Chapter 23 Everly
Everly
Icrumpled the note, only to unfold it for the thousandth time, staring daggers at the words written in my uncle’s hand. Even his penmanship was unyielding—spiky and jagged. Violent by its very nature.
These frostlings thought they could hide in the shadows, but they forgot that those shadows belong to me. So I’ve gifted their heads to you, Little Niece, so those holding you captive might know how little we will tolerate their treachery.
I wanted to set the frost-damned parchment on fire. My treachery, he meant. He could dress it up like concern, but it was a warning all the same, for daring to walk away from him a second time.
Each word landed like a mocking echo of everything Eryx had just accused me of. My very existence wasn’t merely inconvenient—it was a liability. A weapon pointed at the Court.
At Draven.
At every soldier who had marched out with the promise of coming home again… the same ones I’d relied on to reach my mother, only to send them straight into the hands of my uncle, instead.
And now that my father had proven to have nothing useful to add, we were back to the beginning, with exactly no options to reach my mother.
“We’ll send more spies,” Draven said when I reminded him of that fact. His voice was low and steady in a way that was almost convincing.
“So they can die too?” My throat burned. “You saw what he did.”
We were back in his suites now, though the acrid scent from the barrels still permeated my lungs like it had in the war room every time I looked at the shards-blasted note.
“They knew what they were risking, Morta Mea,” Draven growled. “The Thane is trying to get in your head.”
“Well, it’s working,” I fired back.
I couldn’t shake the guilt creeping in. The spies may have known they were risking their lives, but they hadn’t known why. They hadn’t known that it was for me or even who the shards-damned hells I really was.
“He would have killed any traitors he rooted out, regardless of where you were or if you even existed,” Draven replied evenly. “Just as I would.”
“Of course you would.” I saw frozen chunks of fae skittering across the marble floors, pictured Alaric’s agonized scream just before Draven ended his life.
“Because shards forbid either of you find a way to solve your problems that doesn’t involve killing or maiming or torturing someone into submission. ”
I turned away, but Draven caught my arm gently in his grasp. He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the inexplicable warmth of his chest seeping through my spine. Close enough that his breath brushed the shell of my ear, all warm, and soft, and dangerous.
“Is that what you want, Morta Mea?” he asked. “For me to let every threat to you, to us, to this realm walk freely and unchecked until they dare to touch what belongs to me?”
His voice was low, deadly. Smug enough that I wanted to argue.
And I would have, if not for the traitorous little voice in the back of my mind reminding me of our rings.
Would they betray me? Would they tell him the truth, vibrate with my lies and reveal that I was tired of being afraid, tired enough that I might prefer Lady Thessara becoming a frozen snack for my favorite wolves over risking what her dissent might grow into down the line?
“No, Draven. I don’t want threats to either of us to go unchecked, but that doesn’t mean I want them all dead, either.”
He sighed, backing away from me, and I missed his warmth before I could stop myself.
“Naivete is a luxury of the citizens who are allowed to pretend they would never sully their hands with the same decisive actions that keep them safe and alive day in and day out.” He moved on slow predatorial footsteps until he was standing in front of me. “But it doesn’t quite work for a queen.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You think it’s na?ve to want a court that doesn’t hinge on daily slaughter?”
Frost.Twat. I tacked on the words in my head, not bothering to think them very quietly.
He raised his eyebrows, unconcerned with the insult.
“I think that you knew exactly what the risk to spies entering the enemy kingdom was long before you had to see their heads for yourself, just as you know them now,” he said.
“So what do you think, Morta Mea? Should we send more spies to contact your mother? Or would you prefer to stew in the uncertainty of whether she lives or dies?”
His warm grip came to my chin, long enough to tilt my head to face him. Draven’s aurora-lit eyes held mine, steady and unflinching, as if he intended to drag the truth out of me one heartbeat at a time.
“Better yet,” he continued, “you can ask yourself later if the spies you sent might have tipped the scales one way or the other in that decision.”
He let out a quiet laugh that was entirely devoid of amusement.
“And this is just one person, just one scenario. There is a new one every day, and most of the time the stakes will be higher than one person you want to protect. It will be the realm itself that lives or dies from your decisions.” He dropped his hand from my chin, backing incrementally away.
“Or from your squeamishness. So tell me, Wife, do you want to send in more spies to find your mother?”
My lips parted, but no sound came out.
