We’re three days’ ride from Yregar Castle, and it’s here, at the cusp of Port Asmyr and closing in on the easternmost coast of the Southern Lands and the outer edge of my kingdom, that the toll taken by the War of the Witches is at its most stark.
Everything is dead.
It’s been decades since the war became destructive on such a widespread level, long enough that it’s no longer a jarring experience to see the lands like this, and yet I can’t help but feel despair as I take it all in. There’s a great shame inside me that it’s come to this. Shame that I’ve failed my people and my land at such a catastrophic level. Knowing that I’ll meet my mate today only makes that feeling fester inside of me.
She’s going to see the failure I’ve been to my kingdom and the fae folk within, all the ways in which my hands have been tied, that every advancement I might have made has been thwarted by my enemies and my own blood alike. I’ll be forced to bring her home to a pack of devils in disguise and teach her how to tell an ally from a foe even when they all look and act the same.
I’m going to bring her into a battlefield all its own, and one I would never choose for her. That feels like the biggest failure of all—a fate given to me because I had to wait so long for my Fates-blessed mate, and for what?
Patience.
One word, spoken by the Seer a thousand years ago, that has wielded disastrous results. When I’d traveled to see her, just months after my own parents were murdered, she’d given me a fate that almost ended my world, with no sign of remorse or sorrow for compromising the entire kingdom. Supposedly, the Fates had decided that I needed to learn patience, and the best way to teach me that was to make me wait almost a thousand years for my mate.
The person without whom I cannot become king.
Part of me wonders if this has all been a plot against me, an attempt to keep me trapped in this war with no way of ending it. Though he’s not the king, the regent holds power over the resources I can use, and at every opportunity we’ve had to wipe out the witches once and for all, he’s moved forces around under the guise of protecting royal family members.
Entire bloodlines have been wiped out thanks to his moves.
During all these long years of waiting, I’ve fought against my fate. I’ve hated every second of forced submission, but it only got worse when, for a brief fraction of time, I was able to hear my mate in my mind. A few short months of her honeyed tones drifting through my head like salve over raw wounds, only for her to be silenced once more. Two full centuries have passed since I last heard her, but no matter how brief our acquaintance, no matter how guarded we both were as we learned what we could of each other, I would recognize her in a crowd even without any of my senses. I can feel the tug of the Fates in me now, guiding me to her, every fiber of my body alight with her call to me.
Patience.
A thousand years have passed, and finally, the day has come. The hour is quickly approaching, and everything I’ve waited for is within my grasp.
I've been very careful about keeping the details of my fate a secret, never letting slip a single thing. Especially not the exact moment we are to meet, in case someone tried to dispose of my mate before I could make it to her.
As the years have passed, treachery has grown deep within the Unseelie Court.
The longer my uncle stays regent, the further away my crown becomes. Every day he’s eroding my claim to the throne through his gossip and court games.
I’ve been planning this day for a long time.
Every moment has been thought out and considered, obsessed over and moved around until I was sure that everything would run smoothly. I planned how I’d explain my movements to the Unseelie Court, the ways that I would slip away from the regent’s guards so that I could surround myself with only the people I trust most. The only high fae I trust to bring my Fates-blessed mate back to Yregar Castle and to safety before the regent finds out she exists. I’ve been so very careful to ensure her safety throughout the kingdom, no matter how bleak the path home will be.
Whatever happened to her that stopped her from communicating with me, I want her to know that she can trust me. That I’ll ensure nothing terrible ever happens to her again, and that when I learn who kidnapped her and kept her from me, I’ll pursue them to the ends of the earth and enact vengeance. If they still hold her now, their death will be instant and blood-soaked. Whatever it takes to rescue her and bring her home with me.
My hands tighten on Nightspark’s reins. My horse is as black as the night sky of the winter equinox, and his temper is just as unpredictable. My jaw tightens until I think my teeth might break as we ride through the Augur Mountain range.
We’re close to the mountain where the last of the Seers once resided. Not long after my final visit to her, she fled the Southern Lands for fear of the witches. Kharl led the charge against the voices of the Fates themselves, and the other three Seers who once lived in the kingdom were murdered, one by one, in unprecedented acts of terror.
The witches once offered sigils of protection and worship to the Seers, females chosen from their own ranks to become vessels of the Fates. Now they hunt them to extinction.
The mountain looks more bleak and desolate than ever before, and the very sight of it rankles me.
It shouldn't be like this.
The idea of escorting my Fates-blessed mate to Yregar Castle through such bleak lands galls me, and I decide to take her home through the fae door. There’s one here in the Augur Mountains, a mysterious empty structure created by the First Fae when they first came to the Southern Lands, and though its magic is waning, it’s still an invaluable tool. I didn’t risk using it today—too many potential eyes on my movements—but once my mate is safely by my side, we’ll travel home that way.
As we crest the final ridge of the mountains and the ocean comes into sight, I pull up Nightspark and pause for a moment. We're running ahead of schedule. I have time to take a breath and keep myself under control. It will do me no good to arrive at the Fates-designated meeting place and scare my mate.
”You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would,” Tauron murmurs as he halts his horse alongside me and looks across the water with narrowed eyes.
His mount stamps its hoof as if unhappy at how hard we've ridden, but Nightspark stays calm beneath me. None of my cousins are as in tune with their beasts as I am, and it shows on rides like this.
“I’m envisioning exactly how I'm going to murder whoever has her, and that alone is keeping me calm.” I speak in the old language, one that, of this group, only my cousins, Roan, and I speak, because some admissions are best kept to the closest of friends.
Tauron nods and strokes a hand down his horse's neck, calming it under his firm touch.
