Chapter 27 Silva #4
Tate made a wounded animal sound in his throat, like a small dog who’d found its paw inexplicably stuck in the door. “Did it take you to the court?”
“No. But . . . but the Queen was there. Just standing there. She made it seem as though—” She broke off, her face heating in a rush.
“I was still pregnant then. She made it seem as though the baby was running around, hiding from me in the trees. But I never left the path, and as soon as I followed it back to the market, Aelin was back where she belonged, inside me.”
Tate was silent. The Pixie’s ventilation system clicked, the fan kicking on somewhere deeper in the building. Aelin’s steady breath was like the pull of the tide.
“That’s when I knew I had to stop. Looking for you, I mean. I would’ve searched for you forever. But I’d put her in danger, and I couldn’t do that again.”
It was a long moment before Tate spoke again, his voice tight. “Did you eat anything in Spring? Drink? Anything at all?”
“No!” She shook her head vehemently, even though he couldn’t see it.
“I didn’t even touch anything. I gave a girl in the market this little figurine as a trade, but I never touched it barehanded.
It didn’t even have my fingerprints on it.
Winter . . . she didn’t give me a choice, Tate.
She made me eat. She said the baby was going to die.
She told me she couldn’t allow that because the punishment for death—”
“—is death.” Another long, pregnant pause set between them. “Where is this key now? You have to get rid of it as quickly as you can.”
“I did that already,” Silva assured him. She’d at least done something right. “As soon as the Winter Queen let me go.” Silva chewed her lip, thinking through all that she knew, all that she’d learned, the cost of her key. “Are you a prince?”
Tate almost choked. His laugh was a low rumble, tempered to prevent jostling the little body tucked beneath his arm. “Hardly. Wouldn’t that be the irony, dove? Too afraid to bring me home, and all this time I was royalty.”
Silva sputtered, her cheeks heating, but he didn’t give her a chance to dispute his words.
“My grandmother was sent to a wishing well after her marriage. You know the tradition.”
Think baby thoughts. Large golden coins that elves still minted exclusively for the wishing well tradition.
“Well, there happened to be someone there to receive her coin. And he happened to be in the market for an heir, as it were. Consort to the Queen. He took me from my family as payment for services rendered because of that coin. And because he held the debt, I was tethered to him. He could always find me. And he would have carved you into pieces as an amusement, just to keep me in line. Do you understand why I couldn’t make promises to you, Silva?
There’s nothing I wanted more than to give you everything you were asking of me. D’you see why I couldn’t?”
“What’s stopping you now?” He craned over his shoulder once more, and Silva decided to put him out of his misery, pushing away from the desk to walk around the sofa where he and Aelin sat. “You said he’s dead. So if they can’t collect you anymore . . . what’s stopping you now?”
The look of disdain he gave her was one she was treated to from her daughter several times a week. “I’ve just fucking come home, haven’t I? You want me to put a ring on your finger tomorrow, Silva? I will. But you’re still technically married, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she confirmed. “So I guess we have until summer to figure out if you like the new me.”
“I’m glad we have time to get past this day, because my current answer is ‘Not very much.’ I can’t believe you risked your life and hers so foolishly.”
“I can’t believe you’re pretending not to be a prince.”
They glared at each other across the room for several silent heartbeats, until she could hold in her laughter no longer. Silva pushed up, carefully relocating to the sofa, folding her legs beneath as she settled beside the sleeping little elf.
“Therapy,” he muttered, “D’you mean telling a random stranger all of my innermost thoughts and fears?”
Silva rolled her eyes with a smile, slipping her fingers through those on his free hand, resting their joined fingers lightly on Aelin’s side. “It wouldn’t be a random stranger. It would be one stranger we pick together.”
“Grand. That sounds loads better. Can’t wait to unpack all my daddy issues with a minotaur.”
She buried her laughter in the sofa cushion, imagining how long an appointment like that might take.
“Well, since you’re compiling your topic list, your mom made her this sweater.
Aelin loves talking to her.” She looked up in time to see his brow furrow, an unreadable emotion in his eyes.
