Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
LYRA
“Why did he say that?” I asked, studying his expression. “If you insist on making her yours, you will never wear the crown.”
I pitched my voice low in imitation of the silver god, but Kaden shook his head. “He talks in riddles . . .”
“But you know why he said it,” I accused. “You know why you can’t have me and be king.”
Kaden sucked in a breath, wincing as his eyelids fluttered closed. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then, he said, “Yes.”
His voice was barely a whisper, and yet I flinched as though he’d shouted. “Why?”
I hated that my voice cracked — hated that I was already mourning the loss of him. For I knew that what he wanted more than anything in this world was to take the throne of Anvalyn.
“Because my cousin knows me better than I know myself,” Kaden muttered, eyes flying open as a muscle in his jaw flexed. “Because he foresaw something that I, frankly, did not see coming.”
“Caladwyn?” I asked, thinking back to the fair-haired fae. “What’s Caladwyn got to do with this?”
But I already knew. At least I knew part of it.
When Caladwyn had caught me in his study attempting to steal the cipher, I’d struck a bargain with him.
Should you ever visit my homeland, you shall not set foot in the Quartz Palace.
It was an agreement that had seemed meaningless at the time, though I had been puzzled by Caladwyn’s condition. Kaden had been furious when I’d told him about the deal I’d made, but he’d later dismissed it.
“The bargain,” Kaden choked, confirming my worst fears.
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, staring off into the distance.
“At the time, I wasn’t sure why he would ask you to make that agreement.
I thought, somewhat naively, that he might simply be hedging his bets just in case you turned out to .
. . mean something to me. He couldn’t have known that we were mates. Even I didn’t know it then.”
“But why does it matter?” I asked, my anxiety mounting. “What is the significance of the Quartz Palace?”
I knew the Quartz Palace was the royal seat in Athelby. Sorsha had said their mother was married there, but Kaden had spent most of his time at the Forest House rather than at court.
“It is significant because every fae royal in the history of Anvalyn has been crowned there.” Kaden hesitated, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Traditionally, they are wed on the same day as their coronation.”
I shook my head, still not understanding. “It’s not as if we’re planning on getting married,” I choked.
“Perhaps not,” said Kaden, his voice soft.
“But if I am to challenge my uncle for the crown, it will mean a bitter, bloody war between my people and the Euroshean forces. That is, if the Drathen army will stand behind me.” He took a breath.
“The only way to avoid civil war would be for Alfrigg to abdicate and for Anvalyn to accept me as the rightful heir. As the son of Semphrys, it seems . . . unlikely. The only thing working in my favor is that Alfrigg has yet to take a queen, so he cannot produce an heir to secure the royal line.”
Bile rose in my throat as understanding clanged through me.
Kaden had no hope of taking the throne without a queen. And with Caladwynn’s bargain . . .
I was going to be sick.
Caladwynn had barred me from the Quartz Palace so that I could not marry Kaden.
As if he’d read my very thoughts, Kaden said, “My cousin is a conniving bastard. He has no love for Alfrigg, but he might side with him. Many would have to die for my cousin to take the throne, but garnering my uncle’s favor could grant him a nice position in court should he ever return to our realm. ”
I shook my head. It felt too full. Bursting with this new information and a wild array of emotions. “But —” I spluttered. “I don’t want to marry you.”
“You wound me, little huntress.” Kaden’s eyes danced wickedly, and my stomach pitched for an entirely different reason.
“It’s not —” I choked. “I mean, you haven’t asked. Not that I . . . We only just found out . . .”
I trailed off. I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain. It was all too much.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “I would not burden you with such a request. While it would be the greatest honor of my immortal existence, my ascension to the throne will not be a peaceful one. As queen, you would have a target on your back for the rest of your life.” He swallowed. “I will not ask that of you.”
I shook my head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t relevant at the time you made the bargain. I still did not know what you were to me, though my cousin’s terms were certainly suspicious.”
“And after?” My voice trembled with rage and heartbreak.
Heartbreak I did not understand and did not want to look too closely at.
“After, I . . . I didn’t want to burden you.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
When Kaden met my gaze, his devastation was written all over his face.
“Maybe not. But if you would have seen the way you looked at me the first time I brought you here . . . It felt as though any moment I would turn around and find that you had disappeared. If I’d told you that I needed to take a queen and that I wanted her to be you . . . You would have run.”
