Chapter 30
Kieran
“This is not a negotiation, Kestra.”
She rolls her eyes.
I am closer than I’ve ever been in my life to strangling my beloved baby sister. And she knows it. That’s why she’s smirking.
“Kieran, I’m a queen of Faerie. Stop acting like I’m a child to be, to be, to be—” She growls at me and tosses her hands in the air.
“You are being ridiculous!” I snarl back at her. “What are you going to do here? Huh?” I spin in a circle, arms outspread. “What, Kestra? Fuck Jadeve?”
I don’t see it coming.
One second I’m standing. The next there’s ice through my shoulder and bark against my spine and my sister’s face inches from mine.
I deserved that.
“That is not—” I exhale sharply and grip the spear wedged through my shoulder and into the tree behind me.
Kestra is in my face in the next breath. My beautiful, baby sister.
And it isn’t her face I see. It’s our mother’s, blurred together with Kestra’s until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Her eyes crystallize. White stretching across the iris. When she blinks, it’s sideways. Then down. Like a lizard.
I’m looking at an Unseelie queen.
I’m looking at my baby sister.
Same person. That’s the part that terrifies me.
Little braids weave through her dark hair. Her skin white, her cheeks rosy. She’s Mab through and through.
And she’s pushing the spear deeper into me.
“How dare you,” she seethes.
She’s also still super short. And though she has me pinned by her power alone, I’m taller.
Now is not the time to point this out.
“Kestra, I didn’t—”
“Mean anything by it?” She shrugs. “Bullshit.”
“You have spent way too much time with Ash.” I sigh, hearing Ash’s curses fall from her mouth.
“Ash wouldn’t think to debase me.”
“Kestra.”
“She’s right.” Ash steps into the clearing. Takes in the scene, me pinned to a tree, Kestra’s hand on the spear, blood running down my arm.
She chooses to leave me pinned.
“Seriously?”
“On her side.” Ash hooks a thumb at Kestra. “You have to let her make her own choices, Kieran.”
“You don’t understand.” I cry out as Kestra pushes the spear deeper. Sweat beads on my forehead.
I do not sweat. Ever. Until now, apparently.
“Then help me understand.” Kestra’s voice cracks.
“I—” I look up because tears burn behind my eyes. “If you don’t come with us then...then you no longer need me.”
“Kieran.” She doesn’t ease up on the spear.
“Listen.” I lick my lips. “Mother. You. You are so much like her. So beautiful, but where her heart was cold, yours is warm. And what if someone breaks it? Hurts you?”
“You’re afraid my fate will be similar to Mother’s.” Kestra removes the spear.
I wheeze and sink to the ground. Ash stares at me. There’s a fragility in her I’ve only seen once, after the Trial of Truth, when she came out shaking and wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d felt. She’s wearing that same look now.
Haunted, there isn’t another word for it aside from haunted.
“Yes.” I look back at my sister. And all I can see is the little girl who got stuck in a tree chasing a poisonous butterfly. Never mind that the tree was an eating willow.
“Choices,” Ash whispers, more to herself than either of us.
But Kestra runs with it. “It is my choice, Kieran. No matter what path lies ahead, it has to be my choice to walk it.”
“She’s right.” Ash says it with unshed tears in her eyes. “You can’t take the choice from her. But I would say one thing. Don’t make a choice with hate or regret in your heart. Okay?”
“Ash.” Kestra turns to her, to the woman I chose over my court, my birthright, my father, and looks at her with more understanding than I’ve earned.
“Don’t make a choice you’ll regret,” Ash says quietly. “And if there’s a goodbye, make it count.”
Kestra nods.
“Would it ease your concerns to know she is set to meet with your uncle?” Jadeve walks into the clearing like he owns it.
Which, given that my sister apparently lives here now, he probably does.
I push myself up, healing slowly. “What uncle?”
“Your father’s brother.” Jadeve looks at Kestra with a sheepish shrug.
My father’s brother. The baby cut from my grandmother’s womb. The one Father said lived in exile, if he lived at all. I’d assumed he was dead. Father certainly wanted everyone to believe it.
“Cullen is alive?” The name feels strange in my mouth. I’ve never spoken it aloud.
My sister grumbles.
“You knew?” I accuse her. “You weren’t going to tell me?”
I try for my own ice spear but end up with a snow cloud.
Luckily no one mentions it.
At least the spears form during combat. For now.
“Jadeve and I decided not to tell you because—” She emphasizes the word. “What change would it make? Your path is one way. Mine is here. In the Dark Forest. In the Unseelie Court. I can’t take back the court from outside it.”
