Page 65 of A Promise of Lies (Shadows of the Tenebris Court #3)

64

Bastian

N yx… No, my mother squeezed my hand. Although I couldn’t touch her, I felt the cool whisper of her being as it drifted through my fingers.

The blackened coals of the crown stirred to embers as soon as it touched Katherine, blazing to life, the fire blending with her hair, casting a warm glow on her face where minutes ago she had lain here seized by the pallor of death.

A crown didn’t make her a queen, but she was my queen. I would honour, worship, obey, kneel before her and beg, if I had to. Anything she asked.

The light to the east was brighter by the time it was done and I felt every single one of the hours I’d been awake as well as several more.

I scowled at it, not ready to say goodbye, and found Drystan scowling at it too.

“As bad as each other,” Nyx muttered.

He made a low grumbling sound, pulling her hand into the crook of his arm as he turned to Kat. Apparently the King of the Dead could touch even ghosts. “You have my mirror.” He raised his fingers as she opened her mouth. “I heard you through it. You were rather loud. Take it and cast it into the sea.”

“Won’t it break?”

He scoffed. “You think a mirror belonging to the King of the Dead can be broken? Bastian, you have been neglecting her education if she believes fae artefacts are so easily destroyed.” But the way he shook his head was goodnatured, so like Kaliban, it hurt but a good kind of hurt.

The kind that said I’d been loved. Always.

“Throw my mirror into the sea. It will end up where it needs to be.”

Her brow furrowed and I could feel her hesitation where she held my hand. I couldn’t blame her, “where it needs to be” sounded ominous.

But she agreed, and Drystan stepped back, ready to return to his realm. “The sun comes.”

In that moment, I hated it for doing what it always did. This one night, I’d have welcomed an extra hour—even just an extra ten minutes.

“Goodbye. And… thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. There wasn’t enough time to work that out.

Nyx peeled herself from Drystan and bent close to me. “I needed you to survive,” she whispered, “but I always wanted you to be happy. And now I see you are, I can rest easy.”

With that, she rejoined Drystan and around them, the whole host, including the Horrors herded by the Wild Hunt, became thinner as the sky grew brighter.

She was right. I was happy. Bastian Marwood, not the Bastard or the Serpent or the Shadow. Me .

Kaliban flashed a grin at Kat. “I told you you were loud.” He and Sylen raised their hands and faded from sight.

With an approving nod, Drystan gathered a smiling Nyx close, and they disappeared into a burst of ravens who scattered to nothingness, leaving us alone with the rising sun.

“The Sleep,” Kat muttered suddenly, as though a spell had broken. “Drystan said I’d know how to use this thing when the time came.” She touched the Crown atop her head as if checking it was still there. “Let’s see if that’s true.” She tiptoed, steadying herself on my chest, and kissed my cheek.

There was the faint sensation of something snapping—a distant thread that whiplashed back to me, driving the breath from my lungs.

Kat flinched, staring up at me. “Are you?—?”

“Yes.” I caught her hand and held it to my chest as the sun broke the horizon and no Sleep came for me. “All is well.”