Chapter 47
Everly
For an endless fraction of a moment, I froze. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Then a shadow flickered across the ground, unnaturally large against the glare of the setting sun.
My mother glided down from wherever the hells she had gone when she left my rooms, stopping just in front of my uncle.
“Enough, Vaerin.” Her voice was somewhere between a warning and a plea, softer than his, but it carried all the same.
He didn’t move to attack her, but neither did he release my sister. For a single fraction of a moment, I believed that he might listen to her. And that I would have the chance to talk to them, to end this war without bloodshed, to save my sister without damning my kingdom.
But my uncle let out a soft sound of disbelief.
“Your failure to retrieve her left me no choice. What will it be, Everly? Your sister or—”
Before he could finish his sentence, a blast of mana racked into the ground, the air warping around my mother enough to bring the warriors closest to her to their knees. And yet, my uncle was faster.
Shadows lashed outward, wrapping around my mother’s torso and her throat, muffling her voice and locking her limbs in place. Her emerald eyes widened in disbelief and fury, because his shadows were more than just binding to the body, they could also suppress mana.
My heart dropped into my stomach, Batty’s warmth against my neck doing little to thaw the ice in my bones.
I had wondered, so many times, why she didn’t just find a way to stop him, thinking it all came down to loyalty. It never occurred to me that she couldn’t... That he was stronger than she was, faster, more ruthless.
Would he hurt her now? Could he?
Panic ran rampant in my mind, Draven’s horror braided so tightly with mine that I couldn’t tell which emotion belonged to which of us anymore.
Everly, do not go out there, he growled.
I didn’t know how much he’d seen through my eyes or gleaned from the storm of my thoughts, but lying to him was impossible now. Obeying him even less so.
There were soldiers in a line outside the palace walls and more in the courtyard, along with the faraway forms of Soren and Eryx, but my uncle would kill her the moment they stepped in.
Draven was locked behind the wards and unable to reach us. Nevara lay immobilized by venom, the Archmage bound by vows.
And below, my sister trembled with a mix of terror and fury I could feel from here, held in the merciless grip of the male who had let his own niece be tortured for months on end.
She strained against his hold, and he yanked her hair back tighter, her white-blonde curls pulled taut in his grasp.
He wouldn’t hesitate to carry out his threat. He had amassed this army to eliminate the entire Winter Court. The prolonged agony of a single Seelie fae would barely register on his conscience.
A rough plea scraped at my ear. Morta Mea. Draven again, even more frantic now.
I pushed a series of images through the bond.
Wynnie caring for my broken body when she hardly knew my name, laughing while she tended to cheerful plants in my bedroom, stitching my wedding gown all the way to the palace, breaking a wooden chair on the back of a Tharnok, holding my hand while we both quietly broke from all the things we couldn’t unsee.
One memory after another showcased my sister, fierce and unyielding and endlessly loyal.
What would you do if it was Nevara? I hurled the thought toward him.
A vicious curse snapped through the bond, followed by the cold burn of the ring. Shards damn it all.
You can’t afford to be distracted now, I sent, forcing steadiness into my thoughts. I need you to trust me if we’re going to make it out of this alive.
I had never shut him out of my mind before, but this time, I didn’t wait for him to respond. I imagined walls, stronger than the Thornhart wards around him, and slammed them down around my thoughts just as I wrenched open the balcony door.
Frigid wind struck my face, carrying the sounds of a courtyard on the brink. Soldiers whipped their heads upward, expressions shifting between shock, fear, awe, confusion, as they registered who I was, what I was wearing, and the fact that I stood above them like a warrior stepping in to save them.
Vaerin smiled when he caught sight of me standing on the high balcony, a smug grin that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Come down,” he called, voice pitched so perfectly he might have been standing beside me instead of several floors below. “Remember who you are before I have to remind you of all the ways this Court has poisoned your mind.”
His command was clear. Show them what you are. Stand with us, before I slaughter your sister.
The entire Unseelie force stood watching. Winter soldiers, too. Every eye locked on me, on Vaerin, on my furious sister still struggling in his hold. I felt thousands of breaths held in unison, waiting to see which way I would fall.
