Chapter 42
Finnian
Tiana watches me across the fire. My secrets spilled in a rush of breath between crackles.
I don’t like being solved, and this woman, this queen who abdicated before I ever met her, sees through all of them in the time it takes to chew a piece of jerky.
The Will-o’-Wisp hovering above her shoulder doesn’t help.
Whispen pulses a sullen violet, his needle-teeth catching the firelight. The little bastard is enjoying this. Of course Ash’s soul-bound guide ended up with the one person in all of Faerie who might actually know what’s happening.
“Little scholar, little sword,” he sing-songs, his glow shifting to accusatory blue. “Left the queen, left the hoard. Followed the leash, answered the call. Tell me, Finnian—was it worth the fall?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Didn’t you?” His needle-teeth gleam. “Didn’t you, didn’t you, didn’t you.”
I ignore him. It’s the only way to survive conversations with Whispen. Treat him like weather. Unpleasant, unavoidable, not worth arguing with.
“You’re not going to kill me,” Tiana says. Not a question.
The binding pulses in my chest. Kill all the secrets.
Tiana is a secret. The biggest secret the Seelie Court has. The former queen’s maid who vanished, who everyone assumed was dead, sits across from me with firelight dancing in her violet eyes.
The binding should be screaming. Should be clawing at my ribs, demanding I complete the command.
It’s silent.
“The binding isn’t activating,” I say slowly, testing the words. “Why?”
“Because I’m not Amarantha’s secret to kill.” Tiana sets down her jerky. “I’m my mother’s. Tatiana’s daughter, hidden before Amarantha ever took the throne. The command was to eliminate the secrets of the Seelie Court, meaning Amarantha’s Seelie Court. I predate her claim.”
“Loopholes,” Whispen croons, drifting between us. “Lawyers and loopholes and little locked doors. The scholar found one. The scholar found more.”
The loophole holds. But she let another small detail slip. One that I won’t allow to go unnoticed.
“Tatiana’s daughter.” I taste the words. “The histories say she had no children. No heirs.”
“The histories say what my mother wanted them to say.” Tiana’s mouth twists. “She never trusted Amarantha. Even before the coup, she saw what her cousin was becoming. So she hid me. Sent me out to find the loyal among the Seelie, those who would stand against Amarantha when the time came.”
“And?”
“And I failed.” The words are flat. She says them as though she’s accepted that fate.
“I found a few. Not enough. By the time I’d gathered any kind of force, my mother was dead and Amarantha had consolidated power.
The loyal Seelie I’d identified were executed one by one. I’ve spent the last century running.”
Her hands are clenched at her sides. Her jaw is too tight.
I file that away. Everyone’s pain is leverage eventually.
“You kept her alive,” Tiana says to Whispen, something like respect in her voice. “All those years in the human world.”
“Kept her alive.” Whispen’s glow pulses possessive gold. “The scholar was incidental.”
“Charming as always,” I mutter about the whisp.
“I don’t do charm, I am soul keeper of thorns. I do truth.”
Through the bond, I feel Ash. Distant but present. A flicker of something. Fury, satisfaction, grief all tangled together. Something is happening at the tavern. Something significant.
Whispen’s glow flares gold. Then violet. Then something between a sickly amber that makes my stomach turn.
“She’s burning,” he whispers, and for once there’s no riddle in it. “Burning and blooming and becoming.”
I should go to her. The pull is almost painful.
But Tiana is before me and there is something keeping me here. Even if it’s just for a moment.
So, I stay.
I tell myself she’d understand. That she’d make the same choice.
“The scholar needs to learn before he loves.” Whispen’s voice has gone cold.
Blue light pulsing with each word. “The scholar needs to know before he goes.” His glow dims further.
“She doesn’t need your knowledge, Finnian Willowheart.
She needs your presence. But you’ve never understood the difference, have you? ”
Why is he saying this right now? Like he’s reading my damn thoughts. I squint at him. He is likely reading my thoughts.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask Tiana, forcing my attention back to the conversation that matters. The one I’m choosing over the woman I love.
“Because I need the Summer Sword.” Tiana stands, brushing dirt from her traveling clothes. “And you need a reason to use it for something other than Amarantha’s errands.”
“I don’t have a choice about Amarantha’s errands. The binding—”
“The binding commands you to kill the secrets of the Seelie Court.” She cuts me off with a hand through the air.
“Amarantha’s secrets. Her hidden operations.
Her covert alliances. Her genocide.” She meets my eyes.
