Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ablush spread down my cheeks, mottling my skin and turning it cherry-red. Every part of me tingled, and my hands shook on their own, powerless.
“No, stop. Stand up.” Please get up. “I don’t want you to kneel.”
This wasn’t the way things were supposed to work. No one was supposed to be on their knees for me.
My protests fell on deaf ears and this time, no one listened to me. No one cared about the blush or the way adrenaline rattled in my veins.
Not until a curt voice cut in with a laugh like a foghorn. “Look at this mess. Can you believe it? Oh! Dorian Jade is a garden statue. With a pretty little fountain too. Nice touch.”
Poppy joined us, with Queen Laina at her side. My heart lurched at the sight of them and before I knew it, I’d launched myself.
Laina caught me in her arms, Poppy completing the circle and linking the three of us together.
“Any more reunions like this and you’re going to break a rib. Damn, girl, you think you could loosen the squeeze a little bit?” Poppy grumbled. “You’re worse than an anaconda.”
Part of me never thought I’d see them again. And now that they were here, solid and real in my arms, my emotions broke. Tears leaked and a sob rattled in my throat.
Poppy patted my back. “Enough of this, now.”
Laina stared at the Dorian Jade fountain, her expression trapped between delight and horror. She never landed on one or the other. “I’m not quite sure it goes with the décor…”
Stone Dorian’s features were frozen in a twisted mask of confusion. Served him right.
“Let’s go somewhere private,” Laina suggested haltingly. “There are too many eyes on us.”
“Tends to happen when people rise from their graves, sweetie.” Poppy’s quip released a knot of tension in my shoulders. “They weren’t expecting her to walk among us, least of all take care of our biggest problem. Good thing he finally showed his face.”
Mike secured my hand in his and we followed them into a small parlor room where Poppy lit the fire with a wave of her hand. Flames erupted like a red inferno before settling into the charming crackle of orange.
“Send word, Michael. Gather the others.” Laina leaned in close. "We’re going to need them all at present.” She kept an arm around my shoulders to nestle me close, anchoring me to the moment, sanguine and strong. Healed.
Emotions shuddered like vibrations, strumming through me. I never settled, not for hours. Not even when Laina placed us before the hearth to thaw through the last of my resurrections.
Not even when Coral burst into the room. Only when Melia joined her did I manage to stand. I bit my lip, searching for the third, the brunette hair a color between their two shades.
“I’m sure you know exactly who isn’t here,” Melia began in a hush.
An integral piece of our foundation was missing. My jaw tightened and I spread my magic outward in a wide net, searching for any hint of her signature but coming up empty.
“What happened? Where is she?”
Melia shook her head and tears fell. “I’m not sure.
Bronwen… She was right there until she wasn’t.
We can’t find her body. Dorian worked some kind of massive spell once he received word of your death.
He transported everyone, all of us, to Eahsea to claim the castle.
Then dressed you up and paraded you through the streets. He said Kendrick killed you—”
My head spun, a rush of thunder in my ears. No. She couldn’t be…
Not Bronwen. Not now.
“She fought like a fucking demon, though,” Coral added like it made a difference. “I’ve never seen anyone fight with so much heart. She slaughtered her fair share of enemies before she…” Coral stopped, gnawed her cheek, her lips pale.
“What. Happened?” I repeated firmly.
“I turned my back just for a second. There was no indication, no burst of magic, no scream. She was helping me find Poppy so I could get away from the fighting. She was there until she…until she wasn’t there.
” Melia scrambled for an explanation, something she could control, an answer to an unanswerable question.
“We sent people out to look for her. If there’s no body, then she might still be out there. ”
But I couldn’t feel her. Her energy, the cord binding us, had blackened.
“They found this.” Melia held out her hand, and Bronwen’s chain with the silver insignia of the Claw & Fang dangled from her fingers. “I’m sorry.”
Death was only the beginning. I’d personally experienced it. But as Coral ran through the list of names of our fallen, starting with Bronwen and ending with Juno Ians, I cracked.
Grief festered inside of me. I ran through the list in my head, once, twice, three times, until I was sure I could bring up every single face in my memory. Bronwen’s was the largest, the clearest, a photograph instead of an abstract painting.
What happened to her?
Why hadn’t I come back fast enough to save her? Or even stayed long enough over there to greet her?
