Chapter 57
Iblink, dazed as Maeve pulls me to my feet. Her chest heaves, and her skin has an unhealthy pallor. “Are you alright?” she croaks. She looks like she’s aged a decade and moves like it too.
My hands are wrinkled, but the tips of my fingers start to flush peach. Elowyn, please let that mean the siphoning is reversing. There isn’t time to dwell on it now. “I’m fine.” I run toward the thrones, ignoring how every step makes me wheeze with fatigue.
Desmond stirs. My tense shoulders drop in relief. I kneel beside him and cradle his head. Warm blood coats my fingers from a cut along his scalp, but it’s shallow, only a surface wound.
“Cynthia?” He’s as worn and wrinkled as Maeve and I, but even now, the desiccation slowly reverses.
He tries to stand, but his knees buckle.
I loop my arm underneath his, even though I won’t be much help when I’m just as weak.
“I need to stop Orla,” he gasps out, already trying to pull away from me.
I hold on to him. “She’s dead. Hopefully for good.”
Desmond sees the arrow protruding from Orla’s body. A relieved smile cracks his dry lips as he gazes at me. “Looks like you beat me to it. If we burn her body, no necromancer could reawaken her.”
Then he lunges for his sword and pushes me behind him.
Across the balcony, Maeve helps her grandmother to her feet.
Desmond hefts his sword, the metallic skull pommel glinting in the light.
“No!” Maeve screams, stepping in front of Neiro.
“You can’t. The fomorians will kill my mother’s family if Neiro doesn’t return alive.
Please, Desmond.” She holds out her palms as she sinks to her knees, bowing her head.
“We’ll go straight to the Underearth. One of the fomorians is a hopper. No one else has to die.”
Desmond stops in front of Maeve. He glares down at her with barely restrained fury.
“That shouldn’t be so easy for you to say.
Nikolai is dead. Finnian lost his hand. He, Auri, and I would have been executed without trial.
Avedor has announced that the treaty with my kingdom is broken.
How many people have suffered because of you, Maeve? Maybe you should start keeping count.”
I don’t feel any sympathy for the guilt that consumes her face.
“The girl is right,” Neiro groans. “The plan has failed. We must return and face judgment from our king.”
Forget that. “Desmond, we can’t let them go,” I argue. “She’s Gashil’s general, isn’t she? She’s the one who sent him after us. Nikolai is dead because of her! They need to be imprisoned to face trial.”
There’s a halberd across the balcony, and I’m ready to corner them both. If they try to escape, I’ll stop them.
I step toward it, but Desmond grabs my hand to stop me. “We are in no condition to fight,” he says.
“Even with your Gift?” Neiro asks, her mouth curling in a smirk.
Desmond dismisses the comment with a raise of his chin.
“Your people will return to the Underearth, and you will take a message back to your king. Let this night be proof that Avedor and the Hollowlands won’t stand by and let you take our homes.
Next time, I won’t let a fomorian body walk off the battlefield that isn’t controlled by me. ”
His frigid warning sends a shiver down my spine. Even though he’s breathing heavily with exhaustion, he’s undeniably speaking as the Prince of Death that our kingdoms fear. No one would dare to take his threat lightly.
But I still don’t understand. We’re going to let them go? After everything they’ve done?
Desmond meets my gaze, and I remember what he told me when we packed the carriage. It feels like a lifetime ago. “Just imagine a world where words speak louder than violence.”
Maybe he’s letting them go to save Maeve’s family, but I know the real reason. This is what he believes in. Even after everything, he still chooses peace.
The thieves’ guild members, Desmond, Auri, and I watch as the remaining fomorians gather in the center of the ballroom. We’ve all survived. We’re injured, but alive nonetheless. The relief I feel can’t be described in words. Meeting each of their gazes makes me smile until my cheeks hurt.
Brandur and Auri detest the idea of letting the fomorians go, both growling as the fomorian hopper utters commands.
Min has shifted into her lynx form, lacking clothes to change into.
Finnian has woken up and kneels beside her, looking like he’d challenge the world for her.
I think he’s the one who needs Min’s protection, but it’s a sweet sentiment.
Maeve stands in the outer ring. She looks at us, her brows furrowed and lips tight with a torn expression, wistful and longing. Her lavender eyes shine with teary regret.
The fomorians and Maeve disappear with a bang and a flash.
Then reinforcements from Avedor’s military arrive, along with a team of healers. I notice that the guards circle us, blocking off the exits like wolves cornering prey.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter to Min. “We saved Avedor. The least they could do is—”
Ronan and Evie walk into the ballroom, flanked by a dozen guards. I fall silent, relieved that not a hair is out of place on Evie’s head despite her mask being gone. The safe room had held.
