49. This Was Home
This Was Home
SERAPHAE
The courtyard was unrecognizable.
Stone cracked in long, jagged lines across the cobblestone. Garden beds split, soil spilled on the ground. Trees splintered along what used to be walls.
The estate staff had come out at first light to assess the damage. They moved through it all in small clusters, speaking in low, careful voices about what had happened last night. Some of them had eyes still swollen from crying.
I sat on a piece of fallen wall at the far edge and watched the city below.
Soldiers moved throughout the city, cataloging damage. Healers did too, for anyone who had been injured when some of the buildings collapsed from Caelan’s lightning. They had been working through the night. According to the reports, there had been a handful of injuries but no deaths.
Twilight had survived against all odds. With a great deal of luck and one very stubborn Captain of the Royal Guard who appeared at the right time.
The people didn’t know exactly what happened, but they would soon.
Caelan had been in court since dawn with his advisors. Soon, the people would be given their explanation.
“Damn,” Maelor’s voice said from behind me. “At least most of the city is standing. Can’t say the same about this courtyard.”
I turned to him.
His right leg was in a splint, and he leaned lazily against a crutch.
I pressed my lips together to suppress a laugh.
“Don’t even,” he said and limped toward me. “It’s your fault. Your stupid sun blasted me off Mallas’s ice holding my leg and broke it.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But this time I knew what I was doing.” I grinned. “And did it anyway.”
He snorted.
We looked out to the city for a moment.
“Where’s Riven?” I asked.
“Infirmary.”
Riven escaped the effects of the drug in our food in time to avoid the blade I last saw at his throat.
Maelor chalked it up to the fact that Riven had been a prisoner of war for decades.
Thalvarn used creative methods for breaking prisoners, and Riven had built a tolerance to certain poisons and drugs.
Aliza was found dead in the brush by the cottage. The staff was going to hold a small funeral for her later today.
“How long do you think the trial will take?”
Caelan would be heading to Crown tomorrow. Mallas was already en route, escorted by a small army.
Maelor shrugged. “Couple weeks at least. Things like royals trying to kill each other tend to run longer.”
I tensed.
He glanced at me. “Don’t worry. We sent sufficient evidence about Mallas’s betrayal. Everything Xander had gathered will be enough.”
Maelor adjusted the splint on his leg and turned to me with a grin.
“I have to say. You criminals are pretty useful.”
I punched him in the chest, earning an undignified ow.
“Why do you think the King didn’t send reinforcements?” I asked.
Maelor’s expression hardened. “According to Caelan, they never received it.”
I waited.
“Which, to me, was suspicious because scriptmoths never fail. Unless Mallas somehow sabotaged it,” he continued.
“You think the king knew but chose not to send help?”
“I don’t know what to think. Just that something happened, and it could’ve led to the end of Twilight.”
I clenched my teeth. The thought that someone out there, possibly the king, had wished for Twilight to fall made me feel nauseous.
I lifted my hand to touch my forearm where the serpent tattoo used to be and hissed when pain radiated from my palm.
Maelor’s gaze flickered to my right hand, wrapped thick in bandages.
“How’s the hand?” Concern etched his face.
“Battered.”
“What did the healers say?”
“That there was nerve damage.” I inhaled through my nose, my right hand trembling in agreement. Or protest. “That with exercise, I would be able to hold things again, but the strength might never—”
I exhaled a long breath and looked down at the ground. I could feel Maelor’s eyes on me.
He didn’t comment. Didn’t offer false words of encouragement and tell me it would be okay.
Which was something that I was thankful for.
Because it was not okay. Holding a dagger was all I knew.
I had built my entire life around that. I was excellent at it.
Now, I might never be able to again, and it felt like a part of my world ended right there in that room when they bandaged my hand and gave me the news.
Silence stretched heavily before Maelor spoke again.
“What’s your plan now?” he asked. “South?”
I smiled at him. “Don’t worry. You can’t get rid of me yet.”
“That tracks.”
“Why did you have the dagger anyway?” I asked, remembering the gold dagger he slid to me. The one that I had used to bind Caelan and me.
“Caelan gave it to me to give to you as a gift,” he waved lazily, “Along with the deed to the cottage by the sea.”
I blinked at him.
He studied me for a moment. “Did he not tell you?”
“No.”
“When we came back to Twilight, he sent an envoy to find you a cottage by the sea in Aurelion.” He lifted a finger as if remembering something. “With blue walls.”
My mouth parted.
Before I could say anything else, footsteps on the stone sounded behind me.
We both turned.
Caelan stood, hands in his pockets, hair slightly disheveled beneath a crown that looked too heavy for him. The events of the night were written plainly on his face. Evident in the way he shifted as he stood, like he was a breath from collapsing.
“They let you out?” Maelor asked, suspicious.
Caelan shut his eyes and exhaled.
“No.”
I frowned. “Then how are you here?”
“I told them that exhaustion was making my control slip. They ran out of the throne room.”
I gaped at him.
Maelor threw his head back and laughed.
“I’m out.” Grabbing his crutches, he stood with a groan. “Going to swing by the yards for a bit.”
Caelan shot him a look. He wasn’t going to the yards and was likely meeting a certain Primorian princess.
Maelor cleared his throat and gave Caelan one slap on the shoulder as he passed.
