Lessia giggled again, loosely wrapping her arms around his waist. “You stupid, beautiful idiot.”
Merrick just stared at her, and she shook her head as she quashed the last of the bubbling laughter warming her insides.
“If we even survive this war, I am most definitely not staying here.” She pressed her hands against his chest until he leaned his forehead on her own. “I have given up the Rantzier name, and I am certainly not taking anything that my uncle might have touched. Well, apart from this.” She nodded toward the dagger her father had given her—the one that had taken both his life and hers.
She knew others thought it strange she still carried it, but… it called to her somehow.
She couldn’t let it go.
The door squealed behind them, and a female with a blanched face—the healer, evidently—slipped into the room. Her eyes flew across the strange mixture of Fae, half-Fae, and witches before landing on the dying man in the bed, and her entire being shifted, shoulders lowering and gaze sharpening as she quickly made her way over.
Kerym and the sisters rose from their squats around the bed and joined them on the balcony, leaving the female with the half-witch.
“What are you going to do then? You know… if you survive.” Kerym didn’t even pretend to be the slightest bit ashamed for having eavesdropped, but Lessia couldn’t fault him when he grinned at her, taking the edge off the last part of his question.
If she survived…
She hadn’t even thought that far ahead. But now? Being here?
War, dead souls, and the threats that came with them somehow felt faraway in the summer heat, with the forest scents enveloping her and smiling faces surrounding her, even as the half-witch mumbled soft curses while the Fae worked on him.
She glanced up again at Merrick, who’d moved a step backward not to crowd her, although he still stood so close she could almost see his stubble growing in the bright light.
“I want to travel,” she whispered, an icy hand wrapping around her heart as she dared speak one of those wishes out loud. “I would like to see more of Havlands, and maybe other realms as well.”
Merrick’s eyes moved across her face, and she knew he was registering every word.
She didn’t need to say what she wished for the most. He knew.
Time and freedom.
Two things she’d almost never dared think, even to herself.
“Well, all this wealth would come quite handy, then,” Kerym teased. “You could be the richest traveler known to any realm.”
Lessia’s eyes moved over the side of the castle—over the gilded accents on the railings, over the statues jutting out between crystal windows, over heavy draperies and curtains that were probably worth more than the home she’d grown up in.
All the lavishness made bile rise in her throat.
“No,” she said. “None of this will be mine.”
The air shifted as she turned around again, looking out over the vast land belonging to what used to be her family.
“There are no more Rantziers here,” she continued.
She could feel it. Not just because her parents hadn’t been anywhere to be seen when those souls materialized. But somehow she knew. Her parents had moved on. Like they should have. Together.
Her eyes followed a small blue bird whipping its wings as it hovered by the castle wall.
“For too long, these lands have been divided. Half-Fae, Fae, nobles, royals…” She continued watching the bird’s wings churning the air. “We’re all the same, in the end. I will ask the staff here and in the other castle to divide the wealth and then share it with the people, taking apart every last piece until no memory of these buildings remains. I will not see more children in the street looking up at these buildings, wondering what they did wrong, when the only thing they did was to be born without luck.”
She turned back to the group, fixing her eyes on Merrick’s. “Can you spare a few soldiers to make sure it happens peacefully? That no one takes what they haven’t earned?”
Merrick nodded.
Something sounded behind her, and Lessia whirled around just in time to catch the massive black snake winding its way from another balcony to close its jaw around the bird, before whipping its head their way and hissing with such ferocity Lessia stumbled right back into Merrick’s chest.
Chapter 18
