72. MURDER IN THE GREAT WOOD
My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at Killian.
It happened in a blink. The blade pierced his skin, and with a flicker of light, he shifted back into his natural form. It was no longer my friend who lay beneath me, it was my enemy. The fool who thought I wouldn’t notice his follies.
The moment we’d stepped foot in the woodlands it was obvious that whoever was leading me toward The Veil wasn’t truly Breck. And the only other possibility of who it could have been was Killian.
Breck had mentioned once that Killian had been fond of changing his face when he was young, but the ability was lost to him over time. I began doubting that claim at Elandrew’s Lumeri, when Killian’s hair color had changed. It only made sense that he would be the one to impersonate Breck.
Try as he might, Killian had never mastered the ability to move the way Breck did.
Breck’s footsteps were light as a feather, his strides as smooth as a doe’s.
Killian was too messy, too reckless. His nervousness, his demeanor, his responses, all of it had given him away bit by bit.
When he hadn’t corrected me on the color of the bird he’d shot from the sky with his arrow, it solidified my suspicion.
“You’re clumsy, Killian,” I said. “Something your cousin certainly is not.”
The iron dagger was one I had plucked from Niall’s bedside drawer weeks ago, when Skadi had first manifested at the northern gate. I hadn’t returned it, hadn’t thought about the fact that it was in my hidden pocket until Killian had become a looming threat.
I could have used my power, but that would have been too quick a death for him. Death by iron, and the pain that came with it, was more fitting. I waited for him to begin to show signs of distress, but instead, a slow, unsettling smile spread across his face.
“One thing your mate failed to teach you, is that iron must be left in or on the body to render someone’s power useless.” He reached up and grasped the handle of my dagger with shaky hands, then yanked it free.
“No!” I lunged for him, but he drove his foot into my chest, kicking me backward.
I slammed into a tree, the air rattling from my lungs and leaving me hollow. I coughed and wheezed as I watched Killian rise to stand.
The bleeding had stopped. He was healing.
No, no, no—
He staggered for a moment, then tossed the weapon at my feet. “Feel free to try again, if you ever get the chance.”
With that, he vanished.
I leaned against the tree, steadying my breaths as my ribs relaxed and my lungs worked through their spasms.
He’d ported.
He’d survived, and ported.
Fuck!
I should have listened to Niall and the Aether. I should not have trusted so easily this time.
I bent down and snatched up my dagger, then tucked it into the backside of my belt, but no sooner had I done so than a figure stepped around the trees and into my line of sight.
Long black hair, pale skin, yet . . . Just as I had come to suspect, it was not the queen who stood across from me.
It was Skadi.
She smiled, cruel and unyielding. “I see you got the message.”
I glanced through the surrounding trees. There was no sign of anyone else nearby, but I did not trust that the goddess was alone. “Where is the king?”
“He’s here. Waiting for his savior to come.”
“How did you know I would come?”
“I wagered that you were the heroic type. But heroism is a weakness. Lyceius has his weaknesses too. I had to teach him a thing or two about how to win wars and claim power.”
“And yet you never won your own war, not really. You had to follow your sister here just to get what was stolen from you.”
The goddess’s lip pulled back in sneer. “Careful. My temper has a short fuse. You’re lucky Lyceius wants you alive or else I’d cut you down without a second thought.”
“Lucky,” I agreed. Light pulsed in my veins at the threat. She could try to cut me down, but she had no idea what she was messing with.
“Lyceius thought you needed a bit more prompting to make the right decision. I’m here to test that theory.”
“No,” another female voice echoed through the forest. Matronly—strong and commanding, yet as smooth as an undisturbed lake.
I turned to see the queen stepping forth from the trees, her gleaming crown upon her head. Behind her, two winged figures emerged, as if from thin air. One of them I did not recognize, but the other . . .
Weston.
His eyes were blazing red, as fierce as a fire. And his wings . . . they were as black as night. The other Dionach, tall and lean, with auburn hair that cascaded down his chest, matched Weston’s intensity. Twin blades were sheathed at his hips, and his tawny wings were tucked tightly behind him.
But why was the queen here? Had she truly summoned me in the first place? Was she involved in . . . whatever this was?
Skadi smirked, noticing the crown Corinne wore. “You must be the queen, I presume?”
