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They come upon over two dozen soldiers and talk about how they might be able to make it past them. Kieran decides to use mud to disguise his and Poppy’s faces, and a story about how they were on their way to the Willow Plains and ran across some Craven. Things don’t go as planned, and they’re soon overcome by both Royal Guards and Revenants and captured.
When Poppy tries to negotiate and says they can have her if they let Kieran and Reaver go, he refuses to be separated from her. The Revenant reveals that they’re not prisoners, and it takes Kieran by surprise, only to be cut short by Poppy succumbing to a shadowstone wound. He barely catches her before she falls unconscious.
Two days later, Poppy finally wakes, and he reveals that he tried to give her blood while she was out. He also informs her that Reaver is in the chamber below them and that the golden fuck as he calls Callum, tried to separate him from her. Once she’s more coherent, Poppy reveals they are in her old rooms at Wayfair. He tells her they’ve brought Reaver to him whenever he demanded it, that the draken is actually behaving himself, and that they’ve been taken care of but never left without guards. He mentions that the Royal Knights are everywhere, but they’re the only Ascended he’s seen so far. Only Millie—the Revenant Handmaiden—and Callum have interacted with him and Reaver.
He brings Poppy up to speed by telling her that their armies should be at New Haven or even Whitebridge by now—approximately three to four days out—and that if they don’t return to Three Rivers as planned, Valyn will come looking for them. He also inquires as to how far away Poppy can communicate telepathically with Delano. She thinks if she can access the Rise, she might be able to reach him. Since he was stripped of his weapons when they arrived, Poppy offers Kieran her dagger, but he refuses.
Millie escorts Kieran and Poppy to the Great Hall, flanked by four Handmaidens and six Royal Knights. Isbeth enters the hall on a litter, which utterly disgusts Kieran. But what really takes him aback is when he sees Malik with her.
Seeing and sensing Poppy’s reaction to everything the Queen babbles on about, Kieran warns her not to do anything rash and tells her to remain calm no matter what happens. The Blood Queen has a frail young woman brought in for the Royal Blessing, and it horrifies Kieran. He knows what the spectacle really means. They use Atlantian blood to make it appear as if the Blood Crown has the gods’ blessing and that their touch can heal. But he knows it’s not a cure at all. It’s only a reprieve from whatever ails the one being blessed.
When the Blood Queen approaches, Kieran refuses to bow to her but stiffens as Malik accompanies Isbeth. He tries to bait him by calling him Prince, and the Queen stymies him by telling him that he looks as scrumptious as the last time she saw him.
I agree with dear Isbeth, but she did not mean it the way I would if speaking with our handsome wolven.
Callum arrives to take Poppy to Cas as requested, but they won’t let Kieran go with her. As they lead her away, Kieran tells her that he’ll be listening for her, insinuating that he will be in wolven form so he can hear her via the notam. Later, she lets him know that both she and Cas are okay. However, he isn’t so sure about Cas. He can’t imagine how he could be all right. Not long after, Poppy reaches out again and tells him they need to get Cas out immediately, relaying that he’s underground and somewhere near the Temple before suggesting they go through the mines.
During their escape, Kieran runs into Poppy on the third-floor landing of the turret’s spiral staircase and asks if she conjured the mist. They intuit that the screams they hear are Reaver’s doing, and Kieran tells her they’ll discuss the mist more later—it’s not the time now as they have less than a minute before they end up getting locked inside.
Reaver joins them, covered in blood, and Kieran leads them both out onto the breezeway after a fight with some knights and guards. He warns Poppy to conserve her energy and tells her that Cas will need her to be strong. As they watch Reaver dispatch some knights, he asks Poppy to remind him to stop antagonizing the draken.
As the mist keeps everyone busy, they make a plan to enter the tunnels. When they get to the Temple’s cella and the candles roar to life, Reaver tells them it’s because of Poppy and the blood she carries within her. Kieran turns and tells her she’s “so very special.”
Malik comes up behind them, and Kieran is immediately ready to fight the Prince, even commenting that he’s only a little conflicted about handling the inconvenience Malik poses. Kieran laughs when Malik insinuates that he’s taking a huge risk and then tells them to trust him. The Prince then goes on to say that what he’s done has all been for Millicent because she is his heartmate. It stuns Kieran. His distrust of Malik is as strong as his reluctant need to believe that his one-time friend hasn’t entirely forsaken his family and kingdom for the Blood Crown. He goes through a significant internal struggle, toggling between anger, hope, disappointment, and uncertainty.
When he finally asks Malik why he didn’t get Cas out, Malik says that he refuses to leave Millie. Finally reaching Cas, Kieran tries to stop Poppy from rushing into the cell and is devastated at seeing Cas almost Craven-like in his bloodlust. He remarks that Casteel is too far gone and doesn’t like Malik’s suggestion for getting him out to give him time to come back to himself. Eventually, he tells Poppy they must knock Cas out to safely remove him from the cell, and then hope he stays unconscious.
