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“You have nothing to apologize for,” Carnon said, sitting next to me, one leg propped up on the bed as he studied me like the healers he had brought in on the second day. “You’re allowed to feel whatever you need to feel.” He put a hand on my cheek, frowning. “You’re still pale. You should eat all of these macarons, just to be safe.”
I smiled faintly. He didn’t push, didn’t ask me why I had shut down. Just sat patiently and lovingly until I was ready to speak. I nibbled on an orange macaron, the sweet cookie melting on my tongue. A pang hit me, as I realized Mama would never taste these.
“It’s my fault,” I croaked, putting down the cookie and looking up at my mate. “That she died.”
“No,” Carnon said, brushing away the tear that slipped down my cheek. “It’s the Crone’s fault.”
“If I had been more prepared,” I argued, “had planned better–”
“There was nothing you could do, and no way for you to know, Elara,” he said, thumbing away another tear. “You didn’t know about the iron. Or, I presume, her blood magic?” He raised a brow in question and I nodded my confirmation. Carnon brushed another rogue tear away. “Your grandmother struck the killing blow, not you.”
“But I couldn’t save her,” I whispered, fighting back the sob that threatened to break loose. “I wasn’t strong enough. Wasn’t powerful enough. I should have trained harder.”
“Even I was drained by those chains,” Carnon said, thumb still absently brushing my cheek. “And you can train now. I promised you vengeance, and I intend to uphold that bargain.”
“The blood bargain,” I said, panic clawing its way through me as I looked up at him. I held my palm up, the red line of the bargain gone. My mother’s death had negated it, I realized. “How are you not dead?”
“Because I didn’t fulfill it?” Carnon asked, face falling. “I am so, gods-damned sorry, Red. I promised I would save her.” He pressed his forehead to mine, but I already knew Mama’s death wasn’t his fault. It was mine.
“You should be dead,” I pointed out, taking another sip of tea.
“I probably should have told you this long ago,” he said slowly, face twisting into a grimace of shame as he looked down at me. “But mates cannot kill each other. The blood bargain had no consequences. It's how I touched you with only vague permission as well.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at my hand.
“Not, ‘you bastard’ or ‘how dare you’ or ‘I hate you’?” Carnon teased, tilting my chin up with his fingers. He tried to coax a smile from me, and failed, his own falling.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed. Teasing felt impossible. Smiling was a battle. I needed time. I had no idea how much time, but time.
“Don’t,” he said gently, dropping his hand. He took mine in his instead, running his thumb over the back. The crescent moon of the witch bargain I had made him make was still there, but fading. He had fulfilled it. “Don’t apologize. Take all the time you need, Red. I know you’ll find your way back to me. Just…” He paused, searching for the words, and I admired the strong line of his jaw, his patient firm hands, his horns that gleamed in the darkness. He was mine, this Demon King, once my friend, and then my lover. My enemy, and now my mate. And I was his, broken bits and all. “Just don’t shut me out,” he finished, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. “Let me help.”
I nodded, letting him hold me until the tea had gone cold and the macarons lay forgotten.
???
Brigid and Cerridwen were there each day for the rest of the week, sometimes together and sometimes apart, visiting and bringing tea and entertaining me whenever Carnon had business he couldn’t be spared from. I was fairly sure that he had put them up to it, but they seemed happy to visit, going out of their way to distract me and get me to eat and drink. Everything tasted like ash, but I didn’t tell them, not wanting to hurt their feelings.
“You should come visit me at the Court of Sun,” Brigid said one sunny afternoon as we sat on the balcony, Carnon away in meetings to fortify the patrols at the border. Cerridwen sat on the high balcony, her wings spread out to warm in the sun, and Brigid and I faced her, the little metal table between us strewn with tea things. “This is positively cold in comparison to the summers we get.”
“Will you be going back?” I asked, squinting through the bright sunlight which was made more blinding by the moonstone walls of the palace. Brigid looked to be practically made from the sun itself, her skin and hair both glowing golden and her white dress fluttering gently in the breeze.
“I think so,” she said. “Carnon met with the Lords this morning. Told us it was time for us to leave, and that he’d let us know when you had fulfilled the ultimatum.” She grimaced. “Herne and I tried to convince the others to let it go, based on everything that happened,” she looked at me apologetically, “but Scathanna and Tyr refuse to acknowledge you as Queen until you do. Even with the mating bond.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Cerridwen said derisively, her face twisting into a grimace as she thought of the Lords of Blood and Shadow.
“It’s fine,” I said, my voice sounding unnaturally flat and hollow as it had ever since we had returned from Ostara. “I want to do it.”
“I know,” Brigid said quietly, still looking at me with such sympathy that I couldn’t bear it. I looked away, studying my teacup.
A spider scuttled across the veranda toward me, and I squished it with my boot. A perk of Scathanna leaving might be a lessening of the spiders who had been plaguing me this week. Every day I murdered a dozen or more, crawling over the walls and floors trying to spin my secrets like a web. Last night, Carnon had grown so irate about it he had burned a hole in the wall as he destroyed a line of them creeping in over the balcony. Cerridwen noted the spider, frowning.
“Pests,” she said. “I won't be sorry to see Scathanna go. You, I’ll miss,” she added, smiling at Brigid.
“Even more reason for you to visit!” Brigid chirped excitedly, clapping her hands and beaming at us both. “Spiders hate the sun. And you can visit our beaches, and swim in the ocean. And our libraries are the largest in the world.”
The mention of the libraries, ones that I knew were filled with prophecy, steeled my resolve to ask the favor I’d been thinking about all day.
“I want a new reading,” I said, draining my cup, tea leaves and all, not willing to look at what the fates foresaw for me until Brigid could help interpret it. “I want you to read my cards again. And tell me what they say.”
