Chapter 35
Xavi.
He was unhurt, at least physically. But as their eyes met for a moment, Ryn caught a brief flash of something that frightened her. A bleak determination that looked very much as if it came from a place of unimaginable pain.
But he was alive, and that counted for everything.
And Kel… He appeared to be truly awake and present, rather than dreamwalking. Every inch a warrior king, he seemed none the worse for having slept away the past thousand years or more.
When the fated mortal bride appears, the king will awaken…
But there was little thrill in this victory. Little satisfaction in having been proven right.
“Over a thousand years I have waited, and now it seems that none of you are willing to join me in celebrating my moment of triumph. How disappointing.”
The fae woman’s lips moved, but her voice seemed to be coming from all around them, winding and twisting through the air in every direction.
“As you no doubt observed,” Ryn said dryly, “I’m a disappointment to my own mother. Why you should expect otherwise for yourself is a great mystery to me.”
The enchantress’s cruel mouth curved in a sly smile. “You have been the opposite of a disappointment to me, little human child. In truth, you are everything I have been searching for since the moment I was first rejected.”
“Oh, so you’ve decided to stop pretending?”
Laughter reverberated from the walls and rasped painfully against Ryn’s ears. “Pretending? Search your memory, human child. I misled you, but I pretended nothing. It was you who chose to view me as an outsider to this curse. You who failed to recognize what was right before your eyes.”
“That’s true enough,” Ryn allowed. She should most certainly have seen it sooner.
“Tell me.” It was not Xavi, and yet the voice was somehow familiar as it spoke the first words she’d heard from the last king of the Lycori.
Low and resonant, filled with a sense of certainty, and perhaps even peace.
“As my memories have yet to be fully restored, what is it that we all failed to see? What truth has been hidden from us for all these centuries?”
Ryn sighed and folded her arms, trying very hard not to look at Xavi. Trying not to betray how badly she wanted to reassure him that all was well. That she had not changed her mind.
“I suppose it’s only fair,” she said casually. “I came here for a story, and you gave me a legend for the ages. So I will tell you one in return.”
Some of it was guesswork, cobbled together from what she knew of the fae people and hints the enchantress had dropped along the way. But the true shape of this tale, she understood now beyond all doubt.
“It’s the story of a powerful woman who fell in love. Who gave everything she had in order to win the object of her affections, but in the end was rejected.”
The fae did not move, but Kel glanced her way, his brow creased in thought. “I… Yes, that seems to be true. I can now recall seeing her here, surrounded by fire. A promise of power, but at such a cost…” He flinched as if the memory hurt him.
“She was the guardian of these mountains,” Ryn went on.
“An enchantress repudiated by her people for gaining power through pain. She thought herself alone—misunderstood and rejected by the world—but when she saw you, she saw her equal. Someone who would understand both her exile and her desire to control the world around her. Her need to keep herself safe.”
Kel turned to face his tormenter, who gazed back at him with her chin held high, dark eyes gleaming with barely leashed emotion.
Anger? Hatred? Frustration? Love? Did she even truly understand the difference?
“She only knew that she wanted you for herself, and so she laid a trap—to demonstrate the full range of her power and to show you that she was the only possible choice for your bride.”
“I remember,” Kel said suddenly, his eyes closed as if fighting for every scrap of recollection. “From before. There were others. I knew it was time I bonded and produced an heir, but every woman chosen…”
“Died?” Ryn asked gently. “I would hazard a guess it was never of natural causes.”
“You cannot blame me for storms or monsters,” the fae enchantress purred. “I never raised my hand in violence against them.”
“No,” Ryn agreed. “I’m sure you didn’t. Just as I’m sure that you waited until Kel was beginning to believe he was already cursed before you approached him. Lured him beneath the mountain with threats of fire, believing he would be unable to resist the promise of a less fragile bride.”
“Indeed.” The fae stepped gracefully towards Kel, stopping only when she stood but an arm’s length away. “I have never felt so utterly betrayed as I did that day. Not even when my own people rejected me and bound me to these empty lands.
“I offered him power. Companionship. Understanding. And he called me…” She paused and closed her eyes. “An abomination,” she whispered. “He said that he would rather die than choose me as his consort. And so, I decided to grant his wish.”
Another step, and she reached up to brush her fingertips along the line of Kel’s clenched jaw. “He fought me, of course—as I knew he would. In the end, he could not defeat me, but I found him just as beautiful, just as compelling in sleep. So… it was then that I cursed him.”
