Page 18

Roan swam on, his fairy shine intensifying as he let go of some of his glamour.

His shine illuminated the morgen that held Kate’s unconscious body, baring her pointed teeth at the intruder.

Despite their pleasing appearance, these were little more than beasts.

A second morgen slashed at him to protect their prey, but Roan grabbed her wrist with one hand, while grabbing her throat with the other.

The morgen tried to enchant him with song, but he snapped her neck, silencing her. The morgen’s body drifted into the dark, out of sight. He spun toward the other beast, which held Kate in her arms. The creature’s clawed fingers slashed across Kate’s stomach. Blood drifted in a cloud around them.

The creature sang louder, the water around Roan vibrating with the power of her seductive spell, and for a moment, just a moment, he fell into enchantment... into a memory from nearly a thousand years ago.

The bright summer night was awash with the colors of blooming flowers as he and Eudora chased each other across the silky grass of the palace gardens.

Eudora toddled on her little feet, giggling and squealing, her rounded little wings shooting sparks of magic.

Roan laughed as he waved his wooden sword in the air and pretended to fight Rath, his best friend, in a battle for Eudora.

“Children!” Queen Thalia Moondove’s laughter was clearer and purer than any bell. She waved Rath over to her. “Your mother is waiting for you.” She gave the little child a kiss before she sent him on his way.

“Mother!” Roan dropped his sword and ran to his mother, fisting a hand in her skirts.

She bent down to press a kiss to his cheek.

Her blonde hair, the color of spun gold, bounced in soft curls against Roan’s face as his mother kissed him.

Eudora joined him, giggling as she held out a moon flower to their mother.

“Eudora, did you grow this?” Thalia asked Eudora.

The four-year-old princess nodded eagerly.

“Well done, my darling.” She bent down to squeeze her daughter in a fierce embrace before she turned to Roan and put an arm around him in silent warm welcome.

His mother always welcomed him. She seemed to know how much that mattered to Roan, who was only seven years old. To be loved, to be cherished. King Bahden had no interest in his offspring, but the queen? Her heart was full of sunlight and love, especially for her children.

Thalia tilted Roan’s face up as she met his gaze.

“You are loved, my dark little prince. You are deeply loved. Never doubt it. You carry my light within you, and it will always be right here.” She tapped a slender finger on his chest right above his heart.

“Do not be afraid to shine in the darkest night.”

The memory was ancient, yet he’d lived it so fully and clearly in his mind and his heart. Now she was lost to him.

Roan left the memory as easily as he had slid into it. His anger rose. This morgen had tried to take what belonged to him and him alone. And now it would pay the price. Kate was unconscious, which meant she would not be harmed by his light, and he could not afford to wait another moment.

Roan let the full might of his shine explode from his body. The morgen screamed in agony. Its eyes turned red and then cloudy white as it went limp and died. Roan swam forward and grasped Kate’s hand, wrapping an arm around her waist and kicking them both toward the surface.

As he broke through the ring of bright water, he sucked in a breath.

He pushed Kate over the ledge to safety, and she lay still on the grass near Patch.

Roan dragged himself out of the pool and knelt by her side.

He gently rolled her onto her back and pressed his ear to her lips. She wasn’t breathing.

He cursed and placed his mouth over hers and summoned the water in Kate’s lungs toward his lips. Then he drew back, allowing the water to escape her mouth. It formed a shining orb above her body. With a wave of his hand, the orb shot away and splattered on the ground.

Kate suddenly coughed, her body spasming. Roan turned her onto her side as she coughed a few more times, then let out a raspy sigh as she calmed. As her eyes opened, she stared up at his face in confusion.

“Roan?” she whispered. The pleasure of hearing his name sent a jolt of joy through his dark soul. He stroked tender fingers over her pale cheek, glad to see a tiny blossom of color return to her skin.

“Lesson one of the labyrinth, Kate. Never drink from the still pools,” he chided.

She shivered a little and glanced around. “No, wait, where is he? I need to save him?—”

“The kobold? The fool is alive. You did save him, but at unnecessary risk to yourself. Never do that again,” he warned. “You’re mine, Kate. Your life belongs to me . You cannot throw it away on another.”