My heart hammered with terror, but resolve was layered beneath it like tempered steel. For once, I didn’t lie to myself. I knew what I risked giving into his demands, but I weighed every possibility against the certainty of my sister’s death, and every time, the answer was the same.
I exhaled slowly and let my wings unfurl. The fabric of my tunic didn’t rip. Instead, two fragile seams split cleanly open… like it had been designed with them in mind. Like the palace had known where today would lead even before I did.
Gasps surged through both armies, a ripple of shock that traveled like a physical wave… at my truth or at my choice, I wasn’t sure… My uncle’s smile widened as the Winter soldiers stared in horror and betrayal, hands tightening on weapons.
This was exactly what he had wanted. Or part of it, anyway. The loss of their morale. The moment they realized their queen was one of the enemy.
Distantly, I heard Eryx ordering them to hold their fire and Lumen’s worried howl as I glided down past the soldiers, past the palace walls, my boots hitting the snow-covered stones.
Bows were drawn with cold-iron arrows gleaming under the dusky sunset. Warriors were braced and at the ready, weapons raised, mana sparking in the air between us. Every instinct told me to stay behind the lines. To stay where it was safe.
But I was done hiding.
I held my breath, clenching my clawed fists as I stepped past the wardlines to face the Shadow Thane.
“Uncle,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm thrashing inside me.
He stood proud, shoulders squared, chin lifted, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
And he had come prepared. Not just for battle, but for time.
His forces were dressed for Winter storms, shoulders draped in thick furs, tunics and boots lined against the cold, bracers guarding their forearms. Along the bones and tendons of their wings, the familiar sheen of warming salves caught the light.
Beyond them, supply wagons waited in patient rows.
Between the clothing, the provisions, and the quiet confidence in his stance, it was clear he had come prepared for a siege, if that’s what it came to, and that he had every intention of outlasting it.
My mother fought against his hold, sending wave after wave of mana against her shadow bonds, but they dissipated as quickly as they came. Wynnie, too, struggled against the shadows, and the tightening grip of my uncle’s fist in her hair.
Muffled sounds came from behind the makeshift shadow gag. I could practically hear her cursing me for coming out here when she would have happily died to keep me safe.
But surely she knew that I felt the same.
“I’m here. Now let them go,” I said with all the calm I didn’t feel.
Vaerin narrowed his gaze, his massive obsidian wings flaring ever so slightly in response. He looked down at my sister, his fist clenching around her curls so hard a tear slipped from her lashes.
Batty hissed at him from my shoulder as my anger flared.
“Would you claim this Seelie filth over your true family?” he asked, glancing at my mother next.
His tone was deceptively gentle, as if it were the most reasonable question in the world.
“I asked you to stand with us, Niece, not against us.” He wrapped his shadows tighter around my sister until they sliced into her skin.
Wynnie’s fists were clenched in her gown, her eyes burning with unrelenting rage as shallow rivulets of blood spread in lines across her arms, her neck, her cheeks.
Tears stabbed at the backs of my eyes.
He was never going to let her go. He might free my mother… But he wasn’t going to free Wynnie. If that hadn’t been clear before, it sure as shards was now.
Vaerin had only ever wanted me to come here so he could use my sister as an example, show the Unseelie that his niece was loyal. To use me as a symbol and shield me from their wrath in his own twisted, insane way of keeping me safe.
Still, I couldn’t regret coming, couldn’t regret doing anything I could to save them. All I could do now was stall for time.
“What exactly is it that you want from me?” I asked, though I had already discerned the answer.
“I only want you to remember who you are, so you don’t have to die with them.” Somewhere past his threat was the slightest hint of a warning. “The wards are going to fail, Everly. And then the Heartstone.”
“No, there’s still—” I began, but he cut me off.
“We will do what we must to protect the other kingdoms,” he said, his words hanging in the air between us. “The frostbeasts have been summoned from every corner of this Court, called back from the borders we are trying to protect.”
I let out a scoff that sounded more like a crazed laugh.
Protect? There was no part of him that wanted to protect anyone but himself, to protect anything but his own power.
“Winter has already lost,” he continued, holding a hand out toward me. “But you don't have to fall with it.”
In spite of myself, resignation shot straight through to my bones. If he had called the monsters… Draven was powerful, insanely so, but even he couldn’t fight a war on every single front.