Chapter 24
24
“ A ven, you need to calm down. Now .” Roran bit out the last word, gnashing his teeth beside her ear in a clear warning.
There was no calming down. Not as the fae guards lynched both father and son to the poles and dragged them up by their feet to hang them upside down. Not when the boy’s terrified shriek tore through the air. Not when the father screamed his love for his son, begging forgiveness, his voice breaking with every word. Not when the crowd erupted, wild and frenzied, as magic crackled and surged, filling the air with an electric charge and the acrid stench of burning.
No, that wasn’t the magic. Wood was burning.
Someone had lit the kindling beneath them, and both humans struggled to free themselves. The Fae King had finally gotten the pyre he’d desired, only she wasn’t the one about to burn to death.
Aven saw red. Where was Cillian?
Why wasn’t he here doing something to save their lives?
She fought harder against Roran to get to them. She had to save them in whatever way she could. She’d steal the guards’ weapons and cut down whoever got in her path. She’d draw runes from blood and set the entire ballroom on fire to get that man and his son free. She’d?—
“Enough.” Roran’s power pulsed through her body as he changed positions to wrestle her into calming down. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
It didn’t matter what happened to her. Not with the other humans slowly dying and being tormented for the pleasure of the crowd, the pleasure of a destructive king who had more interest in some pathetic tree bark than empathy. Compassion.
Those things didn’t exist in Mourningvale. They were fae. Monsters.
How had she forgotten?
Aven shouted, but the sound was lost under the roaring cheers from the savage fae in the crowd. Not from the humans, with whatever they’d done to the tree. Only beasts like these nobles took pleasure in the suffering of others.
“I don’t care,” Aven raged. “Kill me, then, and be done with it.” She bucked and kicked to break his hold on her.
Roran was just as relentless as the rest of them. With a grunt and a growl she felt down to her soul, he spun them both around, handling her through her rage and walking out of the room.
“There is a reason,” he began once they reached the relative hush of the hall, “that mortals have magic and are hated by the fae for it. There is a reason for such strict punishments when mortals trespass on our lands and steal. Have you ever asked why? ”
It was harder to breathe out there for some reason. So much harder than before. Her heart thrashed in her chest, an offbeat tempo just above the hollow gauntness of the voice in her chest. Madness sparked through her, and she knew she wouldn’t stop until she got back in that room. Before she saved those people.
Fury mingled with everything else, and her veins filled with it as she screamed at Roran. “Does it really matter? It’s a tree! They were taking bark off a damn tree. His wife was dying.”
He flipped her onto her back on the floor and straddled her, struggling to maintain his hold through her outrage. His short silver hair spilled down over his face, his eyes just as angry and boring into hers. He bared his teeth and said, “What’s the use in explaining to you if you’re just going to go crazy? You don’t listen to me.”
She sent her fist into his ribs, and Roran let the hit bounce off him like he hadn’t even felt it.
“It’s not fair. It’s not right,” she managed to choke out, tears of rage and helplessness burning her eyes.
“Who said anything about fairness? There are a lot of things in this world that aren’t fair, little princess. This is only one in a long line.”
She threw herself into his midsection to get him off her, but Roran refused to budge.
“You are only demonstrating to those people exactly why they are correct to hate you and your barbaric kind,” he continued. “Get control of yourself.”
She shook her head, refusing to hear him out.
“Your kind has stolen the magic from our people to use against us. There are things you don’t know about this war, things that have been going on for longer than you’ve been alive.”
She swung another punch at him, and Roran ducked to the side to evade it easily. Rather than back down, she threw herself up and slammed her shoulder into his, casting him to the side. Her entire weight against his and only his surprise at the movement allowed her to gain any ground. Aven hurled herself over Roran, but rather than spare her time attacking him, she set out for the throne room.
“You insolent wretch,” Roran spat out furiously. He launched himself at her legs and brought her down hard.
Aven caught herself on her palms before her face hit the ground, then screeched when he dragged her back.
