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If I were any other man, I would.
Tessa blinked at me and smiled. It struck me how rare that was. In our first shared dreams, there’d been so much sadness in her eyes. So much anger. That spark of defiance had drawn me to her, and it still lingered even now. But there was more in her expression. And it made me feel smug to know I’d put it there.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
I smiled. “You.”
Even now, color burst into her cheeks. “Dare I ask what, exactly, is on your mind?”
“All the other things I plan to do with you.” I wound my arm around her body and tugged her a little closer, and then I dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Tomorrow, and the next day, and then the day after that.”
She arched her brow. “Only three days of things?”
“If I listed all the days, we would be here until the stars consumed this world.”
With a sad smile, she looked up at me through her thick lashes. “I worry that will happen sooner than we think.”
It was a sobering thought, and as much as I wanted to stay inside this room, locked away from the rest of the world, there was too much to do. There were many lives I must protect, and many decisions I must make, even still. The heaviness of my reign pushed down on me with the weight of an entire city—with the weight of anentire continent. But even if I was not king, I would be unable to stand by while so much was still at stake.
“Oberon will be desperate now,” I said. “And he has Queen Hannah. No doubt he’ll do whatever it takes to transfer her into another body, and I worry that means he’ll agree to release his half of the god. He might have no other choice now.”
“No other choice but me,” she whispered.
I knew she feared what would happen if Oberon got his hands on her, far more than she had before. Now that we knew the truth about what he did with his Mortal Queens, I could not blame her. It terrified me too. To imagine her soul forced from her own body, only to be replaced by my…
The thought of it brought burning bile to the back of my throat. I did not want to come to terms with the truth—that my mother had chosen eternal life, powered by the God of Death. Yes, it was the side of Andromeda’s essence that could give life rather than take it away, but that did not make it any less dangerous. If anything, it was the worst kind of danger. The kind you thought was a gift, only for it to turn around and dig its fangs into your veins, filling you with poison.
“I’m sorry,” Tessa said quickly, her eyes scouring my face. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You don’t need to be sorry for speaking the truth. I need to face this, sooner rather than later, because I must find a way to stop it. I must find a way to stopher.”
As far as I could see, Oberon had two options. Well, three options, really, but I knew he’d never choose the first. He could let my mother go, let her drift from the realm of the living to wherever the dead souls spent the rest of eternity. It was what should have happened to her all those centuries ago, a fact I had to accept, even if I didn’t want to.
“Do you think he’s going to come after me?”
“No, he’s running scared. I think he’s more likely to release the god’s power from the gemstone necklace. That way, she’ll have the strength to transfer my mother’s soul into a permanent fae body.”
“But according to the vision I had, he’d still need the other half of the… wait. I didn’t release half of the god’s essence in Itchen, did I?”
“I don’t know.” I wrapped my hand around hers. “I didn’t think you had. No comet filled the sky. But with everything that has happened recently, I think it’s possible.”
“Fuck.” Tessa tensed, and she started to twist away, but I caught her chin before she could.
“Don’t blame yourself. If that part of her escaped, it’s only because she tricked you.”
“Your vow,” she said. “If I released her, you’ll be forced to kill me.”
“No,” I insisted. “Do not go down that path. This does not mean you’ve brought her back. Someone else would have to destroy Oberon’s onyx gemstone. Her other half must escape for her to return to her corporeal form. Only then will the comet fill the sky. That person won’t be you, but it could be Oberon.”
Or my mother.
It was a truth that had been echoing in my mind ever since Tessa had told me the truth about what had happened all those years ago. My mother had warned me about this very day. She’d tried to prepare me for it, and she wouldn’t tell me who I might one day face. For a long time, I thought it was because she didn’t know, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Had she expected this to happen? Was there more to the prophecy than she’d told me?
Tessa read my face. “You think it could be her. You think your mother might be the one to release the other half of the god.”
“You already know me so well.”
