Chapter 16
Agolden sliver of sunlight gleamed on the horizon. Gaia whinnied as I gripped her saddle. My hand settled in her silky mane. He wouldn’t want me out here alone, but this morning I slipped out unnoticed.
Gaia’s hooves pelted the ground as I commanded her—we darted down the path toward the forest edge.
Pyrran enjoyed taunting Lioran too much. If their parents didn’t know I was here already, Pyrran would be sure to tell them.
Gaia slowed to a stop—her ears bent backward.
A chill rushed through my veins. The land was quiet, but I felt its ache course through me.
My eyes scanned the edge of the forest, until I saw it. Cracks etched into the bark of an old oak tree. Pigment drained from its limbs. Its leaves had fallen. Not from a change in the weather, but something more desperate.
I dismounted.
As I gripped the bark a solemn hum crescendoed, slicing through the silence. Moisture leached from my palm into the tree.
Magic slipped from my fingertips. Its light circled the tree. As I gave, my body grew weaker—my grip slipping with it.
Then I felt it—the same steady energy I felt at the willow. I couldn’t see Lioran, but his magic called to mine. It strengthened mine.
He ran up behind me and placed his hands around the oak, around my hands. Our golden light wove together—it encompassed the tree.
The cracks shifted beneath our touch until no trace of them remained. A simmer of heat flickered through the onyx.
He struggled to catch his breath. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I felt you—I felt your magic and knew you needed me.” His eyes darted around the perimeter of the clearing.
“How is that possible?” I clutched onto the tree still.
“You sensed me at the willow tree, like I’ve been sensing you.” His dark curls tumbled down as he leaned toward me—his chest heaved, still breathless.
A steady pulse wrapped around me, his calm grounding me.
“Before you crossed the divide…it felt like you were calling me. I went there. I searched for you.”
Air struck my lungs too quickly. Lord Joran mentioned a disturbance at the divide before I crossed it. Was it him?
“When you finally did. Something shifted in me.”
“That’s why you were there? How you found me?” I asked.
He only nodded.
I never stopped to wonder how he got to me so quickly. But now I knew. He chose to be there—to wait for me.
Lioran winced as he leaned closer. I thought he had healed, but now I saw it—his composure was cracking. Even as he unraveled, he fought to keep himself together. “Ever since I’ve laid eyes on you…you’ve driven me absolutely mad—”
“You came here to tell me you can’t stand me?” I pushed past him, but he grabbed my wrist. As he pulled me closer, his silver gaze searched for everything I wouldn’t say.
“I came here to tell you what I should have told you sooner. Ever since I found you…I can barely sleep, barely think…the need to be near you is consuming me.”
“Lioran…I…”
“You are my rose blooming among the decay. I lost hope, but you gave me a glimmer of light.”
A single tear grazed my cheek.
“I tried to keep it to myself, but I can’t any longer.”
I shoved down every feeling I had for him. Denied it all even as Fyn prodded me. It terrified me that I could want someone as much as I wanted him. That I could give my heart and trust it wouldn’t break. I was so afraid it would that I couldn’t see how he felt.
He released his hold on me. “Aelira…” His hands brushed my cheek, wiping my tears away. “If you don’t feel the way that I do, I will give you whatever space you require and never speak of it again.”
The tears fell faster. Every word I could have uttered remained unsaid.
He saw me—he truly saw me.
“I need to know. Not knowing is destroying me.” Desperation etched into every line of his face. “Tell me anything—tell me you don’t feel the same.” His jaw hardened.
“I can’t tell you that…because it would be a lie. I was so broken in Bailoc, but here with you, I feel like me again.”
“I love you, Aelira. Entirely.”
He looked at me—as if I meant everything. I couldn’t speak. His lips collided with mine, and everything inside me strengthened. I gripped his arms and sank into his kiss, into him.
“And you said none of this was what I think it is.” Pyrran clutched the trunk of a nearby tree. “Making a human believe you love her, that you could ever love her. It’s pathetic, even for you.”
Anger swelled within me. I looked to Lioran. His eyes pleaded with mine before he turned toward Pyrran.
“Enough,” Lioran growled as he stepped in front of me.
A chill nipped at my neck through the gemstone. I felt my magic tumble—I breathed through it. My eyes welled, but I wouldn’t let the tears fall.
“I will send regards from both of you to our parents when I make it to the High Court.” Pyrran paced as he spoke, yet his words were calm and collected. “They’ll be most shocked to hear that the future king has forgotten his duty already.”
All the remaining air was knocked from my lungs. My fate hung in his hands.
Pyrran shook his head and then glared at me. “Lord Thalen sends his regards, Princess Aelira. He’s most eager to see you again. He hasn’t forgotten what he’s owed. I’m sure you’ll oblige him.”
My stomach lurched. He knew I was here before he arrived. Thalen made sure of it. He wouldn’t give up his claim to me—and now, Lioran would know it, too.
Pyrran smirked.
“Take your leave of Lythira. Now,” Lioran commanded.
“Gladly. Things were getting a bit too predictable on this side of Nythrel, anyway. I’m sure I’ll see you both again very soon. Enjoy your fun while it lasts.” Pyrran shrugged, leaving us in an unsettling silence.
Orange embers sizzled in the fireplace as Lioran paced his study. Firelight flickered in his eyes.
After everything Pyrran said, I didn’t know what to believe—or what to think. His brother didn’t think I was worthy of Lioran’s love, or that he would ever give it. I carefully studied Lioran as he clasped his hands behind his neck.
