Her hand abruptly slices through the air. “I know who he is.”
I still. “You do?”
Her gaze snaps to mine, so intense with anger and grief I can barely meet it. “Of course I do. I know all your gods. The good, the wicked, and the ones that should’ve stayed buried.” Her lip curls. “And you’re telling me that demon holds our child of the forest?”
“He does,” I rasp. “Amara tried to save her.”
“Of course she did.” The words crack from her like thunder. “What else would our Jewel give her life for, if not her child?” Her spine straightens. “Then why, Prince, are you still standing here? Why are you wasting time in that clearing when you should be tearing that child back from the jaws of death itself?”
Her words hit their mark, sharp and clean. “I didn’t want to leave Amara,” I admit, voice low. “I wanted to be there when she woke.”
Erania clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “I’m sure she’d rather you spend your energy saving her daughter than mourning her like she’s already dead.”
“Ourdaughter,” I bite out, because she’s left me out of this story one too many times.
She hums, the sound rough as gravel. “Then how do we do it? How do we bring her home?”
“We?” I arch a brow.
She mirrors the gesture, defiant as ever. “Your Blades might fend off the Legion, but against the god of death, you’ll need all the help you can get. Besides,” she exhales, the words almost breaking on her lips, “you’re not just Amara’s husband anymore. You are family.”
The word strikes deep. Family. It burns as much as it soothes. I never knew my mother’s touch. Spent my immortal life as my father’s weapon and the crone’s puppet. Even reuniting with my sister has done little to fill the hollow inside me. That guilt and emptiness runs deeper than the void itself.
Now, standing in this forest, so rich with life and song, so achingly alive, it feels impossible to breathe. The air hums with growth and warmth, so unlike the roaring frozen oceans of my homeland, the lightning-veined skies that crown my world, and yet here, surrounded by green and gold, being toldI am familychokes me as tightly as Mirael’s vines.
Do I say thank you? Or do I summon my wings and fly, far and fast, until the trees blur into nothing and this impossible kindness can’t reach me?
But I don’t. I stay.
The wall between Erania and me crumbles, one brittle stone at a time.
“Even with the Blades and the Tenders united,” I say quietly, “we’ll need Amara if we’re to reach Gygarth.”
Erania tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “Because of her power,” she finishes for me, fitting the pieces together. But she doesn’t see the complete picture, not yet, and even if she could, I’m not sure I want her to. Her brow furrows. “There’s more you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
If only she knew. If only she understood what truths I’ve buried, what horrors I’d keep from her, just as I tried to shield Amara. Yet somehow, this woman sees right through me. Through the armor, through the centuries. Straight into whatever remains of my heart.
It must be something in their blood, these Tenders. They look past power and title, see through the divine and the monstrous alike. They care nothing for the ancient blood that thrums in my veins, blood born when the first winged creatures rose from the mist and drank from the old founts of magic that birthed gods.
I exhale slowly, shoulders easing for the first time in what feels like forever. “You know much about the Fae, Erania?”
She nods once, the motion slow but sure. The space between us seems to shrink.
I reach out, resting a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t flinch.
“Then tell me,” I say, voice low, “do you know what an Awakened is?”
Chapter 39
Daed
It feels strange to stand so high without my wings flared, without the dark, cracked stone of Baev’kalath beneath my feet. No rain, no starless sky pressing down on my shoulders. Only green. Only gold.
The timber beneath my boots, the curved wooden walls, it all creaks and groans, breathing with life around me. Shafts of dappled sunlight spill through the arched windows, gilding the dust in the air. Outside, flashes of color dart past. Small birds with jewel-bright feathers, their songs threading through the constant hush of wind in the leaves. The trees murmur like an old god dreaming, and though I have not seen them, I know those lesser faeries, the creatures the Tenders call the Souls of the Forest, watch me with great interest.
Vines find their way between the floorboards and wall panels. Their leaves are broad, heart-shaped, mottled white and green. I crouch, tracing a finger along the edge of one. The serpentine vine.
I’d know it anywhere.