I grind my teeth.
Why does she always have to be so damn smart?
“Cullen has been building forces deeper in the forest,” Jadeve says.
“How deep is this fucking place?” Ash crosses her arms. Orion tugs her back against his front.
News is coming at me far too quickly to process.
“There’s more,” Jadeve continues, but turns to Tiana. “We know who is taking out the Wild Court encampments.”
“Who?” Orion demands.
“Wait.” I hush the big guy.
Jadeve is looking at Tiana. Then at Finnian, who’s just stepped into the grove.
“The Seelie Court,” I whisper. “Who?”
“As I said.” Orion’s voice rises. “Who?”
“That is for Tiana.” Jadeve’s gaze settles on Finnian. “And the Sword.”
The temperature in the clearing drops.
Not from me. From Finnian.
He goes absolutely still. The kind of still that precedes violence, not retreat. His amber eyes don’t widen. They sharpen and focus. The Crown must be screaming beneath his temples right now, feeding him every implication of what Jadeve just said.
Jadeve just told him the woman who claimed him over his parents’ ashes has been orchestrating genocide for decades.
While Finnian stood in her court. Bound to her.
Unable to stop what he didn’t know was happening.
At least that is what he’s implying. While Finnian stood in her court.
Bound to her. Unable to stop what he didn’t know was happening.
His jaw works. Once.
“How long.” The scruff on his cheeks twitches as he locks his jaw. “How long has she been doing this?”
“Decades.” Jadeve doesn’t soften the blow. “The settlements didn’t start disappearing yesterday.”
I don’t know what to say to him, to Orion. On one side Ash’s mate is Wild Court. And Orion’s own people are the ones the Seelie Court is slaughtering, Finnian’s people.
It’s a fucked up Fae paradox and one I’m not even surprised about. If Amarantha kills the wildlings, then no one knows who the gods are.
Ash takes a step toward Finnian, then stops. Her hand twitches, wanting to reach, not sure if she should.
“We’ll deal with her.” She says it quietly. A promise. “Together.”
He gives her a quick nod, breaking the silence of the grove.
“So many choices of where to go and who and whom.” Whispen buzzes around our heads. “Where to go, where to go.”
“I’m staying.” Tiana’s voice cuts through the chaos.
Everyone turns to her.
“Tiana—” Ash starts.
“Don’t.” Tiana holds up a hand. Her eyes burn with rage. The same look Kestra had the day she stopped asking Father for combat lessons and started stealing mine. “Jadeve knows where these Seelie strike teams operate. I’m going to find them. And I’m going to end them.”
“You can’t do that alone,” Orion says.
“I work better alone.” Tiana’s chin lifts. “Always have. Committees slow me down. Debate slows me down. I don’t need a war council, I need a target and time. I can get a few out of the way by the month’s end. It’ll give the gods time to wake.”
Ash studies her for a long moment.
“You’re not asking permission,” Ash says finally.
“No.” Tiana’s smile is sharp. “I’m not.”
They don’t speak further. Don’t need to. It’s the same silence Mother and her spymaster shared, a whole conversation in a glance, and everyone else just furniture.
“Kestra and I will gather the Unseelie exiles with Cullen.” Jadeve nods toward my sister. “Build the force to retake the Unseelie Court from within.”
“Tiana hunts Seelie strike teams.” Ash’s voice sounds exactly like it did when she first showed up in Faerie. “Protect what settlements remain.”
“And us?” Orion asks, his hand still on Ash’s hip.
“The tavern first.” Ash looks at her hands. At the thorns pulsing faintly beneath her skin. “The glamour needs to come off. And we need the dead gods.”
“Not dead,” Kestra says softly. “Sleeping. There’s a difference.”
“The courts won’t retake themselves,” Tiana says. She’s already turning toward Jadeve, already planning, already hunting in her mind. “We’ll meet again when there’s something worth meeting about.”
She doesn’t say goodbye. Doesn’t look back.
The others drift away to prepare. Giving us space. Or maybe just escaping the tension that’s been crackling between Kestra and me since she pinned me to that tree.
My shoulder still aches. Good. I deserve it.
“Kieran.” Kestra’s voice has lost its edge. Now it’s just soft. Just my sister.
“I know.” I can’t look at her. “I know you have to do this. I know I can’t stop you. I know—”
“Shut up.”
I shut up.
She crosses to me. Small. Fierce. Our mother’s face with our mother’s power and none of our mother’s coldness.
