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Twenty-Two

Rhoswyn

T here’s a distinctly hungover feeling in the air as we ride through the sunny meadows of Elfhame the next morning. Despite all of us drinking the astringent pink potion Kitarni said would help, my head is still a little foggy, and I yawn for the tenth time in an hour. Caed, in particular, is red-eyed and gaunt as he slumps over the neck of his horse, cradling his right arm like it’s broken.

I offered to heal him, but he waved me off, muttering something about it being a waste of my magic. Now he’s riding alongside Lore, enduring the redcap’s increasingly outlandish suggestions for hangover cures. Even Jaro groans when he suggests drinking kelpie piss, and Bree mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘we’ve all tried that one.’

Wraith is the most energetic of us all, and I pet his soft fur affectionately as he follows obediently behind Blizzard as Drystan leads us north.

The first camp is the one on the bank at the source of the Torvyn. Lore blinked us all closer in an attempt to get ahead of Elatha, and I almost don’t recognise the place for a moment, but when I do, I shiver.

“This is where…” I begin, trailing off.

Caed brought me here after he first captured me, all those months ago. The warriors here threw stones at me and forced me aboard that awful ship.

“Yes,” Caed finishes, ducking his head. “Elatha’s tunnel came out here, too.”

Squaring my shoulders, I stare down the imposing wall of rusted iron. It’s no longer foggy, like it was that day, but the iron braziers are exactly as I remember them—albeit unlit—and the grey sickliness still leeches through the soil. I can even taste the rot, although it feels oddly stale.

“No one’s in,” Bree says, shocking us all. “I can’t hear any movement from inside.”

“None?” Caed demands. “That makes no sense. We were just here. This was the biggest camp for fifteen leagues.”

The closer we get, the more obvious it becomes that Bree is right. The great gate I was once dragged through is open—as if in welcome—and beyond it tents have been ripped up, broken wagons abandoned, and the ships that lined the riverbank are simply… gone.

Then we get close enough, and I catch sight of the figures strung up along the top of the wall.

Filth-covered fae have been hung by their necks, with their chests cracked open and their organs spilling out. All of them are still wearing the shackles that kept them prisoner, and some of them still have their wings bound in that awful wire.

They never stood a chance.

My throat burns with bile, and my eyes with unshed tears.

He can’t get away with this. Elatha has done too much to my people to be allowed to just slink back to his hole in the ground to lick his wounds. We could’ve freed these fae. We could’ve saved them. If we’d just been faster.

“Dead.” Drystan rarely sounds shocked, but the terse edge to that one word might come close.

“He’s going to do this to all of them,” I realise.

“Your display in the palace must’ve shocked him,” Caed guesses. “He won’t want to waste soldiers in a doomed battle to keep the land we conquered when he believes that Balor’s medallion will hand him a total victory later on.”

“It’s too soon to make assumptions,” Drystan says, spurring his horse forward. “Someone needs to check to make sure it’s abandoned?—”

“Maeve, could you help us out?” I ask, and my grandmother pops into being beside me.

She’s already pouting. “Fine, but if I find any Fomorians, I get to kick their ass.”

I wave her on, already knowing the odds of her finding anything are slim to none. Caed’s right. Elatha has chosen a full withdrawal. And in his wake, he’s left more death, because he knows how killing my people affects me.

We sweep through the remains of camp after camp, following the Torvyn. The lack of any resistance makes the trip faster than it should be, and soon enough we’re standing on black sand, staring at the Endless Sea in gloomy silence.

We’ve saved no one. Even though we blinked a lot of the way, skipping over the smaller camps entirely…

The Fomorians left only iron and death behind them.

Lore is playing fetch with Wraith a little down the beach, using driftwood instead of body parts this time. He’s reacting better to the last few days than the rest of us, although even that isn’t quite the right word.

He’s… stabby. Antsy. It’s so strange that I can feel the urge to kill and how it rides him now. Then he disappears, and the urge abates. If I wanted to, I could keep track of how many fae he kills daily.

The knowledge that it’s always more than one is disturbing enough that I don’t want to. I think the lack of a fight is getting to him more than the horrors we’ve witnessed.

“I know what the minor royals think,” I mumble into Bree’s embrace. “But I don’t believe Elatha would turn tail and run like this unless he was absolutely certain he had the upper hand. I don’t think the bàsron are a myth.”