Laina folded her hands on her lap like they were broken bird wings. “The king did not survive the battle either.”
No one batted an eye at that. We’d known Tywin had to fall.
Laina added, “Even though he was in hiding, our enemies found him and took him down. We’re not sure who actually did it.”
She offered no further details and I waited for some sense of grief to shatter my hard-won calm. Or maybe it wasn’t calm. Maybe I’d shut down, accepting numbness as the price I had to pay. Either way, nothing happened. No wave of emotion rose to drown me.
King Tywin, dead.
Mike remained stoic in the face of the news. Melia’s hand linked with mine, Coral tight to my other side, and the queen at my feet like she actually thought she should be there instead of comforting Mike. Perhaps it was her own form of penance.
I was dead, once. The people I cared about thought they’d lost me.
“Then what happened?” I whispered.
“While you were locked away at Kendrick’s, Mom woke up.” Mike turned to his mother. “Dorian Jade brought us all here to make a statement, but he hadn’t anticipated our reunion.”
“I heard what happened at the court,” Laina said, “and the Imperium stripping the king of his powers. That’s when I took charge. It’s my right as the reigning queen.”
Laina dipped her head, an errant lock of hair falling from her usually pristine updo. She looked younger than I’d ever seen her. And Poppy sat next to her with their knees touching, a fierce protector for the daughter she’d never gotten a chance to know.
“The guards swore their fealty to me,” Laina went on. “So I showed the rebels where to go.”
I shivered, part of me horrified at the attack happening without me, the other part grateful Laina had awakened exactly when we needed her. Like fate. Like destiny.
“What are we going to do with the people I froze?” I asked.
“If you’ll take a suggestion from a monarch, I’d say give them the chance to swear fealty. To you,” Laina replied gently.
I jerked upright, blood rushing out of my head. “What? You mean you. As the queen.”
“I’m old, honey. I’m frail after this sickness and I don’t want to keep ruling the kingdom. My son doesn’t want it. He never has.”
No, now his face bore the resignation of a man long resigned to suffer through his future. Only the twinkle in his eyes gave him away. The small shred of hope, too fragile to bloom, that maybe he wouldn’t have to.
“With everything you’ve done for Faerie, you’re the right choice, Tavi.” Laina nodded, decisive.
My jaw dropped. “No. No, I’m the wrong choice. I would have no business ruling. I couldn’t even hack it in the kitchens.”
My friend’s voices blurred together in a chorus of sound, all of them agreeing with Laina. Convinced I was the one. No matter what argument I made, everyone in the room, everyone I loved, was of the same mind. The same heart.
No matter where I looked or who I turned to, their smiles spoke volumes. They wrote novels with their love, and for the first time in a very long time, I felt it again: that sensation of being in exactly the right place at the right time instead of always fighting against the tide.
Melia’s fingers squeezed mine and my cousin dipped her head to my shoulder, a gesture of solidarity.
“Come on,” Coral griped. “Are you really going to make us say it? You just want to hear all these good things about yourself.”
Me. Queen.
Oh, Onyx would tease me mercilessly if he were here.
* * *
Hours passed before I was able to think straight, and even then it left me with a massive headache that I refused to let Julie heal. I wanted the pain. I wanted even this smallest reminder of who we’d lost to this cause.
Later we joined the guards in cleaning up the battle. We gathered the dead and laid them in the same ballroom where I’d risen from the other side. Now that they were safe in the Summerlands, they would be granted their chance to move on. Death didn’t have to be final. Or scary.
Once the dead had been honored and the wounded patched up, the realm gathered. One mind. One voice. They flocked together outside the castle, with my family close by. Fighters and regular citizens, Seelie and Unseelie Fae. Pixies. Dryads. Encantado. Fevar.
I stood at the balustrade on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and our new water feature, fingers gripping the cold stone. The delightful scent of so many blooming flowers wrapped a sweet blanket around me and added to my resolve.
Out of so much pain came beauty. The resilience of this place, these people, shouldn’t have surprised me. Somehow, it did.
Laina nudged me with a light brush of fingers against my spine. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she murmured. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a blouse the color of fresh apple blossoms, she looked as tired as I felt. But happy. “It has to come from the heart. Okay?”
Queen. If I did this, there would be no going back.
