Chapter 2

2

kane

I was in love with her. And it was a fucking nightmare.

The way I felt about Arwen—pulse racing every time she spoke, eager to play with her, flirt with her, to make her laugh, make her sigh, frustrate her to the point of seeing that little pinch between her brows, always needing to pick her brain, taste her lips—it was enough to kill a man. I didn’t know how anybody survived being in love. It was as crippling as I’d always feared it would be. And . . . terrifying. To never be able to get enough of her. To never be free of these feelings.

Even if somehow we both survived the battle that was brewing—which seemed nothing short of impossible—I would have to walk through the world, for the rest of my life, decade after decade, with this nagging, aching, festering love spooling around my heart and yanking it in her direction.

Worse yet, I had done the one thing I had set out to avoid doing at all costs: once again I had hurt the person who meant the most to me.

It was like a fucking curse.

The ship’s pitch over yet another gut-roiling swell shifted me down the rigid wood bench and sent the cabin lantern flickering, casting Amelia and Griffin across from me in ghoulish shadow.

They looked morose.

How had I let this happen? Found the Fae I had been searching years for and fallen stupidly, miserably in love with her? Now I’d have to destroy my father some other way. One that didn’t result in Arwen’s . . .

I bit down on oily nausea at the thought.

I hadn’t discovered an alternative in a century. And it would only be harder now that Lazarus knew who she was. He’d be looking everywhere for her. And he’d find her—inevitably he would. I could only pray to the Gods that by then we would be ready for him.

“Have you finally passed out?” Amelia waved a small, tanned hand in my face. Her voice was getting a little pitchy from all the spirits. The mortal princess rarely drank enough to keep up with Fae like Griffin and me, but tonight she and my commander were both half a bottle in.

And I was on my fourth.

I could only attribute her uncharacteristic thirst to guilt. She had lost everything in the battle of Siren’s Bay. Her soldiers, her citizens, her keep—the capital of the Peridot Provinces was utterly destroyed by my father and his men. While she put on a good show, I could see vivid sorrow in her eyes every time she took a sip.

The captain’s quarters, paneled in oak and spare besides a few thick flannel blankets and a rusted lantern, had become our crude tavern each night of this abysmal journey. We should have flown to Citrine like we always did—my scales icy against the storm that protected the kingdom, the static scent of lightning funneling through my nostrils—but there were too many aboard the ship to take them with us through the skies, and the few of us who had been to the capital before needed to show them how to enter the city. I slumped deeper into the creaking bench, its wooden slats digging into my shoulders.

“I said,” Amelia continued, “before we arrive in Citrine, you need to get word to Dagan. So he can train the girl. Where is he?”

“He stayed in Garnet Kingdom to chase down a lead on the Blade of the Sun,” I said. “I’ll send a raven.”

We had been there to retrieve Arwen’s family.

The reminder of her mother’s death seized my gut. And the little one—Leigh. The loss had already changed her, something dark and thorny taking hold, finding purchase in her grief.

“Maybe he’ll come back with it?” Amelia asked, hope creeping into her voice. “The blade?”

“Doubtful, with our recent luck,” mumbled Griffin.

Ah, my ever-positive commander.

Griffin and I had been through more pain, more triumph, and more liquor together than anyone in Evendell. He was more than my commander, more than my ally or my friend. I used to call him my brother. Before Yale’s death.

“Come now, Griff. Don’t blame our recent luck,” I chided, reaching for the next bottle. “We’ve been terrible at finding the blade for five years now.”

I knew every single hiding spot on this continent like the scales on my own wings . . . Where in the damn realm was the thing?

The ship heaved us forward again, and Amelia loosed a nauseated groan. “Hear me out. The prophecy says Arwen will find the blade ‘inside her heart,’ right? Let’s just crack her open and see if it’s there. The witch can heal her right after. Frankly, she could even heal herself.”

“This joke has gotten very old, Amelia,” I snarled at her. “You go near her, and I will kill you. You know that, right?”

“What if it’s some kind of full-blooded Fae trick and it’s been inside her all along?”

I only scowled.

“I’m serious!”

“As am I.”

Amelia hiccupped. “Infatuated idiot.”

Griffin winced with his last swig. “I’m not saying we should split Arwen open like a log, but it may be time to think outside the proverbial box.”

I blamed Griffin’s viciously pragmatic general father and a strict, withholding mother for his detachment from people and things. His casual well of endless patience. His lack of any sentiment—any emotion, really. In my more unfortunate moments of temper and impulse I could appreciate those qualities, but right now I wanted to bash in his even-keeled face with my boot.

“Are we running out of time?” Amelia asked.

“In one year we’ll be a ‘half century past’ the day of the rebellion,” he said. “That’s when ‘war is to begin again.’ ”

“Actually,” I cut in, “the prophecy says that’s when ‘father and child will meet again in war.’ ”

“But you ‘met again’ just a few days ago.”

True . . . But I didn’t want to think about my father. I wanted to be drunker.

