I glance up at Gideon but his face hasn’t changed, still staring at Fyr with narrowed eyes as he’s regarded all the messengers so far. Feeling my gaze on him, he turns to shake his head.
“The Betrayer has sent thousands to our borders, only for them to die at the hands of the Briarfrost armies. There’s no need for your concerns, Prince Soren. The Betrayer isn’t going to send the full might of his numbers to our door before he’s dealt with you and Rooke, of that I’m certain.”
Roan looks up at the goblin prince with a narrowed gaze of his own. “Your forces are the bigger threat to his campaign; your numbers alone make your armies more formidable, let alone the condition of your soldiers. He’s better off targeting your territories before you have more time to grow.”
Gideon waves him off easily. “That may have once been true but now he knows that Rooke is alive, and he’s seen first hand what she’s capable of, there’s no doubt to me that he can feel his fate balancing over his neck like an executioner’s blade. That’s where his focus will lie.”
Roan’s shoulders tighten but when he glances at me, I can only scowl as I shrug back. “The Betrayer ran the moment the shield went up. Besides, you heard Hamyr; the regent is sending his own forces to the ports to exchange his daughter for the legion he’s sold her for, far greater numbers than an escortfor Sari would ever require. If Kharl Balzog knows there are witches returning to the Southern Lands, wielding blood magic and eager to reclaim their forests, he needs the protecting of his raving soldiers’ numbers to fend them off instead.”
When I dismiss Fyr and send him to the kitchen for provisions, the room falls into a fraught silence at the prospect of the goblin king’s borders being compromised. With a groan, I scrub a hand over my face as though there’s a way to wipe away the trials we face if only I rub hard enough.
"With you and your brother here, will your father lead the defense if the raving armies try to breach your borders?"
Gideon stares across at Roan, his eyebrows raised as he levels with a cool look in return. “My father isn’t the only Briarfrost capable of leading soldiers left in Aysgarth; my sisters Khylla and Khari have held the borders with their battalions since the Favored Child returned to the Southern Lands and the Betrayers attacks became more frequent. While my youngest sister, Khyos chose to follow my Mahman’s path to become a healer, she’s also more than capable of taking up arms… in fact, Vahro often says we should send her out on negotiations, such is the ferocious nature of his youngest child. Gideon’s wife is a decorated commander who holds no interest in sitting in a castle on our throne as a pampered queen, as are both her brothers, and we havedozensof cousins and uncles who hold positions; several of them rode out to Yris with me."
My teeth clench. "So, I've managed to offend more of the Briarfrost household by not recognizing them?"
A smirk stretches across Gideon's lips but the friendly edge to it stops me from snapping back. "I wouldn't worry so much about it, they were more worried about getting Gage out of there than the niceties of royal protocol. Why did you aid my brother? If your household still bears such spite for goblins and this alliance beyond saving your own skins, why not leave my brotherto his own stupidity and hope to find yourself with less Briarfrost heirs holding claim to a royal bloodline?”
Roan's eyes narrow at him but the Snowsong prince isn't stupid, despite his contentious attitude towards the goblins. Answering Gideon's question lays out more of my motives and plans for the kingdom in the future, leaving no question between the two princes sitting before me, and should Roan continue to push at the boundaries of my command, Gideon will surely be swift to intervene.
"My father tried for centuries to broker an alliance with the goblin king, but he never lost the prejudices of the high fae. I have no doubt when he approached King Galen it was thatdistastethat saw him turned away. The Fates demanded I wait almost a thousand years to find my mate and take my throne, a lesson in patience, but the truth I needed to face was how arrogant and misguided the high fae have become. We claim ourselves better than the rest of the fae folk, and yet we offer them nothing in return for their submission to our rule but the promise of violence and death, prolonged senseless suffering, simply so the royals and nobles can play their games."
Gideon nods slowly, no point questioning my words for their truth, and he tilts his head a little as he listens to the soldiers outside my door swapping their positions and indicating how close to dawn the night is growing. The morning of the winter solstice will soon break, my Fates-blessed union fast approaching, leaving only the recovery of my father's throne left sitting on my shoulders.
It's Rooke's task of killing Kharl Balzog that weighs most heavily on me. No matter her skills and abilities, the ruthlessness of the Betrayer and the callous treatment of his own people singles him out.
"Gage wasn't born the first time my father came to meet you here at Yregar."
