12. Chapter Twelve
When I woke, I didn’t move. The fear of what was to come overwhelmed me—the guilt, too. I just wasn’t sure which stung more.
On the one hand, I was living with the fact that Yenira fell back into the arms of a man who had assailed me. That she, despite the love and devotion Azalea had shown her, chose violence in the face of chaos.
And on the other, there was Julius. He had decided she was more important than my wellbeing—my virtue, whatever little of that remained.
Quite literally everything I’d ever considered a home—a family—had crumbled to bits within minutes.
But more than any of that, I’d let my own fear and hope that Julius wasn’t an evil man interfere with the one thing bigger than me: war. Eero’s destiny. His throne. All those things were one and the same, and I, again, failed to realize it.
I rolled onto my back and turned my head to capture the back of Eero’s. The sunrise was bleeding through the window onto his hair, coloring the silver strands orange. I reached over to run my fingers delicately through them, and he shifted at my touch, turned over, and pulled me close. A small part of me smiled.
“Did you rest well?” he murmured. I shrugged, and he opened his eyes. The breath caught in my throat, warmth bubbling within me when he smiled. How he could smile at me after my fit yesterday, I didn’t know. “I want us to do something today.”
My eyebrows knitted. “You do?”
Eero nodded and leaned up, his arm braced on the mattress. “I do. I spoke with Casynox about it yesterday after you went to bed. He made me realize it was selfish to hold you back—and, although I overstepped in many ways at the castle, I realized I’m preventing you from learning. Growing. As much as I’d love to teach you the ways of magic or to fight, it would hinder you.”
I let my eyes fight between his gilded iris and the blue before settling on the beautiful ice. I reached up to him and frowned. “You did what you thought was right. I just…I—” I stopped and swallowed the lump choking me. “I don’t want to lose Julius unless we are certain he’s a victim of his own devices. I want to send him off for a second chance at life, away from here, from your brother. I don’t quite know if I’ll ever forgive him, Eero, but I can’t sit idly by and let him die without knowing that is the only way.”
Eero stroked my cheek and leaned down to kiss my forehead gently, once, twice, and then his nose brushed against mine. “I envy your mercy, Aurelie. Not just with Julius, but with me, too. You have a heart that warms me—never change that.”
My eyes fluttered shut, awaiting the delicate brush of his lips against mine, but as a ghost would, he vanished. I opened them again and twisted around to find him pulling a tunic over his head, hair frazzled from his night’s rest.
“So I will equip you with the resources, tools, and people to achieve what you seek: answers.”
I sat up slowly. “I get to train? Despite everything—the danger, the rebellion?”
Eero paused before turning my way with knitted brows. “Aurelie, you are part of my rebellion. You are to be my queen. Yesterday was hard for you, and I played a hand in that chaos, but you proved something to me.”
I watched him lift a knee onto the bed, palms bracing so he could lean forward and steal a chaste kiss from my lips.
“You faced one of the most unrelenting monarchs in all the fae realm. She is stubborn and harsh, but you defied her. You stood up for something you have faith in. If that’s not the quality of a queen—my queen—I don’t know what is.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said quietly. Uncertainty was coloring me pink, but I felt him smile against my cheek before he kissed it. “I felt rather cowardly in front of her.”
“Confidence comes with time, witchling.” He straightened and offered a hand, pulling me from bed and smoothening my frizzy hair. “Like I said: Tools. Resources. People. We’ll start with the last today and go from there.”
I blinked and nodded, chewing on the inside of my lip nervously. When I captured his stare, I saw the warmth and adoration he showered me with day in, day out—unapologetically boundless. Behind the darkness of my eyelids, however, I saw the bone-chilling ice freezing Julius from the outside in.
Eero was not evil, but he would do terrible things for me.
That made me smile. I just needed to hope Julius was not a target again, for a death inflicted by Eero would be gruesome. Cold. Cruel.
After all, he was king—and this was war.
A calm, long horse ride later, I turned my chin to the horizon and was met by the thick grouping of trees. The glamour faded, revealing sizable wooden fencing and a gate with armed soldiers watching closely. The magic that once concealed us slipped away, and one of them approached on horseback, eyes narrowed, before she pulled off her helm. Her bright hair spilled across her shoulders. As soon as she caught sight of Eero, she bowed her head and let her sword rest at her side.
“My King.”
Eero swung his leg over the stallion and jumped to the ground, offering a hand for me as I lowered myself. “At ease,” he said lowly as the soldier straightened their posture and swallowed hard. There was something in that sort of power, to arouse such nervousness merely by existing. “Please find Lyra and bring her to my tent as soon as she’s able.”
“Aye, Your Majesty.”
She disappeared deeper into the camp, chin tilted up as she searched the camp for the halfling who’d shown me what a bit of magic could do. How many halflings were here? Would they truly be able to help me too?