“I thought he’d killed you,” Griffin confessed. “How did you evade him? Back at Siren’s Bay?”

It was a fair question. He’d grown up with my father, too. Had seen him scorch a disobedient guard into white-hot flame or shred a rebellious noble with his own talons without so much as a frown.

Days ago my father and I were a clash of claws and fangs high above the blood-soaked Peridot sands. I knew I couldn’t kill him, that nobody could, outside of Arwen with the blade in hand. But it hadn’t stopped me from trying. From tearing into his soldiers and mercenaries over and over, relishing each lash and blow, regardless of who they landed on. It was the sound of her cries that had cut through my bloodlust like a hot knife through flesh.

“I heard her. When she . . .” They knew what I meant. When she destroyed everything in sight. The lighte pouring out of her with the force of a split dam, ships, creatures, weapons of her enemies burning in merciless flame across the shallow bay. A breathtaking, violent goddess of fury.

He had let me go to her. He could have annihilated me, but he hadn’t. Perhaps he feared her. Or thought she might be able to kill him. But for whatever reason, he let me live. He let us both live.

“She was remarkable.” It was the most complimentary thing Amelia had ever said about Arwen.

“Yes.” I sipped my whiskey. “She was.”

We remained silent for a while, the light from the single lantern overhead beginning to flicker toward extinguishing. I peered through the round windows behind me. Both sky and sea near pitch-black. Thick thunderclouds had blotted out the moon and stars for the third night in a row. The ferocity of the storm meant we were getting closer.

“I’m glad he didn’t kill you,” Amelia finally offered, sitting back in her chair and pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Bastard fathers. The only thing we’ve ever had in common.” I lifted my bottle to hers in facetious cheers. She clinked mine once and we both drank.

“Eryx seems even more intent than usual on wedding you off to the highest bidder,” Griffin said.

“Don’t remind me.” Amelia wrapped her white fur tighter around herself. The cold weather was especially hard on the Peridot folk. Amelia was well-traveled, as royals often were, but a childhood spent in the most tropical ecosystem on the continent meant she struggled through a slight chill. Tonight she was bundled like a puff pastry, her warm bronze skin a constant contrast to that severe, stark white hair. “Being a chess piece in your father’s political game isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Did you ever discuss your court position with him?” I asked.

Amelia hoped orchestrating the wartime alliance between Peridot and Onyx might prove her use as more than a human bargaining chip.

“He said he’d marry me himself if he thought it would ‘benefit the Provinces.’ ”

Griffin coughed. “That’s sick.”

“At least our kingdom’s pillaging has briefly taken his mind off my vacant ring finger.”

“No bidders?” I teased.

“You did, once,” she snipped.

Amelia had an arresting sort of beauty, but looking at her now, I couldn’t imagine how I had slept with her so many times.

It hadn’t been bad. We were friends, so there had been a comfort, a familiarity, when we finally fucked. But now . . . Now I couldn’t fathom bedding anyone but Arwen.

Lightning colored the cabin in a flash of pale blue before a smack of forceful thunder rocked the sea.

Just a few hours now, I guessed.

“When we arrive . . .” I trailed off. I wasn’t sure what exactly we were walking into with Citrine. My standing with the kingdom was . . . tense. At best.

“I know,” Griffin said anyway.

“Oh, no . . . What did you two idiots do?”

“What will you say to them?” Griffin asked, ignoring her.

I scratched at my stubble. “I’ll come up with something.”

“Hello.” Amelia waved at us both. “What happened?” She was beyond drunk now and needed to be put to bed.

“If we have to enter the city,” Griffin continued, disregarding her question again, “we should finally pay Crawford a visit.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. We hadn’t ever interrogated the noble regarding the blade, as it went missing from my kingdom’s vault about a year after I was banished from Citrine. My spies had kept an eye on him, though, and his renowned stash of unique and rare objects. “If he had acquired the blade for his hoard, we would have known.”

“What if he only has information?”

“Citrine won’t help facilitate an audience with him.”

“Well, they better at least offer refuge to the people on this ship,” Amelia said. “They’re innocents.”

I had no idea if they would. But it would be the least of our asks. “We’ll also need their mermagic.”

“And their army,” added Griffin.

“Right,” Amelia slurred. “Because mine was destroyed by demonic Fae soldiers. You know,” she said, raising her bottle as she pointed at me, “I actually tried to save her.”

My eyes cut to hers as she took a gulp and thumped the glass back down onto the table. “How so?”

Amelia hiccupped. “I told her, back in Siren’s Cove, that you were full of it. Using her. I would have wanted someone to tell me.”

Something putrid rose in my throat at her words.

She’s right. You’re reprehensible.

It was even worse hearing someone else say it.

“But the girl was over the moon for you. She didn’t listen to a word.”

Amelia had intended to help Arwen, and now was more than willing to slice her in half to find the blade? “What changed for you?”

