Morrigan follows without a backward glance.
But Macha pauses. Those void-black eyes find mine as she crosses back to me, pressing her palm to my chest exactly where the bond lives beneath my shirt.
“It would do well for you to remember.” Her voice carries harmonics that make my teeth ache. “Her debt is to you. No one else. Not your father. Not the courts. You.”
She drops her hand and walks out.
The bond pulses. Silver-blue and red, orbiting each other like binary stars.
Ash bound herself to me to protect me. Sacrificed her freedom so my father would never discover the Spear. And I’ve been sitting in a tavern while she rots in his court.
The shame of it settles in my chest like a stone I can’t cough up.
“I need rest.” I push away from the bar on legs that feel like they belong to someone else. “There’s a second floor with rooms. I suggest you each choose one.”
“That’s it? We just wait here for them?” Finnian asks.
“Yes.”
“Bollocks.” Orion slams a fist on the bar top.
“The three of them just demonstrated that we are vastly outpowered.” I stare at the entrance, still feeling the echo of divine magic pressing against my chest. “Whatever they have planned, we should shut up and listen.”
“Then we should rest.” Finnian’s tone is clipped. Professional. The voice he uses when he’s holding something back. “Go. I’ll lock the bar.”
He doesn’t look at me.
He hasn’t looked at me in three weeks. Not really. Not the way he used to, like I was someone worth seeing.
I could say something. Should say something.
Instead I push through the door to the second floor.
Some silences are easier to carry than the words that would break them.
My father taking Ash and exiling the three of us has left a bit of a stain on our relationship.
I look around at the tavern. The old frames of sketches on the stairs leading up. The worn wood. The smell of ale and something older, earthier.
It’s familiar in a way I can’t name. Perhaps because the borderlands have always existed between things. Between courts. Between worlds.
Between who I was and who she’s made me.
I push through the door to the second floor and sink onto a dusty bed then drop my head into my hands.
Everything has gone so absolutely, fundamentally wrong.
I should be there. In my father’s court, playing the role I’ve perfected for two centuries, the cold prince, the dutiful son, the monster they need me to be. I should be teaching Ash to navigate the Trial of Survival I know they’ll force on her. Should be standing between her and every blade my father will aim at her throat.
Instead I’m exiled. Useless. And the only one protecting her is Kestra.
My sister. Who walked back into the court that nearly destroyed her. For a woman she barely knows.
For me.
The bond pulses at my wrist. Faint. Steady. Ash is dreaming, I can feel it. The connection goes soft when she sleeps, like she’s finally stopped fighting long enough to let me in.
Snowflakes drift from my fingertips onto the dusty bedspread. I watch them melt.