“I know about the encampments, Finnian. I know what she’s been doing to the Wild Court. ”
My stomach turns.
“You’ve seen them.”
“I’ve been stalking one for the past three days.” She gestures into the darkness beyond our fire. “Half a mile north. Mixed team. Seelie, Unseelie, mercenaries. And humans. Military humans directing the operations.”
Humans.
What are the odds those are Ash’s people?
“What do you want me to do?”
Tiana’s smile turns unhinged.
“I want you to help me kill them. All of them.” She tilts her head. “And I think it’s time you saw what the Summer Sword actually does. Don’t you?”
Whispen makes a sound that might be laughter or might be breaking glass.
“The scholar wants to play with swords now. Sharp things, bright things, things that cut and bleed.” His violet glow pulses with something like anticipation. “Let’s see if the sword plays back. But shhhh, they will hear you.”
I follow behind Tiana quietly. She moves through the forest barely disturbing a spider. I do my best to follow behind her, but I was never overtly graceful.
The encampment is exactly where she said it would be.
We approach from downwind, moving through the Dark Forest in silence. Tiana moves like a shadow herself. Not Kieran’s shadows, but something subtler.
Whispen dims himself to near-invisibility, just a faint shimmer at the edge of my vision. Even his voice goes quiet.
I count the figures around the central fire. Twelve Fae. Eight humans. Mixed armor, mixed weapons, the kind of cobbled-together force that speaks to coin rather than loyalty.
“Twenty,” I murmur. “You failed to mention there were twenty.”
“I said half. I counted twelve three days ago.”
“Reinforcements.”
“Or another team joining up.” Her jaw tightens. “They do that sometimes. Combine forces before hitting larger settlements.”
I feel Ash again, brighter through the bond. I can’t tell if something’s wrong or very right. The distance makes everything muddy.
“We’re outnumbered,” I observe. “Significantly.”
“We have the Summer Sword.”
“Which Amarantha controls.”
“Which Amarantha thinks she controls.” Tiana turns to face me fully. “Tell me, scholar. In all your centuries of research, did you ever discover why the Four Treasures were created?”
I blink at the non sequitur. “To serve the Wild Court. To channel and focus royal power—”
“To work together.” She cuts me off. “The Spear of Truth. The Crown of Destiny. The Cauldron of Life. The Stone of Fál. Four Treasures, designed to function as a unit. Separately, they’re powerful. Together, they’re unstoppable.”
“I’m aware of the theory—”
“It’s not theory.” She steps closer. “You carry the Crown. The Summer Sword is bound to your chest. One of the Four, plus the sword, and you’ve never once tried to use them in harmony.”
“How do you—”
She holds up a hand. “Save it. I know you have the crown.”
Because using them means acknowledging what I am. What I carry. What Amarantha did to me when she carved the sword into my sternum and called it love.
“The Crown shows possibilities,” Tiana continues.
“Branching futures. Paths not yet taken. And the Sword cuts through to the truth of things, including the truth of what’s about to happen.
” Her eyes gleam. “Together, Finnian. The Crown shows you every move your enemy will make before they make it. The Sword gives you the speed and precision to counter each one. Do you understand what that means?”
I understand.
It means Amarantha has been sitting on the most dangerous weapon in all of Faerie and using it to fetch her tea.
“She doesn’t know,” I breathe.
“She knows the Treasures are powerful. She doesn’t know how they work together. The knowledge was lost when the Wild Court fell.” Tiana’s smile turns vicious. “But my mother knew. And she taught me.”
I feel Ash again. Something building. Something breaking.
“How?” I ask.
“Listen,” she taps my temple where the crown is settled against my scalp. Then my chest, “Flow.”
“Tiana,” I begin, because those are terrible instructions.
She’s backing away, toward the encampment.
“Tiana,” I hiss again.
She hits the encampment like a storm.
Tiana goes left, drawing attention with a blast of Seelie light that sends three mercenaries scrambling for cover.
Damnit it. I’m not about to get a single bit of advice. I blow out a breath and grimace as I pull the Crown forth. It sits on my scalp like a crown of thorns, blood slowly seeping down my face. Then I call to the Sword. Bright and gleaming in my right hand.
I go right, moving toward the cluster of humans near the command tent.
The first one sees me coming. Raises his weapon, some kind of modified crossbow, and fires.
The Crown pulses.
Left. Two inches.
I shift without thinking. The bolt passes close enough to ruffle my hair. My blade finds his throat before he can reload.
Behind. Low strike. Three seconds.
