Shrieks echoed off the rock, and all of us drew back, wincing. When I let go of the Light, the way was clear. I flicked a hand to summon a glowing ball—Fey magic, not the Light—and sent it ahead of me before stepping into the tunnel. Yeah, I may have been trying to prove Raza wrong about what magic I preferred.
The scent of metal came to me, enhanced with mineral tones. My breath fogged the air. I breathed in deeply, letting the cold revive me. Gaza sliding everywhere, I searched for any sign of blight. There was nothing. Not plants or debris. Not even a speck of dirt. Impossible. We were inside a mountain, but it was as clean as the halls of Seelie.
Frowning, I forged ahead, my light speeding up to keep ahead of me. I came to a corner and rounded it without fear, confident that I could combat anything the blight sent my way.
That was my mistake.
Standing in the center of the path was the King of Crybabies.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Like an onyx statue, the King of Regret shone in the light of my fey orb. Even without defined pupils, I could tell where he was looking. My Uncle Dylan had entirely black eyes. Dealing with him had taught me to read the skin around a person's eyes to determine their focus. And the King's focus was on me alone.
I lifted my hand, but the King was already there. In front of me. Appearing as if he had laruked. And then he lurched forward. My body automatically braced for an impact that never came. My hearing went hollow, Tiernan's shout coming from far away. No longer in a cave, I stood in Hell. Astaroth's bedroom. Star got out of the bed, naked and glorious, and held a hand out to me.
Guilt rose like water in a tub, covering me from feet to scalp. I felt swollen with it. Soaked too long. I was so bloated with horror over what I felt for this man that I couldn't deal with it. I had locked most of my guilt away without knowing what I'd done. Only now did I feel the full force of it.
It hit like a tsunami.
I screamed, the pain of my guilt slamming into me without holding anything back. Unleashed by a merciless force. But then it faded. As if it had been drawn forth just to besiphoned away. Poison sucked from a snake bite. So much dark emotion left me in such a rapid rush that I gasped and swayed forward. Star caught me. I stared up into his green-gold eyes, feeling only love and certainty. Love should never lead to guilt.
“Seren,” Star whispered.
But then he was gone.
In Star's place stood my father. Not Keir. Ewan Sloane. The man who had raised me. The man who lay dead because of me. Oh, I knew it wasn't my fault. Everyone said so. Even the Gods. But despite that, deep down, hidden in my soul, was regret. Dark, bitter regret. A festering heartbreak that whispered to me the things I should have done. How I could have saved my father. If only I hadn't let him go. “If” is the worst type of regret.
Ewan looked at me as if I were a stranger. We were in a council house. San Francisco. This was the moment I lost one life and gained another. This was the moment I killed my father.
Ewan turned and walked away.
“Father!” I screamed. “Don't leave me! Daddy!”
“Daddy!” The cry echoed into another voice, shifting from my pain into someone else's.
But even as my heartache floated away, so did I. I took shape in the corridor outside my tower bedroom. Sever stood before me, holding Mirielle. She was the one shouting at her daddy. Then her beautiful, star-filled eyes turned to look at me, and her cries became those of “Mommy!”
“Mommy, don't make me go.”
Rocked to my core, I screamed. I had completed the vicious cycle, passing on my pain to my daughter. I saw her little arms reaching for me again, and then I felt the drain.
“No!” I screamed. “This is mine! I deserve this! You will not take this guilt from me! It will make me better. I will change because of this moment. Become stronger for my daughter. There is no happiness without sorrow!”
The blight had made a mistake. Some emotions were too precious to be pruned. Even though they were dark, they were still mine. I owed it to my daughter to feel this. Not to shirk it as Ewan had done with me. I would not walk away from her. No matter how much it hurt to stay. That's what parents do. They stay, even when they screw up. They keep trying. They grow with their children.
Failures are what make us great.
Light blasted through me, my mind finally realizing that it could still summon magic. Burning along nerves and through my flesh, it expelled the King of Pain and brought me gasping back to reality.
I blinked and focused on Tiernan's face above me. Beyond him were skeletal tree branches shivering in the cold. Out on our sides were Seelie knights. The King's Guard. They stared at me with horrified expressions. Utterly calm, I wondered why.
“Seren?!” Tiernan's hand went to my cheek.
“I'm all right.” I put my hand over his. “It got inside me, but I expelled it with the Light. I'm all right.”
“Thank the Goddess.” He pulled me up into an embrace. It was short-lived. “We have to get you away from here.” He helped me to my feet. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
