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I gripped her waist and kissed her softly. Why it mattered so greatly that she would let me be alone should I need it, I didn’t know. But it did. It was as though she took me as I was. As though she truly did not mind if I wanted to dwell in darkness. It burned through my heart to know, broken and unsettled as I could be, she finally knew of me again. She finally . . . wanted me.

“I wish to join you.”

“Really?” There was a heady kind of relief in her voice, her eyes.

“I should be there. This is . . . this is our fight.”

Calista let her shoulders slump a bit. “Thank the gods. I’ll admit this to you alone, but I’m terrified.”

I wrapped her in my arms and tucked her head under my chin. Calista hugged my waist.

“That battle sod, he terrifies me. He’s . . . he’s a nightmare to me.”

“He won’t touch you.”

“He could. Hedid. He was so close. Hells, the way he toyed with us and we didn’t even realize it is horrifying.”

“I know.” I pressed a kiss to her head. “But we know his games now. We’re all together. Our song, it brought the kingdoms together. He is strong, but so are we.”

She squeezed my waist a bit tighter. “This is why I want you with me. You think you do not have clever words, but your words always speak the right things to my heart. So, obviously, my reasons are utterly selfish, but who the hells cares?”

I chuckled and took her hand. “Lead the way. I can promise you, I will let you do all the talking.”

Calista smiled. Dark as the future appeared, her smiles were swiftly becoming the brightest part of my days.

Chapter33

The Phantom

The Cursed King.His mortal Queen of Choice. I counted the first familiar faces on my fingers, subtly, at my side where no one would notice.

The Shadow Queen. Gods, I hated that ring on her finger. The damn thing took a particularly brutal death for Calista to set it on its path. The Shadow King. He seemed as bothered with all this chatter as me.

There was Calista’s Sun Prince. I respected him the most. He’d been like Annon had been—a brother. Even locked in madness, I knew through the bond with Calista that the Sun Prince protected her.

Next to him was his consort. The pyre fae.

I narrowed my eyes. There was something burning from Tor. A nudge, a path unseen. With Calista near, I could damn near see when significant paths of fate might fall into place. And I felt something with the pyre fae. His life could possibly change. Soon.

The dreary part of these senses were that I did not know if it was a change for good or ill.

My gaze swept over to the far side of the table where Niklas bent beside the first Night Folk king to be tangled in one of Calista’s paths. Arvad. The father of one the final fated royals.

Arvad abandoned his chair, followed by two other men, and swept from the hall with the Falkyn.

I hoped they found a way to heal Lilianna. She had played a grand role in the steps that brought my mate back to me.

Perhaps, the notion of speaking with them sent my head spinning, but I would always honor them. I would always value them for the dangerous roles they played in this tale. The way they aided Calista on her own path without even knowing they did so.

My attention went to the head of the table. The Raven Queen. She’d been a princess when last I saw her as a boy. She’d always been kind to me. We had spoken some when I was still her brother’s ward.

I doubted she’d recall it. Curses had a way of tangling thoughts into confusing memories.

Upon a glance at the final seat at the table, my chest cramped. Instead of no one taking note of my secret assessment, I was met with the burn of dark, golden eyes, folded arms, and a general sense of annoyance.

The Golden King looked like he might want to toss the drinking horn in front of him at my head.

Calista led us into the room. Under Ari’s scrutiny, I hung back, half-drenched in the shadows of the alcoves and doorways. While the others embraced Calista, inspecting her for dreary wounds, my blood turned to ice when he rose from his seat and crossed the dim hall.