Casynox parted to train with other soldiers while Eero and I ducked into the tent. It was modest, with cushions as seats and papers sprawled across makeshift tables. Daggers acted as paperweights, and maps were pierced through the thick material of the tent. I sat, curling my legs inward, and watched Eero approach one of the maps. He stared for a while, hands clasped behind his back as his forefinger scratched his palm anxiously.
“What is it?”
Eero turned his head slowly, a subtle frown coloring his lips. “Lyra may not be the most…welcoming of individuals. I need you to be prepared for her. Well, her and her opinions.”
I cocked a brow. “Not the easiest of people to get along with?” I asked. When I spoke with her, however briefly, she seemed witty, curious to a point that it was almost nosy, but pleasant all the same.
His face fell into cold neutrality. He approached, sitting on the cushion on the other side of the table, and grabbed a piece of charcoal to rub between his hands, the gray coloring his skin. “Once upon a time, I would have considered her a close friend.” My face softened, and I shifted to face him fully. “Lyra was my late wife’s sister. She rejected a life at court to take up mercenary work. Now, though, she holds a certain level of resentment for her death. She thinks I didn’t do enough to protect her.”
The pain curled on his face, and he lowered his dual-colored gaze to the table as he dropped the charcoal nub. It broke apart into smaller pieces, ashen powder flitting across the parchment beneath it.
“And if that’s not bad enough, Casynox and I sent her brother off to the Summer Court and we have yet to hear from him.”
“How long ago?”
His eyes flitted to mine. “Five years.”
“Five years?” I repeated with wide eyes. “You’ve been free for less time than he’s been gone?”
“You see my predicament,” he responded coolly, though his gaze was shadowed with remorse. “I have plans to rescue him, but we must ensure it’s not a trap before I send reinforcements. If we act in haste, Sólkon will retaliate in ways far more gruesome than you could imagine.”
I puckered my lips and glanced back at the map. “What would Sólkon do to a spy inside his domain?”
“Lyren wasn’t just inside his court, Aurelie. He was inside his castle walls. If he was caught, it’d be treason. And he’d be dead.”
I frowned and sighed. “Can you blame her for being upset?”
“He can, and in fact, he has blamed me for it,” a mellow voice called from the entrance. I turned and saw the blonde soldier from the party standing with her hands at her side. She bowed her head before walking past the threshold. “Apologies, Your Majesty, for my…outcry. You won’t string me up for treason, will you?”
When I looked at Eero, his stare was hardened with a frown carved into his face. “Always a pleasure, Lyra.”
“Likewise,” she said with a bite in her tone. I wondered why she bothered serving in his guard if she hated him so much—it wasn’t as if she owed him any allegiance. He wasn’t a king anymore—not yet, anyway. There had to be more there, and I intended to pick it apart. When her focus shifted to me, it softened. “You look like shit.”
My jaw went agape, and Eero made a disapproving tut. “Excuse you—”
Lyra’s face lit up as she barked out a laugh. “Relax, m’lady. You just need a bit of rest and freshening up. The fae realm has made its mark on you, has it not?”
“I do not appreciate your tone,” Eero said coolly, yet the danger was buried beneath his words. “It would be wise to tread carefully around my betrothed, Lyra.”
Her gaze had not left mine, unapologetically ignoring Eero’s warning. “What does he want you to do? Learn to fight? Sew? Pick some flowers to decorate his rusty sword? I can do all of that, you know.”
My eyes turned to slits. Eero’s chest rumbled as he worked to respond, but I held up a hand. He silenced, and I stood. Lyra’s smirk harshened, as if she enjoyed my challenge, as if my presence was entertaining.
This, in all her crossness, was who needed to train me?
This was not the woman I met by the glamoured barrier. I might like her more, though.
“I’d like to fight, Lyra. I’d like to use my magic to save my friend, play an actual part in this war, and get my own taste of revenge. So I will ask you: what are you prepared to do? Are you prepared to sit around and blame your commander for a choice your brother made as a soldier?”
The rage swiped across her face, from her scowl to the red apples of her cheeks. Her voice was like a cracked chord on a piano, hauntingly terrifying. “You’ve got a tongue on you, that’s for sure. I’ll train you, Aurelie, but I want you to know you will weep. You will ache. You will feel the magic inside you scratch against your bones. I will not show you mercy just because you are my king’s betrothed.”
Here, I smiled. The heart pounded in my chest so loudly that my ears rang, but I held my ground. “Understood, soldier.”
I could practically feel the fumes blooming off Eero from behind me, his glare burning through my back and onto Lyra, but neither acknowledged it. Instead, she moved aside and gestured with a flat palm toward the exit.
“I suggest we get started, then. There aren’t enough hours in the day to teach you what you’re missing.”