Chapter Twenty-One A Pact Ended
Chapter Twenty-One
A Pact Ended
Where Destinies Meet
Light flared bright as a winter sun. The casket lid shattered. Kell caught Saeldian, covering their body with his. Saeldian went limp, and the magic that they’d woven to shape their perfect face dissolved.
Light and power flowed out of the casket, cloaking Ilondrel in magic and majesty.
“I am restored!”
Ilondrel’s voice rolled through the domain like thunder. She raised one hand, and a dome of force sprang up around Saeldian, Kell, Jubilee, and Lorzok, stopping the arrows, the blades, the bolts of force and fire and frost that hailed down on them before everyone could stop.
But when they did, every blade and arrow aimed at Osalor, collapsed to his hands and knees in the ash and mud, staring at Saeldian in horror.
Powerless, Saeldian huddled in Kell’s arms, and Kell held them tight to his chest.
Osalor clutched at the silver necklaces around his throat as if they choked him. “What have you done?”
Ilondrel, her winter robes spotless, drew her sword and answered, “Saeldian was your destiny, Osalor. You saw a child who needed love more than power, but you gave them one at the cost of the other. But they were never like you. You imagined that loving others had brought all the pain you suffered. But it was only fury at not getting what you wanted.”
Osalor never even glanced at Ilondrel. He had eyes only for Saeldian, and they were full of hate.
“You fool,” Osalor growled. “After everything I’ve done for you, and you ruined it. Threw everything I gave you back in my face!”
“I haven’t been your warlock for days, Osalor. I broke the pact when I stood between my friends and a monster, knowing that I would die so they could escape. I just didn’t know it, because I believed I was still a warlock. I didn’t know that I had become the archfey of a domain instead.”
Osalor roared and raised his dirty hands to strike the barrier, but dozens of bowstrings pulled tight. Ilondrel bound Osalor in vines of golden light, then stepped between him and Saeldian, majestic and terrible.
“All these years I spent mourning? I spent them all learning how to break your wicked curse. I found the witch-queen who gave you the means of your revenge. I found out exactly the words of the bargain you struck to take the life of Jadiris and use that power to lock away your own heart. I found the pact you used to bind the child and hide your heart-curse outside the Feywild. The child you made a thief. The child whose gift of love you stole!”
“That’s impossible,” Osalor said. “You couldn’t have done that.”
“She didn’t,” Dylstra said. “I did.”
She touched one of the dangling charms on her earrings and became Nobble, Osalor’s harengon servant.
Osalor looked on, aghast, as Helfyra transformed into Nobble too. “All those papers left for Nobble to dust and stack. All those gazing mirrors to clean and shine and match together to store away,” Helfyra said.
“All those mirror-matches that Master Beguiling never noticed were missing. Nobble put them away, of course,” Dylstra in her Nobble disguise said. “Nobble kept them safe here, so we could see Master Beguiling, and hear him too.”
Jubilee made an admiring noise. “Maid infiltration. They grifted in shifts.”
“Every word,” Ilondrel said. “All those long days of you complaining to Nobble, to the empty air, to your own reflection, about how you were trapped in your little domain prison, afraid to come out. About how you still hated me for taking what you thought was yours, like that first revenge wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t hard to plant the seeds and tend them until you had a deception that was all your idea. ”
“Master Beguiling is so clever, after all,” the Nobble who was Dylstra said.
“That’s how I knew you before,” Kell said. “You were Nobble.”
“I was,” Dylstra said. “But not only that.”
Her form changed again and became Briona, who smirked at them.
Kell startled. That was who he sensed in Hearthaven that night in the bath. Helfyra had gone out to impersonate Nobble, while Dylstra had returned here…
And since he hadn’t met Helfyra before, that left only one more person in the game.
He bowed his head in respect to Ilondrel. “Then that means you were Mariel, my lady?”
“I’m not much of an actor,” Ilondrel said. “But I was always a good bodyguard. I had to see you and Saeldian firsthand to make sure all this would work.”
“And we were the right tools for the job.”
“You were the hearts that needed my help,” Ilondrel said. “It wasn’t just foiling Osalor’s revenge. It was mending what he’d broken.”
Kell’s eyes prickled. “Thank you.”
Saeldian hugged him tight. “Yes. Thank you.”
“You risked all of this? All your power? For this?” Osalor shouted. “A powerless, ungrateful fool? And you’re still alone, Ilondrel. For what? A vicarious thrill over their fancy, and then a love that will fade once they get bored of each other?”
“For everything to be put back in its place,” Ilondrel said. “Look.”
Every eye followed Ilondrel’s pointing finger to the shattered casket, where a beautiful man lay—
—sleeping.
His chest moved with breaths. His hand had moved from lying by his side to resting on his chest, covering the amulet there.
And when he opened his eyes and sat up, Osalor howled and collapsed into a freshly bloomed patch of violets.