Was this how he always felt when he made his choices, weighing life and death as implications and collateral damage rather than the loss of an irreplaceable soul?
I might have been upset when I saw the mottled faces, but my very first thought hadn’t been for the poor fae who had died at my uncle’s hands. It had been for what it meant for contacting my mother.
Had Draven heard the thought then, or did he just understand me better than I wanted to admit I understood myself?
Maybe we were all just selfish at the end of the day. Maybe there was no other way to be when you had the oppressive weight of a kingdom on a single set of shoulders.
I blinked and saw the severed heads. My mother’s guarded emerald gaze. The dragon’s vision. Faceless children and husbands and wives who would never again see the people they loved.
Then I opened my eyes, meeting Draven’s unflinching gaze. And I wasn’t sure which of us I hated more as I gave him a single, bitter dip of my chin.
I couldn’t stop picturing the heads.
Or more accurately, picturing their number growing until the barrel could no longer contain them. Until they rolled through the palace hallways, features frozen in perpetual accusation.
Was Draven right? Had there never really been a choice? Was all of this a necessary part of being a ruler?
And if that was true, what did it say for the choices my uncle had made where his niece was concerned? Were they as cruel as they had felt, or merely practical?
I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat. Draven was right about one thing, at least. I had been comforted at the idea of sending more spies into the Wilds, even knowing we were likely sending them to their deaths. Comforted to know it might still help me to reach my mother, regardless of the cost.
Guilt twisted in my stomach, writhing around my organs and my bones until I could hardly breathe. Maybe I was more like my uncle than I wanted to consider.
Maybe I had all of my parents’ propensity for lies and a heaping dose of my uncle’s ruthlessness to boot.
My sister only sighed when I talked to her about it all over breakfast, in tones low enough to pretend Draven couldn’t hear us.
She held a piece of cheese out to Batty, who sniffed at it suspiciously before nibbling at its edge.
It didn’t escape my notice that neither of them would meet my eyes.
“You think Draven was right, when he said that I’m na?ve?” I phrased it like a question, though the answer was obvious.
My skathryn gulped down the rest of the cheese, cheeks full to bursting while she chewed slowly like she was the one trying to avoid my questions.
Wynnie chewed on her lip, picking up her mug.
“I think… that Draven is an icicle-sucking bastard of epic proportions when he says anything at all,” she replied, taking a sip of tea while she met my eyes at last.
“But?” I pushed. It was rare that I had to push her for anything at all, let alone sharing her very strong opinions.
“But…” she paused like she was deliberating what to say.
“Honesty always,” I reminded her.
Wynnie set down her cup, taking a fortifying breath.
“But I think that sometimes your experiences with violence color your tolerance for a certain amount of… necessary savagery.” She shook her head, remorse flooding her crystal-blue gaze.
“I know your life was lonely, shut up in your rooms and forced to hide, but you were also… shielded from some things.”
This was why she hadn’t wanted to respond, because she hadn’t wanted to imply that there were benefits to being forced to hide, though Draven may as well have said the same thing.
Batty nestled against me, offering me a small spot of warmth while I sorted through the rest of my sister’s words.
We never brought up the way I arrived at my father’s estate just over a decade ago, nor the way I returned to the palace mere months ago.
She never asked questions I couldn’t bring myself to answer, let alone acknowledged that she knew I had been tortured more than once. And now, she thought I was too influenced by my trauma to look at this situation reasonably.
Worse yet, I wondered if she was right. Hadn’t I felt every ounce of Alaric’s torture echoing across my skin when I saw him suffer through Draven’s eyes, the kind of soul-deep pain I understood on a level I wished I didn’t?
“Maybe,” I allowed, my voice barely loud enough to carry. “But sometimes I think the only difference in necessary and unnecessary violence is whether it’s happening to someone you love or on their behalf.”
“You’re not wrong,” she said softly. “This is a war, and you’re a queen now. Sometimes all we can do is protect our own, Little Sister. I’m not sorry for that.”
I sank back into the velvet chair, staring out at the endless hues of teal and emerald and purple, trying to pinpoint the flaw in her reasoning. She was right, and she was wrong.
If all we ever worried about was protecting our own, wasn’t that how the violent cycle fed itself?
But if that was the only way to keep the people I loved safe, wouldn’t I choose it every time? Hadn’t I already?
Is that really the only way?
Or is that just something we tell ourselves so we don’t drown in the guilt of all the collateral damage that piles up at our feet?