Page 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

R IVEN WAITED FOR ME at the end of the long tunnel that led to the crypt. A small faelight danced around his shoulder and I stilled. He stood in the shadows of the tunnel, and for a moment I thought his powers had returned. His face was that of the Fae I had come to know, come to love, everything exactly the same except for the violet eyes that were now an unmistakable royal green, the only thing left of Killian, his other self. The part of him that had been a lie.

This was the first time I had allowed myself to just look at him.

The new Riven.

The true Riven.

The Halfling with no secrets left to hide behind.

I cast a ball of wind and pushed him into the wall. “I’m not in the mood for conversation.”

“There are a thousand different problems raining down on your head, Keera.” Riven kept his back against the root-packed earth, but his shoulders curved toward me like a bow around its arrow. “The right mood will never find you. You keep yourself too busy for it to catch up.”

“And why is that, Riven?” My words were so hot they stung the dry patches of my lips. “It couldn’t be that this rebellion was once led by a council yet I am the only one at my post. Nikolai is captured, Vrail and Syrra are too sick with grief to be useful in meetings let alone do their duties, there was a prince who was handling his fair share for a time, but it seems he never truly existed and his real identity fled .” I’d stalked so close to Riven that I could hear his pulse quicken in his throat. “Perhaps I am busy because everything has fallen to me .”

Riven’s jaw pulsed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was leaving you with so little support.”

I scoffed. “Of course you didn’t. You abandoned us. You abandoned me.”

There was a surprised gasp at the turn of the tunnel. The outline of three Halflings was visible by their shared faelight. They scurried backward to give us our privacy, but I just started walking down the tunnel.

Riven matched my pace. He grabbed my hand and pulled me right along a fork. We walked in silence until we reached Killian’s—Riven’s—bedroom door. He yanked open the stone without hesitation and held up an arm for me to go inside.

I looked at it for a long minute. I had a dozen other things I should have been doing, but being distracted by Riven would keep me from doing them well.

Better to get the conversation over with.

I hadn’t stepped foot into the bedroom since knowing the truth. There was a coldness to the bed and stacks of books along the floor. Did Riven ever sleep here during his ruse? Or was this just another place for Vrail to spend her nights, glamoured and reading until dawn?

Riven bit his lip. He leaned against the tall bedpost. “The books are mine. I do like to read. I did a lot as a boy, and I still try now.”

I swallowed. “Glad to know at least that wasn’t part of the lie.” There was an edge to the words I couldn’t dull. I wasn’t sure why I cared. Riven had never presented himself as the bookish one, that was reserved only for Killian.

He had always told me as much of the truth as he could. But now it was my job to stitch those truths together into one form. Like the blanket covering his mattress, violet and jade sewn together with a seam down the middle.

“Did Syrra agree to attend the meeting tomorrow?” Riven’s hand hung oddly at his side, caught between stretching and resting.

I leaned against the hardness of his door, keeping as much space between us as possible. “I didn’t ask.” My jaw pulsed. “She won’t leave her sister’s side.”

Riven’s head jolted back. His long black hair spooled over his shoulder, released from his usual half braid. “She didn’t care that Nikolai is alive?”

I pocketed my tongue in my cheek and twisted my boot along the ground.

“You didn’t tell her?”

“She’s a wreck, Riven.” My voice cracked as I spoke. “She doesn’t have a little hope left—she has none. I’m not going to stoke a dead flame until I have something tangible to give her.”

Riven crossed his arms. “She deserves to know.”

“She deserves to have a sister who isn’t dead!” The words passed my lips before I could think better of them.

Riven recoiled like I had punched him in the jaw. “You do blame me, then?” The rasp in his tone was brooding, dangerous. I felt like a rabbit being circled by a fox, and I didn’t know from which direction its pounce would come.

“This has never been about blame, Riven.” I slumped against the back of the door and let my body sink to the ground. “I can understand the choice you made and still be angry for what happened.”

“Angry at me?” Riven swallowed. “You’re angry at me.” It wasn’t a question but a resigned statement. His sharp features fell flat along his face, like he had been waiting for me to admit just that.

“Yes,” I whispered. I wiped my sleeve across my cheek to catch the tears. My throat burned with the need for wine, and my body ached so badly I knew a week’s rest wouldn’t alleviate it fully. “I’m angry at you for the lie. I’m angry at Damien for the game he played. I’m angry at Feron for not telling me, and I’m angry at Nik, and Vrail, and Syrra for that too. I’m angry that everyone has their part in this, but I’m the only one still fighting.”

“I was looking for Nik!” Riven’s fangs glinted in the silvery glow of the faelight.

I rolled my eyes. “You left because it was easier. Because it’s what you do. You make decisions for people. You decide what they’ll think, how they’ll feel, and you leave because you can’t bear to be proven right.”

Riven blinked. “I was always coming back. I would never leave you.”

“You didn’t stay an hour after we made it back to Aralinth.” I huffed a laugh. “You didn’t even tell me where you were going.”

