IT HAD BEEN HOURS SINCE DINNER, AND THE MANOR WAS CLOAKED IN
sleep. The very bricks of the walls might’ve been sighing in peaceful slumber. I, on the other hand, hadn’t slept since the night before
Reaper’s Cavern, and feared I wasn’t likely to ever again.
My next swig of bitter lavender spirit burned considerably less than the first. I sank deeper into the couch, watching the low, crackling fire. It flickered and twirled like a beleaguered dancer, once passionate but now half-hearted and lazy—tired of its own routine.
I was tired, too.
How could I have raged at Arwen like that back in Peridot? I had been nasty, crude, entirely immature—
I had promised to keep my distance, and now that she was finally finding happiness— I ran a hand down my face in aggravation and groaned into my palm.
“Would you like a small violin to play alongside your brooding?” Turning, I spied Briar, unclasping her fur and hanging it up in the foyer.
I shut my eyes and leaned into the leather, hearing only the tinkling of ice against crystal and the patter of shoes being kicked off. A brightness behind my eyelids pried them open, and I beheld the previously guttering fireplace now fierce and roaring as Briar slunk into the chair across from me.
“I preferred the dark.”
“Of course you did.” Briar smirked. “King of Darkness, Prince of Shadow . . . Don’t you tire of your own misery?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. “Who was your mysterious dinner with?” “Another witch. One of the Antler coven back in Lumera.”
“Did they have any news?
“Broderick and Isolde are concerned. Word is spreading that they have aligned with Onyx.”
“But they haven’t.” Nobody but myself and the royals knew of our plans to wed Princess Sera to my successor. “They offered hardly forty people asylum.”
“I relayed as much, but my companion said they fear Lazarus will get wind of such notions.”
“Wonderful,” I growled. More complications. “I’ll send the prince to Shadowhold to meet with Lieutenant Eardley. They can find a way to contact his parents.”
“Plotting to have the Fae girl all to yourself?”
The fire snapped at us and I felt the licks of heat across my face. “I’m in no mood tonight, Briar.”
Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “What is it you hope to do in Crag’s Hollow?”
I had wanted to ask her this since we arrived. “Did you keep in touch with Esme over the years?”
“No,” Briar said, swirling her drink and staring down at the little caramel whirlpool she had created. “I haven’t spoken to her since we left Lumera.”
“She was like a daughter to you.”
“And she still feels betrayed like one. Her mother died fighting alongside us.”
“Think she feels betrayed enough to work with Amber?” Briar pursed her lips. “Why do you ask?”
“Amber knows of her, somehow. I’m not sure how they found Esme, or what she’s offering them, but it’s worth finding out. We have no other leads on the blade. I’m fishing for a miracle.”
Briar clucked her tongue. “I doubt she can do much to aid your search. She inherited very little lighte from her mother, and none of her seeing
abilities.”
“I know.” I shook my head. It didn’t make any sense.
Briar leaned in closer. “You shouldn’t have kept her from me.” I had been waiting for this. “I know that.”
Briar’s mouth twisted. “And even if Esme somehow helps you find the blade . . . what then? You cannot save the girl, Kane.”
I held my face neutral. “Then I’ll go to the Pearl Mountains.”
The last and only trick I had up my sleeve. A theory from decades ago, that because the prophecy spoke of my father’s death at the hands of the second-born son, I might be able to carry out the deed in her stead. After my father, and Arwen, I was the closest to full-blooded that existed.
“Ah.” Briar clucked her tongue at me. “To take her place.”
“I’ve read everything that exists about Pearl’s libraries, their scholars, their priests. I’ve studied every interpretation of the seer’s words. And all of her sister’s prophecies and her mother’s for good measure. It might be possible.”
It was a relief of sorts, to speak the words out loud. The plan had been stored in the recesses of my mind for years. A plan I never thought I’d have to attempt once I found the final full-blooded Fae.
“The prophecy says final Fae of full blood born at last. You are not full- blooded. You cannot be reborn.”
“It also says a king doomed to fall at the hands of his second son. That’s me.” I gave a sardonic grin.
“What about a king that can only meet his end at her hands?” When surprise lit my face, she smiled. “You thought you were the only one who had read the seer’s words a few hundred times?”
