Then,“I do not want to deal with shifters again. Or their schemes. Or mortals and their causes. Your lives are short and terrible, and I am ancient and terrible, and I should not have to deal with any of you.”
“And yet…”
“And yet…”She sounded dry and sarcastic.“It is difficult. To watch you make a mess of battle from the inside and say nothing.”
“Thank you.”I did mean it. When she wasn’t trying to force me to say it.
“I am not going to intervene again.”Her rumble of a voice was fervent and unconvincing.“I saved your life. Once. That is sufficient. I do not want to participate in your rebellion and watch you watch everyone you love die and then die yourself. It is dull. The whole enterprise is dull.”
I looked at the sea and wished I could see her. Could see what she would look like when I shifted into her.
She was lying. She couldn’t help it. She’d tried not to care, but she’d failed; she knew it, and she was annoyed about it.
I understood this feeling.
“I am sorry you’ve been dragged into this world and into my head. But I’m grateful you saved my life.”
“You should be.”
Then she went silent once more, but I found I was smiling, despite my exhaustion. I made my way through the ruins of the city; the streets were full of mortals, eyes glazed with shock, as they surveyed the ruins.
The city was still standing. The eastern wall was not, but the city behind it was.
The mortal woman with the pike and the low Fae were still alive, sitting in the rubble, each tending their own wounds. I wondered if they despised each other when they had time, as I had always known of low Fae and mortals, or if they had entered the fight already knowing how to be allies.
Two Obsidian shifters were working to push a monster off their fallen friend. I stopped as they lifted their friend up between them and began to carry him away.
Obsidian could be terrible and cruel. I had seen that at the low Fae castle. They had also fought tirelessly and bravely to save these mortals. They wouldn’t have stopped fighting, no matter how many of them had fallen, one by one.
And it occurred to me, as it had not when I went with Fear to get the knife, to save my brother, that the queen had sent them to die because of us.
I would make the same decision again. But if they knew, and if they hated us…I would understand that too.
I went to find Fear.
Forty-Two
Fear
“Over here!” Griega, one of Obsidian’s shifters, shouted from the rubble.
I was the nearest so I went to her. Broken bits of stone shifted under my feet, and the sun reflecting off the glittering sea was almost blinding through the gaps in the wall. Terrible storms and sea monsters both ravaged this town and would again if the wall was not repaired, but the queen needed the sea ports. Or so she claimed.
“What do you need?” I asked her before I saw the stretch of skin visible through the stone.
Her gaze flashed up to me, her eyes widening as she registered who I was.
As a dragon, I took the fallen chunk of wall carefully in my mouth and shifted it away to drop it elsewhere. As my head swung to one side, she pulled the body free. I shifted back because unfortunately, Obsidian needed its prince now. I would’ve rather escaped into Shadowbane.
She checked for life, cupping her hand over his throat, leaning over to search for a heartbeat, over and over.
I waited. There was no rushing the acceptance of a clan member’s death.
Finally, she sat back on her heels, pulling her hands away from him abruptly. “He’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
Her eyes searched my face as if she were surprised.
