In the hollow quiet, I glance at Luceran. He lifts a hand to shield his eyes as golden light pours through the windows, melting ice running down the glass in slow rivers. He blinks, turning away when it becomes too much, and I notice how the glow of his mismatched eyes dims, adjusting, perhaps, to a world no longer bound in sleet and gray.
As the cold leaves the land beyond the windows, the sun gives his skin color. He is still pale, but warmth has begun to find him: faint color in his cheeks, in his fingertips, a blush dusting his collarbones.
Yet even with the demon destroyed, with Luceran’s soul freed from the guilt and grief that has haunted him for a century, I know the worst is not behind us. Atilia’s expression makes that much clear. Though I have saved her from a terrible fate, it has not softened her resolve.
“You must send her away,” Atilia says firmly. Her eyes do not rise to enforce the words; they remain fixed on the stone floor. “It is the only way to keep her safe.”
“No,” Luceran says at once, so swift my head snaps toward him. “Her place is at my side.”
Atilia lifts her gaze then.
“Luceran…” She draws a steadying breath. “My son. Please. What you want is forbidden. For a High Fae to take a human lover is one thing. Keep her hidden if you must. But to love her openly. In the light of day… where they can see you…”
“Yes,” Luceran interrupts, his voice steel-cold and unyielding. “Where they can see.”
He turns to me, and though his eyes no longer burn with unnatural light, they are the clearest, most honest I have ever known them. So unguarded it feels as though I am seeing them for the first time.
“I do not want to hide,” he says. “I do not want to live with regret. Not anymore. This castle has been my prison, and I will not spend another day trapped within these walls when Neve has risked her life to set me free.”
His gaze returns to Atilia.
“To set you free, Mother.”
Her nose twitches, as though she has caught the scent of the rotting fruit, but I know that is not what unsettles her. She straightens the lace cuffs on her dress and exhales. Her gaze returns to the floor.
“It is not that I am ungrateful… Neve.” Only when she speaks my name do I realize she is addressing me. “Whatever compelled such bravery is something I am thankful for. But surely you must understand that you and Luceran can never be happy.”
“But I am happy,” I say, and her gaze lifts halfway, reluctant, as if even looking at me costs her something. I glance at Luceran, who sits a few feet away, though the distance between us feels like a chasm. A smile finds my lips despite the horrors that still claw at the edges of my thoughts. “I am happy because I am in love, and because Luceran is free.”
The familiar, condescending click of Atilia’s tongue follows. “Silly human girl. You are living in a dream that can never be real.”
“Mother,” Luceran says, his voice edged with a low, gravelled warning. “If you have nothing worth hearing to offer, then take your leave now. Neve and I…”
“Neve and you?” She is suddenly on her feet, her chair scraping sharply across the stone. “Do you understand what you give up by loving her, Luceran? The lands you will lose?” Her throat bobs as she swallows. “The family you will lose.”
Luceran rises, though not fully straight. He bends slightly, wincing as the lingering pain in his healing body catches him. His jaw tightens as he pushes through it and walks toward me, the vastness of the hall collapsing until there is nothing but the narrow space between us.
He stops behind me and rests his large hand on my shoulder. Where I once braced for cold, sometimes even yearned for it, there is only warmth.
“I would never wish to lose family,” he says, “but I will not love Neve in the shadows, in darkened corners where my title is honored but my heart is not. You spoke of the light of day, Mother, and that is where Neve belongs. With the sun upon her skin and golden light in her hair, and if I must forsake my birthright to stand in that sun beside her, then so be it.”
He pauses, then swallows.
“You watched over me when the darkness tried to drag me to the bottom of that lake, alongside all the others who followed the voice when it called to them. If not for you, I know I would have been dead long before Neve Devlin ever stepped foot in this castle.” His voice softens. “Please do not make me choose between the hand that kept me above water and the hand that will lead me into the light.”
Atilia’s lip trembles, a faint sheen glazing her blue eyes. Her jaw tightens as she straightens her shoulders.
“This is what you want? Truly, Luceran?”
He nods without hesitation.
“And you? Neve Devlin. If you choose my son, your life will never be what it was.”
I smile and tilt my head, looking up at Luceran as his thumb glides slowly along my shoulder. “My life was not so remarkable before. There were glimmers of joy, of laughter and love, but there was pain too.”
“You believe being together will spare you pain?” she asks almost mockingly.
“No.” I shake my head, laying my hand over Luceran’s. “But we will not have to endure it alone ever again.”