“What is Thalen owed?” He suddenly snapped.
I shriveled back, sinking deeper into the couch.
“What do you owe him, Aelira?” The lines around his eyes deepened.
I eyed the door—wanting to flee. “Me.”
“You?” He shook his head. “How? You said you barely knew him. I heard you tell Fyn.”
My voice cracked. “I left Bailoc on our wedding day.”
“You’re his?” His jaw locked tight.
I allowed myself to forget. The pact still stood. “I had only met him days before. King Ardyn and Lord Thalen made a pact. A trade.”
“What kind of trade?” The lines softened around his eyes.
“Me… in exchange for the crops we couldn’t grow.” My eyes watered as I spoke.
His head lowered.
“Tell me you didn’t marry him before you left. Tell me that you’re not bonded with him.”
“No, I left before the ceremony ever began.”
“Thank the stars.” A flicker of relief shone in his eyes as his jaw relaxed, but he glared at me still. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want you to know.” The air grew thicker around me. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle the way you’re looking at me now.”
“He sent those men after you, because he wants his bride back.”
“I’m not his.”
“The pact was made. You are his by law in your realm. Are you not?”
“I’m not his.” I hissed as I ground my teeth together. “He hasn’t even come for me.”
“No. He did something much worse—he sent Pyrran after us instead.”
“Why would he send Pyrran?” I was almost too afraid to ask.
He drummed his fingers on the chair. “He’s a hunter.”
I pictured the falcon on his glove, recalled his words. Remembered the way he watched his bird—how he watched me.
“He stalks, he waits…he assesses how to make someone break. It isn’t strategic. It’s his magic. He uses it to hunt humans and fae like...”
“Prey.” I was his prize. He was waiting. A knot folded within me, tense and tight. I pulled my hair off my shoulders as my skin grew hotter. Thalen wouldn’t give up. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Thalen took the Vale, Aelira…He made himself Lord of it. He finds a way to get whatever he wants.”
“Pyrran didn’t do anything to help him get to me,” I said.
“Didn’t he?” Lioran’s eyes widened. “He said that you were nothing to me.”
“They’re just words.” I didn’t want to hear anymore. Those words gnawed at me still.
“And if that wasn’t enough, he made sure you knew that Thalen was waiting for you. He made sure that you’d tell me. So if his words didn’t threaten you enough, the pact would threaten me.”
Thalen and Pyrran weren’t the only threat.
“Your parents wouldn’t want me to be with you, because we’re supposed to be enemies.” The words cracked in my throat.
“It’s more than that.” His eyes finally met mine and his shoulders slumped forward. “You’re part-human.”
“And human isn’t good enough?”
“We could never be bonded. It wouldn’t be accepted.”
I had never heard the phrase bonded before, but the way he said it invoked so much power.
“What does it mean to be…bonded?” I asked.
“Bonding is a union of love and commitment that is sealed with magic—It’s sacred for the fae. It can only be undone by death. In the human realm, you call it marriage.”
I had only ever been kissed by Thalen—chosen by Thalen. I knew no other kind of intimacy. Bailoc only permitted it between promised, or married, couples.
Lioran kissed me without reservation, without needing to know I was his—without ever being able to promise I would be. It was freeing, it was beautiful, even if everything I was taught said it was wrong.
I wanted to say it didn’t matter—that we could just exist without anything beyond what we were.
Yet I didn’t know if I could. The kind of future I had always envisioned for myself involved a promise he could never choose.
There was no time to consider what we could be—what we even wanted. The choice would be made for us.
Tears brimmed to the surface, threatening to release. I was desperate to hear a different explanation.
He sat beside me, taking my hand in his. I didn’t have to say how I felt—he knew. “I still want a future with you. However, we can have one. For as long as we can have one.”
“Why wouldn’t it be accepted?” My hand rested in his. The warmth of his touch radiated through me.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. “I am the heir to the throne. It is my duty to keep the royal fae bloodline alive.”
I wasn’t fully fae. I was only something in between—someone wrong for him. My heart slid down deeper in my chest; each aching beat echoed through me. He would have to marry someone else.
“Has your future queen been chosen?”
He fell silent for a moment too long, but he kept my hand in his. It broke me. Tears cascaded, and I didn’t even wipe them away.
“Not yet.”
“Yet…” I glared at him. “How could you get so angry with me about Thalen? You should have just let me go.” How could I feel so upset with him now knowing that my future was spoken for, too?
“I planned to, but I can’t. My heart feels like it’s no longer mine…like it only responds to you.”
Hearing his words, knowing his destiny—it shattered me.
He pulled me closer to him, his breath caressing my skin. It ignited something deep within me that I struggled to control.
“Aelira?”
“I just didn’t expect...” I breathed through the uncertainty. “In Bailoc there are only arrangements and future promises. They were all made for me. No one ever asked me what I wanted.”
“What do you want?”
A soft, but twitching, smile spread over his lips. When he asked me, I knew it still wasn’t my choice.
Fate—the stars—whoever was responsible, led me here. My heart was already his. Even if I wanted to take it back, I couldn’t.
“You can tell me. I want to know what you want.”
“To be with you,” I said.
It was too late to choose anything else.
My heart would break now if I walked away or later when the king and queen decided I couldn’t be with him any longer. I pressed my lips into his, to steal a moment I couldn’t keep.