Chapter 2
Raine
The damned rain was relentless.
Raine wiped the back of his hand over his forehead, but it helped little against the heavy wetness weighing down his hair and seeping through his clothes until the leather stuck to his skin, making squeaking sounds for every step he took up the hill to the larger house they were gathering in.
Once again, he wished for a drink, probably for the thousandth time today… and it was only early afternoon. But he hadn’t taken a sip since that day in the Lakes of Mirrors.
He hadn’t been able to, not when the gods had shown him just how much Solana disapproved of it—how she felt him slip away every time he drank himself into oblivion.
Raine focused his gaze on the sooty stones scattered across the path, making sure they didn’t trip him as her beautiful face flashed before his eyes.
He’d let her down over the past years.
He’d known it, of course. While Solana wouldn’t say no to a drink here and there… she would never have let him continue doing what he was doing. Like Frelina, she would have confronted him—screamed at him to get it together.
More guilt crawled across his skin, the feeling almost as sticky as the leather scratching against it.
He’d promised Frelina not to pull away, but after that day… after the battle…
He’d thought he lost her, and it had damn near killed him.
Raine had heard her desperate goodbye in his mind, the one where she asked him to apologize to her sister for slapping her that one time, and the one where she’d told him she was grateful for the time they’d had together, and for the experiences he’d given her.
As if he’d given her anything.
Fuck, he was such a bastard, and she didn’t even realize it because, like her sister, she was too kind. A bright light in the dark, he’d once heard Merrick think of Elessia as, and that was precisely what Frelina was. A shining fucking sun in a world where darkness reigned.
And Raine? Raine had just taken that light from her—used her to dull the pain he knew would never disappear. He’d fucked her—her first time!—after telling her he couldn’t give her anything more than that, that he couldn’t offer her love or even warmth and kindness in return.
Frelina had not just accepted it, she’d shown him she welcomed it. That she didn’t mind that he was broken beyond repair, and that she only wanted the same thing he did.
Company. Distraction. Someone to hold her during lonely nights.
For a few days, he’d been able to pretend that’s just what it was. Friends who fucked sometimes.
But during the battle? When her fear had roared in his mind, ripping through every other thought?
No, he’d fucking lost it, and not because she was his friend.
But because he didn’t want to live without the little angry Rantzier.
Because despite what he tried to tell himself…
his feelings for her ran deeper than he’d expected.
He hadn’t just been frightened—he’d panicked. Truly panicked when he thought she’d stopped breathing. And… fuck, he couldn’t lose another person he loved. He wasn’t strong enough for that.
Raine felt her eyes on his back right now from where she was walking beside those witch sisters, and it nearly sent him stumbling over a large boulder when he didn’t pick up a single feeling of blame or resentment from her over his avoiding her the past week.
Only the kind of understanding that a Faeling who was twenty-four years old shouldn’t have.
Gods, he was four hundred years old, and he still couldn’t figure out how to talk to her. How to tell her that he wanted to be with her, but that he… just couldn’t.
Raine’s hands fisted as he glared at Merrick’s and Elessia’s clasped ones before him.
Frelina had told him she cared more for him—that she wished for more for them—during those final moments of the battle. There hadn’t been an ounce of fear or worry in her when she showed him everything in her mind, and he could fucking feel that she’d accepted it might not be something he wanted.
Another urge to drink dried his throat until he had to clear it.
The worst fucking part? It was reciprocated.
He couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He’d fucking fallen for her when she’d started stomping on his feet, stepping into his way, yelling at him when he was a bastard, and keeping him from going mad—all because she was just… kind.
But he didn’t deserve her. What male fell for someone when he’d already met his soulmate? When he’d lost her? When it was his fault a soul much more deserving than himself now didn’t exist in this realm?
A grunt slipped past his lips as he kicked a rock out of the way, and Kerym’s hand landed on his shoulder.
“You all right?” His friend’s blue eyes held that darkness that had shaded them ever since Thissian—
Fuck. Raine’s throat closed as he thought of the friend, the brother, he’d spent centuries with—the one who was also more deserving than Raine. The one who’d carried his brother’s pain for years…
Kerym’s face pinched, and Raine could tell that while he wasn’t a mind reader, he’d seen too much in his expression.
“Sorry,” Raine mumbled, but Kerym shook his head.
“Don’t… Don’t be.” His eyes flew behind his shoulder for a moment, and Raine knew that if his own followed, they’d land on that strange woman—the one with copper hair falling down her back and eyes that never left Kerym’s.
“I want to speak of him. I want the world to remember him. I… I need to remember him.”
Throat still clogged, Raine nodded. “As we always shall.”
A pair of amber eyes shot their way—thankfully not the ones that made Raine’s knees weak—and Elessia slowed her steps, Merrick following like the shadow he was.
“He was a good male,” she said softly. “I’ll never be able to repay that debt, but… if there is ever anything I can do for you, Kerym… I will. I swear it.”