Riven’s mouth snapped shut. He drummed his finger along the post as his jaw pulsed. “I knew what you were going to say.”

“No, you didn’t.” I leaned my head back against the stone. “But enlighten me, my prince. Since you know my mind better than I do.”

Riven’s brow cast a shadow over his eyes at the mention of his title. For a moment it was almost like his powers had returned. “That you regret it. That without my death hanging overhead, the truth was too much for you to truly forgive. Everything looked different when we made it back. Everything is different.”

I stood even though the bones in my legs felt like sand. “Regret forgiving you? Or loving you?”

Riven winced. “Both.”

It was the most heartbreaking word I’d ever heard.

I walked over to the bed and sat down on the plush mattress. Riven didn’t move. His body was rigid, the same way he would be whenever his magic caused him more pain than usual. His brow still twitched even though his powers were gone. The weight of his regrets was more painful than any magic could be.

For the first time since it had been severed, I wished for our bond. That my touch could keep that pain at bay for just a moment. But maybe Elverath had known better when she gave Riven back his life, not as a Fae or Mortal, but as a Halfling. Without the pain of his magic to distract him, he could finally face the pain of his legacy of lies.

I knew better than anyone that journey had to be led by oneself.

I pressed my head against the post Riven had been leaning on. “I chose you.” Tears pooled along my lashes, but they didn’t fall. “When Damien offered me that deal—Maerhal or you. I chose you . Even though I promised Nikolai to bring his mother back to him. I made that choice without a second thought.”

“If you had known the truth—”

“Stop.” I waved my hand through the air and sent a blast of wind into Riven’s chest. He slid back against the wall, and his jaw snapped shut.

I pulled myself to the end of the bed. “You do not get to diminish my choice because you regret yours. You kept the truth of your identity a secret, and it cost you. It cost us . But that doesn’t change that I chose you, Riven.”

A tear streamed down his face. “I didn’t deserve it.”

“But I do!” My words echoed against the hard stone of the room. “That choice was taken from me once before.” I lifted the arm with Brenna’s name etched into the skin. “She didn’t give me a choice. I would have plunged that dagger into my own heart a thousand times for her. I would have killed a thousand people to save her, but she took that choice away.” The image of Brenna’s poison-stained lips flashed across my mind as if I were still trapped inside that moment. As if I were realizing that she was already dead all over again. I cleared my throat and met Riven’s hard gaze. “I’ve had to live with that. I have loved her and resented her for thirty years. I deserved a choice then just as I deserve a choice now—I earned it. And I chose you.”

Riven’s lip trembled but he didn’t say anything.

I stood. I had no fight left for this anymore. “You want to earn my forgiveness? You want to make it right? Make it so that choice doesn’t go to waste?”

Riven still didn’t speak. I turned to leave, I did not have it in me to fight for the both of us. I was almost at the door when Riven’s rasp broke the silence. “What if I can’t live with that choice? Yours and mine? What if I never get past this?” His jade eyes swam in a pool of tears as I turned back to face him.

I shrugged. I didn’t have the answer any more than he did. “You either find a way, or you let it consume you. That choice is yours.”

Riven retreated further into himself. His shoulders slumped forward, protecting him, and for the first time I saw the young prince that he had once been.

“You told me once, in Koratha, that you believed you inherited your father’s legacy, and it was on you to end the Crown. At whatever cost.” I’d thought I had been speaking to the prince about the weight of his crown, but knowing the truth now, it was so easy to see that the Crown never left Riven’s head no matter what face he wore. “You said it to me as Killian, but what does it mean for Riven?”

“It changes nothing.”

“Doesn’t it?” I waved my hand around the room that was very much not the kingdom. “Your father came to these lands to conquer the Elverin for his own gain. He killed entire bloodlines that will never resurface.”

“I know.” His jaw pulsed. “You learned the stories from your tutors at the Order and then from the knowledge keepers here, but I was four , hearing my father boast about it over a flank and flagon of wine.” Riven’s lip pulled back over his fangs.

“If it disgusts you so much, then why do you let your father do the same to you?”

Riven stilled. “What do you mean?”

“You speak of your grand legacy. You give so much credence to your lineage under the Crown, but doesn’t your mother deserve just as much? Are you not the son of Laethellia Numenthira just as much as you are Aemon’s? Perhaps even more so, since you fight for her kin and not his.”

Riven’s jaw hung slack.

I swallowed. So much of I wanted to say stormed inside me. For Riven, but also for the younger version of me who ran from my troubles at every chance she got. The hard truths I’d come to learn had to be shared. I owed it to that young girl who was left in the Rift. “You exist because of this war, Riven. And as such, you have been dealt choices no one else has had to make. You will—you have—made mistakes. If you keep running from them, you will always wrestle with that anger. And the others you make angry. But the truth is that you can only do one thing as you move forward.”

His word was barely a whisper. “What?”

“Choose better next time. Choose right, one day at a time. Day by day.”

Riven picked at the skin around his thumb. “I’m not sure my decisions can be trusted.”

