RAIN HAD STARTED AT SOME POINT I COULDN’T RECALL, AND MY NOSE
and eyelashes were now misted with cool, wet drops. I fell to my knees against uneven cobblestone.
“Arwen.” Kane’s voice was rough. The deluge blurred my vision.
That and the guilt. More guilt than I knew what to do with. And shock at Beth’s words.
Pure shock.
My hands gripped the cool rock beneath me to steady myself, and my nails scraped against wet, unmoving stone. I wasn’t sure what I was clawing at.
“Arwen,” Kane said again, crouching down on one knee, the puddled rainwater leeching into his nice pants. I could feel him beside me. His warmth radiating toward my body. Could see the white of his shirt billowing in the static wind.
But he wasn’t touching me.
I had murdered—murdered—hundreds of Fae soldiers, Mari was in some kind of magic-induced coma because I hadn’t listened to her, Fedrik had nearly lost his leg trying to save me, and now—
I had poisoned my own mother. For twenty years, I had made her sick.
Brought her to the brink of death. I had practically killed her—
Or, had I caused that, too? She never would have been in Peridot in the first place had I not asked Kane to bring her to me.
I was a healer, and all I had done was harm people. And my . . . father. A god. A Fae god.
A gruesome laugh slipped from my lips. “Can you stand, bird?”
I sucked in a lungful of air until my chest grew cold, and it did nothing at all to steady me. My power, my lighte itched and twisted at my fingertips
—fueled by guilt and grief, building inside me, ratcheting up my neck and down the backs of my legs and into my ankles and toes.
I tried to stand, and made it halfway up before a dizzy rush forced my arm against the wet exterior of the sweetshop to hold me upright.
“Arwen.”
I whirled my eyes to Kane and could only make out the thin trail of a raindrop dripping down his nose. My vision was tunneling.
“Take a deep breath for me?”
The wind was shallow in my lungs. I shut my eyes against the storm and Beth’s words and all the pain and all the agonizing power, and willed the cool droplets to soothe the burning in my heart.
“Let’s get you home,” Kane said. “I don’t have a home.”
“Don’t get self-pitying on me now, bird. Shadowhold will always be your home.”
“It’s everyone else I pity. Everyone who’s unfortunate enough to grow close to me.”
His broad hands grasped my shoulders—so gentle, and yet with enough firmness to drag my eyes upward. “You were a fetus. You didn’t sicken her on purpose. Your mother loved you, Arwen. She knew what you were, and what carrying you would do to her, and still, she loved you more than anything.”
I let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “And look what good it did her.”
He pulled me out into the street, where we were met by a disorienting downpour. The wind howled angrily against the cliffs and the merchants’ carts around us swayed with the force of the storm. Townspeople were seeking shelter under awnings and crowding into taverns and shops. The
angry, rippling lake loomed behind a dock that had all but emptied out, its water thrashing at the half-sunken, driftwood stilts.
“Can you fly in this?” I asked him, my voice lost in the gusting wind.
“I can, but it won’t be pleasant for either of us.” He squinted up through the rain at the narrow clock tower in the distance, water plastering his dark hair to his forehead and dripping into his eyes. His shirt was soaked. “It’s late. We should stay here for the night. Come on.”
Kane dragged me through the storm, around carts and boats and scraggly trees with no leaves. The wind chilled my bones through my cloak, but I didn’t mind. Sorrow, despair—both had been replaced by a dull headache that made me feel more tired than anything.
Finally, we arrived at the cornflower-blue door of Kane’s seaside cottage.
Using a single wisp of obsidian lighte, he opened the home to us and we slipped inside.
Deafening silence enveloped me.
It was dark and icy cold—clearly no one had been here for months. I stood awkwardly, shivering and dripping on the rich hardwood floor.
“I’ll just be a moment. Make yourself comfortable.” He crossed the room to a round, rustic table, and slung his sword and scabbard off, dropping them atop it beside a small vase that held two wilted orchids, completely dried up and nearly paper-thin.
Pulling his coat and gloves off, he dropped them as well before moving to the iron fireplace. A single match and few logs formed a small but mighty fire, flames blossoming like flowers from the kindling.