I glance up to Gideon but he's still watching the door closely, a dark scowl over his brow and his lips flattened into a tight line. Roan watches him, shifting in his seat uncomfortably before he's glancing at the door but there's nothing there.
Gideon speaks as though he doesn't see the action. "He had no idea that your Fates-blessed mate was Rooke and that the Favored Child would return. He arrived at Yregar to make his assessment of the new king he now served under the accords only to find a son mourning. He came home and told Mahmanhe'd never seen a high fae prince care so much. All of Yregar’s soldiers were loyal to you despite how young you were, the villagers too, and the Keeper glared at my father with such a vehemence as though she was protecting her own child... He still chuckles fondly about it today."
It's a startling view of that meeting, so different from my own perception of that meeting. "I thought he hated me. It looked as though he found me wanting and left us all behind."
Gideon shrugs. "If he offered you an alliance then you would've always questioned if he was just another member of the court trying to win your favor while you were at your lowest. Then Gage was born, and we knew his fate. He could hear his mate and knew she would be in danger if there were any question of change in the goblin lands, and this held him off further."
A wry smirk tugs at the edge of my lips. "And then I put a Favored Child in my dungeons."
Gideon chuckles in his breath. "And then you put the Favored Child that we waited on for centuries in your dungeon. My father was enraged for weeks, he could barely stop himself from bringing the entire Briarfrost army to Yregar and leveling this castle on her behalf. He didn't expect you to bring her to the goblin lands, and he certainly wasn't expecting Rooke to declinehis offer for sanctuary. It's changed much of our approach, as did your aid to my brother and your defense of Rooke."
He blows out a long breath, sitting back in his seat as his head thumps heavily against the cushion. "Our victory, or our demise, hinges on the legion."
I rub a hand over my face as if it’ll shift my fatigue, but Roan lets out a huff of his own at Gideon. "You and your brother have spent every opportunity pointing out how disrespectful and stupid the high fae are for questioning the Favored Child, but it's acceptable when you do it?"
Gideon doesn't turn in my direction as his chin drops to stare back at Roan, his eyes hardened. The air between them simmers with distrust and ire, but it’s no longer seething. I have no intentions of mediating them forever. If I want them to act as though they’re my closest allies, then I can't expect Roan to walk on eggshells around the goblin princes forever; he certainly doesn’t to the rest of our household.
"The Mother of the Bloodwyrd Coven might as well be an Ancient for how long she’s lived. She was once as wise and noble as Rooke claims her to be, but she’s watched generations of her coven grow, live, and die. She’s wrought so much death but she’s endured horrific betrayals and violence to her coven and her bloodlines. That changes a fae. It was once as simple as steering clear of the Blood Valley and ensuring youneverspill the blood of a Bloodwyrd witch but even before my father’s reign, that was no longer enough to evade a violent death. The things those witches have done..."
He trails off, hesitating for a moment before he turns back to me, his brows pulled low and his tone stern but imploring. “No matter what you did to her, Rooke forgave you. She understood your reasons, your motives, and she can look past it all for the good of the kingdom because her ego won’t get in the way. How do we know that her Ravenswyrd heart isn't going to lead us allto ruin because our idea of returning the kingdom to greatness doesn't match up to the Bloodwitches?"
Roan watches him carefully, just as he has from the moment we rode back to Yregar but there's an edge of something else this time. “How do you know so much about them?”
Gideon rubs a hand over his face, mirroring my action as he blows out a breath. “I can still barely believe that none of you do but I'd wager you'd recognize their acts of war if I listed them. I've seen Bloodwitches turn on their coven. I’ve seen them falling into a raving madness much like the one Kharl Balzog wields, only their lust is for blood alone, tearing themselves apart in their desperation for the taste. Fates fucking ashes, forget the rest of the coven, if I told you the horrors the Reborn family inflicted alone?—“
He stops for a moment, his head tilting as he considers something before turning back to me. “In the year after Kharl Balzog took the Brindlewyrd Forest, one of the Unseelie armies was decimated at the edge of the Raveswyrd."
Roan's eyes snapped to mine, widening until the whites of his eyes almost glow as they take over his face. He’s never spoken a word about what happened to him inside the forest of madness while we fought off the raving witches on the southern edge of the tree line, and if it weren’t for the haunted look in his eyes at the mention of that day, I’d assume he bore no memory of it.
