19. Chapter Nineteen
Iwas cursing at people to move faster, to collect only what was necessary, that the rest would be burned.
The soldiers murmured as they scrambled, barking at each other to do as they were told. Casynox was spiraling between helping his fleet lift boxes twice their size and questioning me. We didn’t have many sorceresses here, and our most powerful one was all but frayed and lifeless, but the few we had were opening portals.
The fleets were spreading across the region. Some went back to their homes to await commands, others to smaller camps we’d established years prior as word spread that the Winter King had not yet died.
That hope remained.
Still, as my hands trembled and I splattered each emptied tent with wine so they could be burned, I didn’t understand what hope there was. I never expected to remain in this camp forever—I knew these rebel forces were too concentrated, too at risk—but this was fast. Too soon. The magic that exuded from Aurelie was unlike anything I’d ever seen; it had to have been noticed by the surrounding courts.
“Where shall the cartographers go?” Casynox grunted after passing the box to the next man in line just as I passed him. My ears perked up, and I focused on their scrawnier, feeble bodies. Those map makers, the scholars…they weren’t warriors. They didn’t deserve to tremble in the wake of war—real war, not the battles they read about in the text. Nobody did, but my heart resounded guilty at the idea of what I’d be exposing them to.
They believed in my reign to a degree, but reading about monstrosities and watching them happen firsthand were two very different things. I’d tell them to go home. I’d ask them to pack their bags and find refuge until the war was done—until I either reclaimed my crown or wound up with a more gruesome death than the last—but that would be their death sentence.
After all, they left the Summer Court as traitors.
And they’d return prisoners.
“They come with us,” I said after a long while of hesitation. “Where else are they to go?”
Casynox hesitated, narrowing his gaze on me before nodding once. “I’ll let them know.”
I nodded, grabbed the next jug of wine, uncorked it, took a sip, and marked the next tent.
Aurelie and Sapphire had taken the first portal home after the healers finished suturing and cleaning her wounds. When I’d marked the last tent and collected the few supplies I had left, I watched the last fatigued sorceress ignite the glamoured woods. Flames bloomed taller than I could have ever anticipated, and though I wasn’t sure I would see her again, I would always be thankful.
So many people had volunteered their time for a king they doubted existed, and now that I had returned, they were forced to scatter. Like ants, they spread across the fae realm, untouchable, reliant on word of mouth and a code Casynox left for them that signified war. There was no guarantee such code would ever reach them, though.
And if it did, I had even less confidence that they’d return.
But none of that mattered, not when I stepped through the portal into the Magyn Manor, brow slick with sweat and hands calloused from helping the soldiers lift the last of the supplies. My body ached, but every tickle of pain numbed when I saw my witchling hunched over the table, Sapphire picking at one of her sutures with a frown.
Casynox was preparing stew.
We’d just disbanded the largest squadrons of rebels in less than a day—hours, really—and we would need to continue as if it wasn’t any different. I approached them, Sapphire backing away when I gestured for the needle-sized tool she was using against Aurelie’s wounds.
“Where is she?” I asked quietly, Aurelie’s body tensing when my rough fingers scraped the skin near her wounds. I turned my head to Sapphire. I didn’t need to say the name—they all knew.
“Lyra is upstairs. One of the healers returned with us to ensure she remains stable…then she, too, will go home.”
I nodded in dismissal, and she disappeared into the kitchen. Silence enveloped the room, dancing between Aurelie and me as I cleaned up the haphazardly done stitches. She hissed beneath her breath, letting her head dip forward.
“Are you okay?”
Her entire body tensed again, and she moved from her spot against the table without warning. I jolted back so the needle didn’t prick her skin, watching her cringe as she straightened her posture and spun to face me.
“Stop asking me that,” she said quietly to avoid attracting attention. Isaac, Xaden, and Talia were somewhere—likely in a guest room nearby—and Lyra was with the healer upstairs. I doubted she cared about Casynox and Sapphire overhearing our strife, but the others? “How can you be so focused on my wellbeing after what I’ve done?”
I pursed my lips together, shaking my head. I fought with myself for a moment, trying to determine the best way to handle this. Aurelie had harmed somebody—she’d tasted firsthand why so many people fought for her hand. It was coincidental that she was more than just a mortal witch. Now that her halfling blood echoed in the street—her blood seeping into the cracks of walls and tainting the desires of men and women who would never be worthy of her wrath—I knew not the extent of her magic.
I could only guide her and hope that those who trained her did so with good intent and a kind hand. Lyra had neither of those things, not unless revenge was in the question.
“The day I am uninterested in your wellbeing is the day my soul has been reaped and replaced with my wretched brother’s. Today was a setback, and that is not your fault.”
“Not my fault?” Aurelie crossed her arms over her chest and frowned, eyes flicking toward the stairs. “Lyra could have died, Eero. I’m still not certain she hasn’t. What I did…it ruined so much. I can never forgive myself for it.”
I set the needle on the table before stopping in front of her, gently resting my hands on her stiff shoulders to ease them back down. “Aurelie, we were not going to be able to stay there forever. We would have had to disperse soon—it just wasn’t in the fashion I would have hoped for.”
She looked up at me with these terrible, watery eyes. I swiped a tear from under her eye before it snaked down her cheek and smiled softly. “I need to understand what happened, Eero. I can’t let that happen again. If you’d been near—”
Her voice caught in her throat, and she forced her focus away, head dipping down so she could stare at the ground. “It’s bad enough what I did to Lyra and Sapphire. I refuse to be the reason any more of you are harmed.”
“This is the makings of war, Aurelie. You cannot be so naive to think harm is avoidable.”
“It isn’t, you’re right,” she rasped. “But if I can control my magic, then I can control what harm I inflict.”
I sighed softly and pressed my lips to the top of her head, closing my eyes. She still smelled of fire. Behind the darkness, I saw that beaming ray of starlight as a beacon of hope. Aurelie was petrified now, but what I saw today?
It wasn’t a nuisance. It was a shift in strategy. If Aurelie managed to harness that power within her—if she could control it and burn every obstacle in our path—then this war would be quick. None of the rebels would need to die. None of the courts would need to put up arms for a king they once thought dead or a tyrant who ruled over them in fear. Aurelie could turn the tides in our favor.
I just needed her to have hope.
“Never doubt what you are to me, witchling.”
I nearly melted when I opened my eyes as she tipped her head to look at me. Not in lust or despair—in utter devotion as she let another tear slip down her cheek. I hoped she never lost that mortal part of her—the side that mourned, sympathized, cried.
“My vicious little witchling.”