“Why was it in my closet?” I press my palm to my face.
Tiana shrugs. “Not even your father had access to your closet, Kieran. I figured Ash would find it eventually.” A pause. “And look. She did.”
Thirty years. This woman replaced the Stone of Fál with a fake thirty years ago and Amarantha never noticed. I look at Tiana and recalculate everything I thought I knew about her.
“Does Amarantha know it’s gone?” Because the moment she finds out, she is going to lost her shit.
“Nope. The fake is very convincing,” Tiana says. “I put it in about thirty years ago.” Her smile is the sharpest thing in this clearing. “She really shouldn’t have killed my mother.”
Vicious. I respect it completely.
“The Treasures are together.” I look at the four of us.
“Not completely.” Orion rubs the back of his neck. “I need the Cauldron.”
“Dagda is making breakfast. We can just ask him for it back.” Ash pauses. “Here he comes now.”
“Dragons!” he shouts, throwing open the tavern door. “DRAGONS!”
“They’re here.” Ash turns, her eyes going hazy.
I watch her face.
Not the dragon. Not Dagda in the doorway. Not the implications of whoever is walking through that forest toward us.
Her face.
The way her eyes go bright and then immediately wet. The way she takes one step forward and then stops, like she can’t trust the ground yet. Like she’s afraid to run toward it in case it turns out to be another thing that disappears.
I know that feeling. I have lived in that feeling for three hundred years.
I hate that she is feeling that right now. That pure hope and love and excitement for the arrival of those she loves. And when a dragon crests the tree line, the broken sob that leaves her chest will sit with me for the rest of my days.
This is what I’ve been fighting for. Not a court. Not a throne. Not the Stone in her pocket or the war waiting at nightfall.
This. Her face when something real arrives and stays.
I would burn every court in existence to keep that expression on her face.
I already knew that.
Standing here, watching her take that first step toward her family, I finally understand what it means.
“My family.” Her voice breaks open on the word. “They’re really here.”
49
Ash
Sometimes when Ilook at the sky and see the colors on the horizon visibly change, I like to think it’s Faerie reacting to my moods. Or maybe Faerie just has moods of her own.
I’m not sure.
But when a golden dragon crests over the Dark Forest to circle the tavern and land… I swear Faerie reacts.
The sky deepens its colors, as though every heart of Faerie desires to witness this moment.
And I’ve lost the ability to breathe.