“Your phone,” she clarified. “I answered it one day . . . we’ve kept in touch since. ”
He snorted, fingering the fine edge of a pink tulip. “I should have known this was a Caoimhe special. Careful. You’ll have to rent space to store the wee one’s wardrobe if she’s left unchecked.”
“Kweeva?” Silva narrowed her eyes, repeating the name, shaking her head. “Are you sure that’s right?”
The look with which he pinned her was one Aelin delivered every time Silva suggested she put away her toys to get ready for bed. “It’s my mother, Silva. I’m pretty sure I know.”
She sat back with a huff. “I’ve been saying it wrong this whole time.”
It was Tate’s turn to turn his face into the cushion, shaking in silent laughter.
“We went to see her a few months ago. Just the once. She was so happy to meet Aelin. And she’s already over-exceeded the closet.”
Tate was gazing down, transfixed, and she understood his wonder. She had spent that whole first year in the same trance, unable to look away from Aelin’s face.
“She’s so beautiful . . .” His eyes were glossy with unshed tears, unblinking in his stare. “Three years . . . and you named her Aelin. Family name, Silva?”
“You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s beautiful.”
She blew out a breath, already feeling a bit miffed at this Tate, who told her what he thought instead of holding back. Did he always do that and you were the one not listening?
“I wanted something with an A to honor both our grandmothers. I couldn't find anything I liked . . . then she was born and it was like the name came with her.”
He stayed silent, never pulling his eyes away from the sleeping little face. “It means moonlight in the common,” he murmured eventually, continuing slowly. “And in Elvish, it means ‘little pool.’”
They were both silent then. The name had been delivered as surely as Aelin herself, and Silva twisted at the implication in that.
“I felt like I was being directed,” she whispered.
“Not always, but . . . some things felt too easy. Like they’d been placed there for me specifically.
The key found me, not the other way around.
All I had to do was pay for it. And then after that, it was like there was another voice in my head, always telling me I needed to keep looking, that I couldn’t give up.
And there was another voice there screaming, but it had been locked away and I could barely hear it.
And then I realized that was my voice. I’m afraid to know where the other one came from. ”
Tate was quiet, but she could tell from his eyes that he was carefully parsing her words.
“Faerie is guided by intention,” he said at last. “Nothing is given. Everything there is a barter, dove. If you accept kindness, it’s not a gift.
You’ll pay for it somehow. You need to move with intention, and never give them anything you don’t want them taking.
If you’re uncertain, that’s something the ground itself notices.
They’ll take your uncertainty and give you purpose.
But it won’t be your purpose. If you wish for something, it will arrive exactly as you worded it, which is never what you wanted.
Take your elves and your fountains . . .
you wish for a baby. It might come to you.
You might not like the manner in which it does, but that wasn’t a part of your wish.
That doesn’t mean you get to keep it. The Frostbitten Queen doesn’t mince her words.
If she intended to keep you, you’d never have left, so I don’t think the meal she provided was anything but that.
And you’re lucky we live in prosperous times, dove.
I’ve known some on the other side who’ve had their children refuse to leave the womb until wars are finished.
But I don’t think you quite realize, Silva, just how dangerous this little quest of yours actually was.
That it didn’t end in blood is a stroke of luck I’d not chance ever being repeated. ”
“A kiss of fate,” she murmured. You’re not a puppet anymore.
“There’s something else I did,” Silva blurted, her ears heating immediately.
“I-I’m not proud of it. I was panicked at the time, panicked and only thinking about the short term, but I know that’s not an excuse.
Of all the things I did since you left, this is the only one I regret. ”
She paused, ducking her head, tears filling her eyes as she looked down on Aelin’s sleeping face. Tate said nothing, but the fingers around hers tensed, waiting for her to continue.
“I went to see a witch before I left. It wasn’t a stranger; she was someone I’d been buying from for a long while .
. . I asked for her to look like me. She did something with my blood, a potion.
She even told me then it wasn’t right, and that the results might not be permanent . . . now I hate that I did it.”