The old, small life I’d been desperate to escape from was a stepping stone to something greater. Something I’d been born to do.
And what if I couldn’t hack it? What if they misplaced their faith and trust and I ended up leading them into something far darker than Tywin ever dreamed?
My tongue twisted into knots and my throat closed. Yet despite the obstacles, I faced the crowd and vowed to drop the barrier between the two realms. Mortal, Faerie, whatever places we wished to touch, anyone with Fae blood could come and go as they pleased.
It was my first decree.
The crowd roared, a seething sea of joy and exhilaration. Their happiness settled beneath my skin, not to cut but to bolster.
Seelie and Unseelie were no more. We were Faerie. We were united. Now. Forever.
The longer I spoke, the easier it became, the more the words wrapped around my heart with passion and conviction. Cheering stretched long and low like slanted rays of afternoon sun.
And I might have stayed there on that balcony if Mike hadn’t drawn me away. He’d stood at my side through it all, the final bastion of the Thornwood legacy, giving his formal blessing to the new era. To me.
Mike and I retired to his room. Our room.
I hadn’t spent much time there, but the moment the old oak door swung open with a push of magic, fae lights bobbed to life.
They gilded the room in a warm amber glow.
Fresh linens graced the bed, its posts reaching up in intricate ivy detailing to the coffered ceiling.
The bed lured me in with silken promises, but before I made a beeline for it, Mike grabbed the back of my shirt and angled me toward another door.
It swung open without us having to touch it, revealing a private bathroom.
A clawfoot tub took up much of the space.
A snap of his fingers brought a rush of fresh water from the faucet and steam curled into the air.
Mike pointed to the tub. “Strip.”
A sly smile tugged the corners of my mouth. “Is that an order?”
“I had to get one last one in before you start giving them to me.”
I obeyed. His nimble fingers plucked at his own clothes, shucking them aside.
I stepped into the water and hissed at the heat before I acclimated to being boiled alive, exactly the way I liked it. A sharp squeal of surprise escaped when Mike climbed in behind me.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you soak without me, did you?”
I never wanted to do anything without him again. And settling against his chest with his arms around me and our legs knotted, I knew I never would.
Our fingers linked, held. My heart caught before it found his rhythm and the heaviness of the day sank deeper inside of me.
I rested my head against his collarbone. “Bronwen.”
A low moan rumbled through him. “I know.”
“It’s not right to be here without her. I don’t deserve to relax.”
He gave me a gentle shake. “I don’t want to hear it. You deserve to be done with it. We all deserve it. Bronwen wouldn’t want you to lose your joy because she’s gone, and you know it. She’d want you to find your happiness again.”
He was right, but that didn’t make it easier to accept. Her loss was an inexplicable tragedy, another cog in the wheel of the machine that threatened all of us. Noren…my father… At least I knew my parents were together again. I knew Onyx was at peace.
I shifted around to face Mike, splashing water against the side of the tub and over the lip. “I know you didn’t want to be king. But are you okay with being king consort? Being my partner and helping me rule the realm?”
I couldn’t do this without him.
My breath held and I went still, his forest-in-sunlight green eyes locking with mine.
“Yes.” Our lips met. “Yes, Tavi.”
Speeches could wait. Official decrees could wait. What couldn’t wait was this desire, the urgency of it bringing us together and binding us tightly. Body to body and soul to soul.
We’d made our choice.
I wrapped my arms around Mike’s neck and adjusted on his lap, my legs sliding over his hips to press my core to his hardness.
The world faded until it was only the two of us and this pull I’d felt from the start. My magic rose, urging his to join, twining them together into a single indistinguishable source.
A queen and her consort.
A woman and her man.
The decision was made the first time I met him, on a dark night when hope abandoned me until a pair of headlights cut through the forest. Mike found me.
Later, with the sun rising into the pink and violet sky of morning, we were both still wide awake.
I lay with my head on Mike’s chest and his hand on my shoulder, the other clasping mine over his heart. Our legs linked, locked as closely as two physical bodies could get.
I went through the names of the people we’d lost again, beginning and ending with Bronwen Minuti. No matter how long it took, I’d find more of her than just a necklace.
“Stop thinking so loudly,” Mike warned with a yawn.
I stole his breath with a kiss. The learning curve would be steep for what we hoped to accomplish. Together. I knew. I knew.
Anything was possible.