Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Did I hear him correctly? “You want to go back?”
“We fae weren’t always the way we are today,” he says, his tone somber. “I told you. Passing through the worlds… changed us.”
“I find it hard to believe you ever looked human.”
“What is human? We pass from world to world through the centuries and millennia, changing over and over. Truth is, nobody is native to any world. There is no pure race, and you cannot move through the gates and passages without profound changes. Of course, you need the knowledge of the sacred doors and the ways through. Disasters push us to wander, cross over. Invade.”
That’s some excuse…
“Epidemics caused by lumina , lesser fae crossing through tiny cracks, bringing diseases from other worlds, had already started to decimate our world. There were wars and great epidemics, and the kings of our kingdom had closed the gates to the underworld to prevent anything worse. The telchins were posted to protect the passages.”
“And then the Reversal came,” I whisper.
“Indeed. It flooded our world, destroying the rest of our resources. Stuck on the ground, we had few options. We have a memory of being able to fly once, a long time ago. Our priests assured us that by crossing, we’d get our wings back, but we didn’t.”
“So you want to cross back on the off chance you get wings?”
“It’s not only that,” he scoffs, but I can see in his eyes that, yes, he hopes for it. He hopes for a lot of things, and I don’t want to accept his words.
“You killed so many humans here,” I whisper. “And so many finnfolk. Enslaved us. Destroyed this world. Sooner or later, you will pay for your crimes. You don’t get to escape and go back.”
His mouth tilts as if about to smile. “Don’t I? Are you familiar with the most recent prophecy from the World Rim Oracle? The full prophecy?”
“What does it have to do with this?” An uneasy shiver hits me. He won’t answer me, won’t acknowledge the evil he’s wrought, and instead wants to talk about riddles.
“When the old dragon falls through the sky, and a dead soul returns to life,” the king says, still in that same somber, dreamy tone, “watch for the signs in the shifting stars. A new order will come.”
“Enough of this,” I say. “What do I care about the prophecy?”
“He has a name written on his chest. She has an eye on her back.” He frowns. “The king shall not be felled by a living hand. Water will crack the bark of the tree, and fire will end the cycle. The dragon will stand on the sand of the seashore, as the vault of the sky opens to another world. The pillar will slow its endless rotation, the gates will open to great exultation, behold, behold! The dead will return. Return changed but the same, in glory reborn.”
I go still. This is a slightly different version from the others I’ve heard over the years, but…
He has a name written on his chest. She has an eye on her back. He had said that before, and the birthmark on my back… it does look like an eye.
“What are you?” he asks softly, his gaze turning to fix on me. “What sort of creature? Your magic tastes of salt, but although you said you are a siren, I don’t think that’s what you are.”
Caught by surprise, I surge to my feet. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m human.”
“Are you, now?”
Holy Wights. Turning, I gather my skirts and run toward the doors to the audience halls, not sure where I could go. Back to the ball, hide in the crowd? My room?
Go to Jai , I think, but Jai…
“He’s a doomed man, and he knows it.” Why does that make me want to cry? If he’s sinister, as the king paints him, I haven’t seen it. Which is how he managed to break me.
Two masked guards step out before I reach the open doors, and I skid to a halt.
“Let me go,” I plead with them. “Please, let me go.”
“My lady,” one of them says, and I know that voice. It’s Tru. “You can’t.”
“You can’t leave,” the other one says, and I realize it’s Arkin. “Not without the king’s permission.”
I take a step back, their words striking me like a blow. I didn’t think they were my friends, but I hadn’t realized they were my enemies, either. Why are they doing this?
But of course. They are royal guards. They are fae. Of course this is where their loyalties lie, and of course it’s one thing to help out the mute human girl when no one is looking, and quite another to defy their king, fail in their duty, and let me go.
I bet their heads are on the line.
And I don’t know where I thought I’d run to. We’re on an island in the sea, and I’m surrounded by enemies and adversaries. There is nowhere to go.
As I sort through my panicked thoughts, searching for a solution and coming up empty, the king strolls over to where we’re standing, unruffled, his long robes dragging over the soil.
“Lady Rae.” He gestures at the garden as if he expects us to resume our walk. He offers me his arm, and I jerk back.
