Chapter 4

Four

SENAN

NOW

Either someone dropped a load of bricks on my head, or I drank far too much. Is this how I die, felled by a thumping skull? What is with the burning in my back? Did someone stab me? Fuck, it hurts. No wonder I passed out on my stomach.

What the hell happened last night?

I peel open my heavy eyelids, blinking at an unfamiliar room.

Is this an inn?

It doesn’t look like any inn I’ve ever been to. Granted, I haven’t been to many, but this space feels too lived in, the patchwork quilt too faded, and the chipping paint too worn.

I did go to the inn though…didn’t I?

I did.

And when I arrived, I found Bell trying to steal Allette.

Shit . Where is Allette? I flatten my palms against the mattress and shove myself upright. White-hot agony explodes down my spine, radiating from my shoulder blades. Why am I wearing bandages? Why are they so fucking tight?

“Allette!” My voice is a broken shard, slicing my dry throat. I try to move my legs, but my body refuses to cooperate. The whole room tilts and starts to spin. “Allette!” Tell me she’s all right. Tell me this is all a terrible dream?—

The door swings wide, and my girl is there, her dark hair a wild halo around her pale face, no sign of my traitorous guard at her back. “There is no need to panic. I’m right here.”

Dappled light from the lace curtains plays on her high cheekbones as she steps into the room with a tray in her hands, seeming at ease and not at all concerned for her safety.

I’m almost certain there are quite a few reasons to panic, but at the moment, all I can do is stare at Allette’s hips as she sways closer, her skirts swishing with every step.

Perhaps it was a dream.

I press a hand to my pounding skull.

Except…it felt so real. That damn poison from all the stardust is really starting to fuck with my head.

Steam curls from a teapot, twisting toward Allette’s reassuring smile. “I hope you’re hungry. The bread was too moldy to salvage, but the eggs were still good. Do you like scrambled? It was either that or boiled, I’m afraid. I don’t know how to make them any other way.”

If Allette cooked my breakfast, then this definitely isn’t an inn. “Where are we?”

A small wrinkle appears between her arched eyebrows. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember going to the inn, but after that, everything gets fuzzy.” When I try to shift my body toward hers, my back screams in protest. I’ve never been stabbed with a red-hot fire poker, but this is how I imagine it would feel. Every move pulls and burns as if some wild beast is clawing at my skin.

The teacups rattle when Allette drops the tray onto the bedside table and collects a long-neck bottle from the floor. “Here. Drink some of this.”

My stomach revolts at the thought of drinking anything, let alone whatever rot is in that bottle. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll pass.”

Her lips purse as I fix my face into a smile. “Suit yourself. I’ll leave the bottle here if you change your mind.” The brass headboard creaks when Allette sinks onto the bed next to me. “To answer your question, we’re in the human realm.”

That cannot be right. I don’t recall flying us down here.

Come to think of it, I don’t remember flying at all. What I remember is falling and…

Wait .

The king. The portal. My wings .

Oh, gods…

I reach behind my shoulder and nearly faint from the excruciating pain. Fuck . All I feel are bandages that are far too tight and lumps and agony.

So much fucking agony.

“Don’t do that!” Allette catches my hand, clasping it in her own. “You’ll rip your stitches.”

Stitches . The word brings back memories of tugging and pulling as my love sewed together the flayed flesh of my back.

It wasn’t a dream at all. Even glamoured, their familiar weight kept me balanced.

A weight that has vanished.

“They’re gone, aren’t they?” Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me it isn’t true.

Allette’s golden eyes glitter as she nods. “I’m afraid so.”

My brother cut off my fucking wings.

When I was little, I waited every day for them to appear. On my seventh birthday, they finally did. Since then, they’ve been my constant companions, my escape, the only freedom I ever had.

Now they’re gone and I’ll never fly again. Never feel the kiss of a breeze high above the sleeping world.

The slightest pressure on my fingers halts my downward spiral.

Allette is here with me. Isn’t that what truly matters?

It should be.

Except now that I’m looking at her, all I see are pinched lips and bruises beneath her eyes. Does she resent me for all that has befallen us? Has her love for me waned?

I am no longer a prince but an exiled fae living in a strange realm where I have no means of providing for my girl. All those years ago, the disparity of what I could offer her up in the fae realm versus what I had to offer her down here never seemed to matter.

Now I can think of nothing else.

What are we supposed to do if Boris sends guards to find us? How will we protect ourselves? How will we survive on our own? I brought some gold but not enough to sustain us for long. It’s not as if I can skip down to the treasury to request more. I’ll have to find work, but with this pain in my back, I can barely move. How long will it take to ease?

And Allette…

“Have you slept at all?” Or has she been up all this time taking care of me? If she falls ill, I won’t know how to heal her.

“Do not waste your time worrying about me.”

As if that’s possible. Down here, her wellbeing and happiness are my only concerns. The king could’ve torn me in two and I’d still be more worried about Allette than myself.

“You must be starving,” she says.

My stomach answers with a hollow growl. Although nausea lingers, perhaps some food would make me feel better.

Allette lifts the plate from the tray, stabs a lump of egg, and brings it to my mouth.

I’ll be damned if I let my girl feed me like an invalid. “He took my wings, not my arms. I can feed myself.”

Something flickers across her face, but she sets the plate down on my lap and hands me the fork. When I lift it to my lips, the stitches at my back stretch, pulling the torn flesh.

Maybe I was too rash. Every time I raise the damn thing it’s like being cut all over again.

Allette throws her eyes to heaven. “You are so bloody stubborn.”

It’s better than giving up, isn’t it? Because right now, that’s what I want to do.