She narrowed angry but weary eyes at him. “I wasn’t going to let him die. He’s my only friend in this place.”

Roan helped her sit up and settled her on his lap. She raised a half-hearted protest, but he ignored her. He needed the comfort of holding her in his arms. To think he could have lost her over such a foolish thing.

“ I would be your friend, if only you would accept that you belong to me. If only you obeyed me, my rebellious little mortal.”

Kate burrowed her face against his chest, as if to seek his body heat.

Though they were both soaking wet, he was by far the warmer of the two.

He liked how she turned to him, even if it was for warmth and not comfort.

She had offered him such comfort when he’d been wounded and weary.

He wished to could the same for her now.

“Friends don’t order each other around,” Kate said.

Roan chuckled, wrapping his arms tight around her.

After a moment, she lifted her head, her lips accidentally brushing his jaw as she looked up at him.

Heat shot through his body at her lips touching his skin, but he held still.

Her brown eyes were full of pain, a pain not of the body but of the soul.

“I saw something when the morgen sang to me.”

“What did you see?” he asked.

Kate paused, a tear rolling down her cheeks. “My mother.” That tear gleamed like a frozen dewdrop upon her skin.

He reached up and captured the tear, imbuing it with a silent healing enchantment, then stroked it across the scrape on her cheek.

“It must have been a memory I’d forgotten.

I was so young when she died, and my dad remarried so soon.

It felt like I just blinked and my mom was gone, and Sandra was in our lives.

That memory... it was so clear.” Fresh tears clung to her lashes like diamonds.

“Tell me that it was real, Roan. That somewhere deep within me I still have that memory, and it wasn’t just an illusion?

” Her plea trembled in the air, and her distress made him restless.

Roan brushed the backs of his knuckles over her now healed cheek, wanting to soothe her.

“The morgens’ song can only unlock true memories, Kate,” he promised. “Whatever you saw while under their spell was real. That memory may be very deep, but it’s there. Sometimes our oldest memories are our strongest.”

Kate pressed her cheek against his chest again and remained quiet. It seemed she needed time to process all she had been through. One of her hands rested on his chest, her fingers stroking his skin.

“Did you see anything when they sang to you?” she asked after a long moment.

“Yes.”

“What did you see?”

He saw no reason not to tell her. “I was playing with my sister and my friend in the gardens when my mother came to greet me and my sister. I was but seven years old, and it’s one of my favorite memories.”

“Did you lose your mother too?” Kate asked.

It amazed him that she could deduce such a thing when she had no knowledge of his world.

“She did not die, if that is what you mean. Fae rarely do. But my mother could not stay. My father’s darkness was too great, even for her light. She journeyed into the mists of time. I may never see her again.”

“The mists of time? That sounds like a metaphor for death.” Her fingertips stopped moving in small patterns on his chest.

He shook his head. “Time can be distorted, even reshaped. Much like a summer storm, the boundaries of time can be charged with energy and become an actual storm. When such a storm ends, it will often leave a fading mist behind for a time. People who travel into it are often not seen again.”

He thought of the storm that had raged between her realm and his. How time had fought to claim Kate and take her away from him, and the tides of time had almost succeeded in pulling her out of his arms. Roan stroked a wet tendril of hair away from her face.

“Are you hurting anywhere else?”

She started to shake her head but then winced. “My stomach burns.”

How had he been so distracted by talking to her that he had forgotten the morgen’s slashes! Roan stood, Kate carefully held in his arms, and walked away from the pool. The sun had disappeared far beneath the walls of the labyrinth now, and he would claim his prize from her after he healed her.

The magic in his blood answered his call.

At the nearest bend of the labyrinth, a bed grew out of the white ash trees.

Ivy crawled up the four posts, and purple wisteria formed a canopy along the upper railings that draped down over the top of the bed.

He pulled back the covers he’d conjured up and laid Kate down on the enchanted bed.

“Let me see.” He pulled her hand away from her stomach. The slashes looked painful, but thankfully they were not deep. Crimson blood smeared her fingertips. Roan cursed himself for not noticing it sooner.

“It really hurts,” Kate said in a wavering voice. Her brown eyes were full of tears as she looked up at him.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.