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“I fought my entire life to become the High Queen of Annwyn.” Her hands clenched tightly around her weapons, as if she might be able to physically fight the emotions clawing their way to the surface. “I cannot stop wondering whether I would have been good at it.”

Parys could not stop the hoarse, shocked chuckle. “Gwen, you are calm, composed, strategic, loyal, dedicated to Annwyn. You put aside your own feelings to do what is best. What the hell else could be required?”

She blinked. “A heart.”

Gwen might struggle to show emotion, but Parys didn’t. He could keep them locked down when needed, like any true elemental. But he did not try to stop himself from sitting up, from staring straight at her as he said forcefully, “You have a heart, Gwen.”

Her mouth twitched. “Do you know what I felt when Arthur died?” A beat of silence. “Relief.”

Parys rocked back on the lounger. Surprise, confusion, hurt… no, not hurt. He expected the hurt, waited for it, but it did not come. And what did that say about him?

“He was your friend,” Gwen said, her voice coated in pain now. Pain she wasn’t holding back. “How could you ever be mine, knowing I felt that way?”

Still, the hurt did not come. A low ache in his gut, the echo of a memory. The place inside of him that would always belong to Arthur. But that searing pain he expected, was waiting for? It did not come. And he knew what that meant… that he’d finally accepted it. That he had started to move on.

“How do you feel now?” Parys asked, giving his full attention and heart to the friend who sat in front of him, rather than the one who was gone.

Gwen closed her eyes tightly. “Empty,” she said softly.

Even with her eyes closed, he knew she sensed his movement. But she held still, let him reach for her. Let him clasp her hand between his tightly. “You deserve friends, Gwen. No matter what you did or who you were.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Parys let his eyes drift closed, so that any more tears she shed might be hers alone.

A rush of warm air washed over him. He opened his eyes—to find a massive black and brown lioness sprawled at his side. The huge, menacing head rested on folded paws, golden eyes staring out at the night. Slowly, he let his hand come to rest on the thick, warm fur.

Parys reached for the forgotten apple in his lap. Somehow, he knew that Gwen would not be eating tonight.

69

VEYKA

“It is this way, I am sure of it!” Maisri cried, tugging my hand in earnest.

“You said that about the last tunnel. And the one before that.”

“It isn’t my fault that you stopped to talk and I got distracted—”

“Iwasn’t talking—the faeries were,” I corrected. Which was mostly true. I couldn’t go anywhere in the tunnel and cave city without being stopped.

Some were content to bow or whisper behind their claw-tipped hands. Others were desperate for news of Annwyn.

A home they’d left but never forgotten.

Then there were the glares. The disapproval. The hate.

I could stand that easier than the fawning. I’d spend twenty-five years at the elemental court. Even closeted in the water gardens, I’d learned how to withstand that sort of judgment and distaste.

Maybe because of the water gardens.

And I may very well spend the next hundred years of my life trapped in the maze of subterranean tunnels.

As soon as Lyrena was back to full strength, we’d leave. The wound had been deeper than I’d realized, even after Isolde came to heal it. My golden knight tried to hide her pain, but I saw the way she grimaced as she tried to crawl and navigate the compact tunnels.

We’d been there for two days. We could spare a few more.

If we emerged from this sanctuary and found the succubus waiting, at anything less than full strength, we would not live to find Avalon.