42. Keira
M y eyes snap open.
A blinding rage fuels me. It is all I know. Not my name. Not where I am or how much time has passed. Just endless wrath and betrayal. Just that my enemies must die.
King Leonardo leans down over me, his hand on the bare skin just below my collarbones. Those blood-red eyes focus intently on whatever he is doing.
I lurch upward with a guttural scream, wrapping my hands around his throat.
I drag out every last bit of my magic and throw it into him.
There isn’t much, not with the toxin still in my body and death on my lips, but a deep satisfaction fills me as cracks slowly form across the pale skin of his face.
As the tiniest wisps of ash float up from them.
I will rip him apart for betraying Aldrin, piece by piece, until he is nothing but ash. His blood trickles down the sides of his neck as my fingernails dig in and his eyes widen as he tries to pull away.
I am like a savage animal, leaping on top of him so as not to break the contact. I will kill him, even with just a scrap of my magic. Even if he is the only one I enact vengeance on for what they did to us.
A sudden, infuriating block hits my magic, making it sputter out. A familiar voice calls my name that has me freezing.
Surely not.
I must have imagined it in my insanity. In my grief.
Strong, tanned arms fold around my waist and tug me off Leonardo. My arms and legs are wrapped around him and I don’t let go easily. The king has the audacity to stare at me with shock, rearing back and not even fighting me while I snarl like a wildling and try to claw at him.
The man behind me finally pulls me free in my weakened state and we collapse backward, knocking over tables and hitting a wall. He turns me as we sink to the ground together and I am very suddenly tucked up against a hard, masculine chest, curled up in his lap.
I gape openly at him.
I have lost my gods-damned mind in my grief.
There is no way I can truly be here. That both of us aren’t dead.
Aldrin kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my mouth. He doesn’t stop pressing his lips all over my face while I try desperately to drag in air.
“It is okay, Keira. It’s going to be okay,” he rumbles, his arms tightening around me almost to the point of being painful.
“How is it okay?” My voice is shrill. “You died, Aldrin. I watched you die! He killed you!”
I shake violently as it plays through my head again. We both died.
“Yes. We both died by Belladonna’s poison.
” He repeats the words I didn’t realize I sent down the very alive mate bond.
The one he still uses to block my magic.
“It was the only way we could get inside the palace. It was a risk I had to take. I never imagined you would get dragged into it. That they would make you watch and that it would take you too. Leonardo did not betray us. He played his part well to convince Titania that he was on her side.”
A little too well, from the way Aldrin’s mind still reels. The very real doubts he had while dying that Leonardo wouldn’t bring him back as planned still bounce around his head as aftershocks.
I slap him hard in the chest. “Do you mean you planned this?” I yell, pounding him again. “Without telling me? I thought I lost you.” Uncontrollable tears run down my face.
“I am so sorry. It was the only way I could get inside before you died in that cage,” he murmurs, wiping away the streaks of moisture from my cheeks. “The plan was formed after you were captured and put in that cell, and only agreed to at the last moment.”
I kiss him hard, needing to taste his lips and feel his warmth.
To know without a doubt that he is truly here.
I run my hands over his face, mapping it out, then down his chest and over the defined muscles of his bare arms. I finally pull away from him when the need for answers becomes greater than the desire for his body.
“How?” I choke out. “How are we alive?”
“I hate to break up your little moment, but if Queen Keira could remove her magic from my flesh, it would be most appreciated.”
I turn at the sound of King Leonardo’s pained voice. The cracks continue to creep along his face, black outlines that burn red within. Aldrin cut off my magic through our mate bond, but neither of us removed from Leonardo what I had already fed into him.
I am tempted to leave it there. It will burn out eventually, without the act completed.
Aldrin sighs, pulling my back close to his chest and murmuring in my ear, “Can I trust you, if I remove my block on your magic?”
The honest answer is that I feel fucking unhinged, and his presence in my mind knows this.
He pokes me playfully in the side. “Keira,” he says in a low warning. “Can I trust you? We still need him.”
I huff. “Well, in that case, sure, why not?”
