Chapter 38
The grave was barely a mound of earth at the far edge of the property, just outside of the protective wards, where the manicured gardens gave way to wild grasses and the Mistwood beyond.
Delphi stood before it, her arms wrapped around herself despite the afternoon warmth.
They had buried what was left of Narcisse here—not in the family crypts beneath the chateau with Tenebrys's ancestors, but out here in the liminal space between civilization and wilderness.
It felt appropriate somehow. Narcisse had always existed in the margins, in an area as gray as his morals.
The wound on her palm had healed when she used her witch fire, but Delphi could still feel the ghost of the place where her blood had burned into Kaelis's face, and flowers bloomed from her fury.
She flexed her fingers, watching sunlight play across her skin. No flames danced there now. The witch fire slept quietly in her chest, a banked coal waiting to be stoked.
"I should feel something," she murmured to the unmarked grave. "Grief. Relief. Anything."
When Delphi thought of Narcisse, there was only a hollow anger, the kind that had settled into her bones over decades of disappointment. He had lied about everything. Her mother's death—no, her mother's murder.
The pyre in Montcrillon. The way he had forced Delphi to watch a woman burn, smell her flesh char, hear the crowd's bloodlust and never told her it was her own mother screaming.
She tried to remember Cassia's face before that, but like always, there was nothing but a blur.
There were only her screams in her head.
Delphi's hands curled into fists, claws pricking against her palms.
"You bastard," she whispered. "You made me watch her die. You never told me it was her. Had she left you already? Is that why I can't remember her? Is that why you never tried to save her?"
The worst part was that Delphi knew what Narcisse was as she got older, and she had stayed with him. There had been a pathetic part of her that kept hoping he would finally see her. Love her. Be the father she desperately needed him to be.
Delphi's throat tightened. She wouldn't cry for him. He didn't deserve her tears. She wasn't sure that Cassia did either. There were still too many unanswered questions, gaps in the story that would probably haunt her forever.
What had Cassia been like before coming to this place? Before Kaelis took her magic? Had she loved Narcisse, or had that been another lie? Did she ever hold her infant daughter and look at her with love? Or was Delphi another reminder of what had been stolen from her?
"I'm sorry I will never know your side of the story," Delphi said, softer now. She didn't know if her mother's spirit could hear her, didn't know if such things existed beyond the veil but she needed to say it anyway.
"I'm sorry he traded you like you were nothing. You deserved so much better than him, and all that had happened to you."
A breeze stirred through the grass, carrying the scent of roses from the grove where Rosemerta stood with her beloved consort Mercurius. Delphi chose to believe it was an answer and let it comfort her.
She took a steadying breath and turned away from the grave. Maybe it was better not to know. Maybe some truths would only carve her open wider.
What mattered now was the future it was one she would forge with her own hands.
The fae wouldn't stop. Kaelis would keep coming for her, desperate to reclaim the witch fire that should have been his.
Delphi had humiliated him, scarred that perfect face, driven him back through the gateways.
Fae lords didn't forgive such insults. He would gather his strength, call in ancient debts, and return with an army at his back.
Let him come.
Delphi flexed her fingers again, feeling the hum of magic just beneath her skin.
She had burned the plague from the earth, healed Tenebrys's wounds, and sent one of the Unseelie's most powerful lords running.
She had done that. Her. The nobody daughter of a drunk alchemist, the girl who had scrubbed floors, hustled her cures, and traded her dignity for books.
Delphi still didn't know all that her magic was truly capable of. That should have terrified her. Instead, it made her grin.
Eiran was already talking about lessons, his silver eyes gleaming with barely concealed glee at having a new student after years of not having a purpose beyond guarding the gateways.
Delphi suspected he would be a tyrannical tutor despite all his charm. The stag shifter had lived for centuries and had probably forgotten more about magic than most mages in Kyllene ever learned. He would push her hard, demand perfection, and refuse to accept anything less than her absolute best.
Good. She didn't want it easy. She wanted to learn, to be pushed, to find her limits and go past them.
None of it had come about the way she'd imagined.
Her childhood dream had been Kyllene, the great university city where she could lose herself in libraries and pretend to be human, pretend to be safe.
But this? Learning magic from a fae who had once served in the Unseelie courts, surrounded by ancient books in Maela's library, with a mate who looked at her like she hung the moon?
This was better.
Tenebrys had sent word to the old shifter clans scattered across Runefjell and beyond. After three decades of isolation, it was time to reach out, to see what alliances remained after so many years of silence.
The plague was gone. Delphi had tested soil samples from every corner of the estate to be certain. The land was clean. Safe. Shifters could come without fear of infection, but they could only hope that some would answer their messages.
The curse that Narcisse had cast on Tenebrys and the others was going to be a trickier problem to solve than the plague.
Delphi had studied Maela's books, cross-referenced her parents' failed experiments, and consulted with Eiran about the nature of fae curses. The answer kept slipping through her fingers like smoke.
She would find it, no matter how long it took. It might take a while for the others to get to know her and trust her, but she would do everything she could to be a good queen to them and get them back to their true forms.
Movement caught her eye, and Delphi turned to see Tenebrys walking toward her across the sun-drenched grass. He had been training with Felix and Syn that morning, working through combat drills for when the fae were bold enough to return.
Tenebrys moved with that fluid, predatory grace that never failed to make her heart stutter. The afternoon light loved him, gilding the black of his fur and making the gold sigils on his bone plating shine. He was beautiful. Monstrous and magnificent and hers.
The mating bond thrummed between them, a constant warmth in her chest that flared hotter as he drew near.
Delphi could feel his concern, his protectiveness, the way he had been monitoring her through their connection all afternoon while giving her space to process.
Dear goddess, she loved him.
The feeling swelled so large in her chest that she thought she might burst from it. This male—this king who had every reason to hate her bloodline—had claimed her anyway. He had looked at the bastard daughter of his greatest enemy and said mine.
Tenebrys stopped before her, his golden eyes searching her face. "Are you all right, little flower?"
Delphi stepped into his arms, pressing her cheek against the warm bone of his chest. His huge hands settled on her back, one sliding up to cup the nape of her neck. She felt so unbearably safe.
"I am now," she said quietly.
They stood like that for a long moment, the sun warm on their shoulders and the breeze carrying the scent of magic and roses. Somewhere in the distance, Luna meowed. Her wing had healed, thanks to Eiran's skill and a touch of Delphi's magic.
"We still have enemies out there," she said finally, not moving from his embrace. "Kaelis will come back. Maybe others, too, once word spreads about what I can do."
"I know." Tenebrys's voice rumbled through his chest. "But whatever happens next, we face it together."
Delphi pulled back just enough to look up at him. His expression was fierce, determined, and so full of love, it made her throat tight.
"Together," she agreed. Then, because she couldn't resist, she added, "And if any fae lord thinks he can take me, he can have a taste of my witch fire."
Tenebrys's laugh was low and wicked. "That's my queen."
Queen. The word still felt strange on her tongue, like trying on clothes that were too fine, too grand. But standing there in the sunlight with her mate, magic humming in her veins and a kingdom at her back?
Maybe she could grow into it.
Delphi had spent her whole life being nobody. Now she had everything: a mate, a home, and people to care for, and she would fight with every drop of her magic to keep it safe.
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