At the sight of the carnage, Evie’s cheeks puff out. She stares at the broken bodies, bones protruding from severed tissue and flesh, and her face turns green. She fists her hands as she swallows. Weeks ago, I would’ve hugged her and teased her to no end.
Now, I don’t know what to do. It’s as if we’re strangers, the way I stay rooted in place. She doesn’t look at me, either.
“Your Majesty!” an Avedoran guard shouts. “These are the fae who plotted against your family. And that one there!” The guard’s face twists with disgust as he points at Desmond. “He’s a necromancer.”
“Who saved your lives!” I yell back.
“And defiled the Queen by turning her into a draugr!”
Desmond flinches. His voice is remarkably steady as he says, “I did what I had to do to defeat the fomorians.”
I know him too well to think he’s unfazed. Regret is hidden in every tense line of his body.
I look at Ronan. “Avedor would’ve fallen if he hadn’t used his magic.” Gods, please let him see reason.
The guards ignore me. They draw their weapons.
I expect Evie to cry out for them to stop, but she doesn’t. Ronan shouts, “Halt!” and moves in front of the guards. “Where did the fomorians go?”
“A hopper took them back to the Underearth, but I’d recommend searching your kingdom just in case,” Desmond answers.
“And the guests?”
“We got as many out as we could,” Finnian says.
Ronan frowns. “What of this plot against my family?” He looks at the rows of covered bodies, the sheets draped over them hiding each face and injury.
The three bodies at the end are covered with elaborate tapestries instead, and an Elowynite minister kneels beside them, quietly praying.
Ronan swallows. He pales, but he looks back at us with a steely composure that impresses me.
“Eldon orchestrated it to take the throne,” I blurt out.
Ronan’s face pinches. He sighs. He’s not surprised. “And what did he promise in return?”
“To free the Hollowlands. That you would withdraw all humans from my people’s lands,” Desmond says unapologetically. There is no hesitation in him, no regret for wanting what his people have been denied for generations.
Ronan lifts a brow, regarding Desmond alone. “Not jewels or gold? Not even a title and a villa in Avedor?”
Auri growls. “You believe the Prince of the High Court would stoop so low as to assassinate your queen for mere trinkets?”
Ronan falls silent, thinking. No one dares to interrupt him this time, not even me.
“You defended my country even though we’ve enslaved yours.” Ronan approaches Desmond, stopping within arm’s reach. Desmond is taller, but Ronan shows no signs of being intimidated. The two men regard each other with equally guarded expressions, knowing our kingdom’s futures are in their hands.
“I’ll grant your wish as a token of my gratitude for defending my people, on one condition,” Ronan says.
Desmond waits. His imperturbable expression doesn’t betray a thing.
“All of Avedor’s citizens will withdraw from the Hollowlands, but only if all fae leave Avedor to never return.”
Desmond is silent for several seconds, then nods. “It will be done.”
“And if any of you should set foot in Avedor again,” he regards each of us, “our next meeting won’t be so cordial.”
I can barely believe my ears. The fae will finally be free. Desmond won’t be hunted down and executed. I dare to smile, giddy with relief that everything I’ve feared in the past few days won’t come true.
My joy stops cold as I realize Ronan also looked at me. Leave Avedor? Forever?
Evie grasps Ronan’s arm, blinking innocently as if supplicating to him. “I had no hand in this. I swear!”
Now that our masks are gone, the familial similarities between us are undeniable.
“I know,” her prince says.
No, I correct myself. Her king.
Everyone is ignoring one pressing problem. Gashil would have stopped at nothing to destroy Avedor. I have no doubt that the king of the Underearth is just as determined to conquer our kingdoms. Unleashing the Curse of Ages would drain Avedor’s magic until it’s defenseless.
If we can’t return to Avedor, we’ll never have another chance to ally with King Ronan.
“The fomorians will return, and your kingdoms will be stronger together,” I urge Ronan. “They want to open the tombs in Avedor to unleash a curse!”
Once it’s all out of my mouth, I realize how crazy I sound. Ronan watches me, as silent and stoic as stone. Evie stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“See to it that they leave,” Ronan says, dismissing us.
“Your Highness,” a guard interrupts. “We haven’t recovered your family’s crowns, nor your own. Should we search the traitors?”
The crowns? I remember Ronan throwing his into the crowd, then Princess Cara’s tiara rolling down the steps. I never noticed anyone taking them, but then again, I had other things on my mind.