I try to stand and go to Leonardo to call back my power, but Aldrin’s grip tightens on me. “Do it from here. I’m not ready to let go of you.”
Before I can protest that I don’t have enough power to do it from a distance in my current condition, Aldrin opens up the reservoir of his magic to me. Somehow, he is fully healed. He went from death to full health.
I begrudgingly remove every last web of my destructive earth wield from the Starlight King.
As I do so, I notice the dark rings under his eyes and the sheen of sweat across his skin, the way it stains the neckline and underarms of his tunic in long lines.
My attack didn’t do all of that. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
Then I register the other faces in the room.
Cyprien, sitting in a metal chair, elbows on knees, leaning forward as he stares at us intensely.
Klara is holding a bowl of medical supplies, her lips twisted, eyes flashing and every muscle beyond tense, like she is desperate to rejoin the fight.
She must be going through her own personal hell, with her husband still in that golden cage fighting for his life and her son in the dungeons, enduring the gods know what sort of fate.
Hawthorne stands in the doorway, a frown of concern pinching his features.
Voices from the others drift in from the next room.
They are all here.
“By the Soul Ripper, can someone explain to me how we are alive?” I snap, ready to pull my hair out.
“Return to the table, allow me to finish removing the poison from your system, and I will explain while I talk,” Leonardo says gruffly, raising an eyebrow at me. “Unless you would prefer me to leave the remnants in you to grow and multiply and kill you a second time?”
I glance at the bare metal table before him, then the others in the room.
The chill in the air and the frost on the walls finally register.
This is a morgue, kept artificially cold with ice magic fueled by plinths.
A shiver runs through me, and not because of the temperature.
For a time, we were all dead bodies in here, being preserved until the Starlight King could work his magic on us.
I pull away from Aldrin and he begrudgingly lets me go, needing to be forced to finally unwind his fingers from mine.
I immediately miss the hard warmth of his body against me.
The certainty of safety within his arms and the reassurance of his heartbeat.
I move toward Leonardo as though walking through water, and when I reach the table he gestures toward, I send a glance back at Aldrin.
Are we sure about this? I don’t like the idea of making myself vulnerable to this man. A spike of anxiety flares within me, but Aldrin soothes it with a wave of his own confidence.
He healed the rest of us. He helps us at a risk to himself.
I climb onto the table and lie down, watching Leonardo through slitted eyes. I am no longer that naive girl who gives everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Leonardo’s hands hover over me, then pause as I tense. “Can I touch you? My magic flows faster with contact, especially close to your heart, since I am working on your blood.”
“So, you are going to ask for permission this time?”
“It’s a little hard to ask a corpse for consent.”
“Perhaps you should have ensured I didn’t become a corpse in the first place,” I snap.
He lets out a long-suffering sigh and glances to Aldrin, who just shrugs with a suppressed smile quirking his lips.
“The last battle is still to come and your enemies remain breathing,” Leonardo grumbles. “So I will ask you again: can I touch you while I extract the poison?”
A deep fatigue rolls over me. I search his face, knowing I have no choice. “Yes.”
The moment his icy fingers touch my collarbone, a blast of magic surges through me, causing me to jolt.
My body tingles like thousands of ants crawl all over me, inside of me.
As each particle of the toxin is drawn out of my blood and into him, the soreness recedes from my muscles, unknotting them, and the deep fatigue lifts from my brain.
It feels like I can finally suck in a full breath after holding it for an eternity.
Leonardo speaks while he works. “Belladonna’s poison is unmatched by any other fae in my court, Nightmare or otherwise.
The particles seem to have some level of intelligence, and all they want is to grow and destroy as much as possible.
I have never witnessed another poison working so rapidly in killing a person, and I have lived for hundreds of years.
It clogs the blood, stops the heart and makes the lungs fail, but it also preserves the body perfectly for a long time.
Rot, decay and breakdown of the internal structures are paused.
Even the brain and mind remain undamaged.
She cannot call back the poison once she has fed it to a person, but I can. ”
My muscles lock up and I gasp from the pain of the cramps as he draws out the last particles that cling to me. My back arches, raising my chest from the table.
