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Before I could talk myself out of it, I squared my shoulders and headed inside to lie to the only woman who had made me feel something in a very long time.
* * *
“You did the right thing, Kal.” Niamh dropped her hand onto my shoulder and squeezed tight as I gripped the side of the war table. My breath puffed out of my flared nostrils. During the ride back to Dubnos, silence had hung heavy around Tessa and me. More than once, I’d opened my mouth to demand the truth. But a conversation with my mother kept ringing through my memory, stopping me every time.
“The gods still search for a way to return to this world. You must never let them, no matter who stands in your way.”
“Why me? Why not you?”
“Just promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to stop them. Vow to me, Kalen.”
“I vow it.”
Centuries had passed, and yet I still heard those words in my mind as clearly as if she had spoken them yesterday. She’d woke me from my bed, the clouds in her eyes as heavy as the ones in the sky and she’d made me vow, right then and there, that I’d save the damn world when the time came. Not if, butwhen. She’d been certain of it. All this time, I’d thought Oberon was the one she’d been warning me about, but now…
No matter who stands in your way.
“Kal,” Niamh said, gently nudging her shoulder into mine. “Come on, say something.”
“I don’t want this to be happening,” I managed to say.
“Yeah.” Alastair sighed. “Neither do I, Kal.”
I lifted my eyes from the war table to meet his gaze. The flickering torchlight was reflected in his brown eyes, and his broad, muscular body bowed forward. “It just doesn’t make any sense. She would have had to lie to us at some point, but we can scent it when she does.”
“Well, we don’t know exactly what she can and can’t do.” Niamh moved around the war table and dropped a new token on the map. The miniature onyx dragon gleamed, the shadows of its sinewy wings stretching toward the city of Itchen. “Perhaps she’s been given the power to dampen our senses when it suits her.”
“Or maybe our spy in Albyria was wrong.”
“Could be.” She nodded and exchanged a quick glance with Alastair. “But I think we need to assume he wasn’t wrong and act accordingly. Tessa seems intent on leaving Dubnos in the morning to go in search of her family again—if that’s actually why she wants to leave. We can’t let her. If she tries to bring back the gods…Besides, we can’t risk the storm fae getting their hands on her.”
A pained noise rumbled in the back of my throat as my grip around the edge of the war table tightened. “I hate this. I fucking hate it.”
It served me right for opening up to someone, especially a mortal girl I’d known for only a few weeks. But, of course, it felt far longer than that. I’d been visiting her in her dreams for months before we ever met in person, and even though I’d been guarded then—and lying to her about whoIwas—I’d looked into her eyes and seen her heart. Or at least I’d thought I had.
Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. No wonder she’d called out for help, reaching toward me in her dreams. All this time, I thought she’d done it accidentally because she was lost and scared, but it must have been a ruse. A way to draw me in. But for what? What was her plan here?
Alastair rubbed the back of his neck. “Want me to go collect her from her room and take her to the dungeons?”
Tessa, back in another cell. For moon’s sake, I hated the thought of it, regardless of who she was.
“No,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll do it. First thing in the morning. She’s exhausted. Let’s give her one night in a normal bed. She won’t try to leave tonight.”
But what I didn’t know then was that Tessa Baran currently stalked through the silent hallways of my castle, readying herself to stab me with the fake Mortal Blade. And then she would leave me for dead, confirming my worst fears about her.
Shewas the enemy my mother had always warned me about.
One
Tessa
PRESENT DAY
The Mist King stalked toward me. I took a step back, even knowing there was nowhere I could flee. A cool breeze caressed his dark, wavy hair, and rustled the black tunic clinging to his muscular body. Even though I’d realized he was alive, and even though I’d expected him to visit my dream, my heart pounded against my ribs like a tumbling boulder.
“Surprised to see me?” He slowed to stand only a few inches away from me. Mist curled off his skin, snaking toward my face. But just before it reached me, it snapped and drifted to the ground, like strands of hair snipped away.
“No. I thought you’d come.”