My throat burned with devastation, both for the impossible choice Kaden now faced and the things he’d hidden. It stung that he’d had so little faith in me.
Then again, what reason had I given him to trust me with his heart? I’d been so busy hating the prince, so busy plotting to kill him, that trusting him had snuck up on me.
I had no recollection of when I’d begun to crave his trust.
But instead of telling him that, I reached for the familiar vitriol that was never far from the surface. “You don’t know that,” I seethed. “You don’t know me.”
His nostrils flared. “I know you, Lyra. You’re still a huntress. No matter what you might feel for me, I am half demon. There will always be a part of you, however small, that wants to kill me.”
His words hit like a physical blow, though I didn’t want to show how much they hurt. “If I wanted to kill you,” I growled, “then I would have let you rot in that cell in Dorthus. Instead, I saved your sorry ass. But what else is new?”
Kaden let out a low, mirthless chuckle.
“Sorsha was right,” I went on, recalling the argument I’d overheard at Cragsmuir when she’d been insisting he tell me we were mates. “You keep everyone around you in the dark so that when they get fed up with you, you can blame everyone but yourself.”
Kaden looked as though I’d slapped him, and something ugly roared inside me. I knew it was a low blow, but I was tired of his secrets — the truths he kept locked away due to his own wretched fear.
“I keep the secrets I need to keep to protect those I love,” he growled, his shadows fanning out around him. “To protect my kingdom.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
Kaden blinked, taken aback. I supposed that being the Taker of Souls meant that he wasn’t used to people arguing with him, which, if I was being honest, only made it more satisfying.
I could feel the hum of that ominous power lapping at my skin — feel Kaden’s demon magic writhing just below the surface.
“You know what?” I seethed. “I think part of you likes that Velisara opened the sire bond because it gives you another reason to hide.”
Kaden’s shadows whipped out across the clearing, and I heard the trunks of several nearby trees crack. But I kept going.
“It’s just one more wall for you to hide behind so you don’t have to show your hand. Or let yourself feel.”
I knew I’d gone too far, but somewhere in my tirade, I’d had an idea.
Judging by the stiff set of Kaden’s muscles and the uncontrolled movement of his shadows, something was happening.
Gone was the charming demon prince. His face was all harsh lines, half hidden by locks of midnight hair. Blackness leached into his irises like spilled ink, spreading into the whites of his eyes.
Fathomless, glittering darkness met my gaze, and I felt the bond between us growing fainter. Kaden himself seemed to fade away, stuffed behind the wretched evil that now peered out at me from my mate’s face.
Semphrys.
I staggered back as the Dark King regarded me with the face of the male I’d come to love.
There was no trace of Kaden left. No sarcastic wit. No gentleness. There was only a chilling emptiness that came from greed so insatiable that it left its host starved.
White-hot rage spilled into my bloodstream as I stared up at the Dark King, and for a moment, I was so incensed that I forgot to be afraid.
Here was the male who’d taken everything from Kaden before he was even born. He’d raped his mother. Bound Kaden to centuries of servitude as the Taker of Souls, forcing him to plunder his own beloved kingdom.
He’d imprisoned him.
Tortured him.
Combed his mind for information on me and destroyed his home.
After everything, Semphrys just stood there, peering out from his host. He’d cost us so much already, and he was never going to stop. He would continue to use Kaden until there was nothing left.
But Kaden had been right about one thing: I was a huntress. I’d been born to stalk the shadows and exterminate evil. I didn’t believe that there was some divine purpose for my kind.
I was a predator. And I was going hunting.
Moved by a sudden burst of insanity, I reached out and gripped the sides of Kaden’s face, smashing his forehead to mine. Those cold black eyes widened in shock, but I’d already delved into his mind.
Endless shadows billowed around me, somehow darker than before. I cast around for the glimmering golden light of our bond, but there was only that wretched black mist.
Cold air burned my lungs as I sprinted through Kaden’s mind, my own mental barrier firmly in place as I surged in to confront Semphrys.
A low, ruthless chuckle broke through the shadows, reverberating in my chest. It was Kaden’s laugh, and yet it wasn’t. It belonged to his father.
I whipped around but saw nothing. Only endless, choking shadows.