“No,” I murmur. “I don’t know what that monster was. But I pray it stays caged in that place forever. I have enough to deal with in this world.”
“What? The Fae up there giving you the cold shoulder?” he asks. “That’s more concerning than a nine-foot demon from the void?”
“It’s not coldness,” I say. “It’s fear.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when I know what the Fae do to the Awakened. To what they fear.”
His expression hardens. “You think they’ll kill you?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, voice low, almost to keep them from hearing.
Ronin lets out a gruff laugh. “Because the Fae havenevertried to kill you before?”
I shoot him a glare. “I’m not naïve. I know they can’t be trusted. But now I’ve given them a reason. A reason to see me as a threat.” A shiver ghosts over my skin. “Maybe even my daughter.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he says, “I’d love to sit here and agree wholeheartedly with all your terrible choices, Jewel. But, tragically, I appear to be the voice of reason. You are the mother of Fae royalty and though I have a thousand unseemly words to describe your husband, ‘coward’ is not one of them. Only a coward would harm his own child.”
I close my eyes and nod. His words, sharp-edged but true, anchor me.
“But if he’s not the threat,” I murmur, “then who is? Will I always be hunted? Watched? Used for what I am?” My voice drops to a whisper. “Will I ever know peace while I live among them?”
Ronin exhales, slumping back against the wall. He runs a hand through sweat-dampened blond hair, dulled by grime and salt. “Jewel,” he says tiredly, “I’m just a human, chained to a post. What the fuck would I know?”
My chin drops. Shoulders fold. I dig my fingers into the roots of my hair, trying to ground myself.
“You’re right,” I say, voice bitter. “Why am I even asking you?”
I lift my gaze to his, the fire in me dimming to smoke. “Why am I even here?”
Ronin’s chains creak as he shifts, the faintest smile playing at his lips. “Because when you’re surrounded by monsters, the one with the human face doesn’t seem so bad?”
I huff out a dry laugh, shaking my head. Souls, what was I thinking? What madness dragged me down here in the first place?
“You won’t see me again, Ronin. Not until it’s time for you to die for what you’ve done.”
He doesn’t wince. Doesn’t blink. He watches me with the eerie calm of someone who’s already made peace with the end and maybe that’s what makes my skin prickle, that he's the only one on this ship who isn’t afraid of me.
Instead, he brings his hands together slowly, bows his head with quiet reverence. “Until then.”
I turn away, steps pounding up the stairs, each footfall a thunderous drumbeat of my own frustration.
“But instead of drowning in what they think of you,” he calls after me, “why not embrace it? Why not become exactly what they fear?”
I stop.
“Be the Awakened they whisper about in terror. The human who defies them. In all our history, Jewel, they’ve never feared us. Never once. They crushed us beneath their boots and forgot our names before the blood dried.”
His voice drops low. “But now… now they have something to fear.”
I turn slowly, mouth dry.
“Leave the Fae,” he says. “Join the Legion. Make the Sundered Kingdoms ours again. A haven for humankind.” He tilts his head, and when he speaks next, it’s softer. “For your daughter.”
Something inside me cracks. My teeth press down hard on my lower lip, head shaking as fury and sorrow squeeze tight in my chest.
“You’re no different from them,” I breathe. “No different from Anethesis. You want to use me, use my power, for your own ends.” I shake my head. “I will not be a soldier in your army, Ronin.”