Kane motioned for me to sit in front of the hearth as he slipped into the dark kitchen. I heard him rummaging before he came back with a kettle and placed it atop the flames. Then, with one match, he lit all the lanterns in the home and a few dark, dusty candles as well.
Amid the newfound glow, I assessed the cottage in earnest.
It wasn’t unlike Kane’s bedroom in Shadowhold: masculine, dark, a little cluttered, surprisingly warm and cozy. The bay windows overlooking the lake were as exquisite as he had told me earlier. Soft linen curtains
framed them with care, and a low, cushioned bench jutted out from underneath the glass, making for a nook one could sit in and peer out into the abyss from for hours.
“Arwen?”
“Yes?” My voice didn’t sound like my own. “Do you want to come sit down?”
“Sure.”
A pause, and then, “You aren’t moving, though.”
I tried to remember why it was worth doing anything. Worth sitting down, getting warm. I was suddenly sure, with complete confidence, that nothing mattered at all.
When I laughed, Kane’s brows pinched together.
Crossing the room to me, Kane unlaced my cloak from my neck, his cold, wet knuckles grazing the sensitive skin at the base of my throat. He pulled it off me cautiously and took my frozen hands in his.
“Can you come take a seat over here with me?” The gentleness in his voice made me itch. I didn’t like when he was like this. Soft and kind and pliable. It meant he was worried about me. That something was wrong.
And it was true. Everything was wrong.
“I’m fine,” I said, and walked stiffly over to the white couch with its sea-hued pillows and thick, knitted blanket. I sat down in front of the now roaring fire and tucked the blanket around me like a shield.
“You’re still shivering,” he said, sitting down beside me, the cushions sagging under his weight.
“And you’re dripping on your own couch.”
Kane looked down at his soaking shirt, wet strands of hair hanging over his brow.
“So I am,” he said, and stood, slipping his white shirt off over his head in one fell swoop. His golden skin glowed in the dim firelight, a sheen of rain still coating his lean, muscled torso. Kane walked behind me, into another room, and came out a few moments later in a dry black shirt and soft linen pants as dark as the sky outside. He strode back into the sage-tiled kitchen—much too small for his rippling shoulders and considerable frame
—and dug through the cupboards before he found some loose tea and two mugs.
“Here,” he said, once he had poured the boiling water into both of them and handed me one. “It’ll warm you up.”
The warmth from the mug seeped into my chilled hands as promised, and I brought the ceramic to my lips, letting the steam tickle my nose. Jasmine and chamomile. Maybe a bit of vanilla . . . I sipped, willing the tea to mend whatever was shredded inside of me.
Kane sat and watched me until I set the mug down on the low antique table in front of us.
“I was what made my mother ill. All those years, trying so hard to heal her.” My stomach turned. “She was only sick because she had me.”
“You didn’t know, bird. There was nothing you could have done differently.”
“I understand that, but . . . I also killed all those men. On the beach—” “Men who had slaughtered an entire capital. Men who were there to kill
you.”
I shook my head. He didn’t get it. “Maybe Powell was right all along. To hate me. To beat me. I was the reason his wife was suffering.”
Kane’s face was calm, but something solemn simmered behind those eyes.
“I want to tell you a story,” he said, placing his mug on the table.
When he didn’t continue, I nodded once, kicking off my shoes and tucking my knees underneath me.
“I was about the Fae equivalent of eighteen when I decided to overthrow my father. My older brother, Yale, was the first person I told of my plan. Years earlier, the seer had told our family of the prophecy. My father had hunted every day for the last full-blooded Fae after that. Had his spies and sentries look through every village, every home in Lumera. But the Fae was nowhere to be found.” He paused, his eyes lifting to mine. “So I told my older brother it was time we did something. Before he found this Fae girl, had her killed, and lived forever, slowly draining our realm of lighte, building up his wall, forcing our people into slavery.
