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I followed the Brid to the right side of the room just to stop her from asking any more questions. The King of Boars eyed me as I approached, but said nothing.
I took my place beside the Brid at her insistence. She patted my arm once before letting go, and I stared with unseeing eyes past the giant blade at the Folk gathered opposite us.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” the Brid said to no one in particular. “My son gets to witness the transfer of power. The true start of the Mild Months, when the seelie court rises to its full glory.”
She shot the Carlin a slow, wide smile. “I do appreciate you reuniting us.”
The Carlin looked furious. Hot satisfaction flowed through my veins, chasing away the unease.
“Get on with it,” she snarled. “I can’t stand to look at your rotting face any longer.”
The Brid laughed. “So eager to cede the power, Lady of Elements. I must say, this winter wasn’tquiteas cold as others in the past. Perhaps you’re losing your touch.”
Rather than answer, the Carlin jerked forward and strode to the centre of the room, making me tense up in a rush. She stopped in front of the giant blade and waited in silence, pale hands clenched into fists.
The Brid chuckled softly and swept forward to join her, steps slow and languid. No one spoke as the two queens raised their hands to the blade and sliced their fingers on its sharp edges, before walking to a small silver bowl on a pedestal at the back of the room. They held their hands over it so that their blood dripped inside.
“Ash, my dear, come and witness the power of our blood. The blood this hag tried so very hard to steal from your veins.”
I jerked at the sound of my name coming from the Brid. Licking my lips, I eyed the two queens nervously. Despite all my plans to kill her, the thought of getting close to the Carlin made my stomach twist with fear. I blinked, seeing her cruel face looming close when I was chained up in the freezing cold of her throne room. Feeling her sharp talons digging into my skin.
I forced myself to walk over to them, my steps halting and my boots the only sound to echo around the space. The Brid placed a gentle hand on my shoulder when I reached her, nodding down at the gleaming silver bowl in front of us.
I stared down at the blood swirling within it. One black and blue-tinged, one a deep golden-brown with a green sheen. They jumped and bounced like water in a blistering hot frying pan, repelling each other and somehow avoiding the tiny drain in the centre of the bowl.
Until the gold-green blood suddenly swirled faster, before it engulfed the blue-black blood and flowed down into the drain. The room went from chilly to warm in an instant.
“Ahhh.” The Brid tilted her head back, long red hair shifting in a wave. “Do you feel that? Glorious seelie warmth. Life and growth. The time for us to flourish.”
She looked over at the Carlin with a smirk. “No more frost. Your snow has already melted to nothing on your land, has it not?”
The Carlin still didn’t speak, stamping back over to her court and snatching up her staff from Balor. She cast me one last murderous glare before sweeping out of the Midsith. Her sons followed in silence, Balor watching me with narrowed eyes.
A black-eyed fae was staring at me too, but he looked away quickly when I glanced at him, pain tightening his features. I frowned, but was distracted when the Brid gripped my arm again.
“Let’s go, Ash. Let’s welcome you to seelie land, and to your people.”
My heart gave a mighty lurch in my chest. What? I didn’t want to go to seelie land. I wanted to stay here in the forest with Nua and Gillie. But if I refused, she’d start asking questions again. About where I’d been. How I’d stayed hidden.
I was panicking as I followed the seelie Folk out of the Midsith. My wide eyes darted frantically before they landed on Odran, standing at the base of the oak tree and watching me with a worried frown.
I glanced at the Brid. Her hand was still on my arm, her grip gentle. A sweet scent drifted over when she turned her head to smile at me, and I swallowed hard as a wave of longing rose up in my gut.
I tried to force it back—tried not to let childish yearning sway me or affect my judgement. It hadn’t escaped me that the Brid had seemed more concerned with the Carlin potentially winning their pathetic feud than she had with the Carlin actuallycapturing and killing me.Did she even think of me as her son?
Did she care?
Beside her carriage, the Brid stopped and turned to face me. I was taller than her, so she reached up to cup my cheek with a warm, long-fingered hand.
“My son,” she said softly. My belly clenched hard, and to my mortification, my eyes grew hot. “What is wrong? You don’t want to come with me?”
I didn’t. But I… did. I didn’t trust her but…
She’d abandoned me as a newborn. She’d tried to have me killed as a boy. But… did some part of her regret those things? Did some small part of her love me like mothers were instinctively supposed to?
My dad was dead. The woman I considered my actual mother, the woman who’d raised me and loved me, was dead. I had Nua and Gillie now, but I couldn’t expect them to look after me. To hug me tight when I needed comfort, when everything got too much, when this new world I’d been forced into felt too lonely. I couldn’t be that vulnerable with them. I wouldn’t let myself.
“Where have you been hiding, Ash?” The Brid’s soft, throaty voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and any weak, humiliating feelings of longing bled away as I registered the sly edge to her words.
