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Tessa smiled thinly. “The southern mountain range is definitely impassable, but this area isn’t as bad, according to what I’ve read about it. We can go around the base of Mount Lumican, which is that big peak over there, and then climb the smaller mountains to reach Oberon’s cave. Or where I think it might be.”
Alastair nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
But Fenella wasn’t as easily convinced. “What if you’re wrong?”
“Then we’ll try something else,” Tessa said. “But I think it’s worth a shot if it means Kalen doesn’t have to kill hundreds of people.”
“Kal, it’s your call,” Niamh said.
The cost of being king. So many envied the power of absolute authority. But with that power came a responsibility so great that it became stifling at times. Make a mistake—one wrong move—and the aftermath could be cataclysmic, particularly now.
I could sweep through that army within minutes, and we could be on our way up the cliff-side path toward Oberon’s hiding place. If the King of Light decided to fight us in the future, he’d have fewer warriors to call to arms. My people would never have to worry about light fae again.
But being here now took me back to that moment when I’d stood in the swaying grass, facing Oberon, and sent my power to collide with his. I’d chosen war over surrender, brutality over mercy. There were so many other choices I could have made instead of charging my army across the Kingdom of Light and destroying everything in our path.
There were so few fae left in Aesir. If I kept killing and killing and killing, what would I even be fighting to protect? A realm of bones and nothing more.
Closing my eyes, I said, “We will go the long way.”
Fenella snapped her teeth together, but she didn’t argue. I took the lead, with Tessa riding by my side. Niamh and Alastair rounded out the back. We approached the mountain as quietly as we could. As we drew nearer, sounds of life drifted toward us on the wind. We heard the murmur of voices, and the crunch of an axe against wood. Horses whinnied and fire crackled, and just beneath the hum of it all, a fifer played a mournful tune. A familiar song that all fae knew, one that celebrated the souls of the dead.
“You made the right decision,” Tessa said, glancing over at me. She held the reins loosely in her hands, and she smiled. “Those light fae don’t deserve to die.”
“I worried the vow would make me stomp them down anyway. And it still might, if this route is as impossible as Fenella seems to think. But we should remain quiet. If we can hear them, they could hear us.”
A hush fell across our party as we neared the base of the mountain where the fae were camping. Through the haze, fires spit sparks into the sky, and the fifer’s mournful song of the dead wound through the hills, growing larger and more abundant by the moment. At long last, the distant sight of the camp faded from view as we followed the base of the mountain to the west.
Tessa released a breath when we came upon a sandy shoreline. Water lapped against the horses’ hooves, thick with the scents of salt and fish. The wind ruffled the hair around her face, and for a moment, I was captivated by the light that danced across her skin. Here, at the edge of Aesir, the mists were gone, and my body begged to take it in. It was the first time I’d stood in a sun-drenched world, free of mist, in centuries.
And yet, I could not take my eyes off ofher.
“You’re fucking breathtaking, love.”
She started, and a brilliant blush filled her cheeks. Such a deep scarlet. The darkness had hidden the true depths of it, and now that I could see it for what it was, I wanted to relish it.
“You’re not bad to look at, either.”
“Get a room, you two,” Alastair said with a laugh as he edged his horse up beside ours and tipped back his head to face the sun. His earrings glinted beneath the light. “For the love of the moon, I forgot what this felt like.”
I caught the look of surprise on Tessa’s face, so I explained, “The rest of the coastline isn’t like this. The mist extends out into the sea for miles, and I haven’t sailed anywhere since the war.”
“Why would it be any different here?” she asked.
“If I were to guess,” Niamh said, nodding at the mountains behind us, “it’s the same damn reason the sun persists over Albyria. Oberon’s doing something.”
“And when we kill him…” Tessa trailed off.
“The Kingdom of Storms will be the only place in Albyria with a sun,” I said, the grim certainty settling in my gut like old milk. Aesir would never be the same, even if we won. It was what I had wanted for so long—to see my mists storm across the last shred of Oberon’s land.
But now that it had finally happened, the victory tasted bitter.
It didn’t matter that fae and humans had once found a way to banish the gods. Those ancient beings still haunted these lands, destroying everything they could, until the only thing left behind was mist, darkness, and death.
Forty-One
Tessa
On the western side of the mountains, the clear sky provided an unobstructed view of the treacherous path ahead until it vanished under a blanket of mist. I was surprised to find a small bridge spanning a gap from the shore to a steep incline, the boards warped, broken, and faded by the sun. If anyone had ever traversed this mountain, decades had passed since then, if not more. The path, if one could call it that, was covered in brambles topped with thorns. The ledge wound up the side of the mountain, so thin that a small person would struggle to fit, let alone one the size of Kalen.
