Chapter 47 Rae
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
RAE
As expected, I find Jai on his favorite terrace. I slow my steps to take him in as I cross the paved space, past trees in low pots and trimmed hedges.
He’s standing at the balustrade, the sea of morning stretching beyond, framing him in blue. His black hair is tousled and wild, and warmth fills me when I remember tugging on it, running my fingers through its silky mass as we made love.
We made love.
It was perfect.
He’s perfect, I think as I approach, from his aquiline profile and the marks on his cheekbones to his long neck and broad shoulders, the bandaged expanse of his powerful, bare back, and the muscular ass and long legs, currently clad in the black pants he wore the night before at dinner.
The wind teases at his black locks and curls them at the back of his neck.
Gods, he’s so beautiful it hurts my heart.
My mate.
His head turns as I walk up to him. He straightens, smiling, but lines of strain appear around his dark eyes. “Makhair. What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you.”
“I’d hoped you’d sleep in and rest.” He opens his arms and I walk into them, sighing in relief when he hauls me against his powerful body, his embrace a wall against the world. “I was about to head back and find us some breakfast.”
“That sounds good,” I murmur, and my stomach gives a vehement growl in agreement. “We both need to eat but… We have to talk.”
A sigh rumbles through him. “I know.”
He sounds so tired. As if he hasn’t slept all night. I want to ask if his back hurts too badly. If the hundred years between the last time I saw him and now are weighing on his soul, as they do on mine.
So I hesitate to pull back and start the interrogation. Instead, I turn my head, resting my cheek on his hard chest. “Why do you like this place so much?”
He’s quiet for a while, long enough to make me think he won’t answer.
Then he says, “For a long time… I imagined I could see your town from here. I know it’s too far, but… those hills on the shore reminded me of the hill on which your palace was built. It reminded me of you. Every year we’d return here for the Pillar celebrations and I’d come here to think of you.”
I swallow hard. “And what about the Land Palace?”
“The Royal State palace? I’m rarely there. Most of the year was spent wandering the world.”
“Fighting human rebels. Killing and capturing them.”
“As you say.”
Leaning back to meet his gaze, I blurt out, “Jai… What’s going on?”
He frowns. “What are you asking me, makhair? If I’m remembering things? I am. It’s not pleasant.”
“Things from when?”
“Good question. From various times in a very long life. Or many lives. It’s all mixed up. It’s a fucking mess.”
I have so many things I want to ask him. If he remembers more from the night my family was slaughtered. If he talked to Phaethon. But something else comes out.
“What about your powers?” I whisper.
He gives me a careful look. “Why are you asking? Is your magic back?”
“Yes. It feels that way. Which is why I was wondering if something similar happened to you.”
“I wasn’t under a spell suppressing my magic.”
But he hasn’t said no. I frown at him. “Do you feel a change in you?”
He looks like he’s chewing on a bitter rind. “I don’t know if it’s me or Phaethon, but yeah. I feel a change.”
That sounds… terrible at best. If Phaethon has gained more powers while Jai hasn’t, then he could take over Jai more easily from now on. I’m not sure what to make of Phaethon thus far. He seems to like me, but at the same time…
“Has he changed his mind about aiding the king?” I ask.
Jai shakes his head, eyes darkening.
Damn.
We stay like that for a while. The waves crash against the foundations of the island, below the terrace.
The sky is still brightening. In the distance, a massive shape curves out of the sea surface, then splashes back into it.
A sea serpent or sea drak. Its crest glints like metal before it vanishes back into the water.
He’s so warm against me, so tall and strong and mine.
He’s mine, and it breaks me that we can’t go back in time to that river shore and just be together. Share blood, mark one another, say our vows and start a family.
Live happily ever after.
I have to stop the king, and now that my magic is back, I may be able to get it done.
How can I kill the king without killing myself? I don’t think it’s possible.
No matter. I’ll be happy to take him down with me. Let that be the one good deed of my life. After all, when I arrived here, I hadn’t expected to survive my mission. I hadn’t thought past my goal, yet somewhere deep in my mind I had meant for it to be the end.
But stopping the king isn’t enough. What about Phaethon? He is the one with the actual power to open the gate. How do I stop Phaethon without harming Jai?
My head aches. There’s a hammering inside my temples, a war drum beating behind my eyes. Panic is twisting my thoughts into thorny knots.
What is the answer? There has to be an answer. If only I could calm down, sleep on the problem and dream, maybe then I’d look at it with fresh eyes and see a better solution.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks quietly, kissing the top of my head—just like he used to do, back then. It makes my chest go so tight I can hardly breathe.
I don’t want to tell him of the dark thoughts filling my mind, so I grasp for something else. “If humans turned into fae by crossing the gates… does that mean there are fae on other worlds, too?”
“It depends how you define them. It’s a… distortion in one’s nature. Magic is a distortion of the forces of nature, linked to a person.”
“Explain,” I demand.
“Every creature is born different, and crossing turns it into something else. It’s how species evolve in the Nine Worlds.
The gates mix them up. Transmutes them. It’s a generator of life, turning death into new forms. The fae and us…
we aren’t that different. We all pass through death and remake ourselves.
The fae did that by crossing a gate into a different world.
You and I… it’s more complicated than that.
You never crossed a gate. And I… I seem to have crossed too many…
We are all different versions of this altered state of being. ”
“You seem to know so much about it.”
“I used to. Like I said, some of it is coming back.”
“The king said he wants to open the gates and return home, to his home world.”
“He said that, did he?”
“Was he lying? Are you from the same world as he?”
He hesitates, then nods. “I think so.”
“Did something about you change when you crossed, as it happened with the fae?”
“I already wasn’t human when I crossed.” His dark gaze finds me.
“And you… Phaethon told me things I’m not sure I can trust. How did you turn into finnfolk?
Rae… Drowning doesn’t automatically make you one of them.
If that were so, every person falling into the sea would become finnfolk… Just tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what magic turned me. The sea queen told me that when you have unfinished business in your human life, sometimes you are granted a boon by the sea Gods and become finnfolk, but it felt…”
“It felt?”
“As if a hook sank into me and pulled me out of the dark.”
“Fuck… I wish I could remember what happened that day.” He shakes his head, black hair flying. “I was present during the massacre. Phaethon seems to recall more. Did the king kill your parents? Did he kill your brother, as he killed you? I can’t fucking remember…”
He’s shaking. I lift a hand to his face and his skin is cold. “Shush, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. This is getting worse and worse. The king marked you, Phaethon is stronger, tomorrow is the last trial, and we can’t seem to be able to stop history from fucking repeating itself. You… what if he kills you again? What if he takes you from me? I fucking can’t. Can’t let it happen.”
“What about Phaethon?” I ask quietly. “What did he say about my death?”
“He claims he’s the one who turned you into finnfolk, keeping you alive. I don’t understand how. He’s a Godsdamned dragon-summoning Eosphor. Not merfolk. Turning you into a fish doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” I agree, goosebumps rising on my skin, “it doesn’t. He didn’t turn me into a mermaid, Jai.”
“But he said he was the one who saved you, turning you into finnfolk, that—”
I reluctantly pull away from him, already afraid of his reaction. “If he was the one who saved me, then it makes sense that I turned into a sea dragon.”