“After everything I’d gone through to reach you, you still wouldn’t leave with me. I put my life in danger to find you, and you still chose him. You continue to choose him, every single day, even if it means sacrificing me in the process.”
I stepped back, his words striking me with brutal force. My heart hammered against my ribs, and my hands shook at my sides. “Callum, no. I would never —”
“Ah, but you do, Cadence. Don’t deny it. You heard the warning. Yet here you are. If you loved me, truly loved me, you would have left with me that first night.”
A sharp keening noise rose in the air, visceral and harrowing. It threaded through the trees, mingling with the hiss of the wind and the lingering echo of chanting, pulsing in the shadows.
I sank to my knees, covering my ears, but it did nothing to quiet the screeching wails. The sound wormed its way into my marrow, into the softest, most fragile parts of me.
My brother took a step closer, crouching before me, and gazing upon me with… pity?
“You need to leave, Callum,” I said as I choked back a sob. “Before it’s too late.”
My brother’s gaze softened. “If you walk away now, you’ll be free. They will realize you were not meant for him.” Callum stood to his full height, extending his hand to me. “You want to save me, don’t you, Cadence?”
I did. More than anything.
But this was a test.
It had always been a test.
I straightened, forcing strength into my spine as I glared at the creature wearing my brother’s face. “You are not my brother,” Isaid, my voice sounding stronger than I felt. “This is a trick. An illusion.”
The creature grinned, appearing inhuman. “Then by all means, Little Queen, step forward and find out.” It threw its arms out to the sides, inviting me closer.
I didn’t move.
Its smile stretched impossibly wider, splitting at the corners until rows of needle-sharp teeth appeared inside its mouth. The creature snarled, its features flickering from Callum to a hollow-eyed stranger and back again.
The forest pressed in as branches reached for me with gnarled fingers, and the runes blazed brighter, casting everything in a sickly glow.
“You think you’re clever.” The creature circled me like a beast stalking wounded prey. “But knowing doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”
My fingers gripped the hilt of another dagger as I dragged it free. The voices surged around us again, no longer content to whisper and leer. Screams filled my ears, and I had to concentrate to block them out.
“Because even if I’m not real, I still wear the face of the one you betrayed, and you cannot strike, can you?”
I lunged forward without warning, driving the blade through its heart. The creature stared at me in stunned silence before it began to writhe and crack. Dark veins spread out from the wound, climbing across its chest and crawling up its neck.
“You can’t kill the truth,” it hissed as black blood bubbled up its throat.
“No,” I said, turning the hilt. “But I can silence your vitriol.”
With one final shudder, the creature crumbled into ash, disintegrating on the ground right before my eyes. The whispers in the trees faltered, then faded into stillness.
I stood alone in the tree line, panting, as sweat mingled with the damp mist clinging to my skin. A light breeze stirred the branches above, no longer jeering, but watchful.
The forest had tested me, and I was still standing.
The Unseelie Fae thought they could judge me, but I was never theirs to weigh. And no matter what they threw at me, one truth remained.
I would not break.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ryker
“No offence, Killer, but monster you is an asshole.”
