A War of Three Kings (Dying Lands #2)

26. Aldrin

Chapter 26

Aldrin

I must be dead, because there is an angel peering down at me, with a halo of fire burning around her. I try to hold on to that image, to soak in that face of the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld, but I slip away into blackness instead.

The next time I open my eyes, she is there again, tears streaming down her face. I want to reach up and brush them away, to kiss those rosy lips and tell her there is nothing to be so sad about, but my body doesn’t obey me.

I fall and fall into a haze of pain.

Fire licks up the side of my face, raging and burning and utterly consuming me. There is nothing else in my existence, just that agony and the angel looking over me. Cold hands grip my head and turn it to the side. I groan as the motion antagonizes my torturous wound. Claws slice up my scalp and down my throat. I am left panting from the simple movement.

And then they start their work on me.

Sharp metal forceps pluck away my very flesh and small scalpels slice my skin. The sensation drags on and on, until I wonder if I ever truly made it out of that dungeon. If my reunion with Keira was a fever dream. My entire body goes rigid with each little stab into that most tender wound. Then it shakes uncontrollably. I try to swat those punishing hands away, but I am as weak as a newborn babe.

They pin down my arms, but someone strokes one of my hands. It is a gentle, loving gesture. Not one that belongs in a dungeon.

“Hold still, please,” a distracted voice orders. “We need to remove the shrapnel. It is preventing your healing.”

Those words trigger a memory and I try to grasp it.

Running across an open field at the back of one human army while another pursues us. Throwing everything I have at them, tearing their ranks apart as I rip open the ground beneath them. Spearing soldiers with hardened root spikes. Whipping up storms.

But then a legion of horsemen gallop at us from the side, and they hold the most peculiar weapons. Like a crossbow, but the miniature bow and string are missing, and there is no sign of an arrow, just a long, metal tube.

Muskets , the humans call them.

I swing my sword at those riders as they appear out of nowhere, my magic near spent, and they pull the triggers on their contraptions. Smoke and sparks explode out of the barrels as metal balls fly from them.

I remember falling and falling, agony ravaging my face, along with the screams of soldiers going down around me. Then I am dragged away. Lifted onto Kai’s back and limply knocked around as he gallops wildly. Except the kelpie didn’t come to this realm, and the arms that hold me are from behind.

I get a sudden reprieve from those needles prying and stabbing into my face and the hands holding me down. I lie there, gasping and shuddering. Oblivion threatens at the edge of my awareness, but I pry open my eyes. I want to see that angel again.

“Keira.” My lips form the name without thought, sprung deep from within my subconscious.

That beauty with curls of red-and-gold hair tumbling around her pale face is all I can see. A smile tugs at my lips, but the movement is painful.

“You’re alive,” I say, and it means everything. Absolutely everything.

The chanting of druids fills my ears, those voices overlapping, singing in a language I do not understand. There is magic in that song. It is foreign to me, a more primal power that draws from the planet itself. I open my eyes again to witness a ring of druids in their crude brown robes around me.

Edmund is there, between me and them, running a hand through hair that is so similar to his daughter’s. His presence makes me wonder again if I am being tortured, but Keira is here, and she wouldn’t allow that.

“I have removed the bullets, but I need to disinfect the site with alcohol and put a poultice on it,” that first voice says.

My hand is squeezed and Keira looks down into my eyes. Her face glistens with tears, but I can’t remember why she is crying. “We are almost done, Aldrin, then you can sleep.” Her other hand runs soothingly across my hair, but she is careful to avoid the side of my face that aches like the skin has been torn from it.

When she pulls away, I brace myself.

Liquid fire pours across my flesh and I scream a guttural sound. My body tries to thrash, but multiple people hold me down. Then fingers press something cold and rough to my wound and it is a different sort of pain, reaching deep within. I am vaguely aware of bandages being wrapped around my head as I black out.

I drift in and out of consciousness, and Keira is always at my side for the few minutes I am aware. The room is cast in long shadows and silvery light when I come fully awake. Keira is curled up on an armchair that is pushed next to my large bed.

“Why don’t you join me in the bed?” I ask.

Her eyes fly open, widening with shock. I reach over to her, but the entire world spins around me and I collapse into the pillows.

“Aldrin?” she whispers.

“Yeah.” It is all I can manage as throbbing pain engulfs the left side of my face. I move a tentative hand up to the bandages, but I don’t have the nerve to touch them. “Where are we?”

“Windkeep Stronghold.” She rises from the chair and hovers over me, her eyes scanning up and down my injury, searching, while a gentle hand rests on my chest.

“Why aren’t you in the bed with me?” I say again. There is far too much space between us.

“I am afraid of hurting you.”

