Chapter 50
Zadriel
Before Dother’s Death
Polished silver glittered every time his brother moved, moonlight glinting off precious stones—it was odd, seeing a crown on Cillian’s head.
They sat side by side on the corpse of a fallen tree, surrounded by death.
Few leaves remaining in the canopy. Sprays of yellow and red painting the woods beautifully with decay.
“Should I call you Majesty?” Zadriel asked, stretching out his long legs, fallen leaves crunching under his leather boots. A crow cawed from a branch above, its call answered by a nearby friend. The creatures listening. Curious what roots would spread through autumn’s rot.
Had they flown from Arcadia? Would they follow him home?
Cillian smirked, though it didn’t reach his eyes, fury burning in that bright stare. Somehow, he looked older. Dangerous. So much like Brennan.
Within a blink, his expression softened. “Call me Cillian. The formalities are exhausting.”
“You’ll need to get used to it, Cill.”
“I’ll get used to what I wish.” He ran his fingers along the crown, trailing over silver until he reached a sharp point. “You’d think they intended for me to use this as a weapon.”
Zadriel huffed a quiet laugh. “Perhaps that was their plan, a crown of daggers on your head.”
“Remind me to headbutt my enemies,” Cillian said, laughing along with him.
Closing his eyes, Zadriel rested his head on the tree at his back, his canines flashing with his grin. “Thank the Mother you didn’t have something like that when we were children.”
“It certainly would have turned the tides. You grew far too quickly—I never stood a chance when we scrapped.”
“Well...” Zadriel looked back to the daunting crown, gleaming sapphires and diamonds so at odds with its dangerous points. “You can rest easy now.”
“I suppose I can.” Cillian’s wistful sigh was heavy. “I almost miss those days.”
An awkward silence stretched between them, Cillian’s eyes roving over Zadriel’s face.
Watching. Waiting. When Zadriel said nothing, Cillian stood, carefully brushing twigs and bits of bark from his blue velvet jacket.
“I best get back,” he muttered, knocking his boots on the log, bits of mud tumbling free from their soles.
“Wait!” Zadriel stood swiftly, hand clapping on his brother’s shoulder before he could turn away. “We haven’t discussed Arcadia.”
Cillian stiffened, fingers drumming on the red leather journal on his hip. “I’m not ready to discuss the matter.”
Not ready? How could he not be ready? A thunderous tempo rose in Zadriel’s heart, his jaw flexing while he fought to maintain his calm.
It felt as if the earth rumbled beneath him, Arcadia somehow moving, Her wall of trees pulling their roots from the ground and marching to where Zadriel might never reach them. “You have the crown, you—”
Azure gleamed. “There is much to be done, Zadriel. Be patient.” His brother pulled away, carving a path through a pile of dead leaves as he made to leave.
The air grew stale, the sweet, earthy musk of autumn’s decay fading to ash in Zadriel’s lungs while he followed. “If not now, then when?” His deep voice was quiet, like a whispered plea on the winds. One that would die before it found its way home.
When Cillian turned, there was a hardness in his stare Zadriel hardly recognized.
His heart dropped. Pace slowing until he stopped next to a young oak, leaning on it for comfort, nails digging into a scaly patch of lichen gathered on rough bark.
He’d waited so long to return home. Sacrificed so much.
Now that Cillian had the crown, he’d hoped...
“I still need you,” Cillian said, his tone gentle. Pleading. The four simple words crushing Zadriel’s spirit. “When Berwick accepts its Halfling rulers, I’ll unweave your curse and travel with you to the Forbidden Forest’s edge. I swear it.”
Zadriel frowned. “Aedlin’s a Halfling?”
“No.” Settling against a tree of his own, Cillian fiddled with his ring, the black void inside swiveling in its casing. “It was the king who had sap in his blood; he’s the one who gave Mora her power, though he had none of his own.”
“Then Berwick only needs to accept you.”
A divot appeared on Cillian’s cheek, his jaw working. “Mora and I have an arrangement. She will stand by my side when she’s ready to take the crown.”
Was he trying to convince Zadriel... or himself? “I say this with love, brother, you’re delusional.”
Cillian scoffed. “I’m a visionary.”
