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“Ours as well,” Keenan said. “Tavish mentioned that a full score of ours have vanished. I have no idea what has happened in the Dark Court.”
The Winter Queen relaxed a little, so that her hands were not clutching her arms so tightly. “He loves Niall, you know. Irial.”
“He hurt Niall. I’ve seen Niall fall apart time after time when Irial was in town. It destroyed him. The scars on his back and chest . . .” Keenan remembered the first time he’d seen the webs of scars that covered much of Niall’s torso. He’d been young, too foolish to know not to ask, but he’d regretted it the moment after he’d spoken the question. The look of pain on Niall’s face was one he’d not forgotten nine centuries later.
“Irial has been living there. If he dies, Niall won’t deal well. You know him.” Donia shivered. “He doesn’t forgive easily.”
“I am well aware of that, Don,” Keenan muttered.
Donia relaxed enough to sit on the arm of the chair farthest away from him. It wasn’t unusual for her to be so far away. They’d had more time of tentative distance than trust, but the memory of holding her in his arms made the renewed distance hurt like it had when she’d failed the test.
I want to tell you I can change. I want to tell you we can run away and abandon everything. He watched her in silence for several moments. Every promise he should be able to make was forbidden to them. No gift, no word, nothing would undo all of his failures. I want to be the faery you saw when you met me. I want you to see me that way again. Even if they couldn’t be together as he had dreamed, he wanted her to look at him like she had so many times, to see him instead of the Summer King.
“I could talk to him, to Niall,” Keenan blurted. “If you think it would help, I can try.”
She startled. “The last time you saw him, he knocked you unconscious.”
“That wasn’t the last time.” Keenan flushed. “He was trained in the Dark Court. It’s not like it was just anyone who punched me.”
“I wasn’t judging. Merely reminding.”
“Perhaps rejoicing a little that I was knocked down?” he asked.
“No,” she sighed. “Even when you infuriate me or break my heart, I don’t rejoice in your pain. Would you relish my pain?”
“Never,” he swore.
Aislinn came back into the room. She stayed in the opposite doorway, placing herself at the far end of the room from Donia. “Tavish has heard nothing about Faerie. He has our people looking into it, and he’d”—she gave them a small smile—“‘very much appreciate it if the regents had the sense to stay here until such time as we have more data,’ as he says.”
“You don’t need to stay that far away, Ash. I won’t injure you just because he’s back.”
The Summer Queen grinned. “Nor I you, Donia.”
The two queens smiled at each other, and Keenan couldn’t help but think—again—that they’d both be happier if he was gone. Awkwardly, he looked from one to the other. “I need to talk to the rowan. Make sure that everyone is safe and accounted for.” He stood and glanced at Donia. “If you leave before I’m back, I would ask that you summon your guard or take some of ours to see you home.”
The Winter Queen smiled, not cruelly, but with an unpleasantly familiar reserve. “I am not your concern, Keenan.”
“You will always be my concern, Donia.” Keenan bowed to her before he could see her reaction to his words and walked away.
At the doorway, Aislinn squeezed his hand briefly, but said nothing.
Chapter 23
Seth stretched his legs out as much as he was able to within the confines of the cell into which he’d been cast. It wasn’t as horrible as he’d expected, but the size was more fit for a small animal than a six-foot faery. The space was barren: no cot, no blanket. The cell was nothing more than a scarred and pitted floor and a dirty open grate in the back corner. Dark stains on the floor reminded Seth that he was lucky he’d only been bruised. So far, at least. The cell across from him had no visible floor. All Seth could see were broken metal spikes jutting up from somewhere beneath the empty cell. It made him extremely glad that he hadn’t actually been given the worst cell in the dungeon—neither had Elaina.
“You okay, pup?” she called from somewhere off to his right. He couldn’t see her, but he had heard no screams when she was brought down to the cells.
“Great. You?”
She snorted. “Been better.”
He stood, crouching slightly as he did so. Neither sitting nor standing allowed him to be remotely comfortable. “Been worse?”
Elaina’s low laugh carried through the distance. “A few times, yeah.”
“That’s something.” He paced to the front of the small cell.
The Hound was quiet. “Is it true that you are the High Queen’s heir now?”