Corinne maintained her composure as she neared, appearing completely unthreatened by who stood before her. “And you must be Skadi.”
“In the flesh.” The goddess’s eyes danced with wicked delight.
“While your arrival is unexpected, you’re just in time.
” She waved a hand, and a few feet away from her, a glamour retracted, revealing Killian and the king.
“I was just about to see if Auren’s stubbornness would break for the sake of another’s life. ”
The queen halted at the sight of her husband on his knees before Killian, his hands bound in chains behind his back.
The king wore no crown. His hair was disheveled, looking more gray than brown in the dim light.
Gone was the strength in his stature and the will in his eyes.
In its place, was a look of defeat. He stared at me like he was finally putting all the pieces of a puzzle together and seeing the bigger picture.
Still, there was no hope in his expression.
He seemed resigned to whatever fate was coming his way.
Judging by the strained look of shock on Corinne’s face, I knew she was not involved in whatever this was. She must have foreseen this encounter. Or someone had tipped her off.
Killian looked down at the king who knelt before him. A smug smirk tugged at his lips as he jerked on the chains.
The king wobbled.
“It’s a good thing you failed to kill me when you had the chance, Auren. If you had succeeded, I would have missed this little opportunity to show the king just how personal the betrayal was.”
A quick glance down at Killian’s tunic showed the dried blood, and the slit in the fabric where I’d stabbed him.
But there was no hint of any lingering effects from the iron.
He appeared to have recovered his strength, just as Niall had, once the iron spikes had been pulled from his body.
The coloring had even returned to his skin. It was as if I’d never wounded him.
My power simmered inside me the longer I stared at him. “What betrayal? The only person who was betrayed was the king,” I said.
“Exactly.” Killian slowly lifted his dark gaze to me. “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t catch on. Then again, you were quite drunk when I nearly gave myself away.”
Drunk? When had I been—
Wait . . .
The night that he’d served me elderberry liqueur . . . I’d sat on his lap and . . . he’d winced . . . As if he’d been wounded there in the past . . .
Another flash of light encompassed Killian’s body, just like before. But this time, when it faded, Prince Alston was staring back at me.
I gaped in disbelief.
The black hair, the pale skin, the ordinary look of a human and not a fae .
. . The only feature that remained the same were his eyes, the color of blue topaz stone.
I remembered taking note of the color upon meeting both Killian and the prince—how similar they were to one another.
But it hadn’t occurred to me that they could have belonged to the same being all along.
It never made sense to me why Killian had been so outraged when I left his court.
Not until now. He had been masquerading as the prince, whose leg I’d sliced open, and publicly humiliated.
He’d sent his men for me, but I’d fled the castle and escaped just in time.
He must have thought he was going mad when I showed up in Elandrew after having just seen me in the human realm.
And then I’d slipped through his fingers again.
“Niall was right to be wary of whom he trusts. You should have listened to him.” He stretched Alston’s mouth into a sinister grin that sent chills down my spine.
“It’s a shame my cousin isn’t here to see this.
Didn’t he pledge his loyalties to your pathetic cause?
Only to fall short when you need him most. Typical.
” He let out a laugh. “But it’s no matter.
I’ll be sure to personally seek him out on the battlefield if it comes to it. ”
I had no words. My mind was reeling.
Who else had he taken the form of?
What else were we not aware of?
Across the clearing, the queen looked as if she’d seen a ghost. “W-Who are you?” Her voice faltered as she stared at her son’s impersonator.
“My real name is Killian, High Lord of Elandrew.”
Corinne shook her head in denial.
“You guessed it from the start. The moment your son woke from his deathbed, you knew, yet you never said a word.” He lifted a brow. “What does that say about you, Queen? What are you hiding?”
Weston took a protective step in front of his Dionam, his eyes narrowing at the implied threat.
I had no doubt he was running through every scenario in his mind, trying to figure out how he missed something so crucial, and what, or who else was compromised within the castle.
Killian chuckled, then turned his sights back to his prisoner. “Hello again, father,” he said, grazing a hand—Alston’s hand—over the king’s head in mocking admiration.
Broderick shook off Killian’s hand and spat at his feet. “Get away from me! You are no son of mine!”