I lift a hand to cup her cheek and stroke my thumb across the line of her jaw. “Don’t be.”

She climbs in so carefully, trying not to rock the bed. The slight movement is enough to cause pain to flare momentarily, but I need her close. I hold her in my arms, her head resting on my chest and her body curled up against mine.

“Gods, I have missed you,” I murmur into her hair. “I was so afraid for you.”

“You were afraid for me!” Her head juts up and her eyes flash as she stares at me. I grit my teeth at the sudden pangs from the movement. Horror pales her face. “I’m so sorry, Aldrin. I knew I’d hurt you if I got in the bed.”

Keira tries to pull away, but I force her back down with the arm wrapped around her. “Stay.”

She is silent for a long time. “When my father rode through the city gates like a madman with you limp on his horse, I thought you were dead. In that moment, I wanted to be dead, Aldrin. Nothing has meaning without you.”

My fingers curl in her hair. “It will take a lot more than that to kill me.”

“It was a close thing.” A shiver erupts across her body. “Our alchemist looked at the musket bullets they pulled from your wound. The Explosion Brothers have stumbled upon an alloy that prevents fae healing. One rich in iron and other minerals. I don’t think they even know it. You were lucky we had so many druids together in one place. That we had a different source of magic that wasn’t affected by the alloy. None of your people could heal you.” Tears roll down her face. I want to reach down and kiss them away.

“Don’t cry, Keira. Not for me. My heart couldn’t handle it.” I stroke her back tenderly, from the tops of her shoulders down to her hips until she soothes.

“There was a part of me that knew something was wrong while we were apart,” she says. “Sometimes when my mind reaches out for you, it is like I can feel you reaching back. I cannot hear words, but I can vaguely sense their meaning. If the moonstone bracelet and the pendant you cut from the portal can connect us in this way, maybe we should utilize them for communication across our forces.”

I pause for a long moment, her words strangely twisting something within me, making my heart stutter. It is too much to hope for, and I am afraid to even consider it.

“Your father took my pendant when I was in his prison and never gave it back.” That truth hangs heavily in the air between us.

Keira’s lips fall open. “Then what does it mean, Aldrin? That I can feel you in my head, in my heart? That impressions of your emotions curl within me alongside hints of your voice?”

I don’t say anything.

My chest tightens until I cannot breathe.

“Aldrin?” she pushes. “Could…could we be mates? Is that not a thing true of the fae? That they have mates out there, living with the other half of their soul? That they can speak within each other’s minds?”

My hand stills on her back as my muscles turn rigid. “It is incredibly rare for a fae to find their soulmate. So rare it borders on myth.”

“Wouldn’t we know if we are mates?” Keira brushes the hair from my face. “Isn’t the bond revealed when they join their bodies?”

“There is more to it than that.” My heart rate kicks up at the hopeful look on her face. A different sort of pain slices through me. “Mates need to endure a true trial together for their bond to unlock.”

“I am so sorry, Aldrin.” Keira curls into my chest again.

I don’t know if she is apologizing for my injuries, the trials we have already been through together, or the fact that none have unlocked a mate bond between us. A small part of me asks if those trials were enough.

I lean down and kiss her hair, despite the sting from the motion. “What we have between us is enough. You will always be enough for me. We don’t need to put the pressure of a mate bond on it.”

Keira nods, her cheek pressed against my bare chest. We fall asleep wrapped around each other.

When I wake again, Keira is on the other side of the room, whispering with Cyprien while a druid unwinds the bandages from my head. I suck in a sharp breath when the fabric sticks to a small region of my wound and is ripped away, but most of the pain is gone.

The druid gasps at what he sees beneath the binding. He drops the bandage and rears back. I realize it is Keira’s brother caring for me.

“That hideous, is it?” I say with amusement.

“No. Quite the opposite.” Diarmuid quickly bundles up the fabric, a smile quirking his lips then fading away. “I knew the fae recover fast, but I wasn’t expecting…” He waves a hand over my face.

“He means half your face was missing the last time we all saw it.” Cyprien stalks over, inspecting me. “The humans didn’t believe me when I said it would grow back just as pretty.” Only Cyprien could make that sound like an insult. He turns to Diarmuid. “We fae onlyscar if our magic is suppressed during the entire recovery of a wound.”

Keira turns sharply to him. “But Hawthorne has a long scar down his face. How is that possible, unless?—”

Horror creeps over her features at the realization. Unless someone did it on purpose. Unless someone tormented and abused him. It is not my story to tell.

I gingerly run a hand over my face, the flesh smooth and intact except for a few long, scabbed gouges across my cheekbones and temple. My fingers linger there, then reach for my ear. Diarmuid grabs my wrist fast enough that I remember he is more fae than human.

