“No.” She shakes her head. “I can’t take this.”
“In a few days, exchange it for silvers. Start adding a coin to each deposit for your debt. The record will say Illusion has increased your salary with tips. But wait until I get confirmation from Kassandra. Either way, on the record, you’ll be safe.”
Only three rings tattooed on each wrist. After centuries, she is so close.
“I don’t understand.” Her voice cracks.
“It can’t free you completely, but it will set you on that path quickly, within a year or so,” I say.
“And your debt?”
“With the Reign Crest salary, I will find my freedom soon enough.”
Briar looks up. “Avery, I…”
“For that family you have been waiting to start.”
“I can’t accept this,” she rasps.
“You and your descendants can be free. Your family could even build wealth one day. Please take it. Please.”
Tears roll down her cheeks. Then her face cracks, and she weeps desperate, broken sobs. Reaching forward, I cradle the older faerie as if she were a child once more. It is so simple to care for her as she has cared for me, for Kassandra, for countless others. It is so simple, and yet her cries stamp themselves forever on my soul.
—
In the earlyhours before dawn, I am exhausted, but sleep eludes me. Kassandra was not in her apartments when I stopped by earlier. I do not know where else to go. So I scrape together the last of my energy to lace to a familiar sight, even if just an echo of a life I once shared with my mother. I walk to the empty training halls.
In the dim light provided by the stars above, I take in the racks of axes and crossbows and swords and clubs. Why must the High Fae craft beautiful weapons for such horrible acts?
Walking across the cushioned fighting mat, I reach its center, lowering and crossing my legs. My fingers trail along the seams of the mat, cleaned by some faerie—perhaps Carter—in the day since I was here last.
Why? Why him, Mama?
It was a question I asked her many times as an adolescent, in the years when my rage poisoned every interaction we had, a delayed fury I felt on behalf of the child I was, and because my father was not there to take it, my mother did.
Why him?I would scream.Why did you not leave him sooner?
She chose to love a monster and I did not, and yet he consumed us both.
Because I loved him,my mother would say, crying.Because it was hard to leave.
Every time she reached for me, I would shove away her hand.Don’t touch me.
Okay, I won’t.
We did not touch for years, and then for years after that as our shames and secrets drove us apart. Only her dying brought us back together again. Only when her skin was paper-thin did I feel how easily it could bruise. Only when she soiled herself did I bathe her and understand it as a simple, reverent act, to keep a loved one clean. Only when she shivered did we share a cot once more, her bony body sheltered in mine. Only in those final days did she whisper childhood dreams and childish hopes, and I dared not beg her to stay, not as she moaned in pain and struggled for every breath. All I did was listen and cling to her essence as if I could keep her from death itself.
But sitting on that fighting mat in the middle of the royal quarters, I reach clarity. After hearing the king’s weak protestations before ultimately conceding to comfort, I understand. In a kingdom of killers, my mother chose a fighter in the hopes that he would fight for us.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I say, tears pouring down my face. “Please forgive me.”
Something shifts in the air around me, an enveloping and a letting go, an old guilt finally laid to rest, and I draw a deep breath. And although it may be foolish, I believe, once more, in my mother: that she has come to listen to the words that only now I have the humility to share.
The plane stills, almost reverent. On silent feet, the executioner circles before me. “You grieve for many. May they wander well.”
I wipe my face. “Why are you here?”
“Why areyouhere?”
