“Even if I hadn’t grown up within the tunnels, the people who came from the surface after the Veil fell said that even touching the sea was forbidden. They weren’t permitted to fish from the ocean or set foot upon a boat for fear that the magic of Faerie would poison them,” I explained, shrugging my shoulders as I swayed when Thunder stumbled slightly.
“Why would we poison the humans? The war was not something we wanted as a whole. We merely wanted to protect our human mates, who were viewed as abominations after the humans decided they didn’t want to worship the Old Gods any longer,” Etan said, and he shook his head as if he understood very little of what drove the humans to rebel all those centuries ago. “While I can’t fault the humans for wanting to stand on their own feet and resisting the devotion some of the Gods reveled in, they took it too far and sought to eradicate our mates. If they’d only allowed our mates to come to Alfheimr, the war might have been avoided entirely and countless lives saved.”
The gate came closer, until I could see the sentries standing guard behind the gate’s iron, which must have weakened them just by proximity. I made the mental note to ask Etan what the gate was intended for—what it was meant to keepout.
“I think you underestimate what small men are willing to dowhen they feel like life handed them cards that made themless. Shifting people’s allegiance from the Old Gods to the New Gods meant that the Fae were no longer these unattainable beauties that women desired, but predators who fed us lies to manipulate us into subservience. The nobles told humans whatever they needed to in order to earn their devotion for themselves, and they did that by giving us a monster to fear,” I said, watching as Etan shifted his reins into one hand and wrapped his other arm around my stomach. As if he needed to feel me there with him, tofeelthat my words were not spoken out of emotion but out of logic and understanding of how something as fragile as history could be rewritten to serve a single man’s purpose.
“But the Fae never lied. Your Old Godsarethe children of the Primordials. If that does not make them Gods, then what does?” Etan asked, and I smiled as I understood his confusion. To him, the Gods were as close as possible to the Primordials that had been responsible for the creation of all the world and the people in it, now that the Primordials had vanished from our world.
“I don’t think it is the technicality of the word that matters, in the end. With something as fragile as faith, all that matters is what men believe. What good is being a God, when the people you’re meant to rule over believe you to be the villain in their story?” I asked, as he pulled Thunder to a stop before he could reach the gate. “Will it matter to your people if I’m a Goddess or just another Fae? Or will the only thing they see be the fact that I am the daughter of the woman who killed their King? Who killedtheirGod?”
Etan was quiet for a moment, his arms tense where they surrounded me. “They are our people, Fallon. Just as much yours as mine, and you need to start thinking of them that way if you want them to respect you. It’s true that they’ll see you as Mab’s daughter at first, but you’re also Rheaghan’s niece. Your blood doesn’t get to define you if you don’t let it, especially when there is both good and bad within it.”
“I barely knew him,” I argued.
“Yet I see far more of him in you than I do of her. You’re loyal to a fault, and your choices are made out of love and kindness. You’re stubborn as Hel and reluctant to change, but never cruel. You can easily redefine the way our people see you by simply letting them get to know you. It may take some time, but if the nobles can rewrite the history of Nothrek, then you can choose who you want to be in this new life,” he said, and I considered those words.
I’d never gotten to choose what I wanted for myself, and part of my desperate desire for freedom stemmed from that. Each lifetime I’d been born, Imelda had brought me back to the tunnels where everyone had a preconceived notion of who and what I was simply for the history that I couldn’t escape. In every lifetime, she’d trained me as her apprentice. In every lifetime, I’d been the same. It begged the question, who would I be if given the choice?
I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.
Dropping the reins entirely, Etan reached around me to capture my chin between his fingers and turn me to look at him. “Do you still think me your villain, Sunfire? Or has your opinion of me already begun to change? If you can see the truth of who I am this quickly after our rough start, then maybe you should believe our people are capable of that, too,” he said, his voice low and tinged with seduction and something dark. Like a promise of games to come, his eyes burned as he stared down at my mouth.
I hesitated, trying to determine how much I wanted to offer him in my response. “I don’t think you’re a villain, Etan. I think you play one very well, but there’s something softer hidden beneath those sharp edges. I don’t know if our goals align or if we’re going to survive one another, but you’re not the man I thought you were.”
Etan’s slow smile was addictive, transforming the harsher lines of his face into a thing of beauty. “Every time I think I have gotten to the bottom of your depths, you surprise me yet again,” he murmured, leaning forward to kiss me briefly. He picked up the reins in the next moment, continuing our walk to the gate without another word.
