into knots.
“Are you serious, Kieran?” Ethel asked, puffing out a breath from deep inside her chest. She placed her fingers against her temples. Apparently, his surprise was giving her a headache, but he was just as confused. “You actually think Thea would let anyone tell her whom she’s supposed to marry?”
Kieran considered Ethel’s words. If he were thinking clearly, he’d know that Thea hardly listened to him, let alone anyone else.
“She was hoping you’d tell her not to marry Declan, and instead you told her you think she should!”
“I did NOT say that.” Kieran glared, replaying the conversation in his head as if he might recall telling Thea that she should marry that selfish prick of royalty.
“You might as well have.” Ethel rolled her eyes. “I swear, boys are so blind sometimes.”
“She really came here for me…” Kieran said, dazed and trying to control the hope in his own voice.
“Does it make any difference now?”
In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t make a difference. Thea was still the future Queen of Ivandor, and he was still a soldier who’d broken his oath to her. They had a soul bond, sure, but what good did that do you when the entire kingdom thought you didn’t belong together? Or when you put that same kingdom at risk by even being together?
“She also sent me here to check if you are okay.” Ethel sighed and once again, Kieran was racked with guilt. Thea, his Thea, whom he’d hurt so terribly just hours before, wanted to make sure he was okay. She’d sent Mica to check on him months ago, and he’d always known Mica was there for more than a little one-on-one training. But what had Kieran done to show Thea what she meant to him? He’d betrayed her trust, left her alone in a world she hardly knew anything about, and today, he’d said terrible things that he didn’t even mean, just to get her to see his point, as if her choice in any of it didn’t matter.
“By the look on your face, I’d say you’ve decided you’re as much of an idiot as the rest of us think you are,” Ethel said, and it surprised Kieran to see a slight smile on her face.
“Frankly, I don’t know why you all even bother with me,” Kieran said, half-serious. “I screw everything up.”
“True, but you’re our screwup to look out for.” Ethel shrugged and scooted over to give Kieran an awkward side-armed hug. “I for one have missed you a lot.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Kieran said, pulling Ethel against his side just as he’d done when she was little, but now she’d grown into a young woman—he would remember that. “I’m going to make this right.”
He didn’t know how he would do that, but he knew that he needed to. Whether he and Thea could ever be together was something he didn’t know the answer to. Morrigan had been hiding something when she spoke to him before, and he was determined to discover what that was, but for now, he needed to make things right with his family.
And that included Thea.
If the last six months had taught Kieran anything, it was that he couldn’t live without her.
He was about to tell Ethel how sorry he was again when the door burst open and Mica dashed into the room. Amara was close behind him, and for the first time in quite a few months, Kieran saw darkness swirling behind her eyes. Something was very wrong.
“We have to go,” Mica demanded, hardly looking at Kieran as he reached for Ethel. His face was pale and his eyes were panicked, sending Kieran into protective overdrive. He tightened his grip on Ethel, wrapping his wings around her as he pulled her up from the bed with him.
“What happened?” Kieran asked. The words were not a question Mica could avoid. They were a soldier’s command. However, Mica hesitated, meeting Ethel’s eyes for approval before turning his attention on Kieran.
Each word bit into Kieran’s soul like the icy chill of winter as Mica said, “Thea tried to kill herself.”
Kieran was out the door of his bedroom and down the stairs in what seemed like a single movement. He barked a strangled command at Amara to escort Mica and Ethel to the castle as he burst through the tavern door.
The buzz of inescapable magic in his ears drowned out the sounds of their protests as he soared into the starlit sky with a massive gust of wind that would take him to his mate.
Chapter 17
Thea awoke to Declan sitting at her bedside looking as pale as a ghost. His hands were curled into the blanket on top of her, but she didn’t recognize the room they were in. Haven leaned against a nearby wall, scrutinizing Thea from head to toe, but didn’t say a word. The linen sheets of the bed were cold against her dampened skin, but the bed itself felt tiny. She tried moving her strangled wings out from beneath her, groaning through the strain of her back muscles until a hand reached out to hold her down—Iris.
“What are you doing here?” Thea croaked out. Her eyes darted around for something to quench the burning in her throat. Iris handed her a glass of cloudy liquid from the table beside her bed.
“Ethel sent for me,” Iris said, and helped support her head as she drank. A deep frown wrinkled her skin. Thea gagged a little as she tasted the bitter liquid in the glass, but it relieved the raw pain at the back of her throat, so she forced herself to drink every drop.
Ethel, who stood in the corner with Mica, stared at Thea with furious, tear-filled eyes. Thea wanted to shrink back into her blanket beneath her look of betrayal.
“W-what’s going on?” she asked, glancing between their faces. How had she gotten here? What was here? And when had Ethel sent for Iris? That journey would have taken days…
Thea’s stomach twisted into angry knots as she waited for someone to explain what was going on, and she threw her upper body over the edge of the bed, dry-heaving the empty contents from inside. She felt miserable. She was starving, and yet, the thought of eating anything was nauseating. Her insides contracted with every movement, and Iris pulled her hair away from her face, although nothing came up as she convulsed.