I spin. Block the knife aimed at my kidneys. Drive my elbow into the attacker’s temple.
This is...this is incredible.
The Crown doesn’t just show me possibilities. It shows me certainties. The exact angle of each attack, the precise timing, the specific counter needed. I’m not fighting. I’m executing a choreography that only I can see.
But there are too many of them.
For every one I drop, two more appear. The mercenaries have regrouped, coordinating their attacks, trying to overwhelm me with numbers. A blade catches my arm, shallow, but it bleeds. A boot connects with my ribs. I stumble.
Four converging. Eight seconds. No viable counter.
The Crown shows me my death. Four blades, four angles, no escape.
Tiana screams.
I turn, big mistake, and see her pinned against a tree. A Seelie warrior has her by the throat, lifting her off the ground, and her light is flickering, failing—
The Summer Sword ignites.
Not the reluctant warmth I’ve felt when Amarantha calls. This is different. This is mine.
The warmth hits my sternum first, where the sword lives. Then it spreads. Up my spine. Down my arms. Into my fingers.
It doesn’t hurt.
It feels like waking up.
Golden light erupts from my chest, from my hands, from my eyes. And the Crown—
The Crown sings.
Time doesn’t slow. That’s not what happens. What happens is I see everything.
Every attacker. Every angle. Every possibility collapsing into a single perfect line of action.
The Sword moves.
I don’t remember crossing the distance to Tiana. I don’t remember cutting down the warrior holding her. I don’t remember the next six kills.
I remember the sound. Blade through armor, through flesh, through bone. Twelve times.
That should terrify me.
It doesn’t.
That terrifies me.
And then silence. It descends on the forest like an audible inhale. No birds. No crickets. Nothing. Just the dead silence of twelve bodies. All Fae. The mercenaries who tried to overwhelm me. Twelve lives ended in the time it takes to draw a breath, and I can’t recall a single face.
All headless.
The humans run screaming. Scrambling for the trees, abandoning their command post, leaving their Fae allies to die.
Cowards, something in me snarls. They direct the slaughter but won’t face the consequences.
I raise my hand. The Sword’s light gathers—
“Finnian.” Tiana’s voice cuts through the rage. “Let them go.”
“They’re part of this. They’re directing—”
“And they’ll report back to whoever’s paying them. They’ll tell them the Summer Sword is no longer under Amarantha’s control.” She limps toward me, one hand pressed to her ribs. “Let them carry that message. Let them spread fear.”
The logic is sound. I get that.
But not the Sword.
I want to watch them fall. Want to feel their fear as they realize there’s nowhere to run. Want the satisfaction of finishing what I started.
When did I become someone who wants that?
I lower my hand because Tiana told me to.
Not because I wanted to stop.
The Sword’s light fades. The Crown’s song quiets to a whisper, sinking back beneath my flesh.
My hands are shaking. Not from exertion.
Whispen materializes at my shoulder, his glow an unsettled swirl of violet and gold.
“The scholar has teeth,” he murmurs. “Sharp teeth, bright teeth, teeth that bite and tear.” A pause. “Does he know how to stop biting? That’s the question. That’s always been the question.”
I don’t have an answer.
Twelve people are dead because I moved through them like they were made of paper. And the part of me that should be horrified is quiet. Satisfied and somehow hungry for more.
“That,” I manage, voice hoarse, “was...”
“That was the Summer Sword and the Crown of Destiny working as designed.” Tiana sags against a tree. “You are the most dangerous being in all of the Seelie Court, Finnian Willowheart. And Amarantha has been using you to intimidate courtiers and warm her bed.”
Bile rises in my throat.
All those years. All those summons. All the times I told myself I was surviving by being indispensable. By being too valuable to discard.
I wasn’t indispensable. I was just there.
Thirty years of her hands on me. Her tongue in my ear. Her voice telling me I should be grateful.
And I had this the whole time.
She was too stupid to know what she was wasting.
“She doesn’t know what she has,” Tiana continues. “She inherited the Stone but not the knowledge of how to use it. My mother spent her entire reign trying to keep that information from her.” A bitter laugh. “Seems it worked.”
The bond goes cold. Then hot.
Ash just killed someone. I know it the way I know my own name. Something that’s been hunting her for a long time just stopped breathing.
I should have been there.
The thought arrives with surprising force. She faced something alone, and I was here playing with my new power like a child with a shiny toy.
“We should go.” I look off into the forest. Somewhere out there is my mate. And the need to see her compels me to walk through the exhaustion.