I yearn for the problems of yesterday.
To be lamenting my lesson in patience and thinking it was the worst the Fates could do to me. As they are wont to do, the Fates have shown their fickleness, and clearly there’s another lesson I must learn. Whether that lesson is how to take a throne without being married first—because there’s absolutely no way in this realm or any other that I will ever touch a witch, let alonemarryone and seat her on my mother's throne—that’s another question.
As my friends and I sit around the small fire, Roan is the only one brave enough to broach this subject and, though he has been my best friend for our entire lives, I’m sorely tempted to kick him in the teeth.
“We can't afford to be stubborn about this, Soren, not with Norok and the other guards out there snooping after us. Put her on a horse and get us to Yregar. I shouldn’t be away from Airlie this long, not in her condition.”
It's the only thing he could say that has any chance of convincing me, and he knows it. Unfortunately for him, I’ve had a lot of time to think while we inched our way at a snail's pace, and I have an answer prepared.
“You can ride ahead tomorrow. The rest of us will get there when we get there. It's probably for the best that you warn Airlie of what's to come anyway. I don't want anything upsetting her right now, and this might be a breaking point for her.”
Roan nods slowly, his eyes shifting to focus on something behind us but not quite looking at the witch, lost in his own thoughts. A deep line cuts around his mouth as he grimaces and the expression is common enough since Airlie announced her pregnancy that it isn’t difficult to guess where his mind has wandered.
The rest of us have taken to doing everything we can to protect her, guarding her from not only physical threats but the mind games of the high fae. We’ve removed any opportunity for some idiot from the Unseelie Court to upset her. It's not easy, especially considering her mother is an active component of the court and a gossipmonger like no other, but Airlie’s health and safety is our priority.
I’d expected that bringing home my mate would renew Airlie’s hope, but instead, I’m bringing nothing but despair. Dragging a witch behind me, a member of the race responsible for her son's death and no chance of the curse being broken before her next child arrives, I’ve failed her once again.
I won’t rest tonight.
“Get some sleep, Roan, and head out in the morning. Get back to Airlie. I’ll wake Tyton to take the second watch,” I say.
I have no intention of waking anyone to take over from me. The longer I sit and stare into the crackling flames, the deeper the need to seek out the Seer digs into my mind. The rage simmering within me takes hold once more, intensifying the urge to climb onto Nightspark right now and hunt her down to demand answers. I need to ask her what the fuck the Fates could be thinking, to rage at that small female the way I stopped myself doing so long ago, and confront her about the false promise of the perfect mate for me.
As my cousins lie down on their bedrolls and get some sleep, I feed more wood to the fire and stretch out my legs. My sword rests on the log beside me, within reach at all times. The mercenaries said that they found the witch journeying from the port, so it goes without saying that she once fled to the Seelie lands.
All those years ago, when we’d initially linked through our minds only to lose the connection, I’d been so sure that she’d been taken prisoner. I’d agonized about the horrors she could be enduring, every last atrocity that I’d failed to protect her from.
She’d merely run away.
I have so many questions but no interest in discovering the answers from her. The very idea of removing the gag from her mouth and hearing her magic-soaked lies makes my skin crawl, every inch of my body rejecting the notion. For so many years, I longed to hear her voice in my mind once more, only for that wall to come down and my greatest nightmare to be realized, one so horrifying it never even crossed my mind as a possibility.
This is how the witches will win the war.
Their plan to put a witch on the throne of the Southern Lands is tied to my fate. The Seer told me that I would find my mate, marry her, take my father's throne, and bring about the end of the war.
I won’t let it end likethis.
Marrying this witch will bring about a peace treaty; it's the only path the Fates could intend that makes sense. Whoever she is, whatever stinking pit of a coven she crawled out from, she’s been sent by Kharl. He hunted the Seers of the Southern Lands to near-extinction; he must have discovered my fate and found the witch. That would explain the soft and innocent words she manipulated me with, the web she wove around me to ensnare me, and why she disappeared, all of it intended to force me into submission and bring the high fae to our knees.
I’d rather turn my sword on myself and spill my own guts than do such a thing.
Kharl will have trained her meticulously for the throne as part of his plan to end the rule of the House of Celestial. I suppose she’ll want to discuss a ceasefire, for the high fae to surrender and allow the witches to keep the Witch Ward and the lands they’ve stolen from us. The witches have much to bargain with now, but after a thousand years of bloodshed and death, I cannot yield.
I’d rather kill this witch myself than entertain such a fate.
As Tyton falls asleep and his magic falls away from her, I look at her again and find her staring back at me, the unerring color of her witch eyes like the flash of a dagger in the night. I'm used to seeing witches lost in their madness, the markings across their faces glowing and curses spilling from their mouths, desperation jerking through their limbs as they fight to the death.
She's too calm.
Her stare is unwavering. There is no fear in her as she looks at me, only surety and a sort of amusement that rankles. The innocence that was once in her voice, something that made me so sure of her identity as a sheltered high-fae princess, has been revealed as a lie. She wove a spell around me even then, one that sits tight around my neck like a noose now that I can see how fake it all was. Every interaction was a ploy, crafted to weaken me and destroy the kingdom with this war.
She wasn’t kidnapped. She chose to prolong the war and keep me from my throne, keep my uncle in power, and weaken our ranks further and further to force my hand.
It's not going to work.
I don't care what I have to do. I’ll take my throne without her.
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