Is this what it feels like to have people share the emotional load?
I wipe my face again and find it wet. “I used to think all fae were like that. Monsters. But…” I look at each of them, and my voice cracks. “You’re not.”
Sylvian gives me a lopsided smile. “We try.”
Ashton tilts his head. “Maybe you’re the monster, now. Making us feel things. Making us care.”
The laugh that escapes me is ugly, but it’s real. I feel better than I have in years, even with the pain still raw inside me.
We sit in the light of the torches, pressed together, and the walls don’t feel as close. The memory is still there, but it’ssmaller, less sharp, like the edge has been worn down by sharing it.
I glance at the window and wonder if my mother would have liked these men. I think she would. I think she’d be proud that I’m not alone.
I look back at them. “Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
Oberon ruffles my hair. Sylvian leans his head on my shoulder, and Ashton pretends to be offended he wasn’t first. Cassius just watches me, his eyes full of promise.
I think, for the first time, that I might belong somewhere.
Even if it’s in a cell. Even if it’s with four fae princes and a thousand ghosts. Especially then.
20
Oberon
Something in me goes still in a way that isn’t natural, like a beast that’s just caught a scent it doesn’t like. My jaw tightens, a slow grind of my teeth, and my gaze drags from the others to Alette.
I feel like I’m memorizing her. The tension in her shoulders. The way her hands curl in her lap, like she’s bracing for something that already happened years ago.
My chest pulls tight.Six. She was six.The thought lands heavy, wrong, impossible to ignore. A flicker of something hot and vicious curls low in my gut. Rage. Not the easy kind that I’m used to wielding like a weapon, but something sharper. Quieter. The kind that settles deep and waits.
I imagine it, before I can stop myself. Alette, small and shaking, hiding from a bloodthirsty fae. Alone. Listening. A fragile human who didn’t have the power to save her mother’s life.
My hands curl at my sides, fingers digging into my palms hard enough that I should feel it. I don't. Not really. What I feel is the echo of her fear. What I feel is the hollow, aching certaintythat no one was there to pull her out, to tell her it was over, to carry her away from it.
My throat tightens. I hate that. I hate that she had to endure it. I hate that the thing that did it still breathes. I hate, most of all, that I hadn’t known her then. That I hadn’t been there.
The thought is irrational. Useless. It doesn’t matter. Even though it still burns.
“I get it now,” I say softly.
“Get it?” Alette asks, looking confused.
“I get why you hate us,” I say, not looking at her, but at the floor. “The fae, I mean. All of us.”
Nobody says a thing.
“It makes sense,” I go on. “If I saw that happen to my mother—” My voice cuts off. I don’t want to finish the sentence, but now I’m committed.
So I do.
“I watched my own father die. Not the same way, but close enough. He died fighting the monsters. They ripped his arms off before he could even use his magic.” I force a laugh, sharp and ugly. “The next day, my mother drank poison. They said it was an accident, but I was old enough to know better. She chose not to go on. And the courts, my own people, let her.”
Cassius looks at me, face blank, but his hands curl, slow and deliberate, into fists. Ashton leans back against the wall, head tipped to one side, eyes narrowed. Sylvian is quiet, actually listening for once.
The silence stretches. It’s too heavy, too full.
I could stop here. Should stop here. But the words are already out, and once they start, they don’t seem to want to stay buried.