“Don’t touch that yet. It is still…growing back. Regenerating? I don’t know the right term. I haven’t seen anything like it. The tissue is still very flimsy.” He swallows nervously, looking from me to Cyprien, as though wondering what sort of monsters they have let into their lands. “It looks like only the entry wounds of the shrapnel will scar.” He splints my ear, then packs up his tools and leaves the room.

Cyprien descends on me. He grabs me by the shoulders, fingers digging in painfully, and shakes me twice.

I swat his hands away. “Don’t you know I’m on my deathbed?”

“This isn’t a joke, Aldrin!” He grits his teeth. “You were on your deathbed a few days ago. If those humans didn’t pull that metal out of you, if their native magic hadn’t worked on you—” His vise-like hands clamp tighter on my shoulders. Part of me wonders if he wants to put them around my throat and finish the job. “I thought we were going to lose you. The Spring Court needs you to save her. I need you! ”

Cyprien’s lips pull back in a snarl, but he removes his hands from me and balls them up into fists. Shakes overtake him, starting from his hands, moving up his arms, until they consume his entire body.

I sit up and pull him into an awkward hug.“I’m okay. Truly, I am. Thank you for saving my ass.”

Cyprien jolts, then drags himself away from me. “That’s the thing. I didn’t do anything. Again. I was on the other side of the army when those damned Explosion Brothers descended upon us with their muskets. Edmund pulled you onto his horse and galloped you all the way here. All I could do was run at his side. I should have been protecting your back. I should have been the one to save you.”

Pain ripples across his features. I don’t know how to fix his guilt—for not supporting me during my exile, for not being there when I was tortured in a human prison, and now this.

I force him to hold my eye. “You were busy fighting the enemy army to protect my woman. That is more than a man or a king could ask of you. This is not your battle, but you are here at my side anyway. Don’t get hung up on the small details.”

Cyprien swallows, then ducks his chin and pulls away so I cannot see his expression. My eyes glide to Keira, who watches us, hugging her middle.

“I thought your father would have relished an opportunity to be rid of me,”I say.

She laughs bitterly, and the sound is music to my ears. “I guess he has mastered the near-murderous rage that normally consumes him when he is around you. I would say his biggest weakness is his overindulgence of his daughters, and that he wouldn’t want your death to hurt me, but I think he actually likes you.”

My eyebrows shoot up, then a slow smile curls my lips.

“Does your father always torture people he actually likes?” Cyprien snaps at her. Keira’s back straightens, her chin rising. “Am I the only one here who has not forgotten that?”

“Easy, Cyprien.” I give him a hard stare.

“Why should I hold my tongue when I speak the truth?” He spins around to me, gold beads clinking in the many thin, black braids he keeps pulled back in a leather thong.

“Trust me, I have not forgotten.” A deep scowl fills Keira’s face. “Nor have I let him. It will be a thing that always tarnishes our relationship, but I know my father. He will spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to me. To Aldrin. A man can make mistakes.”

Cyprien’s lips twist. “And you, Aldrin? Are you happy to play nice now that it is more convenient?”

I let out a long, tired breath and run a hand across the uninjured parts of my face. “Honestly, I get it.”

Two sets of eyes flare wide at me in shock.

“I understand why he went to such lengths. I have never been a father, but I was an older brother. There was no limit to the atrocities I would have committed if Lorrella was in trouble. If I thought a fae had become crazed and was going to hurt her. You know this, Cyprien. You would have done the same for her. I would destroy everyone and everything for Keira, too. I would become consumed and do things I never thought I could. Maybe this war and the threat of the mad king has made me insane, but I am glad there are others who will fight for Keira as fiercely as I will.”

Keira doesn’t hesitate. She closes the space between us and leans over me to place a featherlight kiss on my lips, as though she is afraid to hurt me. When she pulls away, those hazel eyes are large and bright with emotion.

“Thank you. For everything,” she whispers.

I run my thumb across her cheek. “You never need to thank me for fighting to keep you safe.”

Behind her, Cyprien looks like he has just been slapped. He stalks for the door, pulling it open roughly, but pauses to look over his shoulder. “You are still a brother.”

I know exactly what he means. You are still a brother to me. He disappears before I can reply, most likely to return to the hospital to help the human healers.

Keira sits on the edge of my bed, stroking my hair back from my face. “I have never seen Cyprien cry, but I think he came pretty close after they finally got you into the city.”

Guilt floods me, but instead of wallowing in it, I scoop an arm around Keira’s waist and lift her until her legs straddle my hips on the bed. Her arms reach out and grip the headboard behind me. I send out a quick air wield to lock the bolt over the door, then place my hands on either side of her face and kiss her deeply, hungrily.

Like I almost died, and touching her again is a precious gift I never expected to have.