Chapter 61 #2
Two queens. Two blades. Two mothers to avenge.
Kestra looks at me.
Tiana looks at me.
I nod.
Not as a friend. Not as a soldier. As a queen acknowledging what two other queens have earned the right to do.
Kestra looks at Moros. Her father. The man who killed her mother for a mate bond he never asked for and could never escape. The man who weaponized his children and destroyed his court and drank himself into ruin because the guilt was bigger than the bottle.
He looks back at his daughter.
“You look so much like her.” His voice is barely there. “Your mother. She would have been proud of the queen you became.”
Kestra’s jaw works. Her eyes are wet. Her hand doesn’t shake.
“I know,” she says.
Across the room, Tiana stands over Amarantha. The handmaid who murdered a queen. The thief who stole a throne. The narcissist who consumed everything she touched and called it love.
Amarantha looks up at Tiana. The mask is gone. All the masks are gone. What’s left underneath is something I wasn’t prepared for.
She’s afraid.
Not of death. Of being seen. Truly seen. By the daughter of the woman she killed, in a room where every stolen thing has been stripped away, with nothing left to hide behind.
“I deserved that crown,” Amarantha whispers. And the worst part is, she believes it. After everything. After all of it. She still believes she was owed what she took.
Tiana doesn’t argue. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t give her the satisfaction of a debate.
“No,” Tiana says. “You didn’t.”
Two blades.
One moment.
Kestra’s blade finds her father’s heart. Quick. Clean. The mercy he asked for delivered by the daughter he never deserved.
Tiana’s blade finds Amarantha’s throat. Quicker. Cleaner. I know she wanted to draw it out. But she didn’t.
They thud to the stone floor.
Kestra stands over her father’s body. Her blade hand drops to her side. The tears come now. Not grief for the man he was, but grief for the man he should have been. For Mab. For the childhood she and Kieran should have had. For the years of damage her father inflicted, all gone in a moment.
Tiana stands over Amarantha. She doesn’t cry. She looks at the body of the woman who destroyed everything and she breathes. In. Out. The sound of someone putting down something very heavy that they’ve been carrying for a very long time.
Through it all the Balance hums. I can feel it now, what wasn’t there before.
It’s over.
“Hey,” Kieran says at my side, the Spear nowhere in sight.
“Hey,” I say back, not mentioning it.
Pepper’s head pops up from behind the overturned table. Her purple chaos magic is still sparking at her fingertips. She takes in the room on a low whistle.
“Is it over?” She looks at me. “Like, over over? Because I have feelings about this and they’re going to involve crying and I need to know if I should wait or—”
“It’s over.” My voice cracks on the second word.
Whispen pushes past Pepper. He walks across the room and stops in front of me with tears in his eyes. Not the snotty, ugly kind. Silver tears on a Fae face that has waited longer than anyone in this room for this moment.
“You did it.” He says it like he always knew I would. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the faith he put in me. From the very beginning. But I’m thankful he did.
“We did it.” I pull him into my arms.
He laughs against my collarbone. “I have green hair.”
“You have green hair.”
“I’m going to be insufferable about it.”
“I know.”
Around us, the Unseelie Court begins to change. Not dramatically. Subtly. The oppressive shadows lighten by a degree. The cold eases. The stone under my bare feet warms. Not becoming something else. Becoming what it was always supposed to be.
Sabina slides her bow onto her back. She hasn’t put it down since we left the tavern. The fact that she does now says more than any words could. She feels the peace settling over everything.
Orion wraps an arm around Pepper, who has in fact started crying. She punches his shoulder and then buries her face in his chest. He looks at me a little panicked as he pats her shoulder gently.
Finnian carefully, precisely, puts one arm around Whispen and one arm around me and holds on like we might disappear.
Kieran doesn’t move. His hand stays in mine. His shadows curl around my ankles. “Trouble,” he whispers. “I knew you’d be trouble.”
“Are you complaining, ice prince?”
“Oh no.” He looks over my head. “Kestra! I renounce the Unseelie Court.”
She waves her hand.
“Me, too,” Finn mutters. “The Seelie Court. And—” he grunts, “gah, this thing.” He tosses the sword at Tiana.
She nods, smirking genuinely for the first time.
“Oh, hey.” I look at Kieran and Finnian. “Meet Whispen Moonshadow.”
“Oh no.” Kieran’s face falls.
“Yep.” Whispen grins. “You cannot kill me. My sister promised me immortality.”
Finn groans. “Ash.”
“Ah, ah.” Whispen smirks. “You must be nice.” He turns to Orion. “No more death threats.”
“A brother.” Finnian shakes his head.
“More trouble,” Kieran says.
Yeah. More trouble. For eternity with my family.