Page 57 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Forty-Eight

The Debt

They were silent at Titania’s proclamation. Not that Kerrigan didn’t want Titania to host their wedding. That was easily the most incredible thing someone had ever offered her, but her mind couldn’t seem to catch up to what Titania was offering…and why.

“What?” Kerrigan managed to get out.

Fordham put a hand on her arm. “What my betrothed means is—”

Titania glanced between them. “You do not wish me to do this for you?”

“No,” Kerrigan said quickly. “We do. We do want that.”

“We do,” Fordham agreed. “It’s a great honor. We never would have even considered that such an honor could be an option.”

Titania took a sip of her tea. “It has not been offered in many years,” she said finally. “It used to be that the great houses of the Fae clambered for such an honor. They competed for my attention to be bestowed upon them.”

“As is right,” Fordham said.

Kerrigan leaned forward. “Why did they stop?”

Titania glanced out the open window to a bird trilling on a nearby tree. “Times changed. Alfheim was closed to us. This new land was not the same. The magic was weaker. The connection to our home world was severed. Fae began to wither and die.”

“But you remain,” Kerrigan said.

“I remain,” Titania agreed. “And for a time, we did not know it was different. We thought that all would continue as it was when we first came to this world. Even with the war with the dragons, we believed ourselves immune to the fragility of this world. We could die in battle, of course, but because of time? Because of suffering? Because of loss?” She tilted her head.

“It was years of battle before the oldest among us began to fragment. What do you call it?”

Kerrigan cleared her throat. “Surrender to the abyss.”

“How poetic,” Titania said like acid.

“It is a consequence of this world?”

Titania nodded once curtly. “There is not enough magic here, as there was in Alfheim, to keep us alive. A thousand years if you were lucky. Such a short time.”

Kerrigan choked on a laugh. “That’s a very long time compared to humans.”

“But you are not human, are you?”

“No,” she said slowly, remembering their first meeting.

What had Titania said to her? She had not seen one of Kerrigan’s kind in a long time.

Then she had believed Titania was belittling her for her humanity, but she had known then that Kerrigan was a demi-Doma.

She had lived in Domara and seen the rise of He Who Reigns.

She clearly knew who and what Kerrigan was before Kerrigan ever did.

When Titania had said that it would be a test of wills to see if she could keep Kerrigan here…she had meant it. He Who Reigns’ magic flowed through Kerrigan’s blood, and Titania was the first person to ever tell her that. She had always known.

“So you will not perish here like the others.” Titania’s eyes flickered to Fordham’s.

“You may go to the abyss, but she will not follow unless she chooses to. Not with his blood in her veins even at just half power.” Then she tilted her head.

“Ah, but you have the mating bond. So perhaps you will live to her lifeline. Only time will tell.”

“Why didn’t you go back?” Kerrigan asked.

Waves crashed in Titania’s eyes as they fell to Kerrigan’s wrist. “Do you think we did not try? The door was closed.”

“There are ways,” Fordham argued.

“My own father figured out how to get there,” Kerrigan said.

“Yes,” Titania agreed. “There are ways. You bring more with you. A way to tempt He Who Reigns to demolish this world as clearly as he did others. But there is no way back to Alfheim. He made sure of that.”

Fordham’s head dropped. “That was confirmed for me in Domara.”

“You were leashed there,” Titania said with distaste as her hand went to her throat.

“Yes,” he said with bite in his voice.

“And you still have it,” she said to Kerrigan.

“I surrendered to it,” Fordham corrected.

“To the mating bond,” Titania said, a note of sadness in her voice. “Which brings us full circle to your wedding.”

“We have a war to win first,” Fordham argued. He clasped Kerrigan’s hand. “We have already decided to have the wedding after we have won. So that we might have it on her ancestral lands.”

“Waisley,” Titania said.

“Yes,” Kerrigan breathed.

Titania nodded once. “It will be done then. Our debt will be cleared.”

Kerrigan cleared her throat again. “Can I ask of your debt to us? And how it originated?”

Titania clucked her tongue against the back of her teeth before rising to her feet.

“We will need nightfall for that answer.” She picked up the tea that had never stopped steaming from the spout, the magic of this place holding it in stasis.

Titania set it down on a table and then disappeared into her room.

Kerrigan and Fordham exchanged a glance.

Should they follow her? Should they press?

There were so many questions and so little time.

They needed to make it back to Ravinia soon, to lead their troops to war.

They hadn’t known what they were walking into, but they certainly hoped to be out of here before nightfall.

“All right, children,” Titania said, reappearing in a dress that seemed to devour midnights. The black was so severe that it sucked the darkness of space into its orbit. “We shall go to the liminal space now.”

Fordham helped Kerrigan to her feet in silence.

They were both confused, but there was no use asking questions.

Titania was firm, so they followed her out of the small home.

She turned left toward the woods on a well-worn path only wide enough for one person.

The trees cradled the space, blocking out the sun.

