Chapter 39

39

Arwen

Kane rubbed slow circles along my back as I hunched over the shivering, freckled soldier, stitching him closed. The claw wound was serrated. Not seamless, and my lighte would have worked better, but my power had to be conserved. Every life saved with it was a wager now.

Beyond the flesh and thread beneath my fingers, the great hall grew more and more packed with citizens, some wounded, some only terribly afraid. Moaning sounded as soldiers and residents of the keep nursed their wounds. In a crowded corner Lieutenant Eardley and Griffin were conferring around a table with a group of high-ranking Onyx officers. Their voices ratcheted up an octave and Kane murmured, "I'll be right back."

I only nodded. He pressed his lips to the crown of my head, but I could barely feel it.

They had already moved Dagan's body into the crypt. They'd told me it was the safest place, just in case. Just in case the main castle was breeched, and Lazarus's army decided to desecrate the bodies of the dead.

Those were the kind of monsters we stood to face.

The great hall had become a makeshift infirmary, war room, and hideout. Though I was sure Briar, Griffin, the Onyx soldiers, and I had killed at least three dozen, I knew Lazarus had more. This morning had just been the warm-up. An opening act, to dazzle us with the performance of savagery he had in store.

The tremor of heavy footfalls sounded just a moment before the massive doors to the great hall swung open.

I turned, the freckled boy whose shoulder I held turning with me, to see a handful of darkly armored Onyx soldiers stalking through. Ashy, bruised, bleak—

Silence fell as Barney, at the helm, lifted his helmet of bone and said, "They've got us surrounded. The sheer number of men…" I'd never seen Barney with that expression.

Defeat.

Kane's men were mortal. A handful of them halflings, maybe. We'd only be safe in here for so long, and when the ward was released…The walls and gates and ramparts that surrounded Shadowhold were no match for Lazarus's army.

Despair—crushing and relentless—threatened at the thought.

Not yet , I told myself, focusing on the even, rhythmic stitching at my fingertips. Stay strong. For Dagan.

He'd killed Octavia. They were without a witch. No way to portal home, no spells to bolster their legions. That was worth something.

Kane stood elegantly from the table he'd been hunched across and motioned over his shoulder for me to join him.

"Rest," I told the boy, standing. "And drink water."

"Fuck that." He frowned. Then, catching himself, added, "With all due respect, my queen, I have Fae bastards to kill."

He stood before I could stop him, needle slick with his blood still in my grip.

While Kane and I had been suffering from Peridot to Lumera to find the blade and then to find each other, I'd forgotten that at some point Eardley or Griffin must've informed thousands of men that a fight for their kingdom meant not only defeating Amber and Garnet but Fae soldiers, too. They'd had to explain to them that the brutal, mythic creatures that sketched our childhood nightmares were not only real but standing at the other side of the front lines.

The freckled kid that stood before me, hoisting on menacing dark leather armor with a still-bleeding shoulder, couldn't have been more than sixteen. I watched as he threaded his last strap with a wince and bounded for his fellow men.

Is this what Dagan died for?

