Chapter 48
HE MAKES ME come apart twice more before he joins me, frayed and raw, forgetting to tell me how well I take it or how perfect my cunt is.
For a long while, we catch our breath, entwined, the breeze cooling our sweat.
It takes time before we can speak in the quiet, aching sweetness of after. He rubs between my shoulder blades and tells me how my fae mark has spread. I’ve never heard of that happening to fae-touched humans. Then again, it isn’t my area of expertise.
We eat a little as he asks me about the plants around us. I tell him their names, point out the identifiers. “Where did they all come from? Plants don’t seem to grow so easily here, especially not flowers.”
He makes a thoughtful sound as he places his chin on my shoulder and traces nonsense lines down my arm. “I found this place a long while ago. It always struck me as strange. Beautiful. A rarity. It’s still the greenest place I’ve ever seen in the Underworld.”
“A long while ago…” I tilt my head and peer at him out the corner of my eye. “Just how old are you?”
“Centuries.”
“What?” I twist in his hold so I can widen my eyes at him. “Centuries? Plural? How many?”
He shrugs. “Once you get to that point, the numbers matter less.”
I can’t imagine being so careless about years, when I’ve spent so much time wondering how few I have left.
“‘Long is the day and long is the night,’” he says, intonation low, heavy with the combined years of all those who’ve said it before.
I stiffen in recognition and continue the saying: “‘And long is the waiting of the King of Death.’ I heard my father say that once… right before my mother gave him a pointed look and muttered to ‘hush or you’ll call him here.’” I frown up at the noon sun, feeling the sea air, smelling the salt and the smoke from the fireplace, hearing my mother’s voice so clearly.
“At the time, I thought she meant it would mean my death… not that it would bring a King of Death.”
His laugh is low, dark. As it fades, he meets my gaze and I forget about clifftop cottages. There is only him, me, under this high sun.
“It was hard to remain patient for you, Avellan.” Lightly, his fingertips trace me from chin to jaw. “It feels like I’ve been wanting you for an age.”
“You speak like you’re still waiting. You’ve had me now.”
“Some aches don’t fade so easily.”
I don’t know what to say to that. What to think. So I kiss him. Softly. Sweetly.
And yet it devastates me.
This was only meant to be physical. Temporary. Something to enjoy before I go home.
But the King of Death has worked under my skin. A thorn I can’t push out.
And perhaps I’ve got under his too.
Because he holds me tenderly and swipes his mouth over my brow before tucking my head beneath his chin, like he’s a shelter and I’m something precious he intends to keep safe.
“But I thought… Didn’t you hate me until, I don’t know, the night you killed Threnn? What happened?”
“Annon,” he says softly, massaging my scalp, lulling my eyes shut. “It was those damn biscuits.”
Next time I open my eyes, the sun is high in the sky. Noon.
It was noon when I arrived.
The sky flickers—the sun suddenly lower for a blink-and-you’d-miss-it instant.
I frown up at it.
Wait. Why am I lying here, in Drystan’s arms? Under a blanket?
Wrestling myself free, I sit up and rub my eyes.
“What is it?”
My stomach pulls tight. There’s a terrible burn at the back of my throat, scorching, scouring. A punishment for lying here, enjoying myself when Lowen could be performing some dark ritual to reach me.
“What did you do?” I round on Drystan. “Luring me here. Washing away my memories. Fucking me senseless. When I should be…” The guilt is a shard in my throat cutting the sentence short.
Lowen knows nothing of the Underworld’s dangers. He has no Twylth to protect him. No position as a future queen to keep him safe.
The worst thing is—if something happens to him, it won’t even be Drystan’s fault.
It will be mine.
“It’s just an illusion.”
Oh gods. Wrapping the blanket around myself, I search the sky for any sign of that flicker. “How long have I been here?”
Drystan takes a deep breath and rises after me. “Longer than you think.”
I exhale a laugh of disbelief, eyes stinging as I circle and take in this pretty illusion. “You glamoured the sky.”