Somehow, as this tale played out, Xavi had not yet moved. He remained still, standing below the dais, watching the story unfold as if carved from a block of solid ice.
“You cursed him,” Ryn repeated, “to awaken only when his fated bride finally appeared. But you dared not chance some random woman finding his resting place. So not only did you hide this valley behind mist and a geas to frighten outsiders away, your curse was very careful. First it demanded a test—one you believed you had already passed. And next, it specified a mortal woman with magic, at a time when there was only one mortal in these lands.”
“You.” Xavi spoke at last, but his face was twisted beyond recognition, the wild magic of Lesh dancing in his eyes and glittering in his mocking sneer.
“You made yourself his fated bride, but you could not risk him awakening until your power was greater than his. So you used me. Used me to bring you sacrifices to increase your strength. You stole their lives and left their faces on that wall as a warning to anyone who might truly have a chance to break this curse.”
The enchantress let her hand fall, but her eyes remained locked on Kel’s. “You left me no choice,” she said softly. “Don’t you see? You are mine. The one for whom I would sacrifice anything. Everything. All the world, so long as you would promise to remain by my side.”
“And I,” Kel replied sternly, “would have gladly sacrificed myself to save that world from you. Do not pretend we are the same.”
Swift as a viper, she lashed out and grabbed his arm, her nails digging so deeply into his skin that they drew blood.
Xavi growled and took a step forward, but Kel merely shook his head once.
“Whether you believe me or not,” the fae hissed, “you are mine, and I will wait no longer for your answer.”
Her voice thundered, the ground trembled beneath their feet, and at last Ryn understood all too well why Kel had remembered a volcano.
The fire along the walls blazed up with a roar as wind swept the chamber and the pillars began to crumble. Xavi was forced to leap onto the dais as the floor itself fell away into a pit lined with flames—stranding the four of them on the lone island in a merciless ocean of fire.
A trap. And also… their last hope of salvation.
“Accept what I offer, Keldreth ven Rianor.” The enchantress’s words were both plea and demand—her heart’s desire fused with unwillingness to admit defeat.
“Take me as your fated bondmate. Or if you refuse me, I will burn this world to ash. And do not think you can escape, as these flames of mine can sever even your immortality.”
“I will not.” The words thundered even over the roar of the wind and the flames, and Ryn fought to remain on her feet as they struck like physical blows.
“Do you truly believe you can fight me now?” the fae demanded wildly. “After I have absorbed the pain and the deaths of so many mortal women? After all the suffering and doubt and regret I have consumed thanks to these two who thought themselves your saviors?”
She began to laugh, and in the sound was both the vicious satisfaction of a bully and the pain and confusion of an abandoned child.
“You cannot stop me,” she said at last, “but I understand if you must try. Go ahead then. Summon your magic and your shapeshifting. Throw your loyal dog against my power and see how brutal his end will be.”
“You will not harm him again,” Keldreth insisted fiercely. “Your grievance is against me.”
But he was too late, because it was in that same moment that Xavi drew his blades and erupted in a hurricane of rage and steel.
And for a breath or two, it seemed he might have a chance, as the fury of his assault drove the fae back and forced her to defend herself.
She darted and dodged and flung magic at him in desperation, but still he managed to mark her—with narrow lines of red that bloomed against the white of her robes.
He aimed one particularly vicious strike at the pale hollow of her neck, and she barely avoided it by throwing herself backward.
For a mere instant she teetered over the flaming abyss that awaited beyond the edge of the platform…
But even as she began to fall, a golden doorway opened behind her. She disappeared into it, only to reappear a moment later behind Xavi… with an obsidian blade clutched in her cold white hand.
Ryn tried to cry out in warning, but the words caught in her throat.
The shard of black glass glittered in the firelight as the enchantress raised it high… and plunged it directly into Xavi’s unprotected back.
Ryn screamed.
Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl.
And while the rest of the world went dead and silent, Ryn’s tears began to fall unchecked.
She cried for the suddenness of the violence. For the crimson blood that spilled from the wound when the fae wrenched her blade free. For the look in Xavi’s eyes as he fell to his knees. And for the devastation on Keldreth’s face as he knelt before his brother and caught him by the shoulders.
She hadn’t been fast enough, strong enough, smart enough.
Despite everything they’d survived, everything they’d fought through, and everything they’d promised each other…
She hadn’t been able to change the ending after all.