“Breathe, Thea,” Iris whispered. Thea could hardly focus, though.
“Will someone p-please just tell me what the hell is h-happening to me?” Thea whimpered. Each set of eyes in the room contained differing emotions ranging from worried to angry, to livid in Haven’s case.
“What’s happening to you!?” she growled. “The healers barely saved your life after I dragged you from that tub three days ago is what is happening to you.”
Thea just stared at Haven with wide, confused eyes as her convulsions reduced and Iris helped her back into a comfortable position in bed.
“I get that Kieran hurt you,” Haven continued, moving to stand over Thea’s bed, as the rest of the room held its breath. “But killing yourself doesn’t fix that!”
Haven’s glare could have shattered sheet rock it was that hard. With a defiant chin, she fixed her fierce eyes on Thea’s blank expression.
Killing herself? When had she tried to kill herself? Dragged from the tub?
Thea tried to remember how she’d gotten into this bed. She remembered being at dinner with the queen; she remembered walking the garden
s with Declan; and she remembered the kiss that had made her lose control of her magic.
What had happened after that?
Her confusion must have been clear, because Declan, who was still avoiding looking at her, said, “You nearly died, Thea.”
Thea recalled the raging sea of anger she’d experienced after they’d kissed, the fire that had surrounded her, and then the bath she’d taken to calm the storm within her.
The red mare flashed through her mind.
“Ainé,” Thea said sharply. She turned her gaze upward to Iris, ignoring the baffled looks of the rest of her companions as the missing piece of information clicked into place.
Three days. No wonder Declan’s expression was such a ghastly gray. She understood why Haven and Ethel were so angry, but none of that mattered compared to what she needed to tell them.
Three days since she’d heard from Ainé—that was what mattered.
“What?” Iris responded. Her expression shifted from a worried friend’s concern to the polished mask of a High Council member.
“Ainé is alive.” Thea sat up straight and pushed away the hands that tried to hold her down. Although the liquid Iris had given her had soothed her throat, Thea’s lungs still burned from whatever water she’d inhaled before Haven got her out of the tub. She didn’t know how long she’d been submerged for. It had felt like only seconds, but seconds didn’t nearly kill someone. Seconds wouldn’t make everyone think it was suicide.
“You weren’t trying—” Ethel said, sniffling.
“Of course not.”
“What?” Haven and Declan said in unison. Thea had nearly forgotten they were there and knew nothing about what she was talking about.
“Shut that,” Iris told Mica, who stood nearest to the door.
Once it was closed, they gathered around Thea. Ethel scooted to sit on the bed while Mica mimicked Haven’s position at the outskirts of their group—constant protectors of the princess. Thea considered whether she should send Declan and Haven from the room, but if she meant for Haven to lead her guard she would need to trust her. As for Declan, he’d confused her the night before with his kiss, but before that point, they had started being honest with each other.
“If I tell you this,” she said, meeting his gaze, “you cannot tell anyone. Do you understand?”
Everyone’s eyes were on Declan, because apparently Haven had earned her trust with the group already. As soon as he nodded his head in agreement, Thea launched into a retelling of what had actually happened the night she’d faced Morrigan in Ivandor.
At first, it was terrifying to confess that something connected her life to the Goddess of Death. She wondered if Haven and Declan would tell her she was selfish for living with that knowledge, but soon, the weight of that burden felt lifted from her shoulders. She figured Declan would at least tell her she had been selfish for trading Kieran’s life for the Goddess’ freedom, but she didn’t really care. That decision was one she would live with, because no matter what happened, it was one she’d make again. However, when she told them Ainé had disappeared, the expressions around her changed.
“So, this entire time we’ve been warning people that Morrigan returned, while you hid information that our only hope of possibly defeating her might be dead?” Declan breathed, staring at Thea in disbelief. “And she wouldn’t be free if it weren’t for—”
“Enough,” Iris warned before Declan could finish his accusation.
“I’ve been holding onto hope that Ainé wasn’t dead and trying to convince my High Council that finding her is more important than marrying you,” Thea snapped. Her head throbbed, and she didn’t have the patience for his accusations about not doing enough to find Ainé. She’d done everything in her power to make things right, but a princess really had no pull in her kingdom—not without a queen’s crown. “And what I am trying to tell you, Declan, is that last night—well, three nights ago—I heard her.”
Her lack of control in her own kingdom was not the only thing making her angry though. She remembered her fury from the night in the gardens and bared her teeth at him as the ferocity of her unstable magic surfaced. Declan flinched, settling back into his chair with a glare.
“So she’s not dead,” Haven interrupted, seeming to sense Thea’s loss of control and wanting to get back on point. “She reached out to you, but why now?”
