Page 48

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

D raven leaps to his feet, instantly alert when I storm through the front door and into the combined kitchen and living room back at the faction house.

Galen is lying on the couch beside him, his hands and leg now looking completely healed.

Lyra is on the other couch, also lying down but looking much more alert than before.

Exhaustion clings to their bodies, though.

But they both sit bolt upright when Draven shoots to his feet.

Alistair, who was about to hand Lyra a cup of tea, has to yank his hand back to stop Lyra from knocking it over in her haste.

Tea sloshes over the rim of the cup to pool in the delicate saucer beneath.

With his eyebrows drawn down in a scowl, Alistair looks up from the teacup to meet my gaze. Jocasta is nowhere to be seen.

“What’s wrong?” Draven demands as I stalk into the living room.

Isera strolls in behind me, completely unfazed by my anger.

“What’s wrong?” I echo. It comes out like a growl. Slamming to a halt on the floor, I spin around and stab a hand at Isera. “She just bargained away our freedom!”

“What?” Alistair snaps.

Panic and rage crackle through the light and airy room as he whips his gaze to Isera while both Galen and Lyra scramble to their feet. The teacup leaps and then rattles in fear as Alistair slams it down on the low table by the couch so hard that it almost shatters.

“You did what ?” he demands.

Coming to a halt as well, Isera simply crosses her arms and meets everyone’s shocked and angry stares with a cool expression on her features. “I did what needed to be done.”

“And what is that exactly?” Draven asks. His voice is dark, an undercurrent of threats in his tone.

They all stare between me and Isera in shock and disbelief and anger as I explain the bargain she made with the Unseelie King.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Alistair yells. But he sounds more desperate and panicked rather than angry. His chest heaves as he swings his arm around and stabs it in the general direction of the wards. “We were out! We could finally leave. And you… You?—”

“We were never going to win,” Isera snaps back, her calm facade at last shattering. “We need the Unseelie Court if we’re going to even stand a chance against the entire fucking Iceheart Dynasty.”

“We agreed to—” I begin, but she cuts me off.

“I don’t care. This was my decision, and I made it.”

“But it was not your decision to make!” The words tear from my chest so violently that I have to suck in a deep breath to refill my lungs.

Anger and frustration course through me as I stare at her while raking both hands through my hair.

“Fuck. After Lavendera, I thought I was done getting double-crossed by people I thought was my friend.”

“I am not your friend,” she growls back at me.

“I don’t have any friends. I don’t have anyone.

No parents. No partner. No friends. No one I love and no one who loves me.

” She stabs her hand at us all. “And that is why I am the only person in this whole dysfunctional fucking group who can make the tactical decisions we need without letting emotions get in the way.”

“It has nothing to do with emotions! It has to do with trust. And common fucking sense! There is no way in hell we’ll be able to win whatever twisted game that Orion comes up with for us.”

“That’s just a risk we’re going to have to take. We need the Unseelie Court.”

“We also need our freedom.”

“Freedom is worthless without revenge. Or have you forgotten what they did to us in there?”

“Of course I haven’t. But you didn’t even give us a choice this time. You chose for us!”

“Because it’s the right choice!”

“For you ! What about?—”

“You don’t understand!” she screams the words at me. At us all. So shockingly loud that the windows rattle.

Her chest heaves, and her eyes are wild and desperate and so out of control that I actually stagger a step back. I have never seen her this unhinged before.

And then something inside her seems to just crack .

Pain floods her face. Pain and heartbreak and guilt so deep it could’ve drowned the world.

“You don’t understand,” she repeats, her voice breaking on that last word. “I hated her.” She draws in a shuddering breath, her eyes desolate as she looks back at us. “I spent a hundred and fifty years hating her.”

It takes a moment for my brain to catch up with this change in topic. Her? Who?

Then it clicks.

Oh. Elena Shaw. Her mother. She won the last Atonement Trials a hundred and fifty years ago, and before she left, she told a ten-year-old Isera that she was coming back for her. But of course, she never did.

“And while I was hating her, she was there !” Isera stabs her hand towards the wall where somewhere far beyond, the Ice Palace sits on the roots of the mountain above the city of Frostfell. “Suffering. Being drained of magic and tortured and humiliated. And she was thinking about me!”

