Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
M y insides were a swirling mess of emotions by the time I reached the top of the stairwell. Kaden must have sensed me through the bond, because a second later, the bark and wood began to crumble, revealing the same arched doorway.
I squinted in the dazzling sunlight as the clearing appeared. Kaden was waiting outside the opening in the trunk, staring at me expectantly.
I opened my mouth, unsure what to say. My shock and outrage at learning that he was my mate was eclipsed only by the devastation that we could not sever the threads that were intertwined with the demon king’s.
“The third sister,” I murmured. “He took her hands.”
Kaden blinked. “What?”
“Your father, he . . .” I swallowed. “He severed Morta’s hands.”
The prince blanched.
“Apparently she is the only one who can cut the strands.”
I hadn’t tested that theory, but based on the weaver’s warning and the raw, sickening power that seemed to leach from the Great Oak, I didn’t think any non-celestial being could sever those threads and live.
“Of course,” Kaden muttered, his jaw flexing as he dragged a hand through his hair. “He wouldn't take the chance of anyone being able to cut his life short. Not even a deity.”
“What do we do now?” asked Sorsha.
To my surprise, it was Adriel who answered. “If I know Semphrys, the sick bastard would have kept her hands. Probably tucked them away in that godsforsaken palace like some kind of trophy.”
My stomach soured. “You think he kept her hands?”
“It certainly sounds like something my father would do,” Kaden admitted.
“So we find Morta’s hands and bring them back,” Sorsha said matter-of-factly, as if the Death Bringer had simply misplaced them.
I didn’t want to think about the state her hands might be in or what sort of dark magic would allow them to be reattached to her body, but clearly the princess believed it was possible.
“Then we return to Dorthus and find her hands,” said Kaden. “Perhaps then we can persuade her to cut the threads binding those souls to my father’s.” He raised an eyebrow. “The Three are a vengeful bunch.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Sorsha at once.
But Kaden shook his head. “You can come with us as far as the Forest House. Then Adriel will take you back to Cragsmuir.”
“You cannot just send me away!”
Kaden’s expression darkened. “It is only a matter of time before Alfrigg sends one of his spies to check up on you. If he notices your absence, it could start a war we are not yet prepared to fight.”
“Siran will cover for me until I return,” Sorsha snapped. “You do not fear a war with Alfrigg. You merely wish to keep me out of harm’s way.”
“As is my right,” Kaden snarled. “You are my sister. I won’t risk your life unnecessarily.”
“I am not some meek princess to be placated. I am as much a warrior as you, brother.”
There was a harsh bite in Sorsha's tone that I had never heard before. Her voice was laced with the command of both a general and a queen.
“Has it not occurred to you that I protect you because you are important?” Kaden hissed. “You may be a warrior, but you are not some common foot soldier. You are our mother’s only other living heir. If something should happen to me, you are Anvalyn’s only hope.”
Sorsha blinked. For a long moment, she and Kaden stared at one another, locked in silent conversation.
Finally, her features softened with understanding and resolve. “If you won’t allow me to accompany you, then at least take him.” Sorsha jerked her head at Adriel. “I don’t need a royal guard.”
“You do. Alfrigg has soldiers all over these woods, and you are without your magic. I will not leave you defenseless.”
Sorsha opened her mouth as though she wanted to argue but reluctantly snapped it shut.
A new sort of heaviness had come over Kaden, and I realized just what a blow to him it was not to be any closer to defeating his father.
As I watched him, I wondered how long he’d known that I was his mate. When I’d asked him how he could sense me back in that cave on the mountain, he’d said he didn’t know.
Kaden had told me once that the fae could lie if they were also lying to themselves. Had he simply been in denial, or had he been able to let the deception slip because he wasn’t certain?
I couldn't bring myself to confront him about it now. Not in front of Adriel and Sorsha.
The mood in our little party was heavy as we set off into the fading golden light. We didn’t stop to eat or drink — not that I had an appetite after learning that my fate was tied to Kaden’s.
Soon we entered a sun-dappled clearing, where the grass grew thick and lush and the ground was speckled with wildflowers.