“It wasn’t right, the way he ruled. Not just for the people, but for the realm itself. Our seas were running dry, our green fields shriveling into land so barren it cracked. My brother and I knew what the prophecy said. That only the last full-blooded Fae could kill him, but I thought prophecies had loopholes, and semantics that could be worked around. I had the Blade of the Sun—it was a prized possession of my father’s, and he kept it in his throne room beside his crown—and I had . . .” He looked down at his hands ruefully. “A lot of passion. I was young, angry, ready to fight—I wanted to do something worthwhile to help my people.
“So I went to every powerful person I thought I could convince to join me. Briar and her husband, Perry, took little convincing. Griffin was even easier, of course. Dagan was our kingsguard and the best swordsman I knew. He was the only mortal that fought beside us. With the help of the very seer who spelled my father’s fate, I even convinced Aleksander Hale to join us, the leader of a peculiarly savage race of Fae called Hemolichs. There were others, too. Nobles, spies, generals.”
“How?” I asked. “How did you convince them all to risk everything?”
His answering laugh was bitter. “Sheer will and a deep well of rage. I think they knew I was going to do something with or without them. Some of them probably joined out of fear. Others out of the same naive hope I had. Hope for change.”
I gave a shallow nod and brought the steaming mug to my lips, the room suddenly chilly again despite the roaring hearth.
“I went back to Yale months later with my plan. We had everything we needed, but I wouldn’t do it without him. I couldn’t. He was my older brother, my closest friend.” Kane sighed. “I worshipped him.”
My heart might have been bleeding. “What was he like?”
“Brilliant. Funny. Agreeable. He hated conflict and never had a cross word to say about anyone. He was stronger than me,” Kane admitted with no shame or arrogance. “And calmer. I had always been ruled by my emotions. They often say the dragon child is controlled by whatever is in their heart.”
“That’s what your father called you that day at Siren’s Bay. ‘The dragon child.’ ”
“He used to say we were the same. The only two dragon-shifting Fae in our family. In all the realms, now. Every time he says it, it makes me sick,” Kane said, staring up at the ceiling.
“What did your brother say when you went back to him?”
Kane laughed, bleak and unfeeling. “ ‘You’re going to get us all killed.’ ” He finally turned to face me, eyes piercing. “And he was right. As always. It was exactly what happened.”
I knew how the story ended, but still, his words pulled the air from my lungs.
“Aleksander turned on us. Told my father everything in return for freedom for his people, enslaved as one of my father’s many armies. I, too, had promised them freedom, but we were the riskier bet. So my father knew we were coming.” Kane’s voice had grown quiet. “I only landed one single blow on him with the blade. Down his back, along his spine. In that moment, harnessing the Blade of the Sun, I thought I had vanquished the greatest evil to ever live. But all he did was laugh.”
Lazarus and his punishing gray eyes, knowing in that moment he had won. As horrible an image as any I could fathom.
“He said it was the only chance I would ever get, and that I had failed. And then, he annihilated us. Days later we were brought out to the gallows to watch those we loved executed in front of his entire court.”
I couldn’t stop my sharp intake of breath. My trembling legs. I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want—
“Dagan’s wife and infant child, Griffin’s parents—his father was Lazarus’s own general. Briar’s husband. Each of them, hanged one by one. I can still hear the creak of the wood beneath their feet as they walked . . . The snaps of their necks. I dream of it nearly every night.
“It was a vicious show of power and mercilessness. He made sure every single Fae and mortal in the realm knew never to cross him again,” Kane said, his hands shaking. “And then he brought up my mother.”
My stomach sank so quickly I was sure I would vomit. I gripped my mug until my fingertips grew white.
“His own wife, Arwen, his own queen.” Kane’s eyes were shining. “He had her killed because he knew it would devastate me and Yale more than it could ever hurt him. I can still remember the look of shock on her face. They hadn’t had a happy marriage by any means, but still. She had never seen it coming.
“Before I could move a single muscle, Yale . . . He tried to save her. Got about four feet before my father took him out himself. He killed him instantly. A spear of ice to the base of his skull.
“They hanged her moments later, while she was still weeping over her son’s body. I lost them both. Because of my stupid, fearless righteousness.” He wiped brusquely at his eyes before taking another sip of his tea. The rain continued to slam against the cottage roof.
