Chapter 21 #3
I have seen how Maximinus has used anyone I cared for against me.
My army lost everything. We started again together. My Frost Clan, including Ciara, were my best friends and new family.
Only three of them remain.
If Aurelius had known that they were captured and survived, what would he have done to them? He tried to take my cat from me as a punishment. Would he have done the same with my family?
How could I trust him not to threaten me like he did over Five? He could have blackmailed me.
Secretly, the Frost Clan have been my spies in Draca Kingdom and its army.
One way to control the board is to have invisible pieces on it that your opponent doesn’t even know exist.
I swoop to Freya, grasping her by the shoulders. She drops the core of the apple in shock, as I surround her in my wings. I drag her to our smoky and leather-scented nest by the hearth.
The crackle of the fire is at least some cover if the guards are listening.
I cocoon her in my wings, wrapping us in my shadows.
Freya’s eyes are wide. “What is this? A feather fort?”
“Good idea. Let’s add blankets.” I reach to throw the blankets over us as well to muffle our voices further.
Then I lean to her ear to whisper, “The idiots haven’t bothered to check the olive tree in the back garden.
I can climb it because that’s one of my talents.
The jump over the back wall is dangerous, but you know me.
I like a challenge. The daft guards patrol on a strict schedule. I can avoid them.”
“Why take the risk?” Freya challenges, concerned.
Here goes.
“I won’t. Yet. Closer to the Primo Festival, however, I have people who I need to meet.”
Freya clutches my arms. “Not good enough.”
“Because we’re not sitting here like sweet consorts while our Bat-faced King is tortured in that dungeon. We plan to break him out, aye?”
“But who are these people?”
My tongue is heavy.
I have held my silence on my Frost Clan for so long that this feels like breaking a vow.
But this is Freya. I trust her.
Still, this feels like offering her my most precious glass possession, which I have held safe in my palms for months, and trusting that she will hold it as carefully as I have.
My breathing has become ragged.
“Aurelius has his army and his Golden Family,” I explain.
“And I have my featherglass and my Frost Clan. One of them died. She was my best friend. Three of them remain. I raised one of them. He was only a baby thrust into my arms to save when I ran that day, leading the others from my burning court. He’s like my son. ”
The words are out. I can’t take them back.
Freya is staring at me in shock. “You have a son.”
“I said that Bai was like my son. He’s nine and more mischievous than I was at that age.
I raised him along with the rest of the Frost Clan, especially Ela.
We all did our part. Bai is my personal attendant, the youngest member of the featherglass.
Wren acts as our druid. He’s the heart of the featherglass. They’re my family.”
Freya’s expression is cool. “You kept them secret from me.”
She looks like she bloody hates me.
“I’d lost almost everyone — twice,” I plead. “I can’t lose anyone else.”
“Aren’t we co-conspirators?” She demands. “I thought that we were on the same side.”
“We are. But I was keeping you all safe by—”
“Hiding things from us?”
“I’m telling you now.” My eyes gleam. “I never hid that I had a plot. That I was a bad guy. I have shared more with you than I have with anyone — my bloody soul. But my duty to the Frost Clan is separate to my vows of love to you. I swore to my da as he was dying that I would protect the Unseelie. Please, understand how bloody hard it is to have conflicting duties, responsibilities, and demands of love. It’s been tearing me apart. ”
Freya’s expression gentles.
She cups my face. “When do I get to meet them?”
Relief surges through me. “Soon, I hope. They’ve been bloody impatient to meet you too. It’s not that I’ve wanted to keep you apart. I can’t wait for you to become part of my Clan. I have been desperate for you to travel to my kingdom and find a home there with the Unseelie. But I couldn’t risk—”
“Their lives,” she says, slowly, as if figuring something out, “mine, or the game of Shadow Kingdoms that you’re playing.”
“The first move is to save Lanlin.”
Freya buries her fingers into my feathers, rubbing her thumb along my newly grown pinion feather, which is more sensitive than my other ones.
I hiss in shock.
Instantly, I am hard and panting with pleasure.
“You’d risk your life for our pack. You’d protect your Clan.
And you’d give your soul to me. None of those are in competition.
I’m not jealous. I love you, my devoted fool of a fae.
” When Freya leans to kiss me, I realize that she never bloody hated me.
She just loves me as foolishly as I love her.
Then she draws back and breaks me with a word like I knew she could.
“But if you leave to meet with the Frost Clan, you come back home safe because I can’t live out our dream alone. ”