It was impossible to tell for sure with her already white skin, but I imagined that Isolde paled.
We ate in blessed silence for a few minutes. Maybe I would get lucky, and they would let the conversation drop. I needed time with my thoughts, anyway. To figure out my next move. Ancestors, how I missed Arran’s warmth and strength at my side.
You don’t appeal to the Ancestors anymore, the voice in my head reminded me.
Right.
I broke a stale travel cake in half, dipped it in the green stew, and tried not to wrinkle my nose as I forced down bite after bite.
Of course, I was not actually lucky. Not in the way I’d hoped, at least.
Isolde was fascinated. Eager to press, she leaned forward on her toes, dangerously near to the fire. “So, if you moved through the void, from the human realm to Annwyn, you would emerge on the same spot?”
I nodded. “Like one of the rifts.”
“But that is not what happened at the Joining,” Cyara said between bites.
I was going to strangle her. Even if it meant facing the harpy hiding beneath her skin. “No. It is not.”
I turned to Isolde, the only one who hadn’t heard the story. “I crashed through rifts, realms, uncontrollably. Painfully.” I shot a look at Cyara, to remind her. As if she needed it, after all she’d been through. “I saw the Split Sea, and a castle I did not recognize, and Avalon.”
Isolde nodded along, her white eyes sparkling as she considered. “But those are not in the same location, through the layers you describe.”
I shoved the last bit of travel cake into my mouth, the stale grain sticking in my throat. “No.”
“So you could enter the void here… and step out on the other side in Baylaur? On the other side of the continent, in an entirelydifferent realm?” Her voice was full of wonder. What would it have been like to learn about my void power in safety? To explore it as a gift, a beautiful wonder, instead of a means to an end? A weapon for battle?
It did not matter, I told myself. Making my body into a weapon had been my choice from the beginning. The only way of protecting myself.
There was no use in second guessing that reality.
“Yes,” I said to Isolde. She was right—in theory. But I hadn’t done it.
“And other realms? What about other realms? The monolith above the faerie caves showed many layers.” Isolde’s mouth hung open with excitement.
Of course, she’d have examined the monolith. It was directly above the entrance to the refuge of the Faeries of the Fen. Perhaps they’d erected it at some sort of marker, thousands of years ago.
I looked accusingly at Cyara and Lyrena. Had they been discussing this with Isolde? Had clever Cyara set up this whole conversation, to push me to make decisions, to move forward?
There would be no moving forward. Not without Arran. And if my Knights were foolish enough to believe otherwise, then as their queen I owed them a lesson in reality.
“I haven’t done it,” I said sharply.
Isolde licked her lips. “But you could.”
“If I truly command the void…” I closed my eyes, pushing down the flare of power and light inside of me. The void called to me, eager for me to come and play. As if my power knew what we discussed and yearned for me to try. I shoved it down, willing that ember to rest. “I do not know what I could do.”
That was the starkest truth.
I wondered if I would ever stop hating this vulnerability. Sharing these suppositions aloud. Not about the wellbeing of Annwyn or some plot, but aboutmyself.
A shiver slid up my spine, through my shoulders, and down my arms like lightning to my fingertips. I tried to shake it out; pulled the cloak that I wore around my shoulders. It was always so damn cold in the human realm. Yule was only a few weeks off, and then it would turn even more frigid.
I hated the cold.
But if I had to sit here in the snow drifts until my mate was healed, I would.
I stared into the fire, unable to meet any of their eyes. I heard the familiar sound of steel being drawn from its sheath, then the repetitive swipes of Lyrena polishing her sword. Goldstone Guard, Knight of the Round Table. That was the warrior who finally broke the silence. “We would have allies in Eilean Gayl.”
