After we rounded the corner, Toryn loosed a tense breath. “What do you think about all that?”
“I think we’re fucked.”
Fenella scowled. “Do you really think Oberon is dead?”
I pursed my lips and moved toward the nearest building just beyond of the courtyard—a sagging old pub that had been fairly untouched by the fires. “All I know is Morgan is hiding something, but what that might be…”
With a shove, I threw open the door and shot a cursory glance through the darkened building. My fingers tightened on my bow when I spotted the figure leaping up beside a table near the back wall, a wild look in her deep brown eyes. She glanced from me to Toryn to Fenella and back to me again. And when I looked at Tessa Baran’s horror-stricken face, I knew—knew—that every word Morgan had spoken was the truth.
“Well, shit,” I muttered.
Tessa held up her hands. “Wait, listen. It was an accident.”
“Tessa?” Toryn started to walk toward her—he’d always had a soft spot for the girl—but Fenella threw out an arm to block him. Seemed she was on the same page as me.
“Let’s all just take a moment,” I said quietly as I gave Toryn a small nod toward the open door. We’d barely left the courtyard, and Kalen’s keen hearing picked up things even I missed at times. We couldn’t risk him hearing her voice, not yet. Not until we understood the full situation. If his vow snapped him into action…
Toryn’s lips flattened as he understood the direction of my thoughts. “He would never harm her.”
“I don’t think he has a fucking choice,” Fenella muttered.
Tessa paled while Toryn closed the door behind us, hopefully blocking any of our words from reaching the others outside. Tension pounded in my skull. Truth was, outside, I knew I was the portrait of calm confidence. I’d learned to mask my thoughts long ago. I would take control of this situation and make it right somehow—at least, that was the front I presented.
But deep down, I had no idea what the fuck I was going to do about any of this.
If Tessa had really done it, if she’d been the one behind the comet in the sky, there was nothing anyone could do to stop Kalen from enacting his part of the vow. His words—his promise to his mother—were laced in ancient magic that could never be broken. Not by any of us.
Only by Kalen’s mother herself. And according to Morgan, she was dead.
Even if Tessa hadn’t meant to release the god, it wouldn’t matter. Kalen would be forced to go after her. And that might very well be the last crack in his already shattered soul. He’d never said it, of course, but I could read the truth in his eyes, in the way he looked at her. He might not realize it yet, but he’d fallen in love with the girl. And if he killed her, it woulddestroyhim.
“Now, I’m going to listen to what you have to say,” I started as Toryn edged back up beside me and Fenella, who was staring at Tessa with the same mask of calm I wore, “because I know what this will do to my king when he finds out you’re here—”
“You’re going to tell him?” Tessa hovered behind the table, keeping the charred wooden furniture between her and us, like that would save her if I had to make a move. And damn it, I might have to. At the end of the day, my loyalty was to my people and my king. I would shoulder his burden if there was no other way.
“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do.” I lifted my arrow. “Now talk.”
Tessa’s eyes darted to Toryn, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him give her an encouraging nod.
“We’ll figure this out,” he said. “Just tell us what happened.”
And then she looked at Fenella. She got no word of encouragement there.
So Tessa blew out a breath. “I know this looks bad, and well…I guess it is. If you’re wondering why I vanished, it was because Oberon took me from the camp when we were all sleeping.”
“Not sleeping,” Fenella corrected, her fingers twitching by the daggers strapped to her side. “He hit us with a dose of valerian fog. Knocked us out for so long, you were halfway to Albyria by the time we woke up, according to Boudica.”
Tessa frowned. “That’s odd. The valerian only knocked me out for an hour or two.”
“How is that possible?” Toryn asked.
“I don’t know.” Tessa shook her head. “When I woke up, I was on the back of a horse, and Oberon was leading me through the mists. He wanted to bring me back here, to lock me and the gemstone necklace in a vault beneath the castle.”
“He wanted to lock you ina vault?” I asked incredulously.
“Shockingly, Oberon had a change of heart near the end.” Her eyes went distant, and her jaw tightened. “All this time, Oberon knew exactly what I was—the descendent of the God of Death. And he somehow knew that I—far more than Nellie ever has—suffer from that darkness. He wanted to lock me away so I could never use my powers against this world. Me and the necklace.” Sighing, she closed her eyes. “Oberon was a monster, but…he tried to fix things in the end. I didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
I knew some of this, of course. Kalen had confided in all of us after he’d learned the truth about Tessa’s heritage. At the time, he hadn’t seemed at all concerned. Thousands of years was a very long time, especially for mortals. Generations had come and gone, and the power would be diluted by now. Tessa had never shown any inclination she might have powers, other than a tad more physical strength than most mortals. But that could partly be explained by how much she’d trained to scale that damn chasm wall.