I watched him go and wondered how Brie was grieving. Her door had been closed even after the guards left. She hadn’t answered when I knocked, so I didn’t try again. I had to leave soon since I was technically still banished. She would reach out when she was ready.
I looked at Caelan, whose eyes dropped to the ground, and I had the sense he was thinking about Brie too. About whether or not she would ever forgive him. Then he moved to the low wall beside me and sat down.
His eyes flickered to my bandaged hand for just long enough that I registered it. Then he looked at the city.
We watched the city for a while. Merchants wandering in the open, people doing ordinary things the morning after something that should have ended everything.
“Did you mean it?” he said.
I knew what he was asking. When I turned to him, he was looking at me in the way he did when he was bracing himself. The same look he’d worn when he asked if I meant what I said in the Mourning Wild.
“Yes,” I answered.
He nodded once and looked back at the city. He didn’t press. Didn’t reach for me. Instead, his hand tightened against the stone.
“You know I would choose you,” he said quietly without looking at me. “If you let me.”
“I know.” I ignored the ache in my chest. “That’s the problem. I know you would always choose me.”
He looked at me, a question in his eyes, but he didn’t ask it.
“I can’t,” I said. “How am I supposed to live with that? Knowing what I cost you.”
The sky above Twilight was partially cloaked with darkness, though some light had found its way through in the cracks left behind when Caelan reached yesterday.
“This used to be nothing but borderlands,” I said. “Barricades, a small fortress. You built a kingdom from nothing and forced Primoria to recognize it.” I looked at him. “They sent you away to silence your voice. And you answered by becoming too powerful to ignore.”
He studied me for a moment. Long enough that I thought he would argue or tell me how it didn’t matter. But he didn’t.
“I never felt powerful.” He held my gaze. “Not until I met you and you showed me that I could be.”
“Power isn’t meant to be feared,” I said. “It’s meant to be worshipped.”
I reached for his hand with my good one. He let me and threaded his fingers through mine. Turning, I looked up at the dark sky.
“Do it,” I said.
He went still. For a moment, I thought perhaps he had changed his mind. That he still wasn’t ready to claim his magic, even when he had proven last night that he could control it. He had controlled it in a situation that made it difficult to do so in every way.
Then he looked up at the sky above his kingdom. Took a deep, shuddering breath.
And he reached.
I had felt his magic through the bond, through the conduit, through every moment in the Hollow.
It still took my breath away each time.
The sky moved. This was nothing like last night.
This was controlled in a way that I had never seen him do.
The darkness pulled slowly, like silk being pulled, sliding away and revealing light beneath it.
Real light, not the charm powered by silversap.
The kind that fell warm and gold across stone and made the courtyard look like something new.
The staff stopped moving. Someone inhaled sharply. A woman near the broken foundation pressed both hands over her mouth. The older man beside her stood very still as tears ran down his face, looking up like he was seeing something he had stopped believing he would see again.
Twilight had daylight for the first time in two centuries.
And when the last bit of dark left the sky and returned to where it belonged, Caelan lowered his hand. His eyes found mine.
I wasn’t sure what my face was doing, and I didn’t try to manage it.
For the first time since last night, he smiled at me. Bright and genuine.
“Things are going to be okay,” I said.
He gave my hand a squeeze and looked at me for a long moment.
“I believe you.”
We stayed there and watched the bright sky. Watched as the city roared with equal parts laughter and cries.
He released my hand.
“Don’t be a stranger,” he said. “When I find a way to bring you back, I’ll need a personal guard.” He grinned. “My last one was trouble.”
I exhaled a laugh. “I’ll consider it.”
And I did let myself think of it as we watched the city take in the morning sun. If one day, the court accepted me, I would consider returning. If I were allowed, I would want to remain by his side. But the reality of it was that I was human and he was fae.
I had accepted that.
I could still protect him from a distance, and for now, that was enough.
It had to be.
The walk back to the cottage was…different. I was escorted by four Twilight guards. It felt less like exile and more like a send-off.
People were smiling at me. A woman even cried and pulled me into a hug. People had heard different variations of what happened last night. Based on what I was seeing, most, if not all, of those variations said good things about my contribution to it all.
I was not complaining. Definitely not. I enjoyed the attention, and I was looking forward to actual gifts of gratitude and not donations of various root vegetables at my front door.
It was simply different, and it unsettled me enough that I walked twice the speed my vertically challenged legs allowed.
The cottage came into view.
The terracotta roof looked brighter than clay was allowed to be. The small canal that ran behind it glittered from the sunlight, making it look like stars had fallen into it.
Home.
This was home.
I made for the front door and realized that it was open. It likely never really closed after I was dragged out of there by Mallas’s guards.
My chest pressed in at the thought of all that had happened when I was last inside my cottage.
Riven on his knees, bloodied.
Me turning into what I feared most—leverage against Caelan.
I swallowed and took a breath. I was no longer leverage. Caelan had his power and the bond was gone. I was no longer his weakness. Riven was alive, the kingdom was safe, and I had no reason to be afraid of going inside.
My good hand went to my dagger. The gold one that bonded Caelan and me. Taking careful steps, I approached the door. At the doorway, I released my dagger and exhaled a breath of relief.
The city was learning to live in the light. So was I.
I took a deep breath and breathed in the familiar scent before going inside.
Coffee.