Kieran distracts Cas while Malik knocks him out and then tells Poppy they need to bind him for everyone’s safety. He soothes her when she cries over the thought. After he’s secured, he offers to carry Casteel, but Malik refuses. Instead, Kieran just covers Cas and the chains with his cloak.
Malik takes them to some of his friends, Descenters Blaz and Clariza, and they learn that Malik befriended them while posing as Elian—his middle name and the moniker of his ancestor. Working together as a unit, Poppy and Kieran deal with bringing Cas out of his bloodlust and feeding him. When Casteel is more himself, Kieran leaves the couple alone and goes to talk with Malik.
Once they’re all settled and rested a bit, Cas comes to chat with Kieran and assures him the Blood Crown only took blood this time. Kieran reminds Casteel that he has him and Poppy, always and forever, and then assures Cas that he’ll feed Poppy as soon as she wakes.
They discuss needing to leave by nightfall and talk about Reaver and Malik. Kieran relays that Malik can secure a ship and have them smuggled out, but remarks that he trusts few with Poppy’s safety—and Malik definitely isn’t one of them… Still, he hasn’t left or betrayed them yet, and Kieran acknowledges that he’s risking a lot to help them.
Discussions turn to Millie and how she is only leverage if Isbeth knows that she and Malik are heartmates. Cas reveals everything he learned about Millie being Poppy’s sister and tells Kieran that she’s like a Revenant, yet…not. They talk about the prophecy, and Kieran wonders how Millie was a failure. He assumes that Isbeth turned her into a Revenant to save her after she didn’t survive her Culling.
When Kieran asks if Millie was Isbeth’s first attempt to create something to remake the realms and Poppy was the second, Cas agrees, and Kieran says there’s no way Poppy would ever help Isbeth. Casteel goes on to tell him that Millie said that only Cas can stop Poppy, and only by killing her. At the thought, Kieran suggests they have Reaver torch the Revenant. They talk about Poppy some more and realize that once she completes her Culling, she’ll be a Primal. They then conclude that she did, indeed, create the mist.
Kieran follows Cas to wake Poppy and tells her she needs to feed. Casteel bites Kieran’s wrist, and he jerks a bit when she closes her mouth around him. Still, he shows her inappropriate memories and gets way too much satisfaction out of it.
Kieran is definitely a man after my heart. If I had the power to transfer memories and visions, nobody would ever be thinking of war.
Later, he hugs Cas, and Poppy asks him if he believes that Millie is her sister. He tells her that he didn’t at first, but he does now. When Reaver seems surprised by the news, Kieran can’t pass up the opportunity to rib him a little. As they discuss how things went so wrong with Millie’s Culling, Kieran asks why they didn’t use Ires’s blood, and Malik explains that the cage nullifies his eather.
Malik mentions Preela in conversation, and Kieran tells Poppy that she was Malik’s bonded wolven. As Malik continues the story, Kieran is outraged when he realizes Malik was the Dark One from Poppy’s memories and planned to kill Poppy as a child. Cas attacks Malik, and Kieran lets it play out. He refuses to step between them and thinks Malik deserves whatever hell Cas rains down upon him. When Poppy uses her power to separate the brothers, Kieran catches Cas before he falls.
The Queen arrives with her guards and Callum, and the group readies themselves to fight until they realize they can’t. Callum tells Kieran he’s always wanted a pet wolf, and Kieran tells him to fuck off. Later, in the melee, Callum cuts Kieran with a shadowstone blade and whispers a spell. Reddish black smoke billows from and then soaks into the wound. Shadows ripple over Kieran’s body and throw Malik back before Cas stabs Callum in the heart.
The Queen gives them an ultimatum: return with Malec or Kieran dies. After they depart, Malik goes to follow the Queen, and Cas tells him not to. In order to keep him with them, Kieran knocks him out and tries to reassure Poppy that he’ll be fine, saying she shouldn’t worry about the curse Callum put on him.
Kieran stays mostly in wolven form on their journey to Padonia but does his best to reassure Poppy and the others when he can. He also does his damndest to protect Poppy, and that includes saving her from herself at times.
Later, when Cas comes to him, Kieran tells him that he doesn’t want them to feel obligated to do the Joining just to save him from the curse, and Cas reminds him that they’re not just brothers or friends, they’re part of a greater whole.
I adore their connection so much. And it only got better when things ramped up and Poppy entered the mix.
They meet up with the others, and Kieran watches Malik carefully as Delano approaches. He’s unsure how things will play out as Preela, Malik’s bonded wolven, was Delano’s sister. Later, discussing their plan and strategy, Kieran realizes that the Blood Forest is where it is because Malec is entombed there.
