Chapter 79 #3
Brennan’s low chuckle was bitter. “You have a conniving child. Luring one man to the crown only to tear it off his head and place it on another, if my spies are to be trusted.”
“She would never—”
“How?” he spat, cutting Aedlin off. “How did that little bitch do it?”
Aedlin inched away, her back pressing into the corner of the tent, the support beam nearly toppling, and Brennan followed.
“Run and I cut pieces off the Fae until you return.”
Silent tears spilled down Aedlin’s cheeks. She slid her fingers through Darius’s soft brown hair, her thumb swiping gently up and down in an effort to calm her wailing son. The babe pressing further into his mother’s embrace. Clutching her dress in his little fingers. “Please don’t hurt him.”
“Talk, and I’ll consider it.”
She swallowed, casting a longing gaze to the small cluster of woods she should have escaped to. “I’m not sure what I saw.”
“Yes, you are.” Brennan broke the remaining distance between them, pushing Aedlin’s hair away from her face with his blade. She curled her body around Darius. “Tell me,” Brennan said softly, his tone caressing her cheek with the knife.
“There was so much blood,” she whispered, her voice haunted. Far away. Her lower lip trembling as if she were reliving it. “She was soaked in it, something squeezed between her fingers. I think it was his heart... Dother—Cillian—lay dead beneath her. And then...”
“And then what?” he growled, pressing harder on the paring knife’s handle, cutting into her cheek.
Aedlin stilled, chest heaving. Darius’s screams growing louder. “And then she was gone. There was darkness, a mass of onyx smoke in the air, but that disappeared too. I... I ran then. I think I lost my mind… that couldn’t have been real.”
“Thank you,” he crooned.
When he pulled away, Aedlin’s body sagged. She took a shuddering breath, clenching her eyes shut while Brennan flipped the knife in his grip. Darius twisted in her arms, staring at Brennan, the man reflected so perfectly in his azure eye.
Before Aedlin could exhale, Brennan swung, plunging the blade into her throat. Snaking his other arm around her, he pulled her close, Darius held firmly between them while her knees buckled.
A hoarse wheeze seeped through Aedlin’s parted lips, a silent scream locked in her throat. Zadriel screaming with her in his mind.
“I’ve looked forward to this day since I was a young man, hiding in a new world while your parents called for the hunt of my people,” Brennan seethed, fingering the blade so it wiggled in her throat.
Aedlin’s wet groan was haunting. She choked, blood splattering on Brennan’s face, the queen wilting in his arms.
“It was a different vision,” he offered, not bothering to wipe away the red beads dripping down his chin.
“One that ended with myself and my kin immortal, humans serving as our Indentured, the Fae knowing exactly what it was like to be weak and claimed by death. Can you imagine such a thing?” Darius screamed and Brennan frowned down at him. “Zadriel, come collect the child.”
The command of the thrall echoed in his voice, tugging at Zadriel’s heavy limbs.
Sanguine soaked blades of grass peeled from his face when he rose, his movement awkward as blood magic forced every step.
He could offer Aedlin no comfort while he tore her wailing baby from her arms. No apologies as the God of Death called to her soul.
When Brennan dismissed him, he returned to his spot on the grass, Darius thrashing in his steely grip, his little hands reaching for his dying mother.
“Your daughter stole my dream,” Brennan snarled.
“Swayed my son into giving her every ounce of power I’d collected.
Do you know what I do to those who harm my people and stand in my way?
” Aedlin gripped his wrist, her mouth opening and closing as she tried and failed to breathe, pink saliva frothing on her lips and dribbling down her chin.
Brennan wiggled the blade once more, leaning closer to whisper in her ear. “I destroy everything they love.”
Tearing the dagger free, Brennan let Aedlin fall to the ground at his feet and turned back to Zadriel.
Grinning while her gurgled inhales filled the night.
The wet noise was so loud, overtaking the song of nearby frogs and the hoot of the owls in the trees.
Zadriel could hear nothing but that death rattle.
Her shadowed silhouette on the edge of his vision, her body stilling.
Brennan tossed the paring knife toward the Arcadian tree line, his upper lip curling while he examined the wall of gnarled trees. Then he held out his arms, reaching for Darius. A softness overtaking his harsh features. “Give him here.”
Zadriel handed him over, his stiff arms dropping to his side the moment the task was complete.
A loud whistle sounded, something flying through the air before there was a pop, a bright stream of red sparkling as it fell from the sky. Darius screamed louder at the sound of fireworks, and Brennan shushed him, azure roving over Zadriel’s face. “Say goodbye to your dreams of Arcadia.”