Thea looked away from Declan to Haven, and then shifted her focus to Iris, rubbing her temples as the pain scratched against her skull. She didn’t have an answer to Haven’s question. She only had theories, and those theories would likely get her thrown out of Faerie. However, did that really mean she shouldn’t share them with her closest friends?
Something had been seriously wrong with her that night. Back home, the doctors might have called it a panic attack, but in Faerie, where magic fueled just about everything around and within her, Thea knew it had to be something more. She’d nearly fallen off the precipice of sanity into the dangerously unstable magic that drove her into darkness.
“We will discover the why later,” Iris said, reading Thea’s torn expression. “We need to focus on what our next move will be.”
“I have to find her, Iris,” Thea said. “Even if the council disagrees.”
“You’re right.” Iris smiled, surprising Thea. She let the moment of relief wash over her. The battle she’d been fighting with her High Council since Iris had returned to Grimwalde had been exhausting, but with Iris on her side, Thea felt like she could breathe again. It also meant she was thinking more clearly.
“You all really thought I tried to kill myself?” Thea asked with a frown. “And none of you wondered why I chose to take a warm bath to do it? I could have much more easily jumped out the damn window.” Haven and Declan didn’t know her well enough yet to assume any different, but the rest of them did. Had she really been so depressed lately that they thought she could hurt herself?
Ethel spoke first.
“I think we’ve all just been very worried about you—with everything going on, you just haven’t seemed yourself.”
“I’m not myself,” Thea agreed, looking to each of their expectant faces as she set her hand on the bed against Ethel’s. After how close they’d become over these past few months, Thea hated causing the concern in Ethel’s eyes. “I’ve changed since coming to Faerie, but it’s not like I had a choice. I’m preparing for a coronation, even though no one seems to want me to be queen, and don’t forget my life is tied to the Goddess of Death’s—who, by the way, is trying to get me to come to the dark side. What part of that shouldn’t have changed me?”
No one said anything, but Iris sat on the other side of Thea’s bed with a nod of her head. Iris constantly surprised Thea with her ability to understand Thea’s pattern of thinking. She never questioned Thea’s decisions or second-guessed her choices. In fact, she was one of the few people who hadn’t looked at her differently since Kieran had left. Perhaps it was the fact that Iris had lost her soulmate to Malachi, or perhaps it was gratitude for saving Amara’s life, but whatever it was, Iris’ support never failed.
“You’ve had a lot on your plate these last few months,” she said, patting Thea on the leg. “Which is why I’ve been researching the magic Malachi used to release Morrigan on my own.”
“What?” Thea sat up straight. She didn’t know why she was surprised to discover Iris had been researching behind her back, but the lack of support from her council had convinced her no one wanted Thea anywhere near that magic again. Their focus on preparing Thea for coronation and arranging her marriage had left the whereabouts of the missing Goddess completely off the table, but Iris had never given up. “Did you find out anything?”
“There is lore in Grimwalde that King Aragon was kind enough to loan me about the stories of the past, but it has taken me time to decipher.”
Thea thought of the books Declan had mentioned to her the night in the gardens and wondered if every kingdom had some recorded accounts of history. Would
Ivandor have information from her ancestors that might be helpful to their cause?
“And what does it say?” Haven asked, watching Iris with as much intensity as Thea.
“I found the incantation that I believe he used. I’m hoping that Amara can confirm the information for me,” Iris said, but Thea sensed there was something she wasn’t telling them. She could see it hidden beyond her averted gaze.
“I’m sure Amara can do that,” Thea said, not wanting to bring up Amara’s presence in Gimmerwich yet and more interested in what wasn’t being said. “Tell me the bad news.”
Iris seemed unsurprised by Thea’s observation and said, “It’s dark magic, Thea. Darker magic than anything I’ve ever encountered before…”
“I don’t care,” Thea said. She saw the corners of Iris’ lips pull up into a slight smile at her determination. The power within her veins trembled at the idea of using dark magic again, but Thea ignored it. She didn’t have time to overthink the consequences. “We don’t stand a chance against Morrigan without Ainé.”
Thea was ready for arguments from around the room, but it appeared everyone was waiting for Iris to speak. She’d become a strange leader among the small group of people. Even Declan and Haven watched for her reaction to Thea’s words.
“I think it’s about time we started trusting our future queen to make her own decisions,” Iris murmured. Her eyes flashed to Declan so quickly that Thea thought she might have imagined it, but it made Thea wonder if she was talking about more than the magic. Her cheeks flushed at the realization that she’d had no time to explain the situation with Declan to Iris.
Thea wanted to thank Iris for trusting her and beg her to return to Ivandor with her, but just as Thea was about to speak, the door of the room cracked open and a familiar face peeked inside. Thea’s body tensed at the sight of her half-sister. Her knee-jerk reaction was to reach for a weapon in defense, but a tight squeeze of her hand from Ethel reminded her that Amara was no longer the enemy. She released the breath she’d snatched into her lungs and said, “Come in, Amara.”