Amelia took one final swig and tossed the empty bottle into the depths of the captain’s quarters. The sound of shattering glass didn’t elicit as much as a blink from any of us. “Now my kingdom is in the hands of scum, my men are dead, and my capital’s sacked. So we do what we have to.”

The lantern above her pale white head had nearly winked out with the last swell. It sputtered for its life now, casting the cabin in jarring cuts of yellow light.

“We’ll have to be careful with Arwen when we arrive,” I said. “Now that Lazarus knows her name, what she looks like . . . he’ll have everyone in Garnet, Amber, and Peridot looking for her. Soon, the entire continent.” I ran a hand down my face. Keeping her safe was going to be an impossible task. “Nobody in Citrine can know who she is.”

“We’ll say she’s our healer,” offered Griffin. “It’s true.”

“For now,” Amelia hedged. “But, Kane . . .”

I knew where this was going, and I didn’t want to hear it. Not tonight.

Griffin saved me the argument. “Another time.”

“Fine,” she huffed, standing up with a wobble. “But we do have to talk about it eventually.”

“I’m not sure he can.”

“Oh, come on.” Amelia turned to me, hands splayed on the table to keep her upright. When I didn’t argue with Griffin, her eyes widened. “Kane’s a little obsessed with the pretty Fae girl, sure. But nothing could stop him from taking down his father. Freeing the people of Lumera. Freeing our kingdoms, our continent. Right?”

Griffin didn’t say anything but glanced in my direction.

“Right?”Amelia asked me this time, incensed.

“Right.” I gave a bland smile. It didn’t matter what she thought. I had made my choice months ago, and would see it through one way or another.

Momentarily appeased, she teetered toward the hallway. “Good. I’m going to bed.”

I finished my bottle, as did Griffin, in grateful silence.

The first few lazy, soft rays of sun had begun to glint off the unruly ocean waves and filter into the cabin. My mouth was dry, I was properly drunk, and my stomach was starting to sour. I stood on weightless legs and staggered for the hallway. “I need to piss.”

There was no early sunlight in the shadowed hall, but Arwen’s cabin door jeered at me from the other end.

I wondered what she was dreaming of. Perhaps lilies. Or that grassy knoll outside her home in Abbington. Even though I reviled Amber, I itched to go there with her. I wanted to touch every single thing she had ever touched. Roll in the grass she had once lain on. I was like a dog with a scent. I wanted to bathe in her.

A petite body slammed into mine in the shadows, and I steadied my hands on slim shoulders. Arwen, who always smelled like orange blossoms and honeysuckle. I hadn’t touched her in days. The contact made my mouth water.

I wrapped my hands tighter around those delicate shoulders for balance. The journey had shrunk her already slender frame. I was practically grasping shoulder blades. Covered in little freckles, like spots on a deer.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“You’re excused.”

“You’re wasted.” She wrenched free of my grip, and I stumbled a bit with the release and the swell of the ship. She opened her mouth to chastise me, her adorable, pouting mouth and furrowed brow dead giveaways of an incoming reprimand—but the ship rocked and she crashed awkwardly into me once more.

“Easy there.” I held her by the middle as the ground danced beneath us, frenetic and jerking, and Arwen gripped my chest as we braced through the tumult. I grazed her hip with my thumb. To stabilize her, I told myself. To keep her from falling.

“Stop that,” she snapped, steadying her hand against the wall beside me as another wave teetered us.

She’s right. Inappropriate.

The ship threw her chin into my sternum. My head was killing me. “I should never have made a move on you in the first place.”

A swaying lantern at the end of the hall cast her face in shafts of dim light. Insult bloomed in her olive eyes. Or was that regret? Pain? Whatever it was, I was too inebriated to tell. Clearly I couldn’t say the right thing sober, let alone trashed. “I just mean,” I tried again, “I knew what was coming. I shouldn’t have let us—”

“I know what you mean.”

I could feel her little heart racing. She was looking at me like—

That face—

Battles had been started over less. Wars.

The ship came to a lurching halt and we untangled from each other, despite all internal alarm bells that blared for me to do otherwise. The exact opposite, in fact. To bind her to me—even if she kicked and screamed—and take off through the sunrise. To leave this war, this prophecy, this revenge to the rest of them, and show Arwen the world. Show her me, for better or worse. Wring her forgiveness from her lips through days and weeks spent alternating between groveling and pleasuring her. I was a simple man—that approach would have worked for me. Perhaps she, too, could be swayed.

I stumbled back toward the captain’s quarters instead, nearly losing my balance and introducing my face to the slick, wet floor. Eyes firm on my shoes until a displeased sigh sent them up. Griffin, opening the door at the ship’s halting.

He regarded us at opposite ends of the passageway. Surely we both looked guilty, though I couldn’t think what of. I bit back a smile at the ridiculousness of it all. How absurdly, vastly out of hand I had let everything get. Arwen must have misunderstood my expression because she huffed like a furious horse.

Griffin shook his head at us both. “We’re here.”