“Wait,” I interrupt, unable to stay silent any longer. “So, Queen Lucelle never found out? Never learned about his time in the Mortal Realm?”
Cashira shakes her head emphatically. “Not as far as I know. I suspect Rhys never told anyone what happened to him during those missing months—not his advisors, not his generals, certainly not his wife. And definitely not what he left behind.” Her expression grows grim. “The official story is that he was injured in the border conflicts and took time to recover in seclusion. Clean. Simple. No complications.”
I hesitate before asking the next question, but I need to understand what we’re walking into. “If Queen Lucelle had known about you, about your relationship. . . do you think she would have tried to hurt you?”
Cashira lets out a dry laugh that holds no humor. “She wouldn’t have needed to get her hands dirty. She would have let the court tear me apart for her. She would have whispered the right words to the right people and watched them do her work.” Her eyes grow hard. “Lucelle thrives on secrets and manipulation, feeds on the weaknesses of others. But no, I doubt she knows even now. Especially about Esme.” She pauses, her voice growing deadly serious. “Because Lucelle is barren. Shecannot bear children, and everyone in Vanir knows it. It’s the source of her greatest shame and deepest rage.”
Esme stiffens beside me, and I can practically feel the pieces clicking into place in her mind.
“So that makes me. . .” she whispers, the words barely audible.
“His only child,” Cashira finishes, her voice carrying the weight of a kingdom. “His heir. You are the living secret that could either strengthen his legacy or unravel everything he’s built.” She reaches out to touch Esme’s face gently. “You are proof of his compassion, his capacity for love, but also evidence of his greatest vulnerability. A truth that could destroy him if it comes out the wrong way.”
She leans back, studying her daughter with eyes that hold centuries of accumulated wisdom. “You’re his heir by blood, but you’re also half-mortal, half-witch. A bloodline the court will struggle to accept, a heritage they’ll see as contamination rather than strength. Your very existence challenges everything they believe about fae superiority.”
Esme says nothing for a long moment. She just stares into the fire, watching flames dance across the blackened logs, her face as unreadable as stone. I can feel the storm building inside her through our bond; fear, anger, determination, and something else. Something that feels like steel being forged in flame.
Finally, I can’t sit still any longer. The need to do something, anything productive, drives me to my feet. “We don’t have much to take,” I say quietly, stepping toward the small room where we’ve been staying. “Miss Margaret came back through the portal with a few clothes for both of us, just enough for a few days. She grabbed what she could while everything was falling apart back home, but it’s not much.”
Cashira nods grimly. “It will have to do. The Night Court values presentation, but they value strength more. You’ll make your impression through actions, not fashion.”
I begin gathering what little we have, a few changes of clothes, some basic supplies, the emergency medicines Miss Margaret managed to smuggle through the portal. My hands move automatically while my mind races. I need to stay busy or I’ll lose what’s left of my sanity. My wolf is still agitated from Locke’s casual dominance display, still territorial and protective in ways that feel amplified in this strange realm.
A quick peek out of the room shows me Esme hasn’t moved from the bench. A complex mix of emotions churn through our bond. Shock, grief, anxiety, but underneath it all, something harder. Something that reminds me why I fell in love with her in the first place. She was always quiet, shy, closed off, but I never thought she was weak. I knew there was more, and I feel it now.
Finally, she breaks her silence with words that catch me completely off guard. “Micah lost a Tether.”
I freeze, a shirt half-folded in my hands. The simple statement hits me like a physical blow, dragging my attention back to the world we left behind. Miss Margaret told me about the battle at Callum Academy, about the students and faculty who fought against impossible odds. I lost pack members in that fight. Wolves who answered Professor Maverick’s call to stand with Micah against Michael. Their deaths weigh on me like stones in my chest, and I regret not being there beside them when they made their final stand. Esme came first. She always will.
“She’s grieving, and I want to be there for her. I want to go back home and help her heal,” Esme says, her voice drifting down the hall towards me, distant and hollow.
“But?” I prompt gently, abandoning my packing to return to her side.
She turns to me slowly, and I see the conflict written across her features like a map of internal war. “But what good would I be? Powerless. Grieving. Still broken from everything that happened to me.”
“You’re not broken,” I reply immediately, fiercely. The very suggestion makes my wolf snarl with protective rage.
“I was.” She sighs. There’s such weight in those two words that they seem to echo in the small room. “Maybe I still am in some ways. But I’ve been changing, Sam. Ever since I met Micah, ever since our Tether formed, something inside me has been shifting. She coaxed something out of me that I didn’t know existed. Courage, maybe, or just the belief that I was worth fighting for.”
Her voice grows stronger as she speaks, more certain. “She made me believe I could be braver. Bolder. That I didn’t have to accept whatever scraps the world offered me.” She looks directly at me now, and there’s fire in her silver-gray eyes. “And now I’m here. Half-fae. Whatever that means, whatever power that carries. Maybe my magic isn’t gone like I thought. Maybe it’s just. . .evolving. Transforming into something new.”
I kneel beside her, abandoning any pretense of distance or casual comfort. “You’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out together.”
She nods slowly, resolution building in her expression like sunrise over mountains. “I need to. I can’t go back to Micah empty-handed. Not like this. She deserves better from me, from us.”
Cashira, who had been listening quietly from her chair, suddenly leans forward and places a weathered hand on Esme’s shoulder. Her touch is gentle but urgent. “You need to understand something about where you’re going, daughter. Vanir is not a place of mercy or second chances. The Night Court is filled with beings who have spent centuries perfecting the art of manipulation and cruelty. They will try to undermine you,break you down piece by piece. They’ll manipulate your every move, twist your words, use your emotions against you.”
Instead of shrinking under the warning, Esme’s spine straightens. Her chin lifts with defiance that makes my heart swell with pride and love. “Let them try.”
There’s my Angel. There’s the woman who faced down her high priestesses and an ancient goddess. The woman who survived betrayal and magical torture and came out the other side with her spirit intact.
“I want to meet him,” she says, her voice growing stronger with each word. “I want to look my father in the eyes and know who he really is. I want to decide for myself what I do next.” She stands, and even in her night gown in a cottage at the edge of nowhere, she carries herself like royalty. “I’m not going to be a pawn on anyone’s board anymore. Not Queen Lucelle’s, not King Rhys Ayla’s, not even the goddess who tried to break me.”
She pauses, meeting my gaze directly. “I’ve already been broken once. Shattered completely and put back together. It’s only up from here.” Her smile is sharp as a blade. “He needs to prove he’s worthy of being my father. Not the other way around.”
I stare at her, watching firelight play across her features, illuminating the determination that burns in her eyes. She trembles slightly, from nerves or anticipation, I can’t tell, but she’s fierce in a way that makes my chest tight with emotion.
Cashira’s eyes shine with unmistakable pride as she looks up at her daughter. She pats Esme’s shoulder once more, a gesture of blessing and encouragement, before hurrying out of the room to give us privacy.
