My fault.
I did not speak of Gorlois or Percival’s betrayal. Or what had come after.
“If you cut off their legs, they will crawl. If you burn them with fire, they will pause. But the only way to kill them is to cut off their heads or stab them with an Amorite blade,” I finished.
Around my recounting of the Void Prophecy, Elayne had sunk back into that hard, high-backed wooden chair. The silence stretched out between us as I watched her trying to comb through everything I’d told her. The world I’d turned upside down with little warning.
I forced myself to remain standing. If I sat down, I’d lay down. If I laid down, I’d close my eyes and lose myself in trying to forget this entire mess.
Elayne lifted one hand, pinning two fingers to her temple while her elbow rested on the arm of the chair. The weight of the truths and considerations I’d dropped too much to bear. A huffed exhale. “The Great War… it was not about elementals and terrestrials at all.”
I jerked my chin to the side. “Or at least, not wholly.”
Her next thought— “The amorite mines.”
I nodded, more steadily this time. The erasure of our history was unsteady ground. Weapons and solid actions, I could handle. “We need weapons. And as many amorite necklaces, earrings, and trinkets as we can manage.”
She was nodding along now, that arm dropped. Good—she was moving into acceptance.
“You are the queen from the Void Prophecy.”
My chest constricted but I ignored it. “You must have expected it. You were waiting here, expecting me to reappear.”
That earned me a half smile. Hell, even the shape of her mouth was like Arran’s. Would our own children bear this uncanny resemblance? A dozen emotions roared to life within me at the musing I’d stupidly allowed to sneak out. I shoved all of them back down.
“I knew your magic was special,” Elayne said. Maybe she’d supposed it some type of wind magic, like Arran had once suggested. Terrestrials did not come to the elemental kingdom. It was entirely possible Elayne, Pant, and the rest of their retainers had written off my strange power as an elemental oddity. That was easier than accepting vague historical prophecies as fact. “But the succubus appeared before you came into your power. How can they be linked?”
Exactly what I needed to get out of Diana and Percival. I rubbed the palm of my hand over my brow and down my cheek. Question Diana. Get the amorite. Warn the terrestrials. Figure out the nonsense with the sacred trinity and Arthur’s secrets. Get back to Baylaur. Arran. Fucking hell. Tired? It was a wonder I got out of bed each morning.
For a long time, you didn’t.
“Perhaps the Offering acted as some sort of trigger. From what I can glean, human minds are easier to take over than fae. But in the end, they will come for all our males. Turnthem against us, rip us apart, until we are dead defending our children, and then they are carrion as well.”
Morose. But it was the truth.
My heart ached for Maisri. She was safer in the faerie caves then she was here in Eilean Gayl. The succubus had not come here yet, not that Elayne had heard of. But that was a blessing that would not last.
“Perhaps,” Elayne allowed, tapping her temple with those two fingers. She shifted in her seat, the struggle on her face evident.
Because she’d revealed all of her tells to me? Or because she’d decided on honesty?
Sadness, calculation… and worry. “Arran was with you at Avalon.”
Don’t ask.
I nodded.
“You came to warn us, but he did not. Is he seeing to some other task, something you cannot tell me?” Her voice was hopeful. The golden thread in my chest squeezed tighter, trying to protect my heart.
I shook my head.
Please, leave it at that.
But she loved him. I saw it in her eyes, recognized the emotion I’d seen reflected back in Arran’s long before I’d been able to give him those words.
“Where is my son?”
I sank down onto the bed.
