“Unless you find your mate.” Wilder shrugs, and my stomach knots.
He admitted in Ruse Village that he doesn’t have one. That the king’s thinking Aurora is his mate is part of his grand scheme. And while that could have been a lie, I believe him.
“Is there a chance you won’t find your mate?”
“Yes. Many Fae don’t. There are too many realms in the constellation. A Fae’s mate could be in any of them. Now, with the Arches failing?—”
“You could never get to them at all.”
Wilder nods, and I consider that. The possibility of never finding the one you’re meant to love. It’s heartbreaking.
“Is love that important to you, Elorie?”Wilder pauses, and I realize we’re at my door.
“Would it make me naive?”
“It would make you human.”
“How? Isn’t that what finding a mate is? Finding your great love?”
Wilder steps closer, planting a hand on the door above my head. I take a step back but run right into it. There’s no escape, and it reminds me of how we were in Ruse Village.
“Love is not a big enough word to define what it means to meet your mate. To look them in the eyes and realize why you were not whole until the moment they saw you. That you did not exist until their hands met your skin. That there is no time or distance too great to keep you from them ever again. Love is insignificant in comparison.”
His words twirl in my mind.
I wet my lips, not daring to speak out loud because I can barely catch my breath.“You say that like you know something about it.”
His eyes fall to my mouth, pausing as I hold my breath, until he takes a step back. “You shouldn’t be wandering the halls alone this late at night.”
It was too much to think we could have any depth to our conversation without him turning into an insufferable grump.
My eyes narrow. “Does my wandering the halls get in the way of you sneaking around, plotting how you’re going to destroy the realm?”
“I don’t need to plot when I’ve already got it all figured out.”
His arrogance needles me.
“Why are you really doing it?” I cross my arms over my chest. “Regardless of how terrible the prison is, or how long you were there, is it really worth all this to make an entire realm suffer for what the king did to you?”
Since being at the palace, I have read about the battle where Wilder fell. His sister isn’t mentioned, but Wilder fought beside his parents to protect his mother and her crown. He leveled an entire forest that has only now fully regrown, taking the life ofevery creature within it. Animals, birds, insects. Small villages of Fae that were tucked in its depths.
But in the end, the king had too many warriors ready to surround him when his magic flickered. And with the Well already causing trouble with the Arches, more Vaelier forces could not get to the royal family soon enough. The Crown Guard killed the queen and king and locked Wilder in the prison.
He’s a king who has yet to sit on his throne.
“You seem to know one side of the war very well.” He reads my mind. “But you forget there are always two, and Lyrichia is not innocent.”
“Its people are.”
“And Vaelier’s are not?”
My argument catches in my throat because there is nothing to say to that. I don’t wish for his people to die either, but it doesn’t mean I can turn my back on my home. We all suffer while kings sit on their thrones and play with our lives like we’re pawns.
“What will you do if you have your way? Really?” Not that I’ll allow it, but I need to hear it to shatter this disillusion that is starting to form whenever he’s near me.
“I’ll offer Lyrichia the same courtesy they showed my kingdom. My people. My queen.”
His queen.