Merrick seemed to be debating whether to kiss her or scold her for promising favors like that—even if they were for his friend—but Raine was grateful when he settled on pulling her closer and nodding. “He was one of the great ones, Kerym.”
The dark-haired Siphon Twin bowed his head. “Better than me, that’s for sure.”
Raine had to squash the urge to laugh that crept up on him.
Guilt. There was so much guilt in this sad group of people.
Everywhere he looked, guilt created creases between eyebrows, pulled lips downward, and made shoulders rise toward ears.
“Gods, we’re a miserable bunch, aren’t we?” he blurted out.
It was quiet for a second, and he winced at himself, ready to start another silent scolding or perhaps get another slap from the little Rantzier, when Elessia giggled.
Then Frelina’s beautiful laugh followed.
Merrick, who apparently couldn’t fucking help himself whenever Elessia smiled, turned his face away as a chuckle escaped him. Then the witches laughed softly, which somehow managed to make Kerym grin.
It was a ghost of a smile, but it was there. It was real.
Despite their wet surroundings, everything they’d faced and everything they would face, something small, barely a spark, flared in Raine’s chest, and he wondered for a second if he’d lost his mind—perhaps become entirely crazy.
Raine didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when a small hand touched his left arm, and he couldn’t stop himself from looking down. A jolt shook him when Frelina’s eyes locked with his.
Why not both? We really are a miserable bunch. Why not be crazy too?
That did it.
Raine threw his head back and laughed so hard that drops of water found their way down his throat, and he had to cover his mouth when they turned the laugh into a coughing fit, forcing him to wheeze to get any air into his lungs.
Apparently, the others found it hilarious because the laughter continued the entire time they climbed the steep, slippery steps to the large house looking out over the sea atop the high cliff.
Its stone walls were also darkened by soot, the roof charred and burned off in places, with several of the large windows missing the glass that must have once protected those living there from the harsh wind that always wrapped Korina.
The laughter faded only when two rows of guards forced them to walk one by one the final steps leading to the large double doors, one line made up by Loche’s men, still wearing those masks, and one made up by Vastala Fae, clad in their usual dark green uniforms as they glared at the humans before them.
Raine shared Merrick’s sentiment when the latter bared his teeth at the Fae, making two of them stumble back before Elessia shoved at him to stop. For some reason, Raine pulled Frelina up two steps so she walked ahead of him, his hand twitching to keep hold of those swinging by her sides.
You like her. Kerym’s thought burrowed through the walls Raine had put up.
The protection around his mind was weak—he usually allowed his friends in whenever they wanted, as the silent conversations were often entertaining—but it still left unease peppering his skin.
Yeah, I know I am an idiot. No point in lying to Kerym, not when he’d sense it in Raine’s thoughts.
No. A sweep of energy—of pain and guilt and protectiveness and whatever he felt for the small half-Fae walking over the threshold—left him, and he knew Kerym had siphoned it.
Wow, your senses are so clear. Kerym’s surprise bounced within Raine’s mind. And you’re not an idiot. At least not for the reasons you think.
Raine didn’t have time to respond as he also walked through the door and was met by hundreds of Fae and humans standing on opposite sides of the war-torn ballroom—or at least he expected it was a ballroom, based on the stage in the back, the small balconies jutting out here and there above a circular floor, and the charred tapestries still floating in the wind that the broken windows let in.
A few steps ahead of their people, Iviry and Loche stood face-to-face, waiting for their group to take up their spots, judging from the looks they threw their way.
The two leaders weren’t facing each other in the way Raine had expected, though, given what they’d found out about themselves. No, Iviry seemed as if she wished to be anywhere but in Loche’s presence, and the regent… his gray eyes were everywhere but on the red-haired female before him.
That’s what idiots look like.
There was an ember of amusement in Kerym’s tone, one that Raine hadn’t heard in days, and he cast his friend a quick grin before following Elessia and Merrick as they approached the Fae and human.
It might not have been visible to everyone, but Raine noticed Elessia hesitate, her eyes moving between the side with humans and the one with Fae, before Merrick brushed his fingers across her palm and she inclined her head almost imperceptibly.
Elessia walked into the middle of the room and halted between the leaders, and they remained quiet for a moment, seemingly waiting for her to choose a side.
To her credit, the golden-brown-haired half-Fae only raised her chin, pulling Merrick up beside her and placing him at Loche’s side while she waved for Frelina to stand at her other side, closest to Iviry.
When Raine took the spot right behind her, Elessia opened her mind for a second to say Thank you before nodding to Kerym, standing behind Merrick, and the witch sisters, standing behind Frelina.
“Should we get started?” she asked.
Raine hid any surprise that it was Elessia’s voice that boomed through the room. She was apparently taking charge, and given Iviry’s and Loche’s mirrored nods… they were fine with it.
Perhaps they had even waited for it.