Chapter 52
Fifty-Two
Fear
One of the Fae contingent crossed toward us, carrying a message. Ander intercepted him, but he kept arguing that he would only pass it to me. It was likely an attempt to disrupt my attention.
Finally, with a look at Maura, making sure that she was fully attending to the threat, I made my way to the man. The two of us met at the side of the table.
He bowed, but his pulse was visible in his throat. Something was wrong. “Your Highness. Your mother sends her regards.”
“I imagine she sends much more than her regards,” I said, holding out my hand for her message.
He delivered it into my hand and backed away. Wise.
My mother’s message was lengthy. I skipped over it quickly, taking in the important points.
She had not wanted to write, but the generational magic compelled her. Or so she claimed.
Cara was in danger.
She had set a plot in motion before I married my beautiful wife.
I was not sure if the warning was genuine compulsion or another layer of her game. It didn’t matter. I was already moving.
Cara was being targeted by a Nightwalker that she had known I would eventually find and bring into my inner circle.
Something cold and immediate moved through me, and I already knew, even as I raced through the last lines of her missive.
She had enchanted Tesa. Set her to kill my wife if Cara would not abandon me.
I dropped the letter as I whirled to Cara.
She had just refused. Tesa might be a danger to her at this very moment.
Understanding pierced through me. Cara had drawn one enchantment from her, but the queen must have layered in another; a second, discreet enchantment, knowing that the first would draw Cara’s blade more quickly.
My wings spread wide as I threw myself into flight toward my wife.
The room erupted in chaos, so fast it was hard to read. Tesa, in motion from behind Cara. Maura moved almost instantly, not quite understanding but moving to cover Cara. Tay, standing up so abruptly his chair fell back.
The queen’s assassination attempt was already in motion.
Cara
Something shifted in the air. Maura suddenly moved toward me, and I wasn’t sure if she was reacting to a threat or just the possibility of one now that I had refused the queen’s offer.
My focus was on Tay, and the Fae behind him. Then I felt Tesa approaching from my side.
She must be moving to protect me. Fear was—his wings had spread, and he had launched himself toward us.
A blade flashed in Tesa’s hand, metal glinting.
I drew my own knife in one smooth motion, twisting in my seat, but rising from the table was going to be too slow. I threw up one armored arm to catch the blade on my forearm, pushing it away, which bought me a split second.
Tay bought me the next one. Because he had launched himself across the table. He threw himself into Tesa.
She made a sound—a desperate sound—and she drove the knife into my brother’s gut.
I let out a scream, throwing myself forward, ready to fight. And then Maura grabbed me, putting her back to the knife, twisting to defend me with her body.
I needed to get to Tesa and dig whatever enchantment drove her. Tesa wouldn’t do this to me.
But first, Fear had to stop her.
Fear, wings outstretched, cast a shadow over all of us, and then he plummeted into Tesa. He carried her with him toward the wall, Bismyth scattering around them, and the two of them slammed into the stone.
Ander was racing for them both. To stop Fear from killing her, to protect both Tesa and me.
“Tay!” I screamed, but Maura was pushing me away.
Then Bismyth was closing up around me. Kiegan launched to my other side, bleak and towering and lethal.
I lost sight of Tay in the blur of motion. I caught a glimpse, though, of Ander and Tesa and Fear all wrapped together.
Fear told Ander, “Hold her.”
Ander, his voice raw and desperate in a way I’d never heard before, locked his arms around Tesa as she fought. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Like a promise he was making to both of them.
Even though she was still fighting, still trying to reach me.
My brother’s body curled around the wound. His gaze met mine despite the blood streaming across the floor. “I just wanted to protect you.”
He had shielded me with his body. He had tried to shield me, too, by bringing me back to Stonehaven.
I reached for him, even knowing I could not fight my way back past Maura.
Maura grabbed my forearms as she pushed me back, shaking me slightly. “Think, Cara! Do not satisfy the queen by dying!”
She was right. She brought me back to myself, even if that meant being pushed back from my brother. Bismyth had closed in around me. Dragons soared overhead, shadows falling over us. Kiegan was at my back now, grabbing my shoulder to haul me back away from the chaos.
“Heal him,” I commanded, and I had no doubt that Bismyth would act at my order. No matter what they thought of my brother at the moment.
