Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Dread twists inside me as I open the back door and slip inside. I don’t want to face Alistair. He saw everything. He saw me torture an innocent woman for a crime she has not committed. How am I supposed to explain everything that has been going through my head for weeks?
While trying to swallow down that sense of dread, I walk past the now closed door to the cleaning closet and approach the open doorway to the kitchen. But before I reach it, Alistair steps out.
My heart jerks.
“Here,” he says, and hands me a glass of water. “I’ve locked the Osteria family in the closet. By the time Ferver comes back to let them out, it will be too late for him to warn people about us anyway. So I think we should just go meet up with the others.”
Taking the glass of water, I stare at him in disbelief. Isn’t he going to… I don’t know, mention it? What I just did? How terrifyingly similar I am to Jessina Iceheart? Anything?
He doesn’t. And there is not a single shred of judgement on his face. He looks at me in exactly the same way as he always does. As if this didn’t change his perception of me in the slightest.
Still stunned, I walk over to the kitchen sink and raise the glass of water to my lips. After rinsing my mouth, I drink the rest of the water. It helps soothe some of that acidic taste of bile in my throat.
“They’ve started taking off,” Alistair says, craning his neck to look out the window. “We should hurry.”
“Yeah,” I reply.
After setting down the glass on the counter, I jog after Alistair towards the front door.
The city outside is in chaos. Ferver apparently followed our orders to tell every soldier he met on the way up to the barracks about the fake invasion as well, because silver dragons explode into view in open squares and atop rooftops all around us.
Dragons roar and wings boom through the air as they push off and shoot into the sky.
I drag in a deep breath, still trying to get my wits back after the horrifying realization in the Osteria house and my embarrassing breakdown in the garden. Alistair still says nothing about what just happened. I glance over at him where he is jogging up the street next to me.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice so soft that it’s barely audible over the screeching dragons that take off into the sky.
Alistair glances at me from the corner of his eye, looking genuinely surprised. “For what?”
“For… not commenting.”
Understanding blows across his face, but he just lifts his toned shoulders in a casual shrug and shifts his gaze back to the chaotic street before us. “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly a bastion of morality myself. And everyone needs to find their own limits. Figure out where they draw the line.”
Some of the embarrassment that still lingered inside me starts to fade, and a small smile tugs at my lips.
“I don’t have a lot of limits myself,” Alistair continues while we round the corner and jog up the next street. Then he flicks a sideways glance at me again while a teasing smile curves his lips. “I mean, I got Maximus to poison you, and I stole your clothes, and I almost burned your face off—”
“Huh, I’d forgotten about that.”
He chuckles. “And I threatened to snap your skinny little neck for just asking me a question. So there are very few things I wouldn’t do. But I don’t hurt animals. That’s where I draw the line.”
“That’s why you were so relieved when I pulled Talon out of the way during the last Atonement Trial?”
“Yeah.” He rakes his hands through his curly blond hair and tilts his head back a little to heave a deep sigh.
“I, uhm… Do you remember I told you that people in our court would hold me down and burn me to prove to the dragon shifters that they were good little fae who were on the dragon shifters’ side now? ”
My heart twists in pain. “Yes.”
“Well, one of the guys who burned me, he had a pet rat.” Regret crashes over Alistair’s features, and he swallows.
“I killed that rat to hurt him. But I felt so sick afterwards that I could barely eat for an entire month.” He gives me a serious look.
“People usually think that they know their own limits. But often, you don’t actually know where you draw the line until you step right up to it. Or even cross it.”
His words settle deep inside me, calming that jumble of conflicting emotions.
“So don’t beat yourself up over it.” His gaze is steady as he looks at me. “You needed to figure out where you draw the line. Now, you have. And that family back there will be fine. They’ll recover from this without issue.” He grimaces. “As opposed to the rat.”
A short laugh, full of relief and gratitude, escapes my chest. Alistair smiles back.
Those final flickers of embarrassment and panic inside me fade away, replaced instead by a steady sense of certainty.