Her hand presses against my chest. Right over my heart.
“She froze because she had no one to thaw her.” Kestra’s voice cracks on the words. “Father made sure of that. Isolated her. Controlled her. Turned her into the ice queen everyone feared and no one loved.”
“Kestra—”
“I have Jadeve.” She cuts me off. “I have an army to build and a court to reclaim and a purpose that’s mine. Not Father’s. Not yours. Mine.” Her fingers curl into my shirt. “And I have you. Even across the distance. Even if we don’t see each other for years. I have you.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. I refuse to let them fall.
“You are the bravest person I know.” The words scrape out of me. “You always have been. Even when you were small enough to fit in my shadow.”
“I was never in your shadow.” She smiles, but it’s watery. “I was just waiting for you to notice I had my own light.”
I pull her into my arms.
She’s so small. Has always been so small. But she holds me like she’s the one doing the protecting. Maybe she is. Maybe she always has been.
“Until the shadows find us both.” I whisper it against her hair.
“Until the shadows find us both,” she whispers back.
Then she pulls away. Wipes her eyes. Squares her shoulders.
And becomes the queen again.
“You know what I’m going to say.” Kestra’s voice is steady now.
“Probably.” Ash’s isn’t steady and I think of our bond to see if there’s something there she’s hiding. All I get is the pain of goodbye with Kestra above everything else.
“He chose you over Father. Over the court. Over his birthright and his safety and everything he was raised to protect.” Kestra doesn’t look at me as she says it. Keeps her eyes locked on Ash. “He chose you before he even knew what you were. Before you were valuable. Before you were a queen.”
Ash blinks again and again, the muscle in her jaw ticking.
“Don’t make him regret it.” Kestra’s voice softens. “And don’t let him freeze over. He does that when he’s scared. Gets cold. Pulls away. Pretends he doesn’t need anyone.”
“I know,” Ash whispers.
“Then don’t let him.” Kestra reaches out and squeezes Ash’s hand. “Keep choosing him back. Even when he makes it hard. Especially then.”
“My mother,” Ash says quietly. The words cost her something. “You promised.”
Kestra doesn’t flinch. “When I take the court, she’s the first one I free.” She holds up her wrist where the bruise-colored binding still pulses. “This doesn’t fade with distance, Ash. It doesn’t fade at all. I will keep my word.”
Ash’s composure cracks. Then she rebuilds it.
“I know you will.”
I should be offended that my sister is giving my mate instructions on how to handle me. I’m grateful someone finally said it out loud.
“Follow the path, it will lead right to the tavern. If you rest, do so only on the path.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Orion shudders.
But I’m too busy watching Kestra walk away. Jadeve’s hand finds the small of her back, guiding her toward the village.
And then it’s just us. The four who are leaving.
Finnian still hasn’t spoken beyond those first sharp words. He’s staring at nothing, calculating horrors I can only guess at. The Crown pulsing warnings he’s filing away for later.
And Ash is looking at me.
“You’re bleeding.” She says it softly. Steps closer.
“It’ll heal.”
“That’s not what I said.”
She’s close now. Close enough to see the redness around her eyes. The evidence of tears she shed while I was sleeping. The dream that haunted her into waking.
“What did you dream?” The question falls out before I can stop it.
She flinches. Barely perceptible, but I see it.
“It was…for me to work out.”
“Ash.”
“Kieran—”
“You don’t have to tell me.” I catch her hand before she can pull away. Her skin is warm. It always surprises me, how warm she runs. “But don’t evade the truth with me. Not about this.”
She stares at our joined hands. At her fingers wrapped in mine.
“I dreamed about choices,” she whispers. “About paths not taken. About...” She swallows. “About what happens when you don’t show up for the people you love.”
“Ash.”
She looks up. Those hazel eyes that keep shifting greener every day. The Fae beneath the human. Waking up.
I want to kiss her.
I want to tell her that I’m terrified, too. That watching Kestra walk away feels like losing a limb. That I don’t know how to be someone’s mate when I’ve spent my whole life being someone’s weapon.
I want—
“We need to move.” Orion’s voice cuts through the moment. Not unkind. Just necessary. “Forest won’t stay safe forever.”
Of course it does.
Ash pulls her hand from mine.
The cold rushes back in.
“Right.” She clears her throat. “Let’s go.”
“See you soon!” Whispen buzzes around us before taking off again.
But it’s Ash I watch as she walks away. Head held high and a tear rolling down her cheek.