“It wasn’t easy.” Kalen cut his eyes my way. “We’ll need you for the next fight. This war is far from over.”
“It’s only begun,” Ruari said in a rough voice, and there was something in his tone that curdled my blood. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Gaven slung his hands into his pockets and took a step away from the horned half fae. Interesting.
Kalen’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like the look on either of your faces. Is this about your father, Ruari? Did he do something else before he died that’s going to cause problems for us now?”
Ruari loosed a breath, but it was Gaven who spoke. “After you left, we discovered Morgan is in fact…well, I don’t really know how to say this except as bluntly as possible. She’s not Morgan. Your mother lives, Kal. She took Morgan as her vessel, and she lives.”
Fuck.
Kalen’s jaw clenched, and his eyes went hard. The bond between us snapped tight, and I could feel the avalanche of emotions that threatened to bury him. So much anger and so much grief, but there was a flicker of relief among it as well—something I knew he wanted to hide. I shifted closer to him and rubbed his back, but he didn’t react to my touch.
When Kalen didn’t respond, Gaven continued. “Somehow, she escaped the dungeons. We didn’t spend long looking for her because we were readying ourselves to march to your aid, and we had to get moving. It wasn’t until we reached the Gaoth Pass that she appeared again. To Ruari.”
Ruari tensed as he met Kalen’s eyes—his half brother’s eyes, I realized. In a sense, anyway. “She waited to approach me until after Gaven had gone up the mountain to Dubnos. She was trying to tempt me into joining her in Gailfean.”
“Gailfean?” Fenella asked with a frown. “Why’d she want you to go there? The city is nothing but rubble now, and it’s not as if she has any past connection to that place. Right?”
She glanced at Kalen, but he didn’t respond. He barely even breathed.
“She said Andromeda gave it to her,” Ruari said, holding up his hands. “She plans to forge a new fae kingdom while the gods push forward to the mortal lands. That’s what they’re doing right now, by the way. All of this…I think it was meant to be a distraction, a way to keep us occupied while they go to Talaven. They don’t care about Aesir as long as we don’t fight them. They want the humans.”
I sucked in a breath. “But the storm fae said this city had to die.”
“No doubt they meant it,” Ruari replied. “This kingdom is ruled by Kalen Denare, who is a great threat to them. Fortunately, they still underestimated us, but I’m certain they won’t make that mistake again.”
I cast a glance at Kalen. His face was still hard and unreadable. I knew this was difficult for him to hear, particularly the part about his mother. Not only was she alive, but she was serving the gods now. She was his enemy and his blood. I’d heard him speak of her before he’d known the truth, and I’d seen the look on his face when he’d thought Oberon had killed her. There was a deep love there. A centuries-old love.
Just then, a gray gemstone flickered from a small pile on the war table. Niamh’s solid, steady voice drifted into the room. “Kalen Denare.”
I sagged against the table as Kalen snatched up the stone and lit a flame beneath it.
“Niamh,” he demanded. “Are you all right? Where are you? Is everyone safe?”
“I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
“Val,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. I’d tried not to give in to the fear she might be dead, but it had still sat there in my gut, a constant presence these past few days. But she was fine.They were all fine. It almost seemed impossible to believe.
“Listen, we don’t have long, so I’ll be quick. The King of Talaven is readying his army. We’re sailing to Aesir’s aid with one hundred ships carrying archers, swordsmen, and battle-ready horses. Just hold out a little longer.”
Kalen nodded, and I found myself gripping the edge of the war table. “Niamh, the gods are—”
“Yes, about the gods.” Niamh’s face began to waver on the stone. “There’s something important I need to tell you, but I need you to sit down.”
“Oh, fuck,” Fenella muttered. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Tessa was not the one who brought back the gods, and neither was Oberon,” she said in a fierce whisper. “It was someone else, someone who made a bargain with Andromeda. It’s a long story, so I won’t go into all the details now. All you need to know is that Andromeda’s soul—her essence—could not return without an anchor to this world. A tether.”
An anchor.
“In exchange, this person was gifted eternal life. And as long as she lives, we can’t get rid of Andromeda, though killing the anchor won’t be enough to banish the gods again, either. You need something much more powerful.”
A low rumble sounded in Kalen’s throat, and a wave of grief washed over me. There was only one person in the world that could be, and Niamh was right. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Oberon, either. Kalen had voiced this fear aloud to me a couple months ago. Since then, we’d both dismissed it. His mother was dead—or so we’d thought.
But now it all made sense. Kalen had been able to brush aside his vow so easily when it came to me. It wasn’t because of our bond or his repeated insistence that Oberon had been his vowed enemy. Deep down, I’d always known there was more to it than that. I’d always suspected. It had beentoo easy. Because his mother, now residing in Morgan’s body, had been the one this whole time. And so the vow still held.
Killing her would destroy him, no matter what she’d become.
