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“I don’t care about the mists right now. I need to know if Tessa is all right.”
“You should care about the mists,” Alastair countered. “I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s always a bad sign,” Niamh mumbled beneath her breath.
I stopped and shot her a dark look. “Now is not the time for jokes.”
Alastair’s smile widened. “Well, then how about this? There can really only be one reason the mists are moving. The bastard’s barrier is failing.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would it be failing?”
“Didn’t Tessa say Oberon has been acting unsettled?” Niamh asked.
“True.” I frowned. “I just don’t understand how that could actually happen.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Alastair thumped my shoulder. “We go to Albyria. And we try walking across that bridge. If the barrier still stands, nothing really changes. But if it’s no longer there…”
My hands fisted. “We can save Tessa.”
“Well, yes. But also, we can finally kill Oberon and end his fucking reign.”
“Which stops him from bringing back the gods,” Niamh added.
Heart pounding, I lifted my gaze to the storm fae army camped outside the city walls. Niamh and Alastair were right. If the mists were pushing into the Kingdom of Light, we might have a chance to get across that barrier for the first time in centuries. Oberon clearly didn’t know what was happening, which meant he wasn’t in control. I had to get there. I might not get another chance like this again.
Tessa’s face flashed in my mind, and the way she’d looked at me after seeing my memories—the ones that had revealed the worst moments of my life. There had been no disgust there, but there’d also been no pity. Just understanding. And I could not let that monster control her for the rest of her life.
“I have to go to her.” I leaned forward and breathed in the scent of impending war. Fires dotted the field, and smoke drifted with the wind, carrying the scent of cooking meat. There was a tension in the air that you could feel creeping along your skin—anticipation of the bloodshed to come. It took me back to that day, the last time the storm fae had taken up arms against us. It had been about Toryn then. It likely was now, too. Queen Tatiana had held a very long grudge, but I could hardly blame her for that. I’d never let go of my hatred for Oberon, either.
“Boudica,” I said to my familiar, who perched quietly on a nearby stone ledge. “Go get Toryn.”
The raven gave me a nod and soared toward the nearest tower before vanishing into an open window. Alastair folded his arms and leaned against the stone wall while Niamh joined me watching the army below. She draped her arms across the ledge and dropped her head against my shoulder.
“How are you doing, Kal? Be honest with me.”
I wound my arm around her back. “I feel like my power is thumping against my skin. It wants out, in the worst way possible. The last time—”
“You’ve used it since then. In front of us. You killed our enemies, and we were fine.”
“That was different,” I said, my jaw clenching. “There were a dozen storm fae then. We’re facing hundreds now.”
“True.” She lifted her head from my shoulder and stared up at me. “And what’s the worst that can happen?”
“I could destroy this whole fucking city.”
“You won’t do that, and you know it.”
I shook my head, the world before me transforming into a memory I hated to recall. Clouds of dust swirling through a black sky. The screams of dying men punctuating a mist-drenched night. Pookas charging toward us. So much blood. So much death. It took me a moment to catch my breath, to push aside the lingering pain I still felt all these centuries later. I’d done all that. It had been me. Perhaps if Tessa had seen that memory, she wouldn’t have gazed at me with those knowing eyes. She wouldn’t see my soul and keep looking. She would have turned away.
My voice was full of sorrow when I finally spoke. “What if I create another rift? What if I release more uncontrollable mist, and it consumes the Kingdom of Storms? I’ve already ruined two fae realms. I don’t want to ruin a third. The only one left unmarked by my power’s deadly touch.”
“I have faith in you, Kal.” She knocked her shoulder against mine. “We all do, including all your people in this city. They know your strength, and they trust you to protect them from those storm fae down there. That army is the enemy. Not you.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “A quarter of my people left after my war against Oberon. They hated me and blamed me for the mists, and my mother’s death.”
“Your mother would be proud of you.”
A burning dagger of pain cut through me. I closed my eyes and dropped my head, my hands gripping the stone. “I don’t think she would be, Niamh. I really don’t think she would be.”
