She shifted back to her fae form. Wedged herself tight against the bare stone wall. Sleep was a waste of time. Tears were a weakness. But Gwen could not be strong a moment longer.
8
ARRAN
I did not stop to speak, no word of comfort nor royal decree. I carried my mate into the castle just as dawn lit the horizon, gilding the green mountainsides opposite Eilean Gayl in gold. For once, not a single cloud lingered in the sky. A clear and cold day was coming. Veyka may be too stunned by her grief to think and plot, but I was not. As Veyka slept, I met the rising sun, and I planned.
Two dueling priorities danced in my mind. Annwyn and Veyka.
We had to muster the terrestrial army encamped at Wolf Bay and arm them with amorite. Then find what remained of the elemental forces—if anything remained at all. Word must go out to every corner of Annwyn, warning commoners and lordlings alike of the succubus and how to fight them. Information was as powerful a weapon as steel now. I would do everything within my power to protect Annwyn—except sacrifice Veyka.
She was willing to give all, but I was not. There had to be another way to banish the succubus. We had both survived such torment, such torture together and apart. The succubus could not have her. Annwyn could not have her. If that made me everyinch the villainous Brutal Prince the realms believed me to be, then so be it. I could bear their hate. But I could not bear a world without Veyka in it.
Maybe this new facet of her power would be of use. It would certainly change the calculus on a battlefield.
Behind me, Veyka shifted, rolling over in her sleep. She was so pale, her skin nearly translucent beneath the streaming morning sunlight. Ancestors, was this the cost demanded for opening that portal?
The price has already been paid, she’d said. Delirium? Or something worse.
Her words had the ring of prophecy. I’d heard enough of them over the last year to recognize. But I’d be damned if another prophecy was allowed to claw at the edges of the frayed happiness that Veyka and I had found together.
She’d kicked away the coverlet, despite the fact that her body had been cold as ice when I laid her in the bed. The raging fire might have something to do with it. Our room was now near sweltering, but still, I did not bank the fire or open the window. I’d shed most of my own clothing. What remained of the sheets tangled around Veyka’s body, leaving limbs haphazardly exposed.
My eyes traced the line of her long leg. Even relaxed in sleep, I could see the defined muscles of her thigh and calf. Those muscles had trembled beneath her and then given out completely when the rift she’d opened overpowered her.
If she could learn to sustain rifts like that, we could move units around a battlefield in seconds, rather than minutes. We would never be able to fully supply our armies with amorite weapons, but using the portal rifts I could create specialized amorite-wielding units and move them around at a moment’s notice to wherever the fighting was thickest.
As I watched, she shifted in her sleep, rolling away to face the door with one arm draped over the curve of her hip. Her newly inked Talisman extended from her cheek, down her neck, twining all the way around her arm to stop just above her wrist.
An elemental had never been inked with a Talisman. Never. Unlike mine, hidden on my chest most of the time, Veyka’s tattoo would be on display to every elemental and terrestrial she met for the rest of her life. It was the ultimate symbol of unity. Only a terrestrial could have inked the tattoo. She’d proven herself to the citizens of Eilean Gayl by fighting to the death to defend them from the succubus. She was truly the High Queen of Annwyn.
For three hundred years, I had not particularly cared if I lived or died. All that mattered was the next battle, the next war to be won. I did my duty, to prove to the world that I—and by extension, my family—was worthy. When I’d assumed the helm of Terrestrial Heir, I had not really comprehended what that meant. I’d accused Veyka of being selfish.
But maybe Veyka had been right all along. She’d retreated from her role as elemental queen and heir because she had understood the full gravity.
Had I forced her into this? Pushed her to become queen, to fully assume her role, and thereby assured her death to fulfill this one last prophecy? If she’d run after the Tower of Myda, like she’d always planned, we’d have never become mated. She would never have fulfilled the Void Prophecy. Her end would not be fated.
In loving her, I’d doomed her to death.
Fuck. It was my fault. All of it.
But my mate would not pay for my mistakes.
I stepped closer to the bed, close enough that I could see the callouses on her hand. She’d built them over years spent with a blade in her hand. She would be a formidable weapon on anybattlefield, even without her void power. With it, she would fly around the enemy, stepping in and out of the void, dispatching the succubus faster than even I could. She would change the ratios of fae to succubus that I had committed to memory in the halls of the goldstone palace.
Her body was no longer glowing, but her pale skin still shone, revealing her for what she was—a beacon of hope in this dark war.
My hands ached for her, but I held them closed and backed toward the window once again. I would not disturb her rest. As my eyes traced her body, reassuring myself of her safety and her strength, I played through battle plan after plan in my mind.
Every scenario I considered had one motivation. If we could defeat the succubus with our armies, then maybe Veyka would not have to sacrifice herself.
Maybeis not an option, my beast growled.
I would find a way to save my mate and Annwyn both. Or I would take her and sail across the ocean to a distant continent. She could take us through the void to another world entirely. But I would never let Veyka die.
Annwyn be damned.
Arran.