Four bites in, I’ve had enough. Food. Pain. Pitying stares. All of it makes me want to tear out my hair. How can she stand to look at me—to be near me? “You needn’t stay here.” If she wants to leave, I won’t try to stop her.

“Where else should I go? Hmm?” When Allette’s defiant chin lifts, I glimpse a red line across her throat.

Gods above, is that blood ? I drop the fork with a clatter, cradling her jaw and adjusting her head to give me a better view of what is indeed a wound. “Someone cut you.”

Memories flash like lightning. The guard holding her against her will. The glint of a dagger at her throat.

Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have wings, because then I’d be tempted to fly back through the portal, hunt down the bastard, and use his own blade to carve the same mark into his throat.

Allette pushes my hands away. “It’s only a scratch.”

A scratch? If he pressed any harder, he would’ve stolen her from me.

Once again, I failed to protect Allette. Now, we are stuck here because of my weakness.

My incompetence.

My uselessness.

Bracing against the searing pain, I prop my elbows on my knees and let my pounding head fall into my hands. “How are we alive?” Heaven knows I didn’t save us.

Allette shares the most fantastical story about leaping into the portal after me. I would shout and rail at her, but I’m too stunned—too fucking humbled by the fact that she would do such a thing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m angry as well, mostly because of her recklessness, but damn.

This woman is a true marvel, and I do not deserve her.

“And then I felt it, Senan.” Her eyes spark with what looks an awful lot like hope. Heaven knows we need as much as we can get. “I felt my magic stirring in my veins. Somehow, I managed to call to the wind and break our fall. How is that even possible?”

There is only one way it’s possible, and with all the truths revealed over the last couple of weeks, the answer is abundantly clear: “We’ve been lied to our whole lives.”

The portal is open year-round.

Scathians can still wield magic without wings.

What if those truths are only the beginning? Princess Leeri had no wings, and yet she swore she was Scathian. Could that be true as well? Does that make her Tuath or something else entirely? Or are Tuath simply wingless Scathians? If wings don’t equate to magic, could the Tuath wield magic as well?

“What else do you think they lied about?” Allette asks.

Fire burns deep in my gut as I consider my brother’s betrayal and Eason Bell’s. About all the clandestine meetings I was never allowed to attend and the books locked inside cabinets in the king’s office.

These truths we’ve uncovered are only the beginning. I feel it in my bones.

“I think they lied to us about everything.”

The eggs sink like stones in my gut. Lying here like a useless lump isn’t helping either. In the last hour, Allette has carried in more wood, washed my disgusting clothes, and tidied up the mess from breakfast. Now she’s sitting in front of the blazing fire, mending a tear in my trousers while I remain in bed “resting.”

Talk about torture.

With nothing to occupy my mind, memories from the confrontation at the portal play on repeat inside my head.

“Why couldn’t you just take your dust and die?”

Boris knew about the poison.

For how long has my brother wanted me dead?

I pick at the corner of the bandage Allette made from an old sheet. My back still hurts, but now it itches worse. Hopefully, I won’t have to wear these things for long.

I need to get out of this fucking bed.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I push myself off the mattress and cross a floor that feels as if it’s made of ice, to the pack I threw together before fleeing the castle. I’m almost certain I stuffed in an extra pair of trousers or two, but I had been in a bit of a panic.

When I stick my hand inside, the clothing feels damp. It’s probably just the coldness from this damn floor seeping into the canvas. I withdraw two dresses, a shift, three shirts, and a pair of spare trousers. When I place them in a pile next to where I squat, something glitters from the dark fabric. It looks like glass, but I didn’t put any glass in my?—

Oh fuck …

My pulse roars in my ears as I withdraw the bag of antidote Jeston gave me, finding only shards of broken glass.

This cannot be happening.

“You won’t survive until spring.”

That’s what Jeston told me the day I met him in the pit. Without the antidote, I’m done for.

My throat constricts, and when the coughing begins, it doesn’t stop. Blood spurts from my lips, splattering the white bandages.

“Senan? Are you all right?” Allette calls from the living room.

No, I’m not all right. All my efforts to stay alive have been squandered. Boris wins. I’m going to be dead by March.

I clutch the bag against my pounding heart. If I had my wings, I could return to the fae realm for more. Without them, I’m as cursed down here as I was up there.

“I’m fine,” I shout back.

If only that were true.

I stuff what remains of the vials back into my pack and shove the evidence beneath the bed.

My lungs seize, unable to draw in a full breath.

These fucking bandages. Wounds be damned, they must come off. Tugging the end until the bindings unravel, I steel my resolve and twist toward the mirror in the corner.

Gods …

No wonder I’m in such pain. Boris didn’t even have the decency to take the entire wing. Without access to my magic, I cannot glamour them, so they sit there like mutilated twigs protruding from behind my shoulders.

I try to move them, to flatten them down. Something . But all they do is stick out.

Allette comes into the room looking as perfect and beautiful as ever. “Senan? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Everything . Everything is fucking wrong.

“Why did you remove your bandages?”

“They were too tight.”

She clicks her tongue, the floorboards creaking as she moves closer. “We need to keep your wings bound.”

My wings ? Is that what she thinks these are? “I have no fucking wings.”

She jerks back, thoroughly disgusted by my hideous deformity.

I used to love the way she looked at me, as if she saw none of my flaws. But in this moment, all I see is pity in her eyes, and it kills me more than the damn poison coursing through my veins. “Leave me alone. Please. I just want to be alone.”

My head falls into my hands, and I can’t bring myself to watch her walk away.

Only she doesn’t walk away.

She sinks next to me and whispers, “Then let me be alone with you.”

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