At the garden entrance, movement catches my eye. The corruption has crept in while we’ve been asleep, blooming, pulsing.
“And you sent your rot after me, too. What is it meant to do—scare me into giving up? If I stay still too long, will it grow over me like it did the Devourer?”
He frowns, head canting.
“Just show me the truth, Drystan. How long do I have left?”
His eyes shutter as he stands tall—more king than lover. “Very well.”
The sky shatters. A thousand shards fall to earth in silence.
A plaintive moan falls from my lips.
The sun is low. So low. Long shadows creep from the fruit trees and the labyrinth walls. In the west, the sky hasn’t yet turned honey-warm, but the opposite horizon already deepens to violet-blue.
We’re perhaps a couple of hours from sunset.
He’s kept me in his illusion all afternoon. I’ve lost so much time.
Choking on shock, I search for my clothes, strewn by the stream, caught up with his. “Is any part of this even real? The plants? The picnic?” He’s shown me the sky as it really is, but I don’t trust what’s left.
He crosses his arms. “Annon, is going home really what’s best for you? If your parents have been keeping this dark secret all this time, are they really who you think?”
I spin and toss his trousers at his feet. “While you have been so honest—so honorable.”
There’s something in the depths of his eyes that holds me there a beat longer than I can spare. I can’t quite place it. Regret? I don’t think him capable. Sadness? Perhaps.
At the fact he’ll lose something he considers his.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I tug on my trousers. “That’s why you brought me here, made me bathe in the waters—you wanted to distract me, so I’d waste time and end up stuck here forever with you.”
His eyebrow twitches. “Would it be so bad?” He yanks on his trousers. “Isn’t your life here better? Isn’t what you have here better? Why are you still so desperate to get back to your family? After everything.”
His questions chip too close to bone. “My brother—”
“Yes, yes, I know. You’re afraid for him. But he hasn’t reached the Underworld. Leave him be. He’ll give up in time.”
I snort and scoop up my shirt. “He hasn’t given up on me in sixteen years. He isn’t about to start now. Just because your mother bargained you away to a human bride and your brothers are your rivals, you—”
“And your family’s perfect, is it?” He bares his teeth in a vicious grin. “The same family who has lied to you and manipulated you all your life. That’s what care looks like, is it?”
I have to stop. Anger simmers in me, making my limbs tremble. I don’t trust what I’ll do if I let go of this stillness.
The willow tree sways. Its hanging branches snake across the grass. The creeping thyme twists and snares, writhing around Drystan’s feet. From among the shrubs, brambles with thick thorns tangle, scrambling over each other to get closer to him, like they feel me unraveling.
Why hold back? It’s a soft, purring voice in the back of my skull.
I’m afraid. I’ll hurt him. Scare him away. Scare everyone away.
I can’t be alone.
My chest heaves as I try to squash my anger and hurt down to a manageable size—a convenient little box I can pack away.
After a drawn-out moment, I swallow. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He holds my gaze, just as still as I am. “I know more than you can imagine.”
Brambles cross the ground between us. He jerks back as if he’s only just seen the unnatural way the plants are moving as untamed magic leaks out of me.
“What’s the matter, Drystan?” I flash him a bitter smile. “I thought this was ‘just an illusion’—illusions can’t hurt anyone.”
There’s this tightness around his mouth that makes me regret mocking him. It’s sad. Sadder than I ever expected him to let me see. “They can if you believe in them.”
More brambles snake in. The willow’s branches are nearly at his ankles.
I grab my jacket and straighten, gesturing toward the agitated plants forming a wall between us. “Leave me alone, Drystan.”
I turn my back on him and walk away, chest cracked wide open.
I swore I’d save my brother.
Yet somehow, so near the end, I let myself be lulled. I closed my eyes to enjoy an afternoon in the sun, and time slipped away.
And I don’t know who I’m more angry at.
Him.
Or myself.