Chapter 56
Chapter
Fifty-Six
Viewed from the sky, the Eldergrove sprawls even farther than I imagined, stretching from the Brumalts at our backs out past the horizon ahead.
How a hunter could find anything within it is beyond me, though Andraste seems to know precisely where she’s going. She circles down to a milky turquoise lake ringed by ancestral pines, then lands gracefully, bending her neck to allow us to dismount.
Desmond rushes over, ignoring his knight and his sister as he sweeps me into crushing arms. “Praise Danu,” he says, cupping the back of my head. “I was getting worried they’d never find you.”
I want to ask why he wasn’t out searching, but I bite back the question. What does it matter now? He will claim me, he will become king, Lachlan will be free, and the Otherworld will know peace once more.
“Where’s Sabre?” Aowen barks, interrupting our reunion.
Desmond nods over his shoulder. “Scouting the perimeter with his knight. Ensuring we don’t gain any unwanted company.”
Aowen nods, already staring between the pines. As if she could send him strength and luck with the sheer force of her attention. But on the shore of these placid waters, protected by this brave group of beasts and warriors, it’s hard to imagine we’re not safe.
Desmond leaves my side to confer with Lachlan, and Aowen takes his place.
“Thank you.” She offers a wan smile. She knows the choice I’m making—duty over love. She leans her head on my shoulder. “Sister.”
I am too overcome for conversation. I press my cheek against the crown of her head and wait.
I catch snippets of Desmond’s discussion with Lachlan at the edge of the water.
Desmond asking Lachlan if he’s sure he wants to leave the knighthood?
If there’s anything Desmond can do to change his mind?
Lachlan only shakes his head and extends a hand toward his duke, who clasps it, then pulls him into a hug. Will Desmond miss him, I wonder?
Does he have any idea why Lachlan refuses to stay?
Desmond saunters over and holds out a hand to me.
My heart batters my ribs as he guides me away from the shore.
Vesper flits down to Aowen’s shoulder, her black eyes crawling over my dirt-stained jacket and torn pants.
Like it’s a personal insult that I am so poorly attired on what is ostensibly my wedding day.
But then her tiny face transforms. There’s affection.
A little sadness, too. I think Vesper’s able to read us all more deeply than we give her credit for.
Desmond leads us to a small alcove created by the drooping, tangled branches of two pines leaning against each other. A private, makeshift altar.
He’s gripping my hand so tightly, I fear my fingers might break. Is he nervous, too?
Despite my soul screaming wrong wrong wrong, I know Desmond is a good man. That he will be a good king. Why should my insignificant heart matter when ignoring it will fix so many things for so many people?
Desmond turns away to remove his cloak, and I use his inattention to search the shore one final time as an unmarried woman.
To find him.
Lachlan’s gazing out over the water, his back toward me. He’s a sculpture in the wind, his auburn hair whipping around the seven-pointed star crowning his sword. The brave knight at final respite, his campaign at a close.
He turns and our eyes meet. Even this far away, all I feel from him is profound love and acceptance. He places a hand on his chest, mouths the words my queen, and bows into the wind.
I swivel back before I ruin everything. Before I run from this good man who would be king to the great man who owns my heart.
Desmond steps beneath the boughs in a simple white tunic and leather breeches, his arms spread wide. “Are you ready, darling?”
I know how this ritual ends, with us both saying our vows, then Desmond laying me down upon the soft needles and taking my body as his. Claiming the seed of novillum within me. Our lives will synchronize, and we will rule.
The moment seems too banal for so grand an outcome. But maybe that’s what makes it easier to accept when Desmond places his hands on my waist, presses his forehead to mine, and whispers the vow I must repeat back to him.
Despite everything, my voice is steady. “By the life in my veins, by the will in my heart, by the persistence of my soul, I choose you as king, Desmond Macán. I am yours to command.”
His chest thumps as I say the vow. I am not foolish enough to think it thumps for me. But perhaps over time we could learn to love one another. He pulls back, cups my cheeks, and smiles. A stunner. Broad and dazzling and full of joy and wonder. It’s regal. Beautiful, really.
He’s about to start his own vow when there’s a twang.
And a thump.
He jerks forward, grunting, and his smile turns red before it falls away. His brows furrow as he glances down at the arrow pierced through his chest.
Oh, no. Oh, god.
He falls forward, and I try to catch him, but he’s far larger and heavier than me, so we tumble to the ground instead. Iron-rich warmth splashes my face, my hair, smears my jacket and hands and pants. There’s so much. Too much.
I maneuver his head into my lap, screaming for help before I stop myself.
What if it was Torvil? What if he’s about to kill me, too? Can he extract the novillum from a dead woman? I’m not keen to find out.
I scan the pines for the archer, but Lachlan reaches us first, bursting around a tree then skidding through the needles, chest heaving and eyes blown wide.
“Help,” I croak, pressing my hands against Desmond’s chest, trying to keep his blood, his life, in. It’s not working. He’s too still. Growing too cold.