“No.”
He looks startled at my reaction. He tilts his head to the side. “Did you know that the great dragons and seafolk have a lot in common?”
“Let me go,” I whisper, pretending not to know what he’s insinuating and that my voice hasn’t come out in a croak.
“It’s not just the scales,” he goes on. “You know what I am getting at, don’t you? I know what you are.”
“Let me go,” I try again. “Please.”
“I can’t do that,” he says, his pale eyes brightening, “because it’s you . I thought it couldn’t be. That it was impossible, but this world is full of strange wonders. You changed. But I knew you right away. I know who you are.”
“You can’t know who I am,” I push out through my gritting teeth. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“We fae find it hard to lie. I am telling the truth.” He keeps watching me, head tilted to the side, like a bird. “Athdara betrayed you. Did you know he was the one who killed your family?”
“You’re lying.” He’s only trying to distract me, and it’s working. My hands are shaking. “He didn’t.”
“And yet, he controls a great Eosphor, Phaethon, who is a gate-opener. And opening gates means he can bring back the dead. My dead, your dead… He could bring them all back, but he refuses to do it.”
No…
“He’s only interested in his own interests. Why do you think he obeys me, has linked himself to me? He doesn’t care about you or me. He’s on a mission, and to the hells with the rest of us.”
Flynn… My parents… He could bring them back and won’t? He could have brought me back and didn’t?
“Shut up!” Snarling, I fly forward, lifting my hand to slap him. “You’re a deceiver. Shut up, you?—”
But he catches my wrist easily, deflecting the blow. “We know one another, Rae, you and I.”
“No, we don’t.” I try to free my wrist, but he holds on tightly, the fine bones in my arm grinding together, sending agony up my injured arm.
“Cast your mind back to older times, lovely thorn,” he says, and shock blasts through me. “You are the thorn, not the flower.”
No!
“Say something.” He’s gazing at me, and the world has fallen away, leaving us alone on this strange shore. “You know what I’m talking about.”
My eyes sting, but I shake my head. “No…”
“And you know me, too. Don’t you? Stop resisting the truth.”
“I don’t know you,” I bite out. “I don’t know?—”
“You are a thorn,” he repeats, and the words cut me like blades. “Not a flower. You don’t bend. You don’t wilt. You are full of anger, pain, and beautiful promise.”
Skies. No. I sag, my knees going from under me as if all my strings have been cut at once. This can’t be happening. No. Those were the last words the boy I’d loved told me on the river shore. Or maybe they were the first. Memory blurs time. Memory hurts .
He’d called me that. A thorn. He’d said it affectionately, as if it were a compliment. He’d spoken those exact words, and nobody else had been around to hear them, know them.
My mind insists that it can’t be him; he can’t be my Jackal… But the king’s third name, I now recall, is Jeridwen. Isn’t that a fae word for a wild animal? Could it be…?
I’m kneeling there, frozen, lost in the memory, confused, as the fae king kneels beside me and takes my hand, turns it, and lifts it to his lips. “You’ve always been mine, Aethre. If I may have this honor…”
His kiss on my wrist stings. It feels cold. Icy. With a hiss, I snatch my hand away and then stare down at it.
Holy gods, what in the worlds…?
A mark. The kiss has left a mark on my wrist. I recognize it as the emblem of his House, edged in black, branded in my skin.
When I lift my head, I find his gray eyes regarding me calmly. “Why do you act so surprised? We made a promise to one another.”
“One day, I’ll put my mark on you, and you will put yours on me…”
An engagement mark? Incredulous, I lower my hand, my mind whirring away. Is he serious? Did he just declare his intentions to me and ask for my hand in marriage?
It’s impossible, unfathomable, but as I gaze back into those pale eyes, a crystal gray reflecting the sky, it slowly sinks in.
King Rouen, this handsome fae king, must be the boy I once loved. Mars, the Jackal. The love of my life. He has to be. He doesn’t look the same, granted, but I had been in love with a boy. This is a man.
It’s him. He’s here. He’s alive.
And I can’t do it. I can’t fulfill my mission and let death take him from me.
Not again.