Neither do they, though they won’t outright say it. It’s written in the unease that passes freely up and down the bonds between us.

Drystan’s jaw clenches and unclenches like he wants to deny it, but he settles for glaring at the grey waves.

“We should head back,” Jaro says. “It’s already been five days. The palace will be mostly clear by now, and standing here staring at the sea isn’t going to solve anything.”

He’s speaking sense, but it does little to calm my aggravation. By rights, we should be over there, tracking down Elatha and bringing the war to a final, conclusive end.

We can’t. Not yet. It makes everything we’ve done seem futile. Like we’ve suffered so much for nothing.

“We should put our energy where it can be of more use,” Bree says quietly. “Rebuilding Elfhame, strengthening our defences, and dealing with Eero so that we can finally bring the Queendom together under one banner if Elatha does return.”

I nod bitterly. “Fine.” Then I pause. “We should deal with the bodies.”

We’ve been cutting them down as we pass, laying them in rows just outside the walls. We didn’t have time to bury them, but I wanted them to have freedom in death. It didn’t appease the angry spirits lingering just out of earshot, but Drystan ensured none of them got close enough to give voice to their accusations.

He needn’t have bothered.

They weren’t thinking anything I wasn’t. That if we’d been faster, planned better, we might’ve been able to rescue them.

“They’ll get a proper burial,” Jaro assures me. “Cressida’s soldiers have started patrolling the riverbank again, and since most of the camps are on Autumn shores, it’s up to them to deal with it.”

“You can’t save everyone,” Bree reminds me. “Come on. Right now, there’s nothing good for us here. You haven’t properly slept since the battle. Return to Elfhame and remind yourself what you fought for.”

That sounds nice. Too nice. I can’t help but wonder if it’s selfish.

But Lore is in front of me in the next blink. “Are we finally going?” he asks, red gaze wide and eager. “Because as much as I love fucking you in nature, pet, there are seven hundred rooms in your palace still to be crossed off.”

Before any of us can say anything in response, I reappear in my courtyard.

I brace myself for the headache, but it never comes.

The stone has been swept clean, and the space bustles with soldiers who bow hurriedly, all of them rushing around, almost like they’re trying to escape?—

“I need to know how many of them there are!” my brother bellows, and I suppress a smile because I know there’s only one female in the realm who can bring out that side of him.

“For the last time, it was a prototype!” Prae snarls back. “Pro-To-Type. Meaning, an experiment . I wouldn’t be surprised if Elatha’s goons broke it when they fired it.”

I creep towards the source of the yelling—the throne room—as Jaro appears behind me.

“Are we spying on them?” he asks, joining me as I loiter beside the doors.

“Nooo,” I whisper back. “They’re just being loud.”

His disbelief is written all over his face, but Florian is still ranting, albeit quieter now.

“I still can’t believe you’d design something like that in the first place.”

“We were on different sides of a war. How was I to know Caed would take one look at Rose and turn into a honeymallow?”

Florian isn’t appeased. “Weapons of that magnitude are unsportsmanlike.”

“I said I was sorry! And unsportsmanlike? It was war! You’ll be grateful for my unsportsmanlikeness when you see what I’ve been working on to deal with that Summer Court asshole.”

“I lost dozens of warriors. Good fae. Fae with mates, with families. Friends I’d had for centuries.”

There’s a hollow silence, one that rings with the echoes of Florian’s pain.

“Elatha never paid attention to me,” Prae murmurs. “I never thought he’d go through my workshop, let alone have someone read through my notes… Most Fomorians in his court can’t even read.”

“There will be a trial, Praedra. People died . I don’t think you understand how serious this is.”

“So you think I’m stupid now?” She pauses, huffs out a long breath, and then tries again. “I said I was sorry. I offered to delay the mating until you’d processed?—”

“You didn’t fire that iron dust weapon, and I wasn’t waiting another minute for the bond. I’ve craved you for years, as you very well know, you crazy female. But now, there’s a very real chance that we’ll be living out our matehood in a cell in the dungeons or the Otherworld.”

“Your sister would never let that happen!”

“Sweetheart,” Gryffin interrupts. “He’s seelie. He’s probably still pissed that Elatha didn’t walk up to the gates and demand a duel like an honourable Fomorian.”

