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Then I would be gone. Then my secret would not matter. That fragile thing that had existed between us… its destruction was as inevitable as the revenge that I would exact.

“Where are the others?” I heard myself say, exhaustion lining my words.

“Gawayn and Gwen are stationed in the corridor. Parys is in the library. Your handmaidens have not returned,” Arran said, voice devoid of all emotion.

I’d felt the brunt of his hate and his lust. But this was worse.

He looked at me as if he didn’t care if I lived or died. It was no more than I deserved.

But was it?

Didn’t I deserve to keep my secrets? After everything that had been done to me, all that I’d survived… didn’t I deserve to share the layers of myself in my own damn time?

This is what it means to be a queen.

To have no secrets. To put the wellbeing of the kingdom before my own.

That was exactly what I was doing—had been doing all along. If anyone knew that the queen—the queen no one had wanted to begin with—lacked even the tiniest drop of magic, it would tear Annwyn apart.

I was doing the kingdoms of the fae a damned favor. Hunting down the traitor in our midst and then promptly faking my own death. It was the only real option. As a martyr, I might be useful. As a powerless queen, I was a destabilizing threat.

But none of that was why I hadn’t told Arran my secret.

He’d given me all of his, and I’d held back.

Arran, who stared at me with a face entirely closed off. A face I’d learned to read over these past months, now slammed closed. Now looking at me as if I’d grown a second head.

“Do you have something to report?”

I tilted my chin upward, letting my eyes fill with challenge. My hands slid down to my waist, hooking casually around my daggers. Arran fingered his axe. This was how we’d begun. It was only fitting to descend back here once again.

“Cyara has awoken.”

His hand stilled. “I will send for her sisters.” His shoulders eased slightly—glad the conversation was over so quickly. He wasn’t as indifferent as he’d like to seem.

“Not yet.”

He paused, tightening instantaneously.

“We must speak with her privately before Charis and Carly come.”

Arran’s eyes went to the closed doors to the corridor, where Gawayn and Gwen no doubt heard every word of our conversation.

Without a word to me, he turned and strode through the antechamber into the bedroom, aiming for the door I’d left ajar and Cyara waiting beyond. As I followed, I realized—he hadn’t been there in that close little room while I stood watch over Cyara.

But he hadn’t been far.

66

ARRAN

“My father is eight hundred and ninety-seven years old,” Cyara said, positioned carefully on her forearms.

I didn’t glance at her wings, what remained of them. I’d seen enough battlefield wounds, inflicted plenty of them myself, to know better than to look at the gore when you didn’t have to. No matter how hardened you were, it chipped away at something inside.

This was a battle, I’d realized as blood seeped from my veins, matting my white fur and staining the lush rugs of my suite. Arthur had been the first casualty. Everything since then had been tactical movements from different regiments and legions on the field. The Royal Council, the Shadows smuggling humans, Veyka herself. Long and drawn out, but bloody and devastating nonetheless.

The delicate handmaiden had been a willing foot soldier deployed by her queen. Now she’d make her report.