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Kierden emerged with the pot.
“Please be careful with my plants. Not all of us grow things as easily as the human you brought here,” the healer said curtly. The argument was a pointless one, considering my magic had already sprouted massive flowers all around us. There was no way it hadn’t affected her plants too.
“Her name is Nissa.” Kierden stepped up to Dirue and held out the pot. “Eat one of these leaves.”
She studied him.
“The only reason you wouldn’t be willing to eat one of your own plant’s leaves is if you knew it could kill you, the same way it killed Freive and Woan.”
She stayed silent for a long, long moment.
“Do you deny it?” Kierden asked.
She held his gaze. “I do not.”
The trees around me seemed to inhale as one as the fae’s shock rolled through the air.
“You’ve killed every mated couple for centuries, when they trusted you. Why?” The king didn’t lose his temper, and I respected him for it. My heart was beating rapidly, and I wasn’t even really involved in the situation.
“A sealed mate bond gives a couple too much power. Look at you and Nissa. Between her life magic and your death, you could ravage our world. It’s a risk no one should be willing to take—one you should be killed for, should you choose to seal your bond.” She gestured toward me.
Kierden’s eyes flashed with anger. “For murdering our friends and family in cold blood, Dirue, I challenge you. Does anyone protest the challenge?” He raised his voice as he asked the question, but the jungle was thick with silence.
Another look around showed that even more fae had gathered. Nearly the whole damn kingdom had to have been there; I could even see the elves in one of the trees nearest to the ground.
“Can I say a few words, first?” Dirue asked, her voice calm and measured.
Kierden set his jaw, but jerked his head in a nod.
She looked up at the trees. “I have loved all of you and been honest with all of you. I wept for the lives I ended, and mourned their deaths, even though they were necessary ones. I saw the wicked, corrupt power of a mated fae king and queen as a child. They wounded without reason and killed without question. I pray to the veil that one among you will consider taking up my mantle, and—”
A sharp blade of ice sliced through her throat, and her words cut off abruptly. She grabbed at her neck as blood poured from her, and I watched in sick fascination as she fell to her knees.
“Close your eyes,”Bright and Kierden both told me.
I closed them.
“May the souls of our lost make your next life a painful one,” Kierden growled. “And may the guilt on your conscience turn your future to ash.”
There was an awful squelching noise, and then I heard Dirue’s body hit the ground.
Silence reigned in the jungle for a long moment.
I opened my eyes.
Kierden dropped the potted plant on the porch, beside Dirue’s body. He turned to face the warriors in the trees and said, “We will burn her in her home with her poison, and pray that she’s tortured in the next life by the people she murdered so coldly. Should anyone else attempt to hurt a mated couple for no other reason than the bond, we will take great pleasure in tearing them limb from limb, over many weeks. We do not fear strength, wecelebrateit. And no one’s past dictates our future—wedo.”
Murmurs and growls of agreement seemed to echo through the jungle around us.
A male fae brought a burning torch forward as Kierden and Eisley went back into the house for the non-poisonous plants. They emerged quickly, but my gaze remained fixed on Dirue’s body while a few other fae joined the man with the torch. Their hands were out as they used their magic to spread their ice over the wood, so they could burn the killer without hurting the tree.
A few more fae brought large bottles of something that looked suspiciously like ale, and slowly drizzled it over Dirue’s body and her poisonous plant, before stepping into her home to spread more of it inside.
I watched quietly as they finished and slipped off the porch and into the tree branches—and I stayed silent as the man finally tossed his flaming torch onto the healer’s body.
There was a moment’s pause before everything went up in flames, and no one said a word as we watched it burn.
A flash of gold off to my right made me turn my head. The couple from the farm was standing together, her back to his chest, and his arms wrapped securely around her middle. A golden handprint rested on her hip, glowing much brighter than the silver one on my wrist—and I could see the glow from the man’s hand, too.
