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“It’s done.”
My brows rose in surprise. “Oh. Okay. Just like that?”
Lonan laughed, shifting closer to nuzzle my cheek. “What did you expect to happen?”
I went pink. “I guess just… I don’t know. Like a… magical feeling or something?”
He snorted, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek before moving his head back to smirk at me. “My offer to teach you how to be fae still stands.”
I grinned back, sliding my hand over his hip. “How hands-on are the lessons?”
“Extremely,” he told me solemnly. “Would you believe me if I told you that you must be naked during the lessons to truly learn how to become fae? Being at one with the wild and all that.”
I burst out laughing, leaning in to kiss him. “No, but I’d do it anyway. And look.” I rolled onto my back and gestured at myself. “I’m naked right now. Time for my first lesson?”
Lonan stretched with a little grunt, then shifted closer to rest his head on my chest. “I have nothing left in me. It’ll have to be tomorrow.”
I grinned, wrapping my arms around him as I finally closed my eyes. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Lonan
“Sloga should be coming back to the palace today,” I told Ash as we left my bedroom the following morning. “I want you to meet him properly. And then perhaps we can tell you about my father.”
“Yes, please.” Ash threaded his fingers through mine as we walked down the hallway, then cautiously asked, “Sloga… You mean the big deer-headed fae? The Higher Spirit?”
“Yes. He knew my father better than anyone.”
“Oh.” Ash sounded a little confused, but didn’t question it. Instead, he softly asked, “What was your dad’s name?”
I smiled, rubbing my thumb over the back of his ring. “Faulis. Hopefully Sloga will bring some of his sketches with him so I can show you. I look just like him.”
Ash smiled over at me, but it was tinged with poorly masked grief. “I used to look just like my dad too.”
“You still do.”
His eyes flared with weak hope as I glanced at him. “Yeah? Even though I’m all… you know, fae-looking now?”
“You still look the same to me.” I squeezed his hand, realising that I hadn’t truly acknowledged just how much change Ash had been forced to deal with in such a short span of time.
Not just losing his parents, his whole life, and getting through the trauma my mother had inflicted on him, but feeling like he’d lost who he was when he’d shed his mortal skin. Having to navigate a new world—one that was crueller, in some ways, than his old one—in a body that was suddenly different.
And then, just a few short months later, having who he was change yet again. Taking on such an enormous weight of responsibility when he hadn’t truly had time to process everything that had happened to him.
To me, the transition to monarch felt right, even though I had vehemently denied to myself that I wanted it. The power I now possessed felt natural, comfortable, like there had always been a space inside me waiting to be filled by it. And I’d had time to process the fact that I would become king.
Ash hadn’t. Ash hadn’t known it would happen. He’d barely had time to find his place in this world before he’d been thrust into one of its most prominent roles.
He’d been struggling in silence, trying so hard to make it work, to do what was right, and I had been so consumed by my own sense of discontent that I hadn’t really noticed what was happening to him.
I’d let myself forget about how much he had lost. How much he had been through. I’d started growing resentful of his desperation to keep me there with him, but now I could see so clearly why he hadn’t wanted me to go. Why he hadn’t wanted everything to change yet again.
Throat closing up with guilt, I stopped and turned to face him. Cupping his cheek, I quietly said, “You’re the same. You’re the same boy I have loved for most of my life. Headstrong and passionate and hot-tempered—”
He flushed, rubbing his cheek.
“—and unwilling to give up, no matter how much it seems like everything is against you.” I stepped closer to kiss him. “You’re the same, Ash.”
