7. LONNIE

7

LONNIE

THE OBSIDIAN PALACE, EVERLAST CITY

S everal hours later, Bael and I lay in bed in comfortable silence.

I shifted slightly, rolling onto my side. Without saying a word, Bael lifted his arm so I could more comfortably rest my head on his shoulder. I smiled. How could there have ever been a time when I was afraid of him?

Of course, Bael had changed since we'd first met, but not in any way that made him less objectively terrifying. He was still a bit loose with his morals, and there was still something slightly unnerving behind his eyes. Like the lion was peering back at me—his unseelie side trying to force its way out to play. If anything, now that Bael had embraced his unseelie power instead of suppressing it, there were more reasons to be afraid of him now than there ever were.

But, in that same time, I'd changed as well.

I wasn't sure when it had happened. It might have been when I'd killed King Penvalle, or else when I spent those long months in the dungeon plotting my revenge on the Everlasts. It might also have been when I'd first drank Bael's blood, or when I let myself consciously use magic for the first time. Perhaps it was all those moments, and all the ones in between.

But at some point, I'd ceased to recognize the former version of myself. I'd moved further and further away from my mother's teachings, until now, we had far less in common than I did with the male lying beside me.

"What are you thinking about, little monster?" Bael asked. "You have a strange look on your face."

Rather than tell him exactly what I'd been thinking—which would have been far too embarrassing to voice, even to my mate—I answered a question with a question. How very Fae I was becoming. "Do you think we can trust that what my mother told me is true?"

He sat up slightly, leaning on his elbow facing me. "What do you mean?"

"It just seems very na?ve to think she wouldn't lie. After all, she's the one who taught me that deception was our greatest weapon against the fae."

Bael pursed his lips, thinking. "It's a very intricate story. Even if she wanted to deceive you, I doubt she could have invented something so detailed right there on the spot. I'm inclined to think she was mostly honest. To the extent that she's aware, that is."

"What do you mean by ‘to the extent she's aware?'"

"Not all falsehoods are lies, little monster. Sometimes people are simply wrong."

"I suppose."

I pressed my lips together, still feeling uneasy. I believed Mother had been truthful about her life in Nightshade, and even about my birth. As unreliable as it sounded, I also believed the story about Aisling. After all, where else would my magic have come from?

"I'm confused about the heir," I said finally. "And what Aisling wanted my mother to do once she found them. Doesn't it seem strange that there would be no further instructions? No message Aisling wanted to give her child? No specific mission?"

Bael frowned, looking troubled. "Maybe your mother simply forgot to explain that part. You could go ask her."

My frown deepened and I huffed out a long breath. Of course I could go back down to the dungeon, but at what cost?

Allowing myself to be berated again was not high on my list of priorities. Furthermore, I had absolutely no idea what we were going to do with her. We couldn't leave my mother in the dungeon forever, but neither did it seem smart to let her roam free.

"You don't have to get all the answers tonight," Bael said, seeming to understand the direction my thoughts had taken. "There's always tomorrow. Or next week, even. Your mother withstood two months in the dungeon with barely any food or water just to avoid talking to you. She can wait another week for us to decide what to do next."

"Isn't that cruel?"

He smiled grimly. "I don't care much if it is or not. She hurt you, and if Rhiannon were not your mother, I would have killed her for it. I'd have torn out her heart before we ever left Underneath."

I said nothing. His violent fantasies probably should have disturbed me, but I'd long ago accepted that they probably never would. I'd seen Bael literally eat the body of a man who attacked me, and then bathe in his blood. If I still loved him after that, there was likely nothing that could scare me away.

I scooted closer and laid my cheek back on his shoulder, soaking in the near-feverish warmth of his skin and closed my eyes.

"You know what I'd like to understand?" Bael asked, after several long moments. "What does she mean by ‘heir?'"

I opened one eye. "What do you mean?"

"Technically we're all heirs of Aisling. My entire family are descendants of the first royals, albeit distant ones. And then there's you. Through your magic, you're probably more connected to her than anyone has ever been."

"It sounded to me like she meant her child, not a distant descendant."

"But that's just it," Bael argued, sitting up straight to look at me. "Aisling lived thousands of years ago, and…" He broke off, leaving his sentence hanging in mid-air. "Oh, fuck."

"What is it?" I asked, sitting up.

In a split second, Bael had jumped to his feet. He moved so quickly I barely saw the blur as he collected his clothing from the floor, and tossed a shirt at me. "Get dressed."

"Why? You just said we could wait a week before speaking to my mother again."

He tugged his trousers on, and ran his fingers through his tangled curls, looking at me with incredulous wonder. "It's not her I want to talk to. If Aisling had a child, they would be nearly seven thousand years old, and as it happens we have a guest downstairs claiming to be exactly that."

My mouth fell open. "You don't think…"

"I don't know, little monster." Bael grinned. "Let's go find out."

Bael and I dashed down the hallway.

Or rather, I dashed, and he walked briskly beside me, clearly torn between a desire to stay together and frustration that I couldn't go any faster.

"We should prepare for the possibility that Idris has no idea what we're talking about." I panted as we ran. "Or, maybe he is the heir, but he's plotting to overthrow us at this very moment."

"Both are possible," Bael agreed grimly. "But I'm willing to risk it. If Idris really is an heir to Aisling then he could know how to break our curse. That's worth a gamble, no matter the cost."

I nodded in silent agreement as we turned a corner at the end of the long hall. Suddenly, the sound of arguing filled the hall, the angry raised voices echoing off the stone.

