16. Delphine
The Sand Courtfelt as strange to return to as the Luxian Eastern Court had felt on our arrival. The moment Seren pulled us through the pool, no fear remaining of our being seen or discovered in our travels, the flow of the glamour wrapped around me and poured into me with such intensity, it was like swallowing fire. If I hadn’t spent the last months literally walking through it, I would have been overwhelmed. Now, as that glamour sank its teeth and claws into me, I didn’t even flinch.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the night, still in the hours before dawn struck. It was that dark hour, with the moon sunk so low on the horizon that only the stars overhead were left to cast their light. I relished the momentary stillness as we stepped out of the sand and onto one of the all too familiar stepping stones carved like great medallions beneath our feet. Sand fell away from my hair and shoulders, drawn as if by a magnet back to the soon to be crowned prince of this court as he followed after us, last.
Between his and Seren’s remaining powers, they’d been able to get us through the realms without the help of the gods, this time. This time, however, it didn’t matter who saw us. We wanted them to see us. We needed them to see us. We needed Deimos and Mordrigal to know that we were back—but more than that, we needed them to know that we’d been gone.
They had no reason to know what we’d truly been doing in our absence. What I was doing. Unless one of my own had betrayed me, they’d know only the smokescreen that I’d created. They’d know only that I spent the time preparing for battle.
And meet them in battle we would—just not the way they expected us to.
I stepped forward as that silence was broken, as footsteps and whispers carried over to us, as faces peered back at us from the darkness to see who had traveled through the pools—and then scurried away to spread word. Good.
Soon, it wouldn’t only be Armene’s advisors who hounded our footsteps.
I turned to look back at my companions, watching as each one of them followed after me into the heat of Armene’s court. Seren’s skin, paler than usual from the exertion of preparing so many pools for so many fae, glistened with a sheen of sweat. Armene’s eyes scanned the columns and faces darting between them, already calculating what would fall on him next. Caldamir stood with one hand ready to grab his sword, as he so often did, no magic at his disposal. And Nyx … Nyx …
Nyx watched me in a way that made something in me soften. It had been a long time now, for me, since Nyx’s betrayal. There weren’t many quiet moments in the realm Icarus had taken me to contemplate forgiving him, but that didn’t mean his sacrifice had gone unnoticed. Unseen. Unfelt.
I certainly felt it now. It was hours now, maybe less, before we faced Deimos. But Nyx wouldn’t be facing Deimos. He’d be facing us.
He’d be facing the Afterworld.
He’d be facing death.
And I was the one who had to send him there.
“Nyx…” I started, but before I could so much as form the question, he answered.
“Yes,” he said. He bowed his head slightly before continuing, “I ask only that I be given the next couple hours to prepare for my fate.”
There was no hesitation. That softness in him hadn’t changed, but that look in his eye did, only slightly. He was resolved.
And so was I.
I turned to Seren and held out my hand. “Give me the key.”
I saw a flash of uncertainty in Caldamir’s face as he realized what I was about to do, but he said nothing. He made no move to stop Seren as he gave me the key that I’d left with him for safekeeping when I went to that dark realm with Icarus.
The cool press of metal had barely registered on my palm before I held it out to Nyx, instead. I had to swallow back a lump that had formed, unbidden in the back of my throat as I did. I focused on the key, on the shape it made pressed between the tips of my fingers, instead of on him. Looking at him wasn’t safe. Looking at him made the fractures that had long since formed in my heart feel like they were finally going to deepen, crack, and shatter in a way that would never be repaired.
I stood that way too long, with Nyx making no move to take it.
“Take the goddamned key, Nyx,” I snapped, finally.
He did then, but the moment our fingers brushed, his so warm against my own that had grown so icy, my eyes finally flickered back up to meet his. That single glance didn’t break me, though it nearly did. His eyes were wide, searching mine with a question of his own, one he didn’t dare ask.
I answered it anyway, in the only way I knew how.
It was a long time since I’d kissed Nyx, since I felt the soft, full roundness of his lips on mine. Still, however long it had been—for me, for him—it felt so familiar at once. So right.
There was no time for a long embrace. No time to sum up the way I felt for him in words.
But I didn’t need to. I saw, in his eyes when we broke apart, that he understood.
He knew he was forgiven.
Nyx held up the key like I’d just given him the very beating heart of Avarath itself. It took me a moment to realize why he hesitated to unlock his bracelet, until I saw, once more, the wooden hand strapped to his other arm. His cheeks reddened as he saw me looking, but before it could so much as deepen into a blush, he stuck the key between his lips and fumbled with the lock himself until it finally popped free. The look of pride on his face was nearly enough to distract from the transformation that took place the moment the glamour once again flowed into him.
Nyx was, without a doubt, the most beautiful creature in all the realms. The moment the glamour rekindled in his veins, something seemed to glow from within him. He didn’t hum with an energy so much as energy seemed to be attracted to him. His emerald eyes shone like gems within his skull, his golden skin shimmering as if kissed by the sun that did not yet shine. The mere sight of him took my breath away just as it had the first time I laid eyes on him, the sound of it making the outer corners of his eyes crinkle up, and though he didn’t laugh aloud, I swore a distant breeze did.
I expected him to linger, to soak in the praise of my gaze, but he didn’t. He stretched his wooden hand out, relishing the way it moved now as if it was one and the same as the one that he’d severed himself, then glanced once over his shoulder as if determining where his solitude would take him.
He caught my hand before he left, his touch as light as the unseen breeze that tousled his perfect curls in a way that only seemed to make them fall even more perfectly.
“I love you, Delphine,” he whispered. Even his voice had a glamoured quality now. It was a siren’s song, dripping with the same honey that he left traces of on my skin where his hand met mine. “I love you more than I love myself.”
It would be a strange thing to hear from anyone else. But from him, as he turned and left us to go wherever it was a Woodland Fae would go in a sea of sand and stone, it was the sweetest thing he could have said.
Even if, from the sound of Caldamir’s distasteful snort, the prince of the Mountain Court didn’t think the same.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, the moment Nyx was gone, unable to keep his distrust to himself any longer.
“I had a long time to think, much longer than you had,” I answered. “I wouldn’t have him going through with this unless it was entirely, and utterly, of his own free will.”
I wasn’t testing him. Wasn’t meaning to, anyway.
I knew if I was testing Nyx, he would fail. He had a habit of doing just that.
But I’d seen the look in his eyes. I knew he meant to go through with it. And I wouldn’t deny a dying man his last wish.
I might get Nyx back in the end, but I might not. It wasn’t certain. Nothing was.
Seren was the next to leave us, his work better done from his place in the Starlight Court. He’d find allies there, and he’d need them. His powers were exhausted here, but even in the short time he’d be in the Starlight Court compared to us, it would be enough. It had to be enough.
His own farewell was a solemn one. He took my hands in his, exhaustion rounding shoulders that even years of bearing the weight of his lost crown never had. His hair fell around his shoulders like the fall of water in his tower, his dark eyes so black I could see my own reflection in them. We said nothing. There was nothing to be said. I saw it all in his eyes before he left, his kiss a biting bruise left on my lips.
And then it was just us. Just me, Armene, and Caldamir.
Those fractures in my heart had deepened despite myself. Despite everything.
This was it. Our final hours of certainty. Whatever came next, everything in our world was about to change.