Roran covered her body with his own, his power barely constrained and the leash of his control pulled tight as he grabbed her by the arms. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he whirled her around to face him. The black thunderous look on his face promised retribution for every hit she landed on him, their anger a match for each other.
She wouldn’t give up trying to get back to the throne room, even when she knew it was too late.
The crackling of flames grew louder in the distance, and the men’s screams had taken on the keening wail of pure pain and terror.
“It’s too late, Aven,” he whispered.
“It’s not fair,” she hissed out.
None of it was fair. Not a single damn second of this life.
She might be able to understand her own circumstances, with time, but this? This was unforgivable.
“Life is never fair,” Roran argued, his icy blue eyes pleading with her to understand. “Those mortals brought their fate on themselves knowing the controversy between our kinds. They decided to take the risk anyway. The consequences were always right there in the open for them, not hidden, and the elder decided he would accept the risk when he took the bark.”
“They just wanted to help,” she snapped, her voice breaking.
“It doesn’t matter,” Roran replied, his voice colder now.
“It does. If they don’t return, the wife will?—”
“They’re already dead by now.”
“No.” Her voice cracked, her heart hammered against her ribs. She could almost see the man’s wife, alone in their cottage, her body wracked with illness. Waiting. Hoping. Not knowing her husband and son would never return. “I have to save them.”
Except she’d felt it like a tremor through her body, the moment their screams cut off. The underlying layer of scent accompanying the burning wood.
Flesh.
Skin crackling as it cooked over the open flames.
The smell hit her then, acrid and sickening. Bile rose in her throat, and she retched, her body convulsing with the horror of it all.
“What will you do, Aven, besides get yourself strung up beside them? You’re on thin ice with the King. One small step out of place and you will be the one in the fire.” His tone went as unyielding as the stone foundation of the palace.
“It’s not true.” Tears pricked her eyes, and she shook them away, scattered them.
“Listen to reason if you do nothing else,” Roran replied.
Reason? Hornets buzzed in her ears, and her pulse roared through her, wild, racing. There was no way to stop to listen to him. Her body trembled uncontrollably.
“Aven, please.” Roran used her name like he hoped it would bring her back to herself. “You have to listen to me. Stop fighting. At least, stop fighting this . If you don’t?—”
“What’s this?” Cillian strode across the floor and grabbed Roran by the shoulders. In one smooth move, he hauled his brother away, holding out a hand for Aven to take.
Roran straightened, although his glare did not diminish. If anything, it grew, spreading across his face and twisting his features. “You need to tell her the truth, Cillian.”
Something primal lurked beneath Roran’s skin, and it was that, rather than Cillian’s interference, which finally got Aven to stop her relentless fight. Some long-gone instinct in her that bowed to the whims of a figure more powerful than she, one with innate command.
At last she stilled beneath Roran, although he would not let her up off her back yet.
“What do you mean?” Cillian asked.
“Oh, don’t be stupid. You knew exactly how this was going to end from the start, and it’s high time the little princess learns of it. You were trying to give her a chance to put the pieces together on her own, but it hasn’t happened.” Roran pointed over his shoulder toward the crackling of flames. “Sacrifices are being made, and things are going to continue to self-destruct if it doesn’t come out now.”
Cillian growled at his brother, and the sound forced Roran off her. Aven stayed on her back hyperventilating until Cillian reached for her, hauled her to his side, and tucked her underneath the protective crook of his arm. He jerked his head to Roran.
“Fine.” If it was some kind of threat, Cillian did not acknowledge it. The three of them fell into step, side by side. “This isn’t the kind of conversation you want anyone to overhear,” Cillian muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
That bad? It slammed into her, with a humbling sort of sadness, that even her drive to protect innocents wasn’t going to be enough to save any of them. “Where are you taking me?”
Neither one of the princes said anything till they reached the library. A gust of magic sent the massive doors slamming shut behind them and locked the three of them inside. The air snapped, tightened, making it difficult to breathe. Cillian only released her once he assured himself they were alone, but when he spun back to face her, the softness in his eyes took her back a step.
