Unseelie Truths
V alerio’s magic lashed out. Bryson didn’t know what it was, not until the tight grasp of mania gripped her mind and threatened to choke it. She screamed and her own magic pushed out, causing a whirlwind through the throne room.
Darkness invaded her mind, and it caused her to drop to her knees. It pushed through her senses, threatening, ready... and then it just... vanished.
The fog on her brain cleared and she looked up through hazy vision. Valerio was no longer before her. Instead, it was the Elementals in her line of sight. Standing between them, holding their magic in the palms of their hands. Fire. Ice. Water. They held it out like shields and barriers between two opposing sides brimming with the promise of war.
“Wait!” Iona ordered. “Everyone just wait a fucking minute!”
There was a single moment of pause. Valerio let out a growl.
“I am the prince...” His voice broke. “And I order you to move aside so I may bring these traitors to justice.”
“I understand,” Iona told him gently. “But there has to be an explanation for this. Give them a chance to explain.”
“What excuse could they possibly have for what they’ve done here?” he spat.
“I promise you there is a very good excuse for what Weylyn did to that monster,” Bryson said. Her every breath was heavy and her heart was pounding a crazy beat against her ribcage.
This wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d face. Staring down the prince of her people, caught between Elementals in a battle they were sure to lose. But she would stand by Weylyn like no one else had before.
The king deserved what he got and more.
“I am telling you to stand aside, Elemental.” Valerio unsheathed his sword and pointed it in their direction.
“No,” she said firmly. “I won’t.”
Valerio growled and the room grew dark with the use of his magic.
“Valerio, wait.” Clay stepped up beside Valerio and pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Wait one second, cousin.”
“No!” Valerio shouted. “I want his head!”
“You will not have it,” Weylyn said slowly from behind Bryson. “And I will not apologize for what I’ve done. Your father deserved this and more for all the crimes he’s committed.”
“Crimes?” Valerio spat. “Crimes?! You have committed the greatest crime of all. Regicide is punishable by torture and death.”
A fierce wave of protectiveness rose in Bryson. A growl rumbled from her chest, the instinctive urge to protect her mate. To protect Weylyn.
“You can try,” she whispered darkly. “But I won’t let you.”
“Then you will fall too!”
“You would really condemn him for killing the man who murdered his sister in cold blood?”
The entire room fell silent at that. Behind her, Weylyn tensed. They’d never agreed to share this story. It was not even hers to tell, but they deserved to know. It deserved to be heard. Valerio deserved to know what kind of a monster his father truly was.
It was Clay who broke the silence. “What do you mean?”
Bryson threw a small glance over her shoulder, searching Weylyn’s eyes for permission to speak. To tell the story he’d kept locked away for so long.
He took a breath and his mind touched hers. “It’s alright, little mate.”
Bryson turned back to the group. “Weylyn is the son of the Unseelie Queen.”
More pronounced silence. And then...
“What?!” Clay shouted. He was staring at Weylyn with open shock.
Weylyn chuckled. “I am only half-Unseelie, half-High Fae.”
“His father was Alfric Rhian of the Gold Court.”
This time it was Corvina’s gaze who whipped up, shock coloring her features. “Wh—what?”
“Your uncle was kidnapped by the Unseelie Queen,” Bryson said gently. “He was held in their court. They had a child. Weylyn is your cousin, Corvina.”
Corvina stared at Weylyn unflinchingly. The shock melted into what Bryson could almost swear was genuine affection. Her voice dropped to a lower whisper. “I’d wondered,” she said softly, “why I felt so drawn to you. Like Mana was telling me something I couldn’t quite interpret.” She stared hard at him, like she was trying to find parts of her uncle in Weylyn. “Is my uncle—”
“Dead? Yes,” Weylyn said. “The queen killed him.”
Corvina swallowed and tears brimmed her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “Cousins,” she echoed. “We are cousins.”
“He’s lying,” Valerio spat.
“He’s not,” Bryson defended. “Your father killed his sister and left Weylyn for dead.”
Valerio raised his sword. “I do not believe you, trickster. If that is true, why has he been my father’s faithful lapdog this entire time?”
“Even you cannot be so dimwitted as to question why I would keep my enemy so close,” Weylyn purred. “Foolish Seelie Prince.”
“You know...” Shula interrupted thoughtfully. “This makes sense. Why you’re so mischievous. You’re Unseelie. It’s in your blood to weave chaos.”