Bael stopped walking, and glanced over his shoulder. "By the fucking Source. Now what?"

I didn't bother to stifle my groan.

The voices were clearly recognizable as Scion and Ambrose, and while I couldn't hear what they were saying, the tone and volume was enough to give me an idea.

"Come on." I turned on the spot to go back the way we'd come. "We should go see what's wrong."

"We know what's wrong, little monster. They hate each other just as much today as they did yesterday and every day before that. There's no reason to waste our time playing referees when we could be finding out how to break the curse within the hour."

I bit my lip, feeling conflicted. "You're right, but I'm still going to intervene. I'll hate myself if one of them kills the other before we even reach the guest wing."

Bael rolled his eyes, but turned around and begrudgingly followed me back in the direction of all the yelling.

"If we're taking bets on who comes out alive, my money is on Scion," Bael muttered darkly. "Ambrose is a better physical fighter, but Sci has magic on his side, and he's far angrier."

I frowned. "You've thought about this?"

"Just a bit." Bael gave me a slightly guilty grin."Like, if for whatever reason I had to fight Ambrose I think it would be a toss up who'd win."

"Why is that?" I asked, internally kicking myself for feeding into this.

"Ambrose is really old, and he's been fighting far longer than I've been alive. Give me another hundred years or so, and I'll win every time."

"In one hundred years he'll have more experience too."

"Sure, but magic is like wine, and not just because it tastes delicious–" he winked at me "--power gets stronger as you get older, which is an advantage for someone like me. But for seers, more power isn't necessarily a good thing."

"It's not?"

"The more power a seer has, the more they lose touch with the present. They get kind of…strange and distant. Like they're here with you, but really somewhere else."

I scowled. I'd never seen Ambrose do anything like that. He was always alert, always wary of everything and everyone around him. I couldn't imagine what it might look like if he looked at me without his usual intensity.

"I don't know why we're discussing this," I snapped as the distant shouting grew louder. "I don't want any of you to fight."

"Don't worry little monster. Soon it won't matter who will kill whom."

"Why?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Well…" He shrugged, almost sheepishly. "I assume Ambrose won't want to stay here much longer now that the question of king has been settled. You're the queen and we're your mates, so unless he was somehow able to kill all three of us, which is doubtful, he'd never have a clear claim to the throne."

"I don't think he wants to hurt any of us," I said flatly.

Bael cocked his head at me in question. "Then what has he been doing for the last several decades?"

"I—" I broke off, unsure what to say.

The time I'd spent on the ship had felt like a lifetime for me, but Bael and Scion hadn't been there with us. Until recently, the only time's they'd seen Ambrose, he'd been attacking them. He'd destroyed their castle and his rebels killed all their guards. The fact that he'd helped rescue them wouldn't fix all the bad blood between them. It was hard to argue that all Ambrose wanted was to rejoin his family after he'd spent years trying to destabilize them. He'd been the leader of the rebellion for longer than I'd been alive, yet somehow I was positive that none of us were in any danger from him or his rebel army.

"He never hurt me while we were on the ship," I said defensively. "And he helped me rescue both of you, and let us use his ship to return from Underneath."

"And that's why he's still breathing," Bael said flippantly. "But you can't honestly think he's going to stay and…what? Go back to being a prince?"

"He's still here now," I argued.

"Sure, because we have to break the curse, but once that's done, and we start rebuilding the court, there's no place for him here anymore. Not after he gave up his title to go raise an army against us. The best thing for everyone would be for him to disappear."

A tiny spark of fear shot through me, but I tamped it down, forcing a neutral expression onto my face. "You're right. I suppose I've just gotten used to all this chaos, I keep forgetting what normal would feel like. If there ever really is a normal."

As if to illustrate my point, at that moment Scion and Ambrose rounded the corner on the opposite end of the hall, walking straight toward us. They were clearly still locked in their argument, both gesturing wildly as they yelled back and forth. They hadn't seen us yet, and we stopped walking, waiting for them to notice our presence.

Bael put a hand on my lower back, and bent to press a kiss to the side of my jaw. "Don't worry, little monster. If Idris knows how to break the curse, hopefully things will be better than normal again soon."

He'd clearly meant that as comforting, but instead I bit my lip, feeling slightly uneasy.

He was very attached to the idea that Idris could know how to help, but I wasn't so sure that was wise. Tonight had only emphasized to me that we didn't know nearly enough about the male we were allowing to live here, and we'd have to put a stop to that, no matter if he turned out to have anything to do with Aisling.

Finally, Ambrose looked up and spotted us standing in the middle of the corridor, clearly waiting for them. He nudged Scion to get his attention, who seemed to think he was being attacked, and immediately raised a fist to–presumably–send Ambrose careening into the opposite wall.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Stop it!"

To his credit, Scion did stop. He froze with his arm still raised, and turned his head to look at me. "Lonnie," he blurted out. "What are you doing there?"

"What the hell are you two doing?" I snapped back. "We could hear you all the way in the guest wing. You sound like spoiled children."

Both Ambrose and Scion turned to look at me. Their expressions were nervous—something I wasn't used to seeing from either of them. When the silence stretched on a beat too long, a feeling of unease began to wash over me.

"What's wrong?" I asked, in a completely different tone.

Again, the awkward silence was almost palpable. Finally, Scion broke, stepping forward. "It's your mother, rebel."

A lump formed in my throat, and I already knew what he was going to say before I even spoke. "What about her?"

"She's gone, love," Ambrose said gravely.

"Gone where?" I demanded, uncomprehending.

"Dead."