“Well?” She plants her hands on her hips. “Are you going to lie there bleeding all night, or are you coming inside?”
I push myself up onto my knees.
The tavern sits ahead. Warm light spilling from the windows. Smoke curling from the chimney.
“Inside,” I manage. My voice sounds like someone dragged it over broken glass. “Inside sounds really fucking good.”
I don’t look at my hands. They’re shaking and I don’t want to know how badly.
None of them mention it. But Orion’s palm settles against my spine. Kieran’s shadow brushes my ankle like a cat. Finnian’s shoulder presses against mine.
We walk toward the light together.
I don’t look back at the forest. I already know what I’d see.
Some things are better left in the dark.
33
Finnian
Amarantha’s clawssink into my chest the moment everything around me feels possible.
Ash’s laughter rings through the Dark Forest, bright and real, and Orion is saying something ridiculous about tavern food, and even Kieran’s mouth has curved into something that might be a smile if you squint. We’re walking together. The four of us. Alive. Whole.
And that’s when I smell it.
Roses. And underneath, sweetness gone rotten.
Amarantha.
The summons doesn’t ask. It warns and then it takes.
“No—” I gasp, and then I’m on my knees without remembering falling. The brand in my chest ignites like someone poured gasoline on my ribs.
She’s calling me the Seelie Court.
I don’t want to go.
My ribs try to separate. My body attempts to exist in two places at once. Here, with them. And there, in her crystal court where she’s been waiting. Always waiting.
The others stop.
Orion reaches for me first. His hand grips the back of my neck. Warm and solid and literally the only thing keeping me from dissolving.
“Hold on.” His voice holds steady but there’s a pulse of fear to him I feel more than I see. “Finn. Hold on.”
“What is it?” Ash slides down beside me, her knees hitting dirt, her hands hovering like she wants to touch me but doesn’t know where.
I can’t talk. Every word I have is being used to keep myselfhere. Physically. With them.
The summons pulls harder. My vision whites at the edges.
“Seelie summons.” Kieran settles on my other side. When I manage to focus on his face, there’s no judgment there. No distance.
Just kinship. The look of one leashed prince to another.
“Seems the Summer Sword is about to become active.”
