Page 60 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Fifty-One

The Brother

Kerrigan’s heart stuttered to a stop at the sight of the metal crown.

It was even more formidable in person. Black as pitch, as if it were absorbing the light, and yet somehow shiny.

The base was larger than Kerrigan had anticipated with jutting spikes coming up at even intervals.

It looked as if it had been dipped in metal and been left to hang upside down, dripping until it solidified like stalactites.

Power radiated from it—a dull pulse that seemed to reverberate around the crypt.

“Holy gods,” Kerrigan muttered.

Fordham’s eyes darkened at the sight of it. “We should have never found this.”

“No,” she agreed. “No, it’s terrible.”

“You can’t wear this.”

“I know,” she said immediately. How had Irena ever put this on Ferrinix’s head? How had she even held it?

Kerrigan dove down the bond to Tieran. This was as much his decision as hers. “We found the crown. It’s terrifying. If I wear it, I might not come back.”

“You will,” Tieran said automatically.

“This could change everything.”

“I know,” he said. “Everything needs to change.”

She nodded and then looked back to the crown. “I shouldn’t wear it, but I must.”

“Kerrigan…”

“I must,” she said again. Her eyes left the horrifying crown and met her mate’s.

“You’ll be here. You’ll be here to ground me.

I can do this. I can fix what was done wrong.

And then after…after we can destroy it or return it to Irena’s hiding spot.

Anything you want. Just let me return balance to our world. ”

Fordham wavered. She could see he so clearly did not want her to do this. The last thing either of them wanted was to lose the other. And yet…he held the crown out to her.

“I trust you,” he said. “And I love you.”

A tear spilled down her cheek. “I love you too. So much.”

“I’ll burn the entire world down to get you back,” he promised.

She choked on a smile. “I know you will.”

And then she set the crown on her head and saw darkness.

***

The world was white.

Top to bottom. Side to side. Flat, matte white.

Kerrigan turned in a circle. The space was somehow very closed in and also endless. She was still in her fighting leathers, which looked stark against the white background, her red hair even more so, as if she didn’t belong in this place. Wherever this place was.

“Hello,” a voice said behind her.

She whipped around to find a man standing before her, faintly glowing. He was at least six and a half feet tall with long brown hair past his shoulders and a dark beard. His eyes were dark and depthless. He wore white robes that almost blended into the white space.

“Uh, hi,” she said.

“How come you to this place?”

“I put the crown on.”

The man tipped his head to the side. “You are the first.”

“The first?”

“To reach me.”

“Who…who are you?”

The man laughed as if he couldn’t believe what was happening, that she could not know who she spoke to. “A shadow of a self, trapped within that crown.”

Kerrigan’s eyes widened as she put the pieces together. “Fairgate?”

He spread his arms wide. “So you do know who I am.”

“I know of you,” she admitted. “I heard the tale of what happened with your brother.”

“That’s good. Don’t use his name. Best not to bring his attention to this place,” Fairgate said.

Kerrigan felt dizzy. She was talking to the brother of He Who Reigns. A man who was kin to her. “I don’t understand.”

“The forging of the crown required great magic. When my brother killed me, he trapped part of me in the binding of the crown,” Fairgate explained calmly. “I do not believe that he thought anyone would be able to reach me.” He tipped his head to the side. “How did you?”

“I…” Kerrigan began, opening and closing her mouth.

Fairgate took a step back, his face shuttering. “You are one of his.”

“Technically, he’s my grandfather, but I’ve never met him. I only recently discovered who my mother was, what my magic was…” She trailed off.

“And you are a demi,” Fairgate said with a small laugh. “It is best that he does not find you. My brother would certainly never look kindly upon that.”

“So I’ve heard,” she said.

“If you are able to reach me, then you are planning to use the crown,” Fairgate said.

“Yes.”

He sighed. “Walk with me.”

Kerrigan fell into step beside the man. He was head and shoulders taller than her and otherworldly in every way that she had come to expect of the Doma. And yet he felt comfortable. Like she had known him her entire life. Like he was the only thing that made sense on this plane.

He must have been here for thousands and thousands, maybe ten thousand years or more, but he seemed unchanged. Even Titania had been slowly going mad from her isolation. How could he exist here and remain sane?

“Only he can wield the crown,” Fairgate explained, “or else it exacts a great price.”

“I know. Irena—she was the last person to use it—was stripped of her goodness. She was all darkness after its use, and it didn’t even do exactly what she wanted. It twisted the request into something horrible and insidious.”

“That is its way. That is my brother’s way,” Fairgate explained. “And it will be no different for you.”

Kerrigan sighed. “What do I do? This was supposed to be the way to win my war.”

“You cannot win with faulty weapons.”

“I know,” Kerrigan said. “I thought that because I was his kin, I would be able to access the powers. That it wouldn’t burn out with me as well.”

“That is a very kind thought,” Fairgate said. He clasped his hands behind his back. “There is nothing kind in my brother. He would never allow it. Not even for his kin. Not even his most beloved. Not even his first child. Not even me.”

Kerrigan nodded. Of course it made sense. Even if they could use it, it didn’t mean they should. It wasn’t worth the price. It wasn’t worth her goodness. Her life. If she used it and became worse than Bastian, then he won anyway.

Bastian had lost his wife in a fire. However it had happened, whoever was responsible, he had taken that one thing in his life and let it twist him into this monster. Let it defile him and degrade him and take the rest of the country with him. Kerrigan refused to be like this. Refused to do it.

“Then I’ll take it off,” she said. “I’ll hide it away so no one else can do what I couldn’t…shouldn’t do.”

“That is the smartest course. The last binding, I felt it rip through the crown, rip through this place. The price that was taken fed the crown for many years. It wants me to let you use it. Even now I can feel it.”

“You know what Irena did?”

“Yes. I felt when it was placed on that dragon’s head. The price taken from both of them. Her goodness. His strength.”

“Oh,” Kerrigan gasped. She hadn’t know that it had drained Ferrinix as well. “It took his strength?”

He nodded. “I am unsure what it would take from you.”

“All I want is to change the binding, to make it right. I thought if I used the crown, I could alter it so that it wouldn’t require such a steep price. Our lives wouldn’t be entwined. The dragons wouldn’t die without binding. The Fae wouldn’t be subjected to dissolution.”

Fairgate placed a hand on her shoulder. “You are too good for my brother’s line. What you suggest is not possible.”

Kerrigan sniffled and nodded. All of this for nothing.

“But there is another way.”

Her eyes lifted. “Another way?”

He took her hand in his. “You have to be sure that this is what you want.”

And for a second, a vision took over her sight.

Just like it had all those years before, when she had first had prophetic dreams, when her harbinger abilities had taken her over.

She’d learned to control her spirit powers, and they had stopped hitting her like a freight train.

She had almost forgotten what it was like to see the blur of images and feel her magic open and pouring out.

A flash of ice. Her magic exploding like ash from a volcano. A blinding light that reached across the entire continent and beyond. The click, click, click of all the chains shattering. Fordham reaching for her in the frost.

“Are you sure?” Fairgate asked.

She was on her knees with her face in his hands, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had no idea how she had gotten there. Her magic was still open and pulsing, waiting.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Fairgate nodded and then poured her out. Her magic freezing through her veins and then exploding upward out of her. The blinding light igniting the world. For a moment, she felt every dragon and rider pair in the entire world. Every single connection that had been made with the Irena Bargain.

And she broke them all.