“I have waited years for my revenge,” Weylyn declared, ignoring Shula completely. “It would have come eventually. Yesterday, weeks from now, years from now, I would have extracted it regardless. But now?” Weylyn held up the Seelie King’s head, taunting Valerio with it. “He had to die quicker. And a quick death was not what he deserved.”
Valerio growled again. He stared at the head of his father, and Bryson wondered if Weylyn was digging into his mind to gauge his feelings, to understand him just a bit more. She thought he looked confused, torn.
“Waste no tears on your cruel father,” Weylyn said. “Had he not died, Bryson would have.”
“What do you mean?” Corvina asked softly.
Bryson held up her arm, pulling down her sleeve and displaying the golden band that still burned around her skin. “The Unseelie Queen has me tethered to her lands,” Bryson explained. “She would have killed me.”
“She asked for the head of the one that killed her daughter in exchange for my mate’s life,” Weylyn continued. “I swore on my mate’s life that I would give her what she wanted in exchange for Bryson’s freedom. And if it ever comes time to choose between my mate and the world, you can bet I will burn down the entire fucking world to save my mate’s life.”
There was another tense moment of silence. Everyone stared at the head in Weylyn’s hand, at the band around Bryson’s arm.
And then Clay stepped closer towards them. “Maybe... maybe they can be forgiven?” he suggested, turning back to Valerio.
The prince looked at him with barely concealed disgust.
Clay shrugged. “I am sorry, cousin. What can we do? If you kill Weylyn, you kill Bryson. We need Bryson, and I very much doubt she will help us if you kill her mate. She will die alongside him. You cannot win this battle.”
“The king killed your sister?” Corvina asked.
“Show them,” Bryson whispered.
Weylyn tensed, but eventually she felt his mind touch hers. And she knew his mind was touching everyone else’s too, sending the memory directly into their brains. The same images he’d shared with her. His sister. His love for her. The pain as he was struck down. An even greater pain as he watched his sister die before his eyes.
And then he was pulling back, leaving everybody stunned.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Clay said, and the words were genuine. He was staring at Weylyn as though everything had finally fallen into place. As though he finally understood his reasoning. And then slowly, he went and stood beside Weylyn and Bryson both. Corvina followed with slower but surer steps.
They turned and faced Valerio, but he still held his sword up and still pointed it in their very direction. He did not drop it. He looked torn. Angry. And revenge brimmed around him like a tangible toxin.
“Valerio,” Iona said. “I think... I think you should put down your sword.” She stepped backwards in their direction, siding with them.
“Iona,” Julius snapped. He glared at his mate as she took Weylyn’s side and stood firmly on Valerio’s end, his big arms crossed against his massive chest. “He killed the king. Whatever his reasons, he still broke the law. He should be punished.”
Iona glared at her mate. “I know, but... I can’t condemn him for it.”
They stared at one another, and Bryson could almost visibly make out the rift that splintered between them.
And then Shula broke that tension by slowly making her way towards Weylyn’s side.
Ryker followed, though stopped in the middle, as though he wasn’t sure who to stand with. There he stayed.
It was Valerio, Uric, and Julius who stayed firmly on one side.
And just like that, The Resistance was divided into two.
“Valerio,” Clay whispered. “Cousin, put your sword down. We need the Elementals.”
And they couldn’t afford to alienate a single one of them.
Bryson saw that war on Valerio’s face as he took them all in. He needed them to win his war, and if he killed Weylyn, he’d have to kill Bryson too. And if he killed Bryson, they didn’t have a chance at returning to their former glory.
There was no winning in this situation.
And Valerio seemed to realize it too, because he slowly, reluctantly, lowered his sword. And then the tears slid down his face, almost unbidden. Angry, full of sorrow.
And Bryson’s chest ached for him. Because even if the king was a monster, he was, after all, Valerio’s father.
“Do not cry, Valerio,” Weylyn said as he reached into Bryson’s pocket and pulled out the mirror they’d taken from Unseelie. It activated at his touch, glowing brightly within the throne room. He held up the Seelie King’s head to the surface and that light swallowed the bleeding head, taking it back to Unseelie, where it would hang above his mother’s throne. “After all, you are king again. And is that not what you wanted?”
Valerio made a choked sound and looked away.
The light disappeared along with the mirror.
And the band circling Bryson’s arm vanished to mark a debt paid.
And finally, they were both free.