Jadiris had been gorgeous in repose, cloaked in long walnut-brown hair and shining armor, his features fine, with lush lips and beautiful cheekbones. In motion, he was breathtaking. He gazed with spring-green eyes at Ilondrel—only Ilondrel, like nothing else in the world mattered.
“I had the most terrible dream, my wife. You were weeping.”
Ilondrel burst into tears. “So I had been.”
He finally saw the broken casket and scrambled to get out of it without cutting himself. He had Ilondrel in his arms. He kissed her hair and let her squeeze him tight enough to trap his ribs.
Osalor wept too, but nobody cared.
“My love,” Jadiris said. “I’m not sure why, but I suspect you’ve been heroic again.”
Ilondrel laughed. “So I have been, my husband.”
“Will you tell me the whole long story?”
“I will, later. Osalor became heartless so he could have his revenge on us. But now he has it back.”
Jadiris leaned to one side to regard Osalor, still crying, pounding his thighs with his fists. Then Jadiris crouched beside him, freeing a strand of hair that had plastered itself to his wet cheeks. “Looks like you got the whole sum of it, my once-friend.”
“Make it stop.” Osalor’s voice cracked.
“I could do that,” Ilondrel said. “No one would argue with me if I took your life in return for what you’ve done.”
“Please.”
Ilondrel shook her head. “I don’t feel that merciful today. Someone’s waiting for you.”
Osalor had dirt on his robes, and his hair was tangled and frizzed. But he whimpered at Ilondrel’s words. “Please. Have mercy. Have pity!”
Ilondrel didn’t care. She looked over the crowd at someone behind them all. “Welcome, Iggwilv. Or is it Zybilna, or Tasha? Which one do you prefer these days?”
The witch who had dogged Saeldian’s heels stepped into the clearing, now rioting with primrose and hyacinth blossoms. “It’s Tasha to you, my dear. But for you, Osalor, it’s ‘my witch-queen.’ ”
Saeldian froze, staring at the witch, who tilted back her wide-brimmed hat and smiled at them. “You’re—you’re Iggwilv.”
“I am,” Tasha said, with a little nod and a smile. “My apologies, my dear. When Ilondrel told me about her plan, I just had to be part of it. Osalor used you to hide from me for a long, long time, but his bargain has finally come due.”
“It was an act,” Jubilee said. “You weren’t actually trying to hurt us.”
“Sometimes a clowder of cats needs herding,” Tasha said, shrugging. “It was fun, like play-fighting a pack of adorable children.”
“Right. I’m not going to be mortified by that,” Saeldian muttered.
“It’s for the best,” Tasha soothed. “If I’d actually wanted you dead, I’d have killed you. You certainly knew how to nearly kill me with suspense when you refused to just flatten that dire troll.”
“I didn’t know I could,” Saeldian said.
“Oh! Well, no harm done.” Tasha shrugged and forgot them, turning back to Ilondrel. “May I take him now?”
“He’s yours,” Ilondrel said.
“Splendid! I am satisfied. Our bargain is ended?”
“Our bargain is ended.”
The witch—no, the legend; archfey, demon-binder, witch-queen of many worlds, Tasha—beckoned. Osalor rose in the air and gently lowered to his feet. His tear-reddened eyes widened with horror as his body moved in response to Tasha’s wiggling fingers, but the witch-queen only smiled wider.
“You owe me a great deal, Osalor. But you can work hard, and one day, I’ll let you sweep up the stables. On that day, you will thank me on your knees.”
Osalor’s jerky steps brought him closer to Tasha while she learned how to tune his motions more finely.
“Do stop for tea one day, you and Jadiris,” Tasha said. “It’s been a long time since I made a new friend. Ta-ta!”
“Wait!” Saeldian cried. “One last thing.”
Tasha nodded. “Last words, then? Go ahead.”
She stirred her fingers, and Osalor turned around, beside himself at his fate.
Saeldian walked out of Kell’s protective hold to stand near Osalor, close enough to slap. One Kell Redsong–trained swing and they’d feel the crunch of Osalor’s perfect nose, or his jaw.
But Saeldian waited for him to look them in the eye before they said, “I forgive you.”
Everyone went quiet. Osalor stared at them for a long moment.
“I know I was just a tool to you; I know that you deceived me all this time, and I hurt everyone who ever tried to get close to me because I wanted what you promised to me. But I forgive you. You were in pain. And I didn’t have to follow your lead.”
Osalor’s laugh was bitter. “Did you think those words would fix me?”
“No,” Saeldian said. “But I think those words fixed me.”
Surprisingly, it was Lorzok and not Kell who swept Saeldian into a joint-cracking hug after those words. Saeldian hugged back. “If I scared you, I’m sorry.”
“Only for a few moments. You were magnificent. I knew you could do it.”