Chapter 34

34

Arwen

Kane's private dining quarters were surely designed for hosting dignitaries, plotting conquests, or impressing royals with masterfully sliced garnishes, not ale spewed from Ryder's nose in an uproarious fit of laughter—yet our motley group was absolutely defiling the stately room.

Hot buttered rum spilled across the polished wood as I reached for Kane's arm in hysterics, gripping it to keep from falling out of my chair at the sight. I fished for a napkin to mop up the mess through my tearing eyes.

Barney cackled alongside my brother, pressing his mouth to the crook of his elbow to make sure he didn't suffer a similar fate.

"Suffice to say," Briar continued, smirking, "it was the last time a peddler tried to sell me ‘witches' brew.'?"

Kane raised his mug to cover the grin tugging at his dimpled cheek. His shoulders were relaxed. His eyes crinkling.

We'd needed this. All of us. The Quartz of Rose had been a loss on every front. Failing to secure Ethera's army, Mari's setback, and of course, Aleksander…

I'd asked Kane this morning, curled in his arms, what he thought of Aleksander and Ethera's blood oath. If he had any knowledge what their agreement all those decades ago might mean for us if we were to somehow bear a child. Kane only told me he'd have his spies travel to Rose when this was all over and uncover what they could. I knew he thought it was useless now. He'd never allow us to have a child in a world his father still lived in. And once Lazarus was gone…

To stave off tears before breakfast I'd then asked how his generals were feeling about laying siege to Solaris without first hearing from Hart or Amelia—clearly they hadn't been able to secure the blade.

Kane had said if Briar could fix Mari's magic, maybe we'd wait another few days—four at the most—and try to portal to Hart's enclave first and see if he had news. But it had been three weeks since we'd blown Lazarus's lighte reserves. Surely he would be ready for war soon. Either way, we both knew time was running out.

I'd only wished Mari would have joined us tonight. Only wished she could have—

The mahogany doors peeled open and I turned in my seat, expecting another round of warm rum and fizzy ale. A shock of curled red hair filed in instead, bringing a fresh grin to my cheeks.

"You came." I almost sang the words.

Mari only nodded, a little shyly, and walked past my side of the table to take the last empty seat next to Griffin.

I might have gasped when he peered up at her with those usually unfeeling pale green eyes and said, "Hello, Mari." And then, swallowing, "You look very well."

Her answering grin was faint, but warmed my heart all the same.

Since our return, I'd caught Griffin not once but twice strolling past the woodcutter's cottage where Mari and her father lived. I was sure he'd made his way up to the library daily, hoping she'd found solace in between her favorite stacks. And now she was seated beside him—the commander practically glowed.

The jovial conversation and rich spirit continued to flow, and while Mari hadn't laughed yet, I did catch a smirk working its way across her face as Dagan regaled us with a story about finding her hiding under his counter in the apothecary when she was six.

"I told the kids hunting for her that I'd transformed Mari into a newt." Dagan's eyes lit with the memory. "And if they didn't bolt, they'd be next."

Apparently Dagan had known for years that the entire keep thought he was a wizard and simply chose not to correct anyone. Everything I learned about the man made me love him more.

"I wish I'd been there," Briar lilted. "I would have made good on such a promise." Her eyes simmered on Mari's warming cheeks. "Nobody harasses our little witch."

"Well," Mari said, her voice still a bit small. "About half the castle did. I could write you an essay on how too much free time in an army stronghold with no role models other than burly soldiers can turn little boys into monsters."

"Poor Red." Ryder hummed. "Too brainy and cute. The boys had no idea what to do with themselves."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I had no doubt Ryder and Halden would have aided the little creeps in filling Mari's lunch pail with snails.

"If I'd been there," Ryder continued, "I bet we could have taken them."

Griffin wasn't smiling. "If I'd been there, they'd have been butchered."

Mari's eyes went wide as she peered up at him. Ironically, outside of his armor Griffin looked a little stiff. Like a lion in a dress suit, attempting to sip from a chalice without crushing it.

Barney's eyes might have gone even wider. "These were six-year-olds."

"I said what I said," Griffin replied.

"Is that how you first met?" I asked Dagan. "When you found her under there?"

Dagan nodded, sipping his wine. "Quite the first impression."

"Dagan asked me to dance with him when we first met," Briar said from across the table. "Do you remember? You looked very handsome in that velvet jacket."

Dagan loosed a wry smile as he chewed. But there was something a little somber wending through his eyes at the memory, too.