“Bluebells,” Sorsha sighed, sliding off her horse and plucking a stem laden with the colorful blooms. “They were our mother's favorite,” she told me with a melancholy smile. “When I was a youngling, she would come to my chamber every night to brush my hair before bed. She’d tell me how, on her wedding day, the Quartz Palace was practically dripping with bluebells.”
The princess’s smile broadened, though her turquoise eyes held a hint of sadness.
“The royal jeweler had prepared a beautiful silver crown for her coronation, set with rubies and sapphires, diamonds, and pearls. But she was so taken with the flowers that she fashioned a crown of bluebells to wear instead.”
“I’ll bet that was a first for a queen’s coronation.”
Sorsha nodded. “My grandmother was horrified. The match between my mother and father had been a risk. It was unheard of for a Euroshean prince to choose a Drathen bride. But they loved each other, and my father sought strength in his future queen. On the eve of their wedding, she told him her reign would not be one of a divided people. She would rule these lands — the Euroshean and the Drathen — anywhere the bluebells grew, so it was fitting that she should have a crown of them.”
“I don't think Lyra needs to hear the tedious details of royal weddings,” Kaden broke in, his voice uncharacteristically sharp.
Sorsha blinked at him, clearly hurt, and suspicion unfurled in my gut.
“It’s been a long day,” he added gently. “I think we could all do with some rest.”
“Actually, I’m very much enjoying the story,” I said, whipping around to glare at him. “Some of us like hearing something other than the sound of our own voice.”
I turned back to Sorsha, who wore a watery smile. “Many of our people still don flower crowns to celebrate her name day,” she said. “It’s known in Anvalyn as Queen Elowynn’s Day.”
My throat burned with emotion. I knew what it was to lose one's mother — particularly in such a violent way.
I’d never meet Queen Elowynn, but I felt as though I was getting to know her by the pieces she’d left in her children.
Yet something about the story didn’t sit right. It nagged at me like a festering splinter — a wrongness I felt but could not see.
I wanted to ask the princess more about their mother, but Kaden nudged our horse forward through the waist-high grass toward another copse of trees. Heavy clouds had blotted out the sunshine, and a cool breeze rustled the branches, carrying the scent of earth and moss .
We rode in silence for several minutes before it started to rain. Cold drops peppered my face and pattered against the leaves.
The trees parted, revealing a wood plank path suspended over marshlands cloaked in mist. Our horse led the way along the rickety planks, over stalks of cattails that danced in the wind and frogs that leapt into the still water as our horses clomped past.
An odd structure came into view — an enormous manor built out of wood with a tall foundation of river stones. The house was ensconced in huge, gnarled trees that seemed to form a natural barrier around it.
We reached a stone walkway, and Kaden dismounted, reaching up to help me slide off the gelding’s back. I ignored his proffered hand and jumped down on my own.
He led the way to the front entrance of the manor and placed a hand against the thick wooden doors. I heard the sound of a latch scraping in the lock, and the door opened a crack.
Pushing it wide open, Kaden ushered me into a wide entry hall lit by tallow candles set in a huge chandelier. More lights winked from iron sconces along the walls, and though I looked around expectantly for our host, no one came to greet us.
My boots scuffed over smooth flagstone as I wandered into the adjacent room, where a fire blazed in an enormous stone hearth. Patches of moss adorned the wood-paneled walls, as if the forest were reclaiming the house.
The furniture was simple but comfortable: green velvet armchairs, a leather couch, and floor-to-ceiling shelves sagging with books.
Though I barely remembered the little cottage I’d shared with my mother when I was small, the lived-in coziness of the place gave me an unexpected pang of homesickness.
The sound of Sorsha and Adriel’s bickering voices drifted down the hall, but my gaze caught on an oil painting hanging over the fireplace.
It was a portrait of a woman with flowing ebony hair so dark it was gilded with flashes of blue. She had an easy smile that reminded me of Sorsha and an all-too familiar pair of stormy gray eyes.
Beside her sat a young boy with coal-black hair, and I whipped around to find Kaden leaning against the threshold, watching me.
“This is your family home,” I said as the realization sank in.
He shifted his shoulders, looking uncomfortable. “Technically, the Quartz Palace is the royal residence, but I mostly grew up here. With my mother.” He turned his head, studying the scuffed oak trim that lined the doorway. “The palace wasn’t a welcoming place for the demon king's bastard.”