Aldrin’s soothing hands run across my brow and through my hair. “It is almost done, dear heart,” he says softly.
Thin black streaks form across Leonardo’s skin, thrashing and dancing before evaporating.
“She is my half-sister, and our powers are two sides of the same coin. She creates this realm’s most deadly poison, and I can absorb and control all poisons, including hers.
Only I can bring a person back from its clutches, so you are welcome. ”
Leonardo pulls back from me, leaving me panting and covered in sweat, but somehow feeling cleansed.
“I didn’t think Titania would have enough time to get you into the throne room, or be cruel enough to make you watch my supposed betrayal of Aldrin, but I apologize for the fact that you had to watch your mate die without knowing he would be brought back.
You should have been safe from the poison and trauma in your cage. ”
I sit up. “How long—” My voice breaks. “How long have we all been…” I can’t say it. My mouth won’t even form the word.
“Dead?” the Starlight King asks and I jolt.
He pulls out a pocket watch and glances at the time before flicking it shut.
“Two hours. The battle is still being raged in the streets. Titania hasn’t made the announcement yet that she had the true king and queen killed.
She wants the people to be shocked and distracted when bodies are hung from the walls in the morning, so she can obliterate them. ”
“Bodies that she will never get,” Aldrin cuts in, pulling me against his chest once more. “Are you ready to stand?”
I nod and he lifts me onto my feet. My legs shake and I wobble a little, but my strength slowly returns to me.
Aldrin tips my chin up and gazes into my eyes. “We fight the moment you are ready.”
There is a fluster of activity all around me as more Starlight soldiers enter carrying bags of supplies.
Weapons, spare armor, healing potions to restore energy and food.
Both Cyprien and Aldrin inspect the offerings, handing out swords and axes to any who need them.
I dress in a new set of armor for the third time in days, then take the half-dozen daggers he hands to me, and strap a crossbow and full quiver to my back.
I eye the short sword gingerly—not my weapon of choice—but sheathe it at my side regardless.
Jasper brings me a thick slice of herbed bread, soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. It reminds me of when I was alone and vulnerable in a cage upon a litter, and he risked his cover and his head to bring me food. I take a bite and warmth blooms through me at its heartiness.
“I have failed you far too many times since you arrived in this court.” Jasper’s lips press into a thin line. “But I hope tonight I can start to make amends.”
I place a hand on his arm. “You did everything you could, Jasper. We were always playing the long game.”
Aldrin claps his hands and the sound booms through the room. He steps up onto one of the tables, drawing the attention of all, looking more like a god of death and destruction in his armor than a king.
“Listen up, everyone,” he commands. “ This is our final offensive. Tonight we will demand blood and we will be victorious. Titania has let her guard down, quite literally. King Leonardo’s agents, as well as our own, have confirmed that she believes she has won and that we are dead.
The High Chancellor has sent the majority of her forces in the palace out into the streets to clash with our forces.
We will strike hard and fast, and before she can call them back, we will be upon her.
I promise you this: Titania will die tonight! ”
The room erupts with cheers, vicious grins on all the faces.
Aldrin’s eyes land on me and he holds out a hand, pulling me up onto the table beside him. “Tonight, I take my rightful place on my throne, with my queen crowned beside me!”
My stomach dips. We have been fighting toward this for so long, but I have never thought much beyond the final battle.
Right before we depart the morgue, Aldrin places a hand on Leonardo’s shoulder. “You will distract Titania and keep her in the throne room while we open the way for my army to enter through the secret passages, as agreed.”
The Starlight King nods. “And my people will make sure she never receives word of what is happening.” He leaves without a backward glance, a band of his soldiers flanking him.
I stop Aldrin right before he steps out of the morgue to lead us into battle, grabbing his face in both my hands and kissing his lips hard.
He melts into me immediately, snapping an arm around my waist and dragging me in tighter.
I could lose myself in his soft lips and the way his tongue moves against mine.
Instead, I pull back, staring into his eyes.
“Titania is yours to kill. She tormented you for longer than me. But Torin…” My lips curl into a savage snarl. “Torin is mine.”