The days bleed into one another, and still he does not wake.
I keep giving him the tonic. He doesn’t implode. At first it helps, his breathing steadies, the pain eases, but with each dose its effect lessens. He grows colder. No matter how much I stoke the fire, no matter how many blankets I pile over him, his body refuses to warm.
I don’t know what to do.
I can’t eat. I can’t drink. I can barely think.
How am I meant to keep him alive?
I’m not a healer. I don’t understand the intricacies of whatever curse coils around his heart. I balance numbers. I read storybooks. I don’t bring Fae lords back from the brink of death.
Where is Atilia?
The thought echoes through me like a plea flung into the dark.
And then, one day, as if she heard it…
She appears.
She barges into my room, her hair tightly braided down the length of her back, eyes wide with panic.
“What happened?” she demands, already crossing the room.
She goes straight to the bed, takes his hand in both of hers, and her expression tightens. “He’s freezing. Put another log on the fire.”
I do as she says, though I know it won’t help.
“There was a cave-in,” I tell her. “At the Aurevault. He fell.” My voice catches, but I force myself to go on. “Then he turned into a wolf and climbed out. When he reached the top, he collapsed. That was four days ago.”
“I should have been here,” she says, panic threading her words as her thumb strokes over his knuckles. “The moment news of the collapse reached my estate on the far side of the mountain, I came as fast as I could. I have my people at the Aurevault now, stabilizing the tunnels, tending to the injured.” Her jaw tightens. “Luceran would never accept my help. But now he has no choice.”
I frown, the pieces refusing to fit. “Your estate?”
How would a servant have an estate? Why wouldherpeople be dispatched to the Aurevault?
“Who are you?” I ask.
It isn’t a question anymore. It’s long overdue.
Atilia doesn’t look at me. Her hand continues its steady, soothing motion over Luceran’s cold fingers.
“I am his mother,” she says quietly.
And suddenly I see it. The sharp lines of the face, the set of the jaw, the same unmistakable presence I somehow overlooked.
“But why?” I ask, reeling. “Why don’t you live here with him at Castle Frostwyn? Why pretend to be his servant?”
“I did not pretend to be anything,” she says coolly. “You assumed. I did not correct you.”
I shake my head. “That does not explain this.” I gesture helplessly. “You cook for him. You tend to him like a servant. Nothing you do is how a Fae noble would behave.”
Her chin dips, her shoulders sagging just slightly.
“When Luceran’s wife died, his grief was immeasurable,” she says at last. “Unlike anything I have ever witnessed, and the circumstances of her death…” She trails off. “He descended into a despair so deep that no one, not even his mother, could reach him.”
She swallows.
“I could not help him, and I could not endure another century watching him suffer. So I left Castle Frostwyn. I lived alone.” Her voice softens. “But I could not abandon him entirely. I returned when I could. Took care of him. Hoped that each time I came back, something in him would have changed.”