“And Sorsha?”
“My sister grew up at court with her father, though she was more or less raised by tutors and nannies.”
“That must have been hard, being separated from her.”
He shrugged, though the gesture was anything but nonchalant. “Whether I was here or at court, I was never truly alone. Adriel was always with me.”
My chest tightened at the thought of the little boy in the painting growing up here, tucked away from court life and the vicious, backbiting fae.
Watching Kaden squirm as I took in the room, I realized how intimate a thing it was to bring me here, to his childhood home. The one place he’d been safe from the world.
While I wanted to appreciate it for what it was — him letting me in — I couldn’t shake the bitter rage that had taken hold of me.
Kaden had known, or at least suspected, that we were mates, and yet he’d tucked that secret away just as he’d hidden his demon heritage. As if I didn’t have the right to know that we were bound together by fate.
My hands balled into fists, and a hot, ugly fury bubbled up in my chest. I opened my mouth to demand why he’d kept this from me, but at that moment Sorsha hollered, “Dinner!”
Kaden pushed off the wall and jerked his head toward the hallway, looking relieved to have a diversion. “Shall we?”
I shook my head. “I . . . need some air.”
“It’s raining.”
But I’d already shoved past him into the hall, heading for the double doors.
Perhaps it made me a coward, but I didn’t feel like confronting him about it yet.
I needed to rest. To clear my head. I needed to unravel my own feelings about the Dark Prince, and that wasn’t going to happen seated around the dinner table with Adriel and Sorsha, pretending that my entire world hadn’t been turned upside down.
When I threw open the doors, I realized Kaden was right. It wasn’t just raining. It was pouring .
The cold seemed to soak right through my leathers as I folded my arms across my chest and strode out into the downpour.
Was it weak-hearted and juvenile to be out walking in the rain when there was a comfortable room with a blazing fire and a hot meal waiting ?
Maybe. But I couldn’t bring myself to sit across the table from a male who had lied to me so many times — a male whose fate was linked to mine.
I followed the wooden path around the manor, where it wove into the forest beyond. Within a minute, my hair was soaked, and I was shivering in my leathers.
The hiss of rain on water drowned out everything else, and the fresh scent of damp foliage surged into my lungs. I might have been cold and wet, but at least I could think.
Was the mating bond the reason I was so drawn to Kaden despite knowing what he was? Did he feel the same inexplicable pull toward me?
What did the mating bond actually mean? Could we choose to ignore it? Would the draw I felt to Kaden fade if I put enough distance between us?
I was tempted to test it out for myself — to keep on walking until I no longer felt this infuriating attraction. Until the demon prince faded from my mind.
Then again, running would deprive me of the pleasure of pinning those obnoxious wings to the floor with my daggers and driving my witchwood blade through his heart.
Blinking rainwater out of my eyes, I stopped, preparing to march back to the manor and confront Kaden. But as I turned, the board beneath my boot gave a loud crack, and my leg sank through the opening.
I gasped as I fell, the cold, murky water swallowing my legs an instant before I sank into mud.
Well, shit.
Squelching back to the house covered in mud was marginally less dignified than slinking in looking like a drowned cat, but . . .
With a frustrated growl, I braced my hands on the wooden joists that ran parallel to the boards and pushed, trying to dislodge my boots from half a foot of squishy mud.
I pushed again, but the suction from the sludge was immense, and I didn’t have enough leverage.
Just when I thought I’d abandon my boots to the marsh, I felt the rasp of strong, bony fingers against my leg.
Terror gripped me, but my scream got caught in my throat as a dark head shot out of the water in a spray of moss and scum.
A pair of yellow eyes with vertical black slits met mine, and my heart stopped.
Mud-colored hair hung in wet ropes over her naked shoulders and bare, grayish breasts. Her nose was flat, almost snake-like, and when she opened her mouth, I felt the bile rise up in my throat.
Mermaid .
But not just any mermaid. This one was angry.
Razor-sharp teeth gleamed as her mouth stretched wide, jaw unhinging as though she planned to swallow me whole. A second later, a bony hand twisted around my leg and yanked me below the surface.