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I collapsed forward, scrambling across the ground to reach her. Crawling through my own vomit, through the liquid evidence of my torture. But no matter how much I begged, she did not rouse.
Make it stop.
But there was no one who would.
* * *
I jolted awake, straight up in the center of the bed soaked with my own sweat. Droplets ran down my face from my temples, mingling with the moisture on my cheeks. I might be crying. If I was… at least there was no one there to see my weakness.
I had not dreamt of the water gardens in months. In those first weeks after my rescue, they had haunted me nightly. But with Arthur’s love, with his companionship—with my mother banished to her wing of the goldstone palace—I had begun to heal.
Since Arthur’s murder, it had been a different nightmare that haunted my dreams.
Arthur, who had walked into the water gardens after my father’s death and killed every guard and servant who’d played a part in my imprisonment. Arthur, who had done what my father had always been too passive, too afraid of my mother to do. Arthur, whose raging flames had sealed my mother inside her suite of rooms as punishment for the torture she’d overseen. Arthur, the last person who knew my secret.
That despite my mother’s years of trying, no magic lived inside of me.
I was utterly powerless.
I came into the world that way—and if I was not careful, I would leave it very soon.
27
ARRAN
Veyka was not the only one sneaking out of the goldstone palace.
I didn’t dare leave her at night. She hadn’t fought my presence outside her door even after I followed her out that secret passageway. The thought of that hidden door on her balcony kept me from sleep for the rest of that night. If there was one secret passageway, there were more.
Which meant there were more routes into the palace than I’d accounted for so far. Another assassin would come. But the next would not get into Veyka’s bedchamber. I’d searched her rooms the next morning, under the guise of listening to Gawayn give his daily report. No more hidden doors to be found.
Was the attempt on her life connected to the successful one on her brother six months before? It was possible, but the humans responsible had been beheaded.
Humans could continue to slip through the rifts, a few at a time. They always would, so long as the passages between realms remained open. Our world was a mirror of their own, though Annwyn was filled with magic while the human realm was a pale imitation.
I had never passed through one of the rifts myself. There was no shortage of worthy foes in this realm—why would I seek out the weaker human ones?
Even now, I doubted the humans were the true threat. They’d gotten lucky once. But twice was impossible.
More likely, someone within the Annwyn saw an opportunity.
Veyka was young at twenty-five years old, but her twin had been as well. Arthur, however, had been raised from birth to be High King of Annwyn. Guinevere, while not selected until adulthood, was part of the generation of powerful terrestrial fae females raised with the goal of becoming High Queen.
But Veyka had not.
Neither, I hated to admit, had I.
She was the spare. Second children were not unheard of among the fae. But we were so long lived, so damn difficult to kill, that one had never ascended the throne of Annwyn. There was no reason to prepare her for an impossibility.
Who knew what education she had received. I knew very little about her. The Princess of Peace, she’d been called at her birth. I recognized it for what it was—the priestess’ attempt to put a positive spin on an impossible occurrence—the birth of twins to the royal family.
My own education had been in battle and brutality, not statecraft.
Yet, here we were. Set to become the High King and Queen of Annwyn.
A powerful fae might think us easy to dethrone. If they could get to Veyka before the Joining, it would throw Annwyn back into the chaos our Offering had only just forestalled.
Veyka had been careful never to reveal her power to me. Another secret between us. Whether she kept it from her entire court or it was some intricate elemental ploy to keep the terrestrials off balance, I didn’t know.
