I scoff back. “I doubt the regent will agree.”
His smirk turns vicious, a baring of sharp teeth. “He can take it up with my father.”
With a chuckle, I turn back to the soldiers left alive and enjoy the horror on their faces at our exchange. “You’ve proved yourselves too spineless to die with your comrades but still traitorous to the true Celestial line. The greatest punishment any of you could have would be to return to Yris to explain yourselves to your false regent and see what mercies the male you've chosen gives you. March on.”
Rooke’s magic disappears, and the soldiers scramble to move back into formation, far too many trembling hands between them. Pathetic and frustrating, to know that fracture lines like this run through every formation of my uncle’s guards, but their numbers have grown unwieldy, just like Kharl Balzog’s raving masses.
Ignoring their terrified looks, I move Nightspark to take the lead. The path to the fae door is easy to find with the mountain ahead, and the trees murmur as the forest consumes the sacrifice, their song still a call for vengeance, but my actionshave appeased them. I pause to wait for Rooke to join me. At her hesitation, I cast a look over my shoulder and find the goblin prince frowning at her as well.
She speaks in the common tongue, no sense in masking her words. “I don't trust any of these soldiers to ride at our backs without one of us finding a blade thrust between our shoulders.”
Prince Gage makes an indignant noise. “Then I will ride at the back, Rooke, there’s no way in this Fates-blessed land thatyouwould ride at the rear. Honestly, it’s though you think Prince Soren and I were raised by selkie sprites or something!”
Humor laces his words, no matter how much truth he instills in them, and the soldiers all watch him warily as his horse trots to the back with little more than a nudge of his knee. A Briarfrost heir amongst them, he might as well be a dragon for how wary they all are now. The Goblin King has always been a fearsome prospect, his armies larger and better trained than any under the regent’s command, and the Unseelie Court has never had any knowledge of his family. His son could be a very dangerous foe.
Rooke huffs under her breath, ignoring my raised eyebrow until finally, with another huff, she clicks her tongue and Northern Star comes to travel beside me. The sound of horse hooves digging into the hardened earth echoes around the trees but not a single high-fae soldier dares to murmur a word, and Rooke keeps our conversation minimal and concealed, satisfaction lighting up my blood at the return of her voice in my mind.
You understand more of the Unseelie Court than I could ever hope to grasp. I’ll default to you in Yris, and I’ll only act without communicating with you first if my hand is forced.
Warmth blooms in my chest, a mirror of the warmth of her body against mine in the tent as I finally held her in my arms. The scant few inches of her skin pressed against mine had curses littering my mind, fury at many layers there were between us.
I don't care what you do in Yris, who you insult or murder. I couldn’t care less about any of that, just so long as you survive and we get out of there. Your safety means more to me than every bloodline in the court combined.
It would be easy to pass off such a thing as the Fates command and not my own conviction, but the look I give Rooke leaves nothing in question. She holds my eyes with her own, unflinching and open just as she had been after her nightmare. A thousand conversations pass between us unspoken before finally she blinks and nods, as though a solemn oath has formed between us.
If you're open to my help, I have a few suggestions… I can't leave this connection open, but if you need me, you can push against it, as you have before.
My gut clenches at the rejection, no matter her offer of compromise. I longed for her voice for two centuries, mourned the loss of it like a grievous death, and I’d rather face the Unseelie Court weaponless and all at once than lose it again.
Hands tightening on the reins, I force my tone into something that resembles civility.Why won't you leave it open?
She glances up the sun breaking through the foliage above us, as though avoiding my eyes. The trees have begun to thin out, and the deadened farming plains roll out to the east while Loche Mountain looms before us. The fae door there is the fastest way to Yris, and only a short ride away.
The Ureen damaged far more than just my body and there are many, many monsters that live within my mind. I have no intention of inflicting them upon you. One of us grappling with them is taxing enough.
The wall begins to slowly build back up between us, and I curse under my breath that we're surrounded by high-fae soldiers, that we ride to my uncle, that I don't have the chance to argue with her to demand she lay those monsters out between usso I can face them with her and destroy them for daring to stalk my Fates-blessed mate.
When we return to Yregar, you’ll open it. When we have the protection of our home and household again, you’ll give me those monsters to carry with you.
She doesn’t react, and the wall between us becomes firm.
We push on to the fae door and our awaiting fate, the farewell of the forest sweet in my mind as it consumes the Betrayers left behind in pieces as sacrifices to the old powers here.
Steppingthrough the fae door is far easier now that I’ve felt the power of the Brindlewyrd Forest pulling me into old memories. No matter what royal protocol dictates, I step through the fae door first and risk taking an ambush rather than sending my Fates-blessed mate ahead of me. Rooke doesn't question me, and when I meet Prince Gage’s eyes, he nods back solemnly.
As my vision clears, the immeasurable outer wall of Yris appears before me, and I find hundreds of my uncle's guards armed to the teeth waiting for us, the regent’s spies as adept as ever. My jaw clenches at the sight of my cousin Ayron, who leads them. His uniform is the slightly off-blue they all wear as an insult to my claim to the throne, a proud declaration of their allegiance for all who lay eyes on them. They don’t react to me, not even as I move closer, and after only seconds, Rooke appears behind me.
They react to her, a ripple of disgust and sneering working through their numbers that she ignores as she urges Northern Star to my side.
One by one, the guards who survived my anger are marched through on Prince Gage’s orders. Even twenty-to-one, they don't put up a fight, and we stand in a silent stalemate. A thousand guards stare indignantly at us until Prince Gage finally steps through on his horse, no reaction at the army before us as his horse maneuvers deftly to flank Rooke’s other side.
He speaks in the goblin tongue slowly, choosing simple words so I understand his meaning. “It appears someone in Yris still speaks to the trees.”
Ayron moves his horse forward, his eyes shining with victory, and he speaks in an arrogant drawl. “We heard the terrible news, cousin, I can barely believe it. Surely you didn’t commit treason and attack the…regent’sguards?”
He pauses over the regent’s title, a taunt to provoke me. I'm keenly aware they use the title king’s guards in Yris, although never in my presence. But my uncle isn’t the only one with spies.
I look at each of them, the small band who lead the rest the confidence in asthmatics as they stare at us grating.