Her voice breaks again, and she sucks in another unsteady breath. Her blue and silver eyes are storms of emotion as she stares desperately at us all.

“And what did I do?” Pain pulses in her eyes.

“While she was being tortured and humiliated and while she was thinking about me, what did I do? I was wishing her misfortune! Once I realized that she wasn’t coming back, I spent a hundred and forty-three years praying every day that her life was fucking awful. ”

A sob rips from her chest. Then her knees buckle, and she crashes down on the ground. Bracing one hand on the smooth wooden floor for support, she presses the other over her mouth as more sobs tear from her throat.

“All this time, I hated her for abandoning me.” Tears stream down her face. “But she didn’t. She was trapped there, being tortured and humiliated, and suffering. And I hated her.” She chokes out the words. “She died with me hating her.”

For a few seconds, we all just stand there as if frozen in time, staring at her in shock.

My heart beats hard against my ribs. This is why she was catatonic those first few weeks in the Ice Palace. Not because we were prisoners or because of what the Icehearts were doing to her. But because she realized what had really happened to her mother.

Pain tightens around my chest, and I take a hesitant step towards her. “Isera?—”

“No,” she snaps, cutting me off.

Her eyes flash with fury again as she forcefully wipes the tears off her cheeks and struggles to her feet.

That fury crackles across her whole face like ice until she once more looks like a Goddess of Death who has clawed her way out of hell to rain death and destruction down on whoever is unfortunate enough to cross her path.

“I don’t want your sympathy,” she says, her voice a soft snarl.

“I don’t care if you understand. All I want is to paint the fucking walls with Bane and Jessina’s blood.

I am going to shatter that whole fucking ice castle if it’s the last thing I do.

And for that, I need Nightbane and his Unseelie Court. ”

We all just stare at her in silence, unsure of what to say.

“So I don’t care if you hate me.” Her eyes are cold and hard as she looks from face to face.

“Because all I have left is hatred anyway. I hate the Icehearts more than I care about you. I hate them more than I care about my own life. So I will cling to that hatred. Because without the hate, I will drown in an ocean of guilt that is so deep that I will never be able to claw my way back out again.” She forces out a long breath, her spine straight and her chin held high. “So I did what needed to be done.”

The silence that falls over the beautiful living room is so loud that it’s practically vibrating between the pale stone walls.

Somewhere outside the windows, life goes on in the Unseelie Court.

People are chatting, laughing, and strolling along the glittering canals. As if none of this is happening.

I swallow, trying to think of something to say. It appears as though everyone else is doing the same.

To my surprise, the one who at last replies is Draven.

“She’s right.”

Blinking, we all spin around to face him. Even Isera looks shocked for a second.

He heaves a long breath and drags a hand through his messy black hair.

“Hate trumps everything. Pain, despair, heartbreak, it consumes it all. Gives you a purpose. Something to focus on.” His eyes slide to me.

“It’s what I did to you when you first woke up in the Ice Palace with the collar.

I tried to make you hate me so that you would focus on that instead of drowning in despair. ”

My mouth drops open a little, but no sound makes it out. Because I suddenly see the truth in it. Focusing on how angry I was with him helped keep the hopelessness at bay.

A few steps away, Isera is staring at Draven, looking taken aback by the fact that he understands her feelings so well. Or that he is backing her up. Or both.

“She’s also right about the other thing,” Draven continues.

“We will need the Unseelie Court if we’re going to have a chance to beat Bane and Jessina.

I don’t approve of the fact that she went behind our backs to make the deal.

” He cuts Isera a hard look. “But the deal is done. Now, we just need to make sure we win.”

His words send a ripple through the room, and within a matter of seconds, the vibrating tension starts dissipating again. Everyone draws in a deep breath. Both Galen and Lyra nod. Alistair scowls but bends down to pick up the teacup for Lyra again.

I watch it all, completely fascinated. With a few words and a confident tone, Draven can make people accept their new reality and start thinking about how to solve the problems instead of arguing. No wonder he did well as the Commander of the Dread Legion.

Letting out a long sigh, I try to let go of my anger and do the same. To focus on the problem at hand. Because Draven is right. The deal is done. Now, we just need to focus on figuring out how the hell we’re going to win this.