I shot a sidelong glance at Kane, who only listened gently, as if he'd heard the story before.

"At the Lumerian Solstice." Briar smiled. "He'd been the seventh man to ask, but the first one I said yes to."

I couldn't help myself. "You were courting Briar?"

"No," Dagan said around a bite of meat. "I was foolishly trying to make someone jealous."

"Who?" Mari asked, her russet eyes lighting. Nothing—truly, nothing —would ever curb Mari's ravenous curiosity.

Dagan took another sip of wine. "My wife."

The air left my lungs in one single breath. Kane entwined his hand in mine.

"Of course," Dagan said down to his dinner, "she wasn't my wife at the time. I'd only hoped."

Dagan never spoke of his wife or infant daughter, both of whom had been killed by Lazarus. The memory sent my dinner crawling back up my throat and I reached for a glass of cool water.

Briar saved us all the same train of thought by adding, "I might've fallen in love had you not been a little young for me." Her violet eyes twinkled.

I breathed out a quiet laugh as Ryder and Barney both leaned imperceptibly toward her. Briar tucked a pitch-black slice of hair behind her ear demurely.

"And yet," Kane drawled, questioning eyes on the sorceress, "you apparently danced quite a bit with the young rebel king, Hart Renwick."

Despite her dry laugh, I knew my cheeks had gone red. I wasn't even sure why. Briar didn't strike me as a woman who had been embarrassed once in her life.

"He's only fifty years younger than you two." She motioned to Kane and Griffin. "And very charming."

Hart's dazzling smile popped into my mind. "He seems a bit of a…"

"Whore?" Kane offered.

"I was going to say free spirit ."

"He is," Briar agreed. "Both. I wonder how he'll take his impending nuptials."

"He's betrothed?" I asked. "To who?"

Griffin made a gruff noise as Kane cringed, leaning back in his chair. "It was the only way Citrine would grant us refuge back in Azurine. I promised Isolde and Broderick I'd wed their daughter, Sera, to whomever takes the Lumerian throne."

Meat practically lodged itself in my esophagus and I coughed wildly. "You promised him to Fedrik's sister ? That meek girl who's clearly still hung up on you?"

Kane shrugged. "Perhaps she has a type?"

"What—gorgeous, power-hungry womanizers with swoopy hair and a sideways grin?"

Kane pinned me with a rakish smile. "I was going to say kings ."

"What does swoopy hair consist of?" Ryder asked, downing his ale.

As Barney pointed to Kane's dark chin-length locks and tried to mime how he would rake his hand through it from time to time, Kane returned to our game. "When I first met Griffin, he punched me for a butterscotch." My eyes darted to him, and Kane added, "We were four."

I snorted into my wineglass. I loved these stories. The links between us all—how this family of sorts was held together through memory and history and laughter.

And that, I realized, was what this was. Somehow, despite all the odds that stood before us, all the pain and suffering we'd endured, this was my family. And as with Leigh or Ryder, I'd do anything for the people sitting around this table.

Though the knowledge fed my soul, it also chilled my blood. It was a weakness, to know I'd give anything to keep every person seated here tonight alive tomorrow.

"When I first met Griffin," Mari said, mood brightened by wine and company, "he was looking for a book in the library on stonework. He told me his quarters in Shadowhold were too close to all the people , and he intended to build himself a cottage, like a mumbling bearded recluse."

"Yeah, yeah." Griffin shook his head. "Wish I'd never climbed those Gods-forsaken stairs."

He said it playfully, and we all laughed, and the conversation continued—Ryder ruminating on the first time he met Kane and knew the Onyx king was gone for his sister; Kane recalling his first encounter with Dagan, when he was the only mortal kingsguard in Solaris and still bested half the regiment.

But I couldn't tear my eyes from the rapidly declining situation to my right. Mari's cheeks had pinkened—even the tips of her ears had gone red.

Griffin turned his entire body toward her, uninterested in the rest of the dining room. "Witch, that is not what I—"

"No, it's fine." Mari kept her eyes on her napkin. She folded it twice in her lap.

" Mari ," Griffin mumbled to her. "I didn't mean—"

But whatever else he'd hoped to clear up was lost with the slamming open of the dining room doors.

I knew I was friends with too many soldiers because in an instant Kane, Griffin, Barney, and Dagan were all on their feet, lighte and swords shining, plates and wineglasses jumping with their movements.