“Honourable Fomorian is an oxymoron,” Prae corrects.

“It’s cute that you’re saying that when you’ve been following your cousin around more loyally than the Nicnevin’s barghest.” Gryffin’s ease is slowly calming both of them down, although I know it won’t take much to send them off again.

“Shut up,” Prae retorts. “Anyway, like I said. I never meant for it to be used. I just wanted to see if I could do it. It started as a way to launch bombs farther, and then I just tweaked and tweaked…”

Her voice gets softer and softer. “If I knew…” Regret drips from the unfinished sentence.

“I’m half convinced that Danu saddled us together to ensure you didn’t invent any more catastrophic devices,” Florian grumbles under his breath. “I can’t wait for you to explain all of that to the Nicnevin’s Court when they try you for war crimes.”

“ If they find out,” Gryffin interrupts.

“If? What do you mean, if?”

“As far as the fae are concerned, Elatha might have an entire mountain full of inventors matching my skill and ingenuity.” Prae’s not lying, there’s no bitterness flooding my mouth, but that doesn’t make what she’s suggesting any less true. “There’s no reason for anyone to think I designed that weapon. I certainly didn’t fire it.”

“Exactly,” Gryffin agrees. “Trials are such a long and drawn-out business.”

“The honourable thing to do is?—”

There’s a rustle of clothing and a hitch of breath before Prae says, “Do you really want to think about honour right now, commander?”

Her voice drops to a husky whisper, quickly followed by a deep masculine groan.

Wait… did Prae just…?

“No fucking in the throne room!” Jaro protests, evidently coming to the same conclusion that I have as he bursts through the doors.

Yup. Prae is on her knees between the two fae princes. I barely get a glimpse of wandering hands before they jump apart. My brother’s cheeks are almost as red as Lore’s cap as he spins to give me his back, frantically shoving his clothing to rights as Gryffin helps their mate off the floor.

“You’re back.” Florian’s voice is an octave higher than it was a second ago, bringing a smile to my lips for what feels like the first time in days.

“And I think you might need to take a break,” I finish for him. “The palace looks so much better.”

“That would be my doing,” Dare says, sweeping into the room, our other three brothers hot on his heels. “And I am exhausted, baby sister. Do you know how much sweeping I’ve done? I’m not meant for hard labour.”

His put-upon expression is so overdone that my smile grows. “How is Yvaine?”

Dare presses his hand to his chest. “What about my welfare?” His swift wink dismisses any concern I may have felt. “She’s better than fine and feels terrible that you met her in such a state. She had an outfit picked out for meeting the new Nicnevin and everything.”

“Your mate is going to kill you for admitting that,” Uther reminds him. “Speaking of mates… I see some things have been made official since we last met.”

It’s disconcerting to have all my brothers suddenly far too interested in the four visible marks on my arms.

“When’s the mating ceremony?” Uther asks, suspiciously lightly.

I roll my eyes at him. “When this is done and my city isn’t in ruins?” I catch sight of Prae trying to drag her mates away, using me as a distraction so they can find a shadowy corner and grin. “Besides, I’m sure Florian is just as eager for his own ceremony. Isn’t that right, big brother?”

The three of them freeze, caught in the act, and our other brothers grin.

“Ah, the trials of being newly mated,” Dare says, locking an arm around Madoc’s neck, then Uther’s, as the three of them stare down Florian. “What was it you called us, big brother? Love-sick cait-shìth?”

“Something like that,” Roark agrees, dodging Dare’s grasping hands.

There’s a pause as Madoc’s brows lower, then Uther’s eyes roll heavenward, praying for patience.

“You sticky dickhead! Undo it!” Madoc growls, and I laugh as Dare steps away to reveal Madoc’s auburn braids stuck to Uther’s black and red tresses.

No wonder Roark dodged.

“Dare,” Uther tries to reason with him. “The Nicnevin is right there.”

“I did not miss this.” Madoc tugs at his braids with a wince. “Unstick us. Now.”

Goddess, it’s so good to see them all together, acting like brothers, and this time the black fox peeking around the back of their legs doesn’t make me want to break into tears. It’s a bittersweet happiness that crushes my chest even as it raises my spirits, but it’s still happiness, nonetheless.

For the first time since Elatha fled, it gives me hope that maybe things can be okay again.