Two shifters moved toward him immediately. I had not known if they would follow my command over their own instincts.
On the other side of my brother, several of the Fae were already moving in.
Bismyth had their swords drawn, ready to fight.
“Get away,” one of the Fae snarled, looking past them to me. “Get away, mortal scum. He is one of ours.”
They would heal my brother. I was sure of it. He must still be useful to the queen.
Fear had left Tesa and Ander; he shot toward me. Even Maura gave way to let Fear grab me, his wings wide open. His muscles beneath my palms were coiled and ready to launch. He wanted to get us out of here.
“No. The enchantment. I missed one. I have to finish it.”
“We are getting out of here,” Fear commanded.
“If I leave, she’s still a weapon. You know the queen enchanted her. Tesa wouldn’t have done that on her own.”
He knew I was right. I could see it on his face, just as clearly as I could see that he hated that I was right.
His wings shielded us from the Fae contingent. He rushed me over to where Ander and two others from Bismyth were holding Tesa down on the ground.
I hated to hurt her, but I had to move fast, and she was so dangerous. So quick and so clever. She kept almost escaping them. She got her hand around Ander’s knife before he managed to wrestle it away.
Ander made a choking, desperate sound, and then he hit her so hard that her head snapped back into the ground, and she stilled.
He stared down at her with the horror of someone who has hurt the one he loves most.
“She’s tough; she’ll be fine,” Fear promised. “Cara will cut the enchantment out of her.”
Ander’s eyes were wide and stunned. “How did I not know? I’ve been with her since—”
“It’s not your fault.” Fear cut him off. He reached for the unmaking knife where Ander wore it on his belt, and Ander let him take it.
Ander collapsed to sit, drawing Tesa’s head into his lap. His hand cupped the wound he had opened on her temple as he held her.
Fear put the hilt of the knife into my hand. “Steady.”
That was a difficult command to follow. My hand trembled as I traced the tip of the blade over her skin.
The enchantment did not rise up when I traced over her arms, her shoulders.
But then, I had covered that ground before.
I had found the crystal in her torso and had not looked further. “It might be within her legs.”
Ander’s face was a grimace of pain, but he understood what I needed. He drew his other knife and cut her clothes away, the knife ripping through them, exposing her skin.
The enchantment was slow to rise to the surface. I had almost gone past toward her knee when I caught the faintest glow in her thigh.
“Close to the artery,” Ander said mechanically. He pulled his own potion loose from his belt, ready for the fact I’d likely cause her to bleed out if he did not heal her fast.
I steeled myself. The room was still chaos beyond the four of us; I trusted Bismyth to protect us and dug the blade in.
Ander muttered tender words she could not hear, his hand brushing past her hair, careful of the place where his knuckles had broken open her skin. He would never have hurt her.
But Fear would have killed her to stop her if he’d had to. I knew that. Tesa being knocked out was better but still terrible.
The crystal ripped loose. I flung the enchantment away from me.
Tay stood again now, standing tall with the Fae contingent behind him. His fine jacket was dark with blood, but from his posture, he must be healed.
The crystal rolled across the floor to them and stopped at his feet. He didn’t spare a glanced at it; he was focused on me, his face filled with grief and regret.
Regret for my choices, grief for my choices.
“You can’t trust these rebels.” He gripped the hilt of the knife at his side but had not drawn it. “The queen warned me. They don’t want a mortal to be their queen. You aren’t safe with them. You have to come back to Stonehaven. Please, Cara.”
Bismyth moved toward them.
“Hold,” Fear ordered. “This arena is not where our war begins. Not today. Killing them is not worth it.”
I could tell from a few of the faces scattered around the arena that they felt killing these Fae was indeed worth it. But they held.
“We have to stop them.” I whirled to Fear. “They’re going to take Tay with them, and what is the queen going to do to him?”
“Trust me, please,” Fear asked. “Let me get you out of here. Then we’ll take the next step.”
I hesitated, hating to trust him, but sometimes he understood the world beyond Stonehaven better than I did. “Fine. Keep me alive.”
Then I was in his arms, and he was not taking to the air—they would have expected us to fly—but rushing me toward the door.
Bismyth was guarding us, and there was a dragon circling above us, ready to dive and breathe fire if any fresh threat appeared.
Then we were out in the street.
For a moment, I breathed.
Then I heard the high, eerie singing, cutting through the air.