“It’s vague, as all prophecies are. Perhaps he takes his dying breath in her arms after I’ve killed him. Or, maybe by meeting her, it led to his end. Look, Briar, either way, I have to try. I love her.”
Briar appraised the crackling flames before us. “Would you still go if she felt the same for you as you did for her? You’ll lose what little time you might have left together.”
“I’d still go,” I answered truthfully. “But it helps that she doesn’t.”
There was no possible outcome in which I allowed Arwen to pay the ultimate price for the safety of the realms. The only way to save her from such a fate was to find a way to take her place. If anything, it was a mercy I’d be long gone before I had to watch her grow old with someone else, Fedrik or otherwise. I could almost ignore the jealousy that infested my mind, crawling across every jagged cleft of my brain until I grimaced.
“I don’t know much about Pearl’s priests or scholars,” Briar continued. “But there’s only one man who can help you: the White Crow.”
I raised a single brow at her.
“He resides on a remote peak in Pearl’s Vorst region. I don’t know if he still practices magic, but if anyone can turn you from nearly full-blooded to true Fae, it’s him. The White Crow is chief among the most gifted sorcerers to ever grace Evendell. Be warned, though,” she said, her lilac eyes dimming. “He’s never been right-minded. Be wary of what you let him do to you.”
For a while we sat in silence, listening to the cracks and whistles of the enchanted fireplace. I sipped my whiskey and thought of Mari upstairs. Her resilient spirit so like the flame that flickered before us. Her hair, too.
“You were a Foxfire, right? Before you married Perry and became a Creighton?”
Briar dipped her head slowly, eyes now down on her own drink.
“Why do you fear Mari is part of the coven, if they have been extinct for so long?”
“She used my amulet to bolster her magic. She is channeling our lineage. It wouldn’t have done anything for a witch from another coven.”
“What is there to fear? Your last one still living.”
Briar’s eyes fell to mine, fraught and unreadable. “Perhaps you’re right.” Briar, too, was from a family whose . . . beliefs she didn’t share. Perhaps that was why she was so quick to join my cause all those years ago. My
plight against my father was one she knew well.
As usual, the thought of him turned my stomach rancid. The heat from the flames was beginning to radiate into my wool shirt and make my skin crawl. I stood and stretched my legs. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Good luck, Kane.”
I wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but I needed luck in so many different ways I didn’t bother to ask.
With effort, I dragged my tired limbs up the creaking maple stairs into the dark hallway. I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but perhaps lying in silence could bring some peace to my mind. I’d try not to think of wartime deals or sadistic covens or mad sorcerers.
I’d try not to think of Arwen.
My hand was wrapped around the doorknob of my guest room when light footsteps pattered into the hall behind me. My heart shuddered.
“Why are you awake?” I said into the door. I almost couldn’t bear to look at her. I knew what the sight of Arwen, barefoot, hair mussed, and wrapped in that silky robe from this morning would do to me.
“How did you know it was me?”
Such a silly question. As if I couldn’t sense her the moment she stepped into a room, smell her orange blossom skin, hear the musical tone of her sighs and hums.
“Lucky guess,” I said, finally turning to face her.
Gods, I had been right—she looked like a night-blooming vision, born out of starlight itself. Her long dark hair pulled into a low ribbon but still messy from tossing and turning, unable to sleep. The silken white robe veiling her like a divine spirit. I wanted to worship at her feet. I would, if she’d let me.
“I was going to make some tea,” she said. “Do you want some?”
Yes. Anything you are willing to offer me. I will drink it from your very lips.
“No.”
Her face fell slightly, but she made no move to walk past me.
“Good night,” I said, my voice sounding more like a growl than I intended. I cleared my throat. “Sleep well.”
I should have apologized for my outburst after seeing her with Fedrik. But I compelled myself to enter the guest room and close the door before I did something idiotic instead like kiss her. Or ask her to marry me.
I needed my head looked at.
Kicking off my shoes and clothes, I crawled into the stiff bed. My skin was hot, my heart restless in my chest. Being stalled in this manor together was the problem. We needed to get back on the road. Perhaps I’d—
When my door squeaked open, it was honeysuckle and orange blossom that drifted through the room.
