“She is Tiana’s to kill.” Badb passes us like she’s commenting on the weather.
The firepit crackles. The Dagda chats with someone about the ways of Faerie. Casual. Unhurried. Like the world isn’t ending.
I can’t sit still. Can’t accept that he’s justgone.
“Amarantha has been summoning Finnian for over thirty—” Orion tries, then winces at the look on my face.
“Exactly.” I spin on him. “And no one thought to question that? Thirty years of her calling him to heel like a dog and everyone just?—”
“Well, no.” Kieran pinches the bridge of his nose. The gesture is so human, so exhausted, that it almost breaks through my rage. Almost. “She is family.”
“Family doesn’t try tofuckfamily!” I’m losing it. I’ve accepted the mental loss. Embraced it, even. “Family doesn’t murder your parents and then spend three decades trying to crawl into your bed!”
“Trouble.” Kieran grips my cheeks and turns me to face him. His hands are cold, they’re always cold, but the touch grounds me. “We didn’t know about the sword. How could we?”
I open my mouth to argue.
“Ash.”
His ice-blue eyes hold mine. Steady. Patient. The prince who chose treason for a woman he barely knew, looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing.
I close my mouth.
“Wonderful news.” Badb pokes her head out of the tavern door. Her silver eyes glint with chaos. Hard to tell with war goddesses. “Finnian is back.”
I shove Kieran out of the way and scan the tree line. “Where.”
“With Tiana.” Badb’s smile stretches too wide. “He’s to kill her.”
Then she disappears back inside.
Oh hell no.
I follow that crazy goddess right into the tavern because she can’t just drop a bomb of that proportion and expect me to—what? Let it go? Accept it? Sit quietly by the fire while the man I love is being used as an assassination weapon?
Hell. No.
“Badb!” I storm through the tavern door for the first time since we arrived.
And stop dead.
All three of them are here. The Morrigan. Macha. Badb. Seated around a table, cards in hand, tankards of something dark at their elbows.
Playing poker.
“What the hell are you three doing?”
“Poker.” The Dagda appears behind me with a tray full of beer that he sets on a nearby table. “Want me to shuffle you in?”
“No.” I draw the word out, staring at the scene before me. Three ancient war goddesses, responsible for more death than I can comprehend, playing cards while Finnian is— “Why are you playing poker when Finnian is supposed to murder Tiana?”
“What do you want us to do about it?” Macha asks, not even looking up from her hand. She studies her cards with the intensity of someone contemplating whether to raise or fold.
My mouth falls open.
“Ash, darling.” The Morrigan sets her cards face-down on the table. “You should rest.”
It is not my fault what happens next. Just putting that out there.
