“Now, listen,” I said to her. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get there, but if they separate us, don’t concern yourself with Alastair and me. We’ll be fine. Just do what you can to get answers and find a way to communicate with Kalen as soon as you can. You still have a gray gemstone left?”
Val kicked out a leg and pulled the other to her chest, where she rested her chin on her knee. “How about, instead of all that, I convince the king he has nothing to worry about when it comes to the two of you.”
Not a question. A statement.
“Val, they clearly have a problem with us fae. You do what you can. Worry about us later. Getting answers is more important than keeping Alastair and me out of whatever cage they think will hold us.”
“Um, no. I think I’m with Val on this one,” Alastair said, still chewing. “No more locked rooms for Alastair, thank you very much.”
“I don’t like it, either,” I said. “But if Val puts up too much of a fight, they’ll throw her in with us and refuse to give her any answers.”
But Val was Val, and I knew she’d do whatever the fuck she wanted.
After the wagon entered the city gates and made its way through the maze of streets, it settled to a stop outside the castle itself. Val put on her best glare before she was even ushered out of the cage, while Alastair and I were locked up again. I watched as two guards led her to a middle-aged man whose mousy brown hair was topped with a golden crown embedded with onyx and tiger-eye gemstones. An emerald silk robe engulfed his wiry frame, and a light wind dusted the bottom hem away from his feet to reveal a pair of rough leather sandals. Interesting attire for a king.
Concern clenched my heart when the guards forced Val to her knees, but she didn’t so much as flinch. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
“You’d better be careful,” Alastair murmured.
I dragged my gaze from Val. “Me?”
“Yeah, or all that steel around your heart is going to melt.” He cracked a grin and shot me a wink he usually reserved for all the women he liked to romance—opting for jokes now instead of shouted swears. He mustreallybe struggling to hold on to his composure.
“I don’t have steel around my heart.”
“No? When’s the last time you did something fun?”
I shot him a smile full of teeth. “Couple of weeks ago. When we fought all those beasts. If you don’t remember, I’m more than happy to show you how much fun I can have with a weapon.”
He just chuckled. “Who’re you going to fight? That king over there? Because if we want answers, I don’t think shooting an arrow through his head is the right approach, although I can’t say I don’t see the appeal.”
“He’s going to take Val away,” I said through gritted teeth, shifting my eyes back to her blazing red hair. The guards had stepped away from her now, and she spoke quietly and fervently to the king. I tried to make out her words, but they stood just out of earshot, even for me. I wondered if the king had planned it that way. These mortals seemed to know far more about fae than I’d given them credit for.
But then Val turned to us with a victorious glint in her eye that was nothing short of breathtaking. Something in my chest warmed.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “You might be right.”
* * *
The king ordered the guards to release us from our chains, and then he led us inside to his grand Great Hall, where his throne perched on a bedrock of more amber-colored tiger-eyes. The hall was empty and silent save a handful of courtiers, who bustled out of the room as soon as they got a look at Alastair and me. I wasn’t sure if it was our pointed ears, our dirtied faces, or our red-streaked eyes. Maybe all of the above.
It had been a long, irritating journey, and I wore its imprints like a fucking scar.
As the king settled onto his gaudy throne, I touched the spot on my cheek that had never healed. Oberon, the bastard, had almost killed me that day on the battlefield. Some people looked at me with pity when they saw my scar—mostly fae. Humans understood that kind of thing more than fae did. But whatno oneunderstood was that I was glad for it. My scar was a daily reminder of everything we fought for and everything we fought against.
And it was what had brought me here to this mortal kingdom beyond the mist-enshrouded shores of Aesir. We had to find a way to save this world against inevitable doom.
“So,” Duncan Hinde, the King of Talaven, said as he laced his fingers together in his lap, “your friend here, Valerie—”
“Val,” she cut in. “Just Val.”
“Right,” he said, trying—and failing—to hide his irritation at being interrupted. “Val here told me you’ve come about the comet. And that you plan to fight against the creatures who call themselves our gods. She insists you’ve had nothing to do with their return?”
I arched a brow. There was something so odd in the way he spoke about this—so matter-of-factly. “You don’t seem alarmed or particularly surprised.”
He cocked his head as if measuring his words before he spoke. “We’ve been anticipating their return for a very long time. Thousands of years, in fact.”
“We thought as much, which is why we’re here. We need to know everything you can tell us about the prophecy that foretells their return.”