“It’s Etan!” one of the guards yelled to the man who stood beside the wheel to draw up the gate. There were smiles on their faces as Etan guided Thunder into the village and immediately stopped in the center of the courtyard. He dismounted quickly, going to the guards and allowing them to hug him and clap him on the back with a friendly familiarity that would have caught me off guard only two days prior.
“Welcome home,” one of the other guards said, but his eyes strayed to me where I remained atop Thunder. I straightened my back, feeling the weighted assessment in that stare, and didn’t dare to dismount until Etan told me to. As much as I might not have been able to trust the Fae male with my heart, I knew my safety mattered to him and that was something I could rely on in these situations where I knew no one.
The guards couldn’t have possibly known who I was, so I hoped the appraising look was because my hair was probably a mess from our journey. “Who have you brought us?” the guard asked Etan with a curious look in his eye and a raised brow.
Another guard smacked the one who had spoken, nodding to me respectfully as Etan grinned and made his way back to Thunder. Reaching up, he gripped me around the waist and waited for my subtle nod of permission before he plucked me off the horse and brought me to stand beside him. “This is Rheaghan’s niece, Fallon. We’re to be married as soon as we return to Vallania.”
I didn’t miss the careful phrasing of my introduction, reframing my heritage to serve our purpose best.
“The lost Princess?” the guard asked, bowing his head in respect, though there was a certain skepticism in his expression. I couldn’t blame him, given who that meant my mother was.
“Yes. Fallon was once called Maeve. Hopefully you will not judge her for the proximity to her mother any more than you did Rheaghan,” Etan said, the words scolding, but he lessened the sting by reaching out and resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Give her a chance, and she’ll prove to be more like him than you could ever imagine. But first, I need to take her to the sea.”
He took my hand in his, guiding me through the village streets. The buildings had been made out of warm-toned clay, the two- to three-story structures surrounding us as we walked the streets. The wall and gate behind us must have been at least five stories tall.
The ground beneath my feet was a different kind of sand than we’d encountered in the desert, tan in color instead of the red earth that had made me stumble. This sand was packed down to form streets that were lined with people selling goods from stands. They smiled as we passed, greeting Etan by name in a way that I would have expected for Rheaghan. Reverence laced every word they spoke, but it also came with a familiarity that accentuated the way he greeted each and every person by name.
I wondered just how far Etan’s deception went, if the court at Tar Mesa and Mab’s loyal followers were the only ones who did not know that he wasn’t as loyal as he seemed. These people did more than just honor him as their King’s second-in-command, and the one who was likely to fill the role as their ruler now that he had passed, but I couldn’t help but wonder how they kept that secret from Mab.
Did they know that Rheaghan was gone? I swallowed at the thought of Etan having to be the one to inform them of the loss. Itmade a little of my excitement for the ocean sink deep in my gut with dread. But Etan’s energy was potent, his broad smile as we emerged from the streets and stumbled onto the open sands of the shore pulsing off him in waves. He pulled me down to the water, kicking off his boots with a laugh as I did the same. He released me long enough to let me get them off without falling on my face, taking my hand once again when I was done and ignoring my hesitation. There were giant boulders within the water, huge rocks that jutted out from the turquoise depths as Etan’s feet splashed in the shallow tide.
I sucked back a breath as the refreshing water lapped at my feet, gathering my dress up in my hands to avoid getting it wet. Shells adorned the sand at my feet, whole and intact in all shapes and sizes, as Etan pulled me closer to him. His stomach touched my chest, his smile overjoyed as he reached down and scooped me into his arms. I lost sight of the shells as he turned me, and I had to crane my neck to keep my stare on the water instead of the sun burning bright in the sky above.
Squealing as Etan carried me farther out to sea, I looked back toward the shore to watch a crowd of Sidhe gather to watch us. The smiles on their faces were playful, matching the mischievous grin I found on Etan’s face when I turned back to look at him.
“Etan, don’t you dare!” I screamed as the water lapped around my back as he strode deeper, sending a chill through my middle as it touched my belly.
With a deepening grin, Etan leaned down to kiss my forehead. “Don’t I dare do what, Sunfire?” he asked, his suspicious smile confirming everything for the brief moment before he tossed me into the water.
I held my breath, sinking below the surface with my eyes open. The salt stung, but I couldn’t make myself close them as I took in the fish swimming all around us in every color imaginable. Holding my breath, I stayed beneath the water as long as I could before I touched my feet to the bottom and stood, and then I surfaced, sucking back a lungful of air and flinging my hair back out of my face.