“Mother help me,” Zadriel muttered, scrubbing at his face.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’re quick to anger when it comes to her.” Pushing away from the tree, Cillian tilted his chin, staring up at Zadriel. A challenge in those eyes. “What is it, brother?” He stepped closer. “Does jealousy consume you? Can you not stand that she’s mine?”
“The Little Witch isn’t yours.” Zadriel’s voice dipped low, a beast promising to devour his prey. Upper lip curling. Sharp canines gleaming.
Cillian’s jaw ticked. “Say that again.”
“She refused you.” It was Zadriel who moved closer this time, glaring down at Cillian, fists clenched at his sides. “She refused to help Halflings. She refused the throne. She has no desire to be your queen and no interest in politics. For gods’ sakes, you married her moth—”
“I did what I needed to procure the throne!” Cillian shouted, his shoulder slamming Zadriel as he pushed past. “I expected you to understand.”
“Understand?” Scars stretched as Zadriel squeezed his fists tighter, decades of pain echoing along his forearms—Cillian may have sacrificed for the crown, for a fate his father envisioned, but Zadriel bled for it.
“I paid for that crown with my blood. With my life. Your father took everything from me, and now here you are, with the power to do whatever it is he’s envisioned.
” He followed after him once more, purposefully crushing brittle twigs and decaying ferns beneath his boots.
“Accept you’ve lost Mora and let me go.”
Cillian stopped abruptly, huffing a frustrated breath. “I can’t.”
“You’ll be fine without me.”
With a humorless laugh, he shook his head. “It’s not that.” He looked back at Zadriel, bright eyes wary. “I have the title my father wanted, yes, but the rest I can no longer achieve. Not yet.”
Zadriel blinked. “Why not?”
“I’ve used everything we stole from the Forbidden Forest.”
“You what?” His stomach dropped, the yellow leaves fluttering around him suddenly too close to gold. The surrounding decay a stark reminder of his sins. “What do you mean everything?”
“You know the meaning of the word,” Cillian snapped, grumbling further when he attempted to push an errant strand of rich, brown hair away from his forehead and jostled his crown.
“Her Heart?” Pressure built in Zadriel’s chest, his pulse faltering when Cillian’s chin dipped in confirmation. All that sap. All those pieces of the Mother. Gone. “What in the name of the gods did you use it for?”
“Her.” The word was like a prayer on Cillian’s lips. He inhaled deeply, tipping his head back until his face was bathed in moonlight, smiling as if he were enraptured by bliss.
The forest grew quiet. Or perhaps Zadriel’s pulse boomed too loudly in his ears. “...Mora?”
That smile grew smug. "She is my destiny, Zade.”
Fuck.
Zadriel’s breath quickened, nostrils flaring while his instincts roared.
Was this retribution? A punishment from the Mother for all he’d done? He imagined the Fates cackled from their thrones in the heavens.
Mora’s soul song was the loudest, most beautiful beckoning Zadriel had ever heard. A melody he could listen to endlessly. It hadn’t mattered that she’d burned him, nor that she lay with Cillian. Zadriel couldn’t help but to wonder.
To want.
To walk to the edge of the forest serving as his temporary home and stare at the castle, searching the windows for a glimpse of her.
Could she feel his presence? Did she look to the woods in search of something, wondering what it was?
Her hand pressed against her heart, feeling the spark of warmth beneath, while he did the same?
Another inhale and he could have sworn she was there, lingering hints of lavender curling around him. Emanating from…
Cillian.
He gasped. “You’re still together?”
A loose bit of leather slipped through Cillian’s fingers, the new strip attached to his belt. He ran his thumb over its surface, eyes growing distant. “When someone is bound to your soul, like she is to mine, you do not walk away from it.”
Bound. Cillian said the word so confidently it made Zadriel sick. His brother had no idea what it meant to truly be bound. No knowledge of that near-maddening tug within demanding Zadriel find his way to her. Yet Cillian was the one who’d courted her. Who warmed her bed. Who insisted she was his.
Even now, after marrying another.
Mother damn him.
Magic thrummed beneath Zadriel’s skin, the beast in his chest opening its eyes. He wanted to tackle Cillian to the ground. To slam a fist into that smug face and tell him exactly what would happen if he made such claims about Zadriel’s mate again.
But that would accomplish nothing and further divide them. How had things grown so complicated?
