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“No!” Riven replied too forcefully. He dropped his hand to his side and bowed his head. “I promised you I wouldn’t keep secrets from just you. I have kept that promise.”
I scoffed. “Explain.Now.”
Riven turned to Vrail with desperate eyes. I followed his gaze and saw her cheeks were red and her jaw was chattering, unable to find the words. She didn’t need them. Instead, she pulled out a thin chain from her pocket with a small pendant along the end. It was made of the same green stone as the ring on my hand.
Feron’s ring.
The glamoured ring.
“A glamour?” I huffed in disbelief. “But you and Killian study in the library together. I’veseenyou.”
The glamoured necklace shook from Vrail’s arm. “Sometimes Riven is the one wearing Killian’s face. And sometimes it is me.”
I glanced at Syrra and then at Nikolai. “And you’ve known the entire time?”
Nikolai’s jaw shook as he nodded. Syrra nodded too, but her gaze was on her sister as she caressed her hair.
“But why?” I turned back to Riven. I needed to hear it from him.
“Protection.” His jaw pulsed. “I was twelve when I first turned. I had no idea what was happening to me and my new body was so consumed in pain I thought I was dying. It was months before it happened again and by then I had made it to Volcar. I told my father it was to study under the tutors there, but really I wanted to find answers to what was happening to me. I snuck out one night and made the journey along the edge of the Singing Wood by the sea. Iwas halfway through the Fool’s Trap when Syrra found me. Feron had sensed my presence and sent her to me.
“He knew I needed to train my powers. I couldn’t be transforming into a purple-eyed Fae at a moment’s notice. And the pain that came with my Fae form bothered him. He wanted to take the time to train me himself. A decoy was the only the way I could spend the time I needed to in theFaelinth. A prince cannot disappear for years at a time without being noticed. That was all Vrail’s glamour was meant to be.”
“And Vrail wanted to spend her days in the library of Volcar.” I turned to her and she nodded. I had known Killian was her advocate in getting Feron to allow it, but I never realized it was because she was pretending to be the prince. “But what changed?”
“Myfatherchanged.” Riven said the word like it was poison. “By the time I had leashed my power, he was letting his people starve. And as he grew weaker, he became more paranoid of the Halflings. All he needed was the smallest excuse and he would hang them from the wall.”
My neck flexed. “I’m well aware.”
“I knew I had to do something to stop him. I had to try.” Riven coughed and his shadows sliced the trees behind him. “Then a decoy became convenient. It made it easier for me to stoke a rebellion as someone other than the prince and safer for the Elverin, too.”
I paced in front of Riven, trying to understand. “The Elverin were not suspicious when a new Fae the same age as the prince showed up in theFaelinth?”
Riven’s brow twitched. “Feron used his gifts to plant a seed in the minds of the Elverin. He didn’t want to, but he believed it was the only way to keep his people safe.”
I scoffed. “Safe from you?”
“My father.” Riven winced but kept going. “Keeping my two identities separate helped waylay suspicion, especially once I’d decided to actively work against the Crown. Could you imagine what he would’ve done if he found out he had sired a Fae for a son? If he had discovered that very same son had aligned himself with his mother’s kin and was working to overthrow the kingdom?” Riven huffed a dark laugh. “Aemon would have gathered every guard, Shade, and sellsword he could and had taken the Faeland for his own before the Elverin had any hopes of escaping.”
My mouth dried. Aemon would have killed everyone in the Faeland just to spite his son.
Riven doubled over and Vrail ran to his side. “This conversation can be had just as easily as Killian.”
Riven’s jaw bulged as he shook his head.
“You feel no pain as the prince?” I couldn’t bear to call Riven by any other name.
The crease in his brows deepened as he looked up at me. “Not until the seals started breaking. As Killian, it’s manageable.”
I lifted my chin. “But still there?”
Riven nodded solemnly. At least the threat against his life had not been a lie too. “Whatever tainted methods my father used to grow his own power tainted my gifts too. I was born to Man and Fae. I should have been born a Halfling, with amber blood to mark it as true, but I wasn’t. Instead I was given a Mortal form and a Fae form. But both carry a price.”
I tilted my head to the side. “But the other Dark Fae who died, he was not fathered by Aemon.”
“He did not exist.” Riven looked at the others as they gasped. I turned and saw confusion painted on each of their faces. “Another one of Feron’s seeds. If I had been the only Fae with tainted gifts, then the Elverin would have grown suspicious. Feron made it soeveryone believed my mother had birthed a Fae son before she left, a few years older than the prince. That boy had been kept away because his powers were tainted just like the other Fae born since the Purges.”
“And you said he died,” I added. “Because that would’ve required another decoy.” I didn’t care about the bitterness in my tone.