Hot tears coated my cheeks. “Kane, I . . .”
“My biggest regret isn’t trying to overthrow him. It isn’t even that I failed. It’s that I didn’t die protecting them.”
“How can you say that? They chose to fight beside you.”
“That’s why it should only have been me up there,” he bit out. “They died because of my failure. I have to live with that, every day.”
He leaned back and released a long, slow breath. “After, my father assumed we would be so scarred, so beaten into submission that we would return to our rightful places in his court. He even offered Griffin his father’s post as general.
“Some considered that generous. Many felt it was better to be with Lazarus and alive than against him and dead. Or worse. But we couldn’t stay another minute in Lumera under his rule. So Griffin and I fled to Evendell, with as many in tow as we could manage.”
Kane was quiet a moment, before adding, “I spent the next fifty years blaming myself for what happened—hating myself because of it. There was no end in sight to my self-loathing, to my need for revenge—it was the only thing that could justify their sacrifice. Could make my life worth living. It
was all that mattered to me.” His eyes lifted to mine with a look I had never seen in them before. “Until I met you.”
Too many emotions were welling up inside of me. Ones I had been fighting to keep buried for weeks and weeks—
“You are not to blame for your mother’s suffering, Arwen. You are pure good, pure light. I’m sure that’s why your mother lived as long as she did. Not in spite of you, but because of you.”
More tears ran down my cheeks, swift and heavy. “I’m so very sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t even imagine—”
“We all have to live with our choices. But you didn’t make any to hurt the ones you love. These things happened to you, Arwen.” He took the mug from my stiff hands and placed it on the table with his own, before threading my fingers through his. “You are not to blame. For any of this. You have to forgive yourself.”
I wanted to say I’ll try, but all I could manage was a nod.
He sighed once, releasing my fingers, and drew his hand across his still- wet eyes. “And I’ll always be here for you, to help.”
And I don’t know if it was the pain—the raw vulnerability in his voice— or the revelations of the day, or the brutal past week, or simply the rhythmic pounding of rain against glass and stone, but a surge of emotion I had been stifling down, pressing into the farthest, most buried recesses of my very soul came barreling out with the force of a tidal wave.
“But I won’t,” I whispered. “I won’t be here.”
My chest and neck felt hot and sticky, and I realized I was well and truly crying. “I don’t want this,” I admitted through the tears, the truth spilling from my lips after all this time. “I never wanted to sacrifice myself. I want to end Lazarus, I swear that I do. I want to save all the suffering people, kill him for what he did to you, and Dagan, and Griffin, but . . .” The words were barreling out too fast to catch, to cram back inside. “I want a chance at a real life, too. I want to watch Leigh grow up, to have a family of my own, maybe. There’s too much I’ve never seen, too much I’ll never do. And I’m so scared . . . of what it will feel like. If there will be anything after. Of how
much it will hurt.” I choked on the word. The pain I imagined would devour me as the life was drained from my heart.
“I don’t want to be the full-blooded Fae. I don’t want to save the realms. I don’t want to be brave.” All the thoughts that I had buried so deep within myself were finally free. It was the most agonizing relief I had ever felt. “I don’t want to die, Kane.”
“I know,” he said. “I know you don’t.”
He wrapped me in his arms and I wept into his chest. I cried for my short, lonely life, which was going to be snuffed out right when I might have finally found the things worth living for. I cried for Leigh and Ryder losing another family member. For Mari. For Dagan.
And I cried for Kane. For the horrendous things he had seen. For those he had lost. His guilt, his suffering. His mother. His brother. His too-large, passionate heart that only ever meant to do good. And for the fact that even if I succeeded in killing his greatest enemy, Lazarus would still win. He’d still take someone else Kane loved with him when he went.
I cried and cried and cried—fat ugly tears, deep heaving sobs. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to. I wanted to suffocate in my grief and leave the weight of the world on someone else’s shoulders. And all the while, Kane held me, rubbing slow circles into my back. Tucking my hair away from my wet face. Murmuring soothing words against the top of my head.
Until finally, there was nothing left to expel. No more grief. No more truths. No more tears. I was free.