“Aven. Tragedy has struck many times in this war, on both sides,” he began. His distress was palpable. “My father was sick of it, and he couldn’t find his way through.”
She blinked at them, jumped when Roran took a step closer to her. Instead of his usual cool, his heat pressed into her, and she remembered how it felt to have him straddle her. Every hard line of him easily accessible. Her cheeks went pink.
A father and son were dead. All she’d done was give in to her emotions. Ineffectual. Useless.
“Go on,” Roran spat out when Cillian paused. “Don’t cower now. You’re the favorite, after all.”
“I’m getting there. It isn’t an easy story.”
She couldn’t stop glancing at Roran, though, at the hard way he crossed his arms over his chest. Like he’d already resigned himself to the story and wanted to reach the end of it as quickly as possible.
“What’s happening?” she wanted to know.
“Cillian has always been the favorite son. He wanted to find a way to end the fighting once and for all,” Roran replied.
“I already figured,” Aven rasped out. “Just like I know you don’t bother trying at all.”
Roran shrugged. “My father will never see me as anything other than spare parts, so why bother?”
“I did what I had to do in order to bring the mortals down a peg or two. Pitting their wretched king against their remaining princess. You . To keep him in line.”
Her stomach knotted up. This was definitely not good. Cillian met her gaze when she looked at him, but the information failed to line up. The sweet, kind Cillian had been the one… after his insistence that he hadn’t listed the weapon to kill her family?
“Why him?” His words went off like the boom of a gun inside of her. “Why me? What does this have to do with the humans who stole the tree bark?” She turned to Roran again.
“Have you ever wondered why our forces have primarily focused on Grimrose, Aven?” Cillian searched her face for answers and must have found none. “There are other kingdoms.”
“Come on, little princess.” Roran watched her swallow over the massive lump in her throat. “You know. Somewhere deep inside, you already know.”
He always seemed to pierce straight through her, and dividing her attention between the brothers now, things twisted inside her head. Her heart. Even more so when Cillian sighed.
“Your father was the first one who devised a way to turn our magic against us. He snuck into Mourningvale, somehow managed to cut a trail straight toward the Darkroot.”
The Tree of Magic.
“My father has never been to your cursed kingdom before. Never in his entire life,” she argued, her jaw tightening and her hands curling into fists. “He would have told us.”
“He found the Darkroot, and he carved off the bark, knowing about its power. Whether he heard the tales regarding the tree as the source of all magic or not, he took what did not belong to him. And he used our own power to devise your weapons. Somehow he found a way to turn the magic from life to death, empowering your ammunition to strike us down.”
“He stole,” Roran reiterated. “That’s why it’s a massive deal when mortals trespass. More so when they steal tree bark. ”
Such a small thing, in her mind, and yet—it wasn’t true. Her own father, King Fergus?
“He’d have no way of knowing how to do those things.” The statement left her raw.
“He found a way,” Cillian insisted. “The same mages who used to tattoo those runes on you? They were the ones who must have helped him. The healers, the mages, the medicine men and women. He stole our bark, our magic. He stole our symbols. He turned them all against us and killed enough of our people to have our land revolt against us. The death and decay did not start until he stripped the tree. And we have never recovered.”
“Until now,” Roran interrupted. “Until you.”
“Me.” The pain began in her chest and traveled down her limbs, to her legs and her ankles.
Her father… had started it all? Maybe not the war, but the vehemence with which the enemy struck back at them. That had been his doing.
He’d turned the tide in their favor, but what had it cost them? Both sides?
He’d lied to her.
A large part of her automatically wanted to come to her father’s aid again and again, to defend the man who used to read to her when she was little. Who made up jokes and funny nicknames for the royals in the court so his children would have something to keep them focused during those long hours.
How could he possibly be the same man who did the things Cillian accused him of doing? It made no sense.
And yet, it did.
She felt the truth from Cillian, from Roran and his stubbornness, even while her mind strove to put the pieces together. The stories she’d heard enough from the healers, from her men, from General Hunter.
How her father used to be kind and generous and after the death of her mother, had turned ruthless. Determined to stop at nothing to end this war and come out as the victor. He’d been uninterested in peace treaties. Uninterested in compromising.