The burning rage and hatred in my soul are still there, thrashing inside me like black waves in a roaring fire storm. I’m still angry. I’m still furious. I still want revenge. I want to watch Jessina’s heart break and her soul shatter as I take everything from her.
She took my family from me. She destroyed any chance I had of finding out if my parents actually loved me. She and Bane have tortured and humiliated my mate for centuries. They have kept me and Alistair and Isera and everyone in the Seelie Court trapped and broken and suffering for millennia.
And no matter how much some righteous person might tell me to forgive and forget, I know deep within my furious heart that I will never be able to do it. I want my revenge. And I am going to get it. I will get fucking everything.
But I will not do what they did. I will not punish people for a crime that they have not committed. That is where I draw the line. The only line I draw. Everything else is fair game.
I glance over at Alistair as we continue jogging up the street.
The Ice Palace looms above us there on the mountainside, and a host of silver dragons have now begun to take flight from it.
The entire city is booming with the flapping of wings while civilians scream and rush up and down the streets to get out of the way before the attack reaches the city.
Alistair just keeps his gaze on his surroundings while I study the side of his face. There is a lot more to this fire wielder than most people know. He feels things more deeply than almost anyone I have ever met. And he understands people and looks out for them in a way that I didn’t expect.
It strikes me right there that Alistair always waits to make sure that I don’t get left behind.
When we were trying to escape the Unseelie Court, he waited to make sure that I followed instead of just taking off between the trees.
And in the throne room when everyone hurried back through the portal after we had gotten Draven back, Alistair stayed behind to make sure that I got through it as well.
He does a lot of little things like that.
Back in the Seelie Court, I thought I knew what kind of person Alistair was. But I really had no idea.
“You know,” I begin. “For someone who keeps insisting that he’s not a team player, you’re actually an incredibly reliable guy.”
His cheeks flush bright red, and his gaze darts to me. Drawing his eyebrows down, he tries and fails to look menacing as he huffs, “I could still snap your skinny little neck.”
I grin. “Sure.”
While Alistair continues trying to battle the blush on his face, we sprint the final distance up through the chaotic city.
All around us, people are yelling and rushing back and forth while dragons explode into view on rooftops.
A large silver dragon lands on the defensive walls around the Ice Palace and lets out a bellowing roar.
It echoes across the city so loudly that I have to resist the urge to press my hands over my ears.
My skull rings as the dragon roars again. It’s followed by roars from hundreds of dragons up ahead as the soldiers in the Silver Clan barracks shift and leap into the sky. Winds slam down over the city from the storm of beating wings.
Hope flickers through me as Alistair and I dart down the next street and towards the library. If our plan worked, and it looks like it might have, all the soldiers who were guarding the library where Lavendera is working have now been sent to defend the city from our fake invasion instead.
I drag in deep breaths, my heart slamming against my ribs, as we round the final corner and skid out onto the open stretch of stone that surrounds the grand library.
And come face to face with Bane and Jessina Iceheart.
My heart jerks as Bane flashes us a smug smile.
Every instinct inside me is screaming at me to attack. Or run. Or both. But I force myself to do neither.
Standing on the flat stone ground just outside the library, the Icehearts watch us in silence for another few seconds.
Jessina is wearing a sparkling silver dress, and her white hair has been pinned up slightly before falling down her back.
As usual, Bane’s black hair simply ripples down his back like a smooth waterfall.
He is wearing fancy royal formal wear as well, but neither of them has their wings out.
“I told you it would work,” Bane says.
“You didn’t actually do anything, though,” Jessina replies as she flicks a glance at him from the corner of her eye.
“I gave the order.”
“Mabona’s tits,” Alistair interrupts, staring at them from across the stone ground. “You even sound like them.”
Bane flashes us another smug smile while Jessina just lifts one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. Staring at them in disbelief, I shake my head.
Mabona’s tits, indeed. Nysara sure knows how to cast realistic glamours.