Lachlan crouches beside me, panicked. “Is any of that yours?” he barks, his usual cool calm completely abandoned as his hands rove over my skull, my back. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” My hands are slippery and this is not working and there’s still a killer out there and I can’t … “Help him,” I scream at Lachlan. “Help him!”
More rustling surrounds us as Aowen and Sabre come crashing through the trees. Aowen wears the most placid expression I’ve ever seen on her face. Which means below her surface churn eruptive levels of fury.
Sabre’s dragging someone behind her in a headlock, and when the man lifts his silver-haired head—
Sir Quinn.
The cloaked third by the river with Torvil. So obvious I want to scream.
Sabre knocks Sir Quinn to his knees, then fists his hair and pulls his head back, giving Aowen full access to the throat of the man who, based on the quiver of arrows over his shoulder, killed her brother.
The birchwood bow bounces against Aowen’s back as she stomps over and hooks her thorn under Sir Quinn’s throat. Sabre pushes him into it, and a thin red line trickles into his collar.
“Look at him.” Aowen’s voice is glacial, but Quinn—the stupid bastard—snaps his eyes shut. “Fucking look at him!” she roars, digging the thorn in further.
Sabre pries Quinn’s lids open, forces his head toward me and Desmond, and Quinn’s lips curve into a lunatic smile. His voice is a laborious wheeze. “And thus concludes House Macán’s bid for the crown. How pitiful an ending.”
Aowen’s beautiful face transforms into a gleeful, terrifying mask. “Less pitiful than yours is about to be.”
She whips back her arm, then slams the thorn into the corner of his neck, right beneath his left ear. She drags it slowly, deeply toward the other side.
I may be more immune to violence and gore than I was several months ago, but this is too gruesome to witness. I look away and cover my ears, but it’s not enough to mute the squelching gurgle of Aowen sawing through Sir Quinn’s throat.
A hand lands on my shoulder with gentle, comforting pressure. I’ll recognize that touch until my bones have crumbled to dust. I press my cheek to Lachlan’s fingers, tense until he whispers, “It’s done.”
When I open my eyes, they’re inexorably drawn to the corpse. Quinn’s head, a contorted mosaic of wild-eyed pain, is barely attached to his body, and there’s a gaping, ragged valley beneath his chin. A blood-red second smile.
Good.
Aowen’s hunched over, staring at what’s left of Quinn while Sabre stares at her, awestruck. Worshipful. Like he’d kick the corpse aside, kneel in the blood of her fallen enemy, and propose right here and now.
Aowen rises, then staggers toward me, her anger pouring out in a long, keening wail as she pulls Desmond from my lap.
She rocks him against her torso, burying her sobs into his neck, muttering baby brother and Des over and over again. They hadn’t spoken since the night he showed up in Tír na Lune to tell us he’d bargained her to Sabre. I cannot fathom her grief.
Lachlan stands beside her, resting a hand atop Desmond’s head. “Sleep well, my king. Until we meet again in the Afterlands.”
I stand and brush myself off, wondering what in god’s name our next steps are. Desmond was the answer to everything—my survival beyond the end of the Wild Hunt, Lachlan’s freedom, the Otherworld’s peace—and now … How much time do we even have left to fix this? Mere hours?
It’s not long enough.
I turn to Lachlan, and he opens his arms, about to—
The ground beneath us shudders, branches crashing, and before I even have a chance to breathe, I see Mortis pounding toward us.
And with a powerful bolt of clarity, as if from Danu herself, I know what I must do.
Mortis stops before us, snarling. Aowen wipes off her thorn, Lachlan’s sword hisses out, and Sabre flips his scythe-daggers. Skadi’s glowing green eyes flash deep within the pines; she must have been stalking Mortis. I try to catch her gaze, let her know not to come any closer.
“Wait,” I say, too faintly for anyone to hear me. They’ve corralled me behind them, thinking I’ll be no help, but they forget I am the only advantage we have left.
“Wait!” I shout. Lachlan is the first to turn. “I’m going with him.”
“What?” He rears back. “Absolutely fucking not.”
Mortis creeps closer, advancing and retreating, toying with us like he did in Tír na Lune.
I grab Lachlan’s elbow. “Mortis will not kill me. I can end this. Please.”
I see the moment my plea reaches him. His hand comes to my face, fingers tightening on my cheek, his sapphire eyes asking a question I don’t have an answer for yet.
What happens after?
I cannot think that far ahead. I strip off my jacket, my boots, my pants, until I’m wearing nothing but the chemise from beneath my bridal attire. I un-plait my hair, then put the boots back on and tuck the thorn into the left with just the edge of the handle peeking out.
Aowen does a double-take at my attire. “What is she doing?”
Lachlan presses a kiss to my temple, audience be damned. “Saving us.”
I step toward the báshound with the ugly, jagged scar through his left eye.
“Mortis,” I say.
“Take me to your master.”