As they traveled deeper through the woods, the sky grew darker and darker until it was near midnight even though they had traveled less than a mile into the trees.

A clearing appeared before them, revealing a stone altar at the center of its circular space. Stones were placed evenly around the altar with inscriptions written in ancient Fae.

“Balam,” Fordham said reverently. “Nadar, Horan. Jovile, Ulla, Verita. Morvenna, Cordin, Yore.”

Titania watched him patiently read off the stones. Her hands settled on the altar. “Do you recognize them?”

Fordham pointed to Balam. “The god of war.” Then Morvenna. “The head of the pantheon, his mistress, the three-faced goddess.”

Kerrigan’s mind whirled. “Gods? For whom?”

“Alfheim,” Titania explained. “The gods who broke the world and created Alfheim.”

Kerrigan reeled. “I have not heard these stories.”

Fordham’s hand rested on the altar as he bent to read the inscription. “The head of the kindred—Chaos.”

“At the center of all things,” Titania said.

“There are texts within Ravinia that I have read about such things,” Fordham admitted. “But there are texts about other gods as well. About the Doma.”

“Not our gods,” Titania said with a hiss. “They are the usurpers of gods.”

“Should I not be here?” Kerrigan asked, suddenly worried about interfering.

“You claim us. You are my champion. You are welcome,” Titania told her. “Now, stand before me.”

Kerrigan and Fordham moved to stand before the altar. Titania lifted her hands and spoke in an inarticulate ancient Fae. Even Fordham’s brow creased at the words that were uttered. It was as if they did not come from her but from the gods themselves.

A veil hung between them and Titania. She was shrouded, not the beautiful maiden but a gnarled crone, hunched and broken.

But if Kerrigan looked at her too long, she saw a mother, full to bursting with child, her belly low and protruding.

The hazy curtain separating them made it feel like they could just reach forward and rip it apart to reveal the mother of the Fae in her true form.

Though Kerrigan was unsure which of these was the true form or just what Titania was showing her.

Then the whole thing disappeared, and they were both cast into darkness. It was the same sensation Kerrigan experienced when she was on the spirit plane, but…this wasn’t the spirit plane. If anything, it was a shadow plane. The same as their world but the other side of the veil.

And through the dimness came a glowing light.

Titania stood in a dim room, just the glow of a candle illuminating the space.

She was pacing. The cry of a babe split the night.

Titania looked backward, reaching, as if she could go to the small thing, but she didn’t.

She shook her head and continued her pacing.

A cloaked woman entered the room. “You’re here. You came.”

The woman removed her cloak to reveal the same golden locks and the beautiful, pure face. They could have been twins, except Titania’s otherworldliness didn’t touch this woman.

“Irena,” Titania said, drawing the woman into her arms. True affection emanated between the women. “I heard of Samil. I’m so sorry.”

“This war will never end,” Irena said with a shake of her head. “My father was just one of a long line of dead.”

“Mab would be devastated if she had made the trip with us, her beloved Samil.”

“Forget the past,” Irena said angrily. “Mab is not here. My father is gone. We only have you, Titania. You must do something. You are the strongest among us.”

Titania ripped her arm from Irena. “You do not know what you ask of me.”

“You fear returning to these new depths? The Dark Depths.”

“I cannot do it. I cannot give my magic to perish like the others,” Titania said.

“Then you are as selfish as all the others!” Irena raged. “Why come here at all? Why leave it all behind? Why live here in comfort when all your kin and your sister’s kin and your husband’s kin die out there?”

Titania rose up, suddenly growing much taller than the younger Fae. “You know nothing of time, Irena. I have favored you this far. What you ask is beyond my control.”

Irena scoffed. “You have nothing for me? Fine. I will go make my own way then.”

Titania let her go. With her nose turned up and her pride wounded at the girl’s very true words, Titania watched Irena go. She watched her kin die, just as Irena said. And when it became most perilous, Titania went back to the girl.

She left the life she had built on the top of the mountain and came into Irena’s war camp. She held a metal crown that absorbed light and offered it to Irena.

“What is it?” Irena asked.

“It was forged by He Who Reigns. It will end this war.”

Irena’s eyes widened. “That does not answer my question.”

“You can control the beasts or you can kill them. You can use the usurper’s great power to deal the final blow. It is up to you.”

“How?”

“Put it on the head of a dragon and choose.”

Irena’s hands trembled as she took the crown from Titania’s hands.

“I don’t want to kill them,” Irena told Titania.

“I don’t want to end the dragons. I just want a better world where we can live together.

Alfheim is not open to us any longer. We must remain here or go to the Dark Depths.

I will use this to make them see reason. ”

“Good,” Titania said, washing her hands of it. “Win your war, and then come back to the way things are meant to be.”

“Thank you,” Irena said. She bowed to the mother of the Fae. “You will be remembered for this.”

Shadows swirled around Irena, and then she shadow-jumped out of the tent.