He took a calming breath. Or, at least, attempted to, Mora’s floral scent flirting with his fury.
“What future do you imagine with her now?” he asked, his tone less curt than before.
His heart, however, still slammed against his chest, the creature within him awake and ravenous.
“Your choices essentially made you her stepfather.”
Cillian’s upper lip curled. “Never say that again.”
“I speak the truth.” Zadriel paced, saplings brushing against his pant legs while he paved a trail through aged, orange pine needles. He needed to clear his mind. To sip on air that didn’t smell like her. “What did you do with the sap?”
Cillian’s fist curled around that errant strip of leather. “I believe you’d find my work inspired.”
“Let me guess, Enchanter’s secret?”
The words earned a chuckle. “You understand me well.” Cillian slid a hand into his pockets and followed Zadriel’s erratic path. “You’re right, Zade, Mora refused the future I offered, but one thing piqued her interest, and I gave her all of it.”
“And what might that be?”
“Power.”
Zadriel went still, the branches playing with his cloak stilling with him. “What have you done?”
“My Treasure spent her years learning to hide her gift, to feel shame for what she is, but she’s a curious creature,” Cillian drawled, wandering past. He stopped a few paces away and turned, sizing Zadriel up.
“I gave her what she wanted. What she didn’t know she needed.
It’s made her into the queen I’ll need by my side when everything falls into place.
” Gold glinted when he pulled his hand free from his pocket, a broken, wilted daisy petal pinched between his fingers.
“Are you out of your gods damned mind?” A metallic tang coated Zadriel’s tongue, his jaw clenched so tight his canines dug into flesh. “Do you realize what you’ve lost? What I’ve lost? The Mother Tree is no more, Cillian, and you’ve wasted what we stole on a hopeless infatuation.”
Cillian scoffed. “I’ve wasted nothing. Calm yourself.
Do you believe I’d allow her to walk away with something so precious?
I have contingencies in place; my gift becomes a curse if she tries to steal it away.
” He lifted the daisy petal until moonlight glittered on its torn surface, his expression unreadable.
“Nothing is lost, it’s simply... different.
” A wistful sigh danced between them, Cillian’s lips twisting into a smile.
“I need time to fully understand it, and time for her to be ready, but I assure you, once Mora is my queen and I join her in immortality, we’ll see my father’s vision come to life.
” He leveled Zadriel with a look. “Then, I will set you free.”
Immortality? Had Cillian attempted to bond Mora to Arcadia’s well?
Was she all right? Black fabric gathered beneath Zadriel’s fingers as he gripped his cloak, his fist pressed against his chest while he searched for the warmth around his heart.
The pulse of heat he shared with her. It was there, faint, yet impossible to miss—Mora lived, but...
“She’ll lose her mind,” Zadriel seethed, dread festering in his gut, “and Mother knows what else. Raw sap cannot be consumed, not without...” His throat bobbed.
Not without his mother. A Keeper of Arcadia.
His people were well and truly doomed without her and their Tree, Mora along with them. “What have you done to her?”
Azure eyes narrowed in warning. “You underestimate me, brother. I took your stories into consideration when I wove my enchantment. I would never let harm come to my Treasure.”
An uneasy feeling settled over Zadriel as something clicked in his mind. “What did you mean when you said you’d join her in immortality?”
“You Fae love to keep everything to yourselves,” Cillian spat.
Zadriel let out a low growl, but Cillian merely rolled his eyes.
“I know you’re different, but my point still stands.
I intend for us to become something more.
Something every Halfling ought to be. Something Berwick and Arcadia can no longer deny. ”
“Yet another secret?”
The king’s slow smile was chilling. “Exactly. There is much you don’t know. Much I’ve protected you from.”
Zadriel didn’t move as Cillian walked past him, making his way back to the castle.
“Oh, and Zade?” he said over his shoulder.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Zadriel took another deep breath, trying to focus on the crisp forest air.
The earthy tones of the woods blended with the sweet scents of decay, but they were joined by drops of lavender.
The Little Witch eager to haunt him. “Yes?” he asked on an exhale, praying his brother would leave.
The feeling so at odds with the excitement he’d felt when Cillian sought him out earlier in the evening.
“The flask turned out perfectly.” His bright stare swept over Zadriel one final time. “You’ve outdone yourself.”