Gryffin urges me to take the stone between himself and Maddox. Instead, I drift toward my barrel-top, unable to look at those flickers of orange and red without seeing the bridge being consumed.
“Everett Gathin,” a gravelly voice calls from the clearing’s edge, a voice I know all too well. One that has saved me and damned me.
Our chieftain waits by the trees, the mammoth trunks dwarfing one of the tallest males in our clan. With my shoulders high, I march toward my fate. Instead of anger twisting his features, he remains carefully neutral, almost impassive, as if he spent the last few hours lounging in his carriage instead of watching our hope of survival vanish into ash and smoke.
I come to a stop just out of reach, realizing belatedly that Gryffin and Maddox have joined me, halting a few steps back, blades in hands and scowls on faces. It is strange to see Maddox doing anything but smile.
The chieftain spares them no more than a glance, a flicker of something crossing his features before settling into indifference. “Is what they say true? Are you the son of the Seelie king?”
My father had accused my mother of being unfaithful during one of his many tirades. I had never believed her capable of such deception.
Until I stumbled upon the small trunk tucked beneath the bed.
I still remember the first time I dared to open it. What I found within made no sense.
Dresses, brightly colored and finer than anything I had ever seen. At the time, I knew little of wealth, but it was clear from the silken fabric to the golden thread that those gowns had cost a small fortune. There was no way my father would have had the means to purchase them, let alone the opportunity.
Never had I considered that the person who gave her those dresses could be the King of Willowhaven.
“I believe there could be some truth to the accusation, yes.”
His dark brows jump up his forehead, and he drags a thick hand down the sharp line of his jaw. “Did you know?”
“I suspected that my mother might have had an affair with a Seelie nobleman but did not know that he was the king.”
Although I do not turn around, I can feel the lads’ eyes boring into the back of my skull. No doubt they are wondering why I never disclosed my suspicions. In truth, the story was not mine to tell, but my mother’s.
One she had taken to her grave.
It was not my responsibility to resurrect such things.
The chieftain’s low curse hangs in the mist between us. “That makes you the heir to the throne of Willowhaven.”
“I am heir to nothing.”
Slowly, he closes the gap between us, his eyes beseeching as he lays a heavy hand atop my shoulder. “Do you not see, Everett? You can help our people.”
“Only a few days ago, you said I was a disgrace to our kind.” I do not wish them ill, but none of those in the camp stood up for me when I was faced with exile. They have known me since I was a child, watched me grow up, helped mold me into the male I have become, and like the flick of a switchblade, they abandoned me without remorse.
The chieftain’s hand falls to his side, his jaw flexing as he considers his words. “For that I am sorry. I judged you in anger and blamed you for my daughter’s misery. You did not deserve exile for being truthful about your feelings.”
No, I did not. If Leah had been anyone else, I would have received a month’s shunning and nothing more. Instead, he handed me a death sentence.
I give him a brusque nod.
“If you claim your birthright,” he says, “you can give us access to the well.”
If the birthright is even mine.
Who is to say for certain? And even if I were the king’s heir, there is one tiny fact that negates all of it. “There is no more bridge.” The link between my world and hers has been irrevocably broken. All that remains is smoke and memories.
A slow smile spreads across the chieftain’s face as his head swings toward the tree, his dark eyes alight with something akin to hope. “Then we shall build a new one.”
54
“I am not afraid.”
Kerris Dawn, A Lie