"Help! Please—" Leigh was repeating as she dragged Beth inside. "I don't know what to…What's happening to her?"

Beth was convulsing, shaggy brown hair rustling with her movements, eyes glazed over as her little body shook with tremors.

Briar rushed to her at the same time I did. Immediately my lighte knew she wasn't seizing. At least, not for any medical reason.

"She's having a vision," Briar said, hushed.

Barney peered over the table. "What can be done?"

"Nothing." Briar helped Leigh and me lay Beth on her side. "We must let it pass."

As she spoke, the jolting slowed and Beth's bloodshot eyes blinked open. My selfish, twisted heart hammered.

Please not the deal. Not the deal—

It had kept me up more nights than I could count. Beth's harrowing promise: "You'll have to make the deal. When the time comes, you'll have to." She'd sworn my face would be wet with tears, and Kane's hands coated in blood. I looked to Kane's clear palms now, braced on the table, and was soothed.

Leigh brought Beth a glass of water and she sat up to sip it slowly.

"What did you see?" Briar asked when the little seer had regained her composure.

Beth took in the crowded dining room. The half-melted candles. The spread of steak and cloverbread rolls and rum. She swallowed twice and I debated telling everyone to leave so she wouldn't have to speak before them all.

But then she said, "Lazarus and his witch…"

"Octavia," I supplied, though the name was like mold growing over my tongue.

"They've cast some kind of spell. Or, they will, soon."

"What spell?" Briar asked.

"Lumera. The Fae Realm—if Lazarus dies in battle it will be sealed shut. He's tethered his own lighte to the realm itself to keep it from collapsing. If he is killed…"

Horror threatened to topple me like a lone ship on a windswept sea. I cut my eyes back to Kane, who was still standing in place at the dining table. His glare gave nothing away as he listened.

"If he is killed," Beth continued, Leigh holding her hand tightly, "the roads and seas that lead to Evendell—the entire channel—will crumble…The skies themselves will fall. There will be no way in or out of the realm."

"And all those people," I found myself saying.

"They will spend eternity trapped there."

In that withering realm. I shook my head.

We could not take any more terrible news. I couldn't.

"Can the realm be saved somehow?" Leigh asked her friend.

Beth shook her head. "I don't know. I only know what I saw."

"With time," Kane said. "It can be restored with time. We'd need to move at least a third of the Fae population here, to Evendell. Right now there are too many resources being used at once."

"What about the portals?" Mari tried from the table. "If we kill Lazarus, can the realm still be accessed by portal?"

"Portals are magic," Briar weighed. "They aren't tied to the lighte that built the channel."

I held Briar's violet eyes. "That's good, right?"

"But there are very few witches alive who can open portals between realms. Even I have struggled. Sometimes an entire coven can, if they're incredibly strong. I only know of one."

The Antler coven. Valery's family.

Octavia. And Briar.

Briar could do it.

"We need to open one tonight. Begin to get people out," I said to her, and to Kane.

But Briar shook her head. "Lazarus's men will be on us immediately. They monitor the most populated cities. If we were to try to funnel people out of them…"

"The war will begin before we're ready," Kane said.

"So what do we do?" Griffin finally asked, eyes steadfast on his friend. His king.

"We can't just win by killing him anymore," Kane managed. "Now we have to win on our own terms."

When none of us said anything—Ryder, Mari, even Dagan—silenced by the grim reality expanding before us, Kane continued.

"We beat his army. We defeat Amber and Garnet, too. We end his life without losing our manpower or our witches. Then we free the innocents of Lumera, work with Hart, and start a new era here in Evendell: Fae and mortal alike, living as one. We'll fight like all the lives in all the realms depend on it, because they do." Illuminated by the guttering candelabra above and muted stained-glass lamps, Kane pushed his broad shoulders back and shook his head.

"We can't approach this war with this…fear that's seized us any longer. We have to fight for something ." Kane's eyes found mine and my heart opened up just a little. "We'll fight armed with hope. Hope for something better than just his death. And when that hope feels out of reach…" Kane studied the quiet, dimly lit dining room. All the faces latched on to his every word. Briar's small smile. Dagan's crinkled eyes, Leigh's youthful ones. All the age and experience and loss and fear and joy and love that we shared, collectively. "We rely on one another.

"Lazarus has never had real allies. For too long I thought that coldness was his strength. But each of you…you've shown me what it means to fight with more than vengeance. That nobody can triumph alone. That's why Lazarus won't win." Kane looked back down to me. "And why we must."