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"Come on, Rin-rin. It's not so bad. I've had a long life." He grins. "And a fun one."
Only he didn't.
I know he didn't. I know he's terrified and alone and has forever been plagued by duties that crippled him.
He told me.
I will die if I have to spend much longer shouldering it all alone, little one.
I make myself speak, as my resolve starts to solidify.“When I was a little girl, I used to have a dream almost every night. There was the loveliest prince, with pale white hair and eyes that looked like mine. Any other girl would have imagined marrying him, but not me. To me, he was my brother.”
Deep down, I’ve always known. I might not have known about Ilvaris, or the crown, or anything else, but I knew I had a brother who loved me more than anything in the world. That’s why nothing Ryther could have done or said would have convinced me Loch could be my enemy. He never could be, and I knew it.
“And we played together, and danced, and laughed, and sang,” I told him. “I’d wake up crying because day had taken him from me. The morning was our enemy. I would have slept forever to stay with him.”
“Darina—” Loch cautions, that casual facade melting.
He doesn’t want to hear this, but I must tell him. I’ll never get another chance.
“The first time I heard your voice was a shock in the woods. I knew it. And I couldn’t understand it, but I knew you from what you were even before I saw you. My big brother.”
“Your little brother, if you want to be technical about it.”
I smile through the sobs that threaten to clog my throat. “We wouldn’t want to tell any lies, now, would we?”
I still can’t quite believe the queen—I refuse to call her our mother—would be so cruel as to do this to us, her children. Force him to live in the shadows. Force me to stand here with a blade between us.
She raised him for the slaughter. There was never any point to his existence than this moment, when I am to kill him.
My brother.
I’ve heard all I ever care to hear about that bitch of a queen. Wise? Neutral? Clever? She is nothing but a selfish monster, and I’m done being her pawn.
“Loch, do you truly believe I am the rightful high queen?” I ask my brother.
“Of course," he states without hesitation. "You were born for it.”
“Although I don’t yet have the power, and the greater part of my kingdom would rather slit my throat than kneel to me?”
“Their opinion doesn’t matter, only one fact. You are our queen.”
“Would you swear to me?” I ask, and if he finds it odd, he doesn’t show it.
“With all my heart. By my troth, sister, you are the high queen of Ilvaris, and I, your humble servant. Yours to command, until my last breath.”
And he intends his last breath to be right now, after I take the knife he's still holding between us.
I ignore the blade.
I thrust my arms around his neck and press my lips to his cheek as I squeeze him hard as my arms can manage, regardless of how strong they now are. I could have crushed most things, but not him.
He’s one of the only things in the universe who can survive all of me, as well as anything else thrown at him in this savage, strange, beautiful world.
I wish I could have another moment, but he’ll understand what I’m doing, and he’ll stop me unless I act now.
I can’t let him talk me out of it with his pretty words and smiles. I can’t let him pull me away from the only choice I really have with his smiles and his voice and his warmth.
There’s no time to tell him anything else. What would be the point? He knows I love him. The fae twist their tongues so well no word means anything here, but my actions are clear.