Destruction. Annihilation.
But did the timeline match? From the introduction of their weapons to the time he would have gone to Mourningvale?
She had a terrible gut feeling it did.
It all made sense. The other kingdoms distancing themselves from Grimrose, the cold glances from their royals, the rejected engagement proposals.
They all knew.
King Fergus had wanted to wipe the fae off the face of the earth. He’d hated the magic of their weapons and yet insisted on countless occasions that it was the only way to defeat them. When Aven had asked him why, he’d blown her off, refused to explain himself or made excuses to get rid of her.
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.” Cillian reached for her finally. “I know how much you love your father, Aven.”
“Don’t touch me.” She croaked out the words, opening her mouth to insist again that he did not know her father, that they’d twisted everything around to blame the horrors on him.
Nothing came out.
Anxiety replaced the horror she’d felt at the punishment in the throne room. Cillian tried to grab her again, to comfort her, and she waved her hands in front of her face to keep the space between them. A paltry shield but the only one at her disposal.
“Better to hear it from us than anyone else,” Roran insisted. Her hands began to sweat from the way he watched her. “Although I truly had higher hopes for you. I thought you’d be able to figure it out without having us tell you the truth.”
“How would I?” She gasped for breath.
How could she have known, really?
And now that she knew, what did she do, to make amends?
This was her family legacy. Nothing but pain and death and vengeance. “Why did he do it?” she asked through numb lips. “Why would he do something so terrible?”
“Why does anyone?” Cillian tossed back at her. “They want to win.”
“A little vague, brother,” Roran snapped.
“I can’t speak to the machinations of a man I’ve never met personally,” Cillian barked. The two brothers rounded on each other. “I can only make my own assumptions based on the type of person the mortal king is rumored to be. Unflappable and cruel. I banked on those qualities when I planned out our attack, and look at where it got us. Victory.”
The two men were separated in her mind, the man who stole fae magic and warped it, turned it against the people, and the father who cared for his kids. How could they be the same? It made no sense to her.
She was the last of her line, the last Elridge. Her siblings were dead, and her father left as the lone leader of a scattered kingdom. This dark truth?—
“What do I do? How do I end all of it?” She glanced up at Roran. At Cillian. “How do I end the pain and the war for good? How do I make reparations for what’s been done?”
Whatever it took for the focus to move from the humans and her people, she would do it. The responsibility rested on her shoulders alone, they were right. Her father would never take the necessary steps to rectify the damage he inflicted. To return what he’d stolen.
Not when he was busy scrambling to pick up the scattered pieces of his ruined kingdom. Hell, no wonder the fae hated him so much. No wonder why they wanted to see her strung up rather than walking their halls alive and well.
“The best way to do that would be to marry for peace,” Cillian replied, not unkindly. His gentle tone might as well have been the bite of the end of a whip. She did not deserve his softness. “A treaty between Mourningvale and Grimrose, made legal and binding.”
It was the same thing the Fae King had told her. To make a choice, to marry his son. Or both. But it was too early. She had too much to process, to even consider?—
“It doesn’t matter what my father said about you not being a suitable match. He doesn’t know you the way we do.”
She stared at Cillian and shook all over, as violent as a rockslide. He would be the logical choice, the assumed choice, as the oldest male, as the crown prince. And yet she felt the presence of Roran’s eyes on her skin, the heat from them, more keenly than before. She didn’t need to face him for his features to flash through her mind.
“Give me a little time to think about it, please,” Aven hedged.
Marriage… she’d seen it done well, she’d seen matches fail abysmally. Several of her sister’s friends had entered into marriages of convenience or ties that would have elevated their social status. Terrible things happened behind closed doors sometimes.
Aven doubted it would be the case with Cillian.
Still, she’d always told herself she’d never get married. Hated the idea of it, hated thinking of herself as a wife.
Cillian nodded, sympathetic. “That’s all we can ask for. Take the time you need.”
He would be a kind and decent husband. So why could she not stop thinking about Roran?