“No leader is.” My words were heavy but tasted true enough.

Riven bit his cheek and pushed off from the wall as my gust faded. “I am sorry, for leaving like I did.” He shifted to step closer to me but then thought better of it. “I know you say you can forgive me, but …” Riven paused. “I don’t know if I can let you.”

His words pierced my belly like a sword, but they did not twist. A clean cut, something that could heal well with enough time and care.

I was willing to give Riven both as long as he kept being honest.

“Okay.” I nodded. “The two sides of this war live inside you just as they live on this land, Riven. There’s nowhere in the world you could run to hide from that truth. But maybe if you stop running, you’ll find that others do not find your truth nearly as frightening as you do.”

“And what if I can’t?” Riven looked down at the ground. His staying in Myrelinth meant that he would have to come clean about his secret to everyone.

I opened the door and told him the truth he needed to hear. “Then the war will claim you. And likely all who follow you into battle.”

Gerarda stood in the grand hall of the lower city when I walked through. The rescued Halflings were trying on the remaining clothes from the selection Nikolai and Dynara had organized weeks prior. My heart tore with guilt seeing their smiles; both of my friends should have witnessed that joy.

“The scouts have been informed and so have the remaining Fae.” Gerarda walked at full speed to keep up with my stride. “At least one adult from every dwelling will stay up overnight to respond to any emergencies. And those without immediate kin have been sorted into groups of six.”

I grabbed a leaf pad and threw it on top of a large faelight. “Good work.” I nodded at the floating orb. “Jump on. I need to grab my weapons belt before we head out on patrol.”

Gerarda’s lips pursed. She preferred to walk up the height of the Myram than ride a floating ball of light through its hollow center. But she nodded and climbed to one side. “Feron and Darythir have secured Aralinth, and we have informed all residents that no one is allowed to leave the cities after dusk. Even to harvest.”

My scoff was silenced by the rush of wind as the faelight caught the current and we were launched toward the upper burls. “Rheih must not be happy.”

Gerarda didn’t answer. She just shook her head while holding onto the leaf with all her might.

I stepped off the faelight with ease. “I want Gwyn and Fyrel to join you on patrol.” I turned as Gerarda slid off the faelight like a cautious cat. I coughed to hide my grin. “Though perhaps we should separate them. Fyrel seems a bit distracted. Maybe she should patrol with me.”

Gerarda chuckled and nodded. “I’ve noticed too.”

I walked into my burl, ignoring the piles of reports and discarded clothes I hadn’t had time to clean. I pulled on my weapons belt and froze.

My dagger was missing.

“What is it?” Gerarda asked when I spun around and started rifling through the sheets.

“My dagger”—I lifted up a pile of dirty clothes—“it’s not here.”

Gerarda crossed her arms. “If you keep your weapons in the same state as your chambers, this can’t be the first time you’ve misplaced it.”

“I don’t misplace my dagger.”

“I took it from you once, and you didn’t notice for an entire day.”

I shot her a look over my shoulder. “I also had a casket of wine in my belly when you took it—” I stopped mid-sentence as I spied a thin, green ribbon on the ground.

“Damn it.” I ran out the door and leaped from the bridge of tangled branches to the grove below. I held out my hand and brought a vine to it.

Elaran staggered out of the way as I landed. “If you wanted to wrestle, Keera, you should’ve just asked.” She shot me a demure smile from where I had rolled on the ground.

I ignored her. “Have you seen them?”

Elaran’s smile turned serious at once. “Who?” she asked, already pulling her curls back into her signature twist.

“Gwyn and Fyrel.”

Gerarda landed beside me.

“They said they were going to the training field—” Elaran’s words went silent in a flash of light. I flew across the city, my eyes darting through the groves looking for red hair or a long brown braid, but I saw neither.

I transformed at the top of the training field and ran inside the equipment room.

“They took two spears, a bow and quiver each, and seven blades between them,” I said when Gerarda and Elaran reached me. I grabbed two blades from the wall along with a harness. I didn’t have time to go back to my burl.

The portals would be shifting in less than an hour.

“You’re sure they took it?” Gerarda asked, loading her own weapons.

Elaran grabbed blades too. “Who took what?”

Gerarda slipped a thin, long blade into the leather slit along her forearm. “Keera’s dagger.”

Elaran blinked once and then her mouth fell open. “It’s bloodbound.” She turned to Gerarda. “They couldn’t be that stupid?”

Gerarda shrugged. “I would have done anything as an initiate to prove myself.”

My worries came crashing down, squeezing my chest until I couldn’t breathe. Gerarda was right. Newly honed skills and untested confidence was a deadly combination.

The same combination that convinced me that Brenna and I alone could topple the Crown. The combination that had sent Gwyn and Fyrel north of the Burning Mountains to kill the waateyshir .

I grabbed a vial of winvra berries from the supply closet and ran toward the portal. I did the math in my head; it was quicker to reach them through the portals than to fly, but we had to leave now.

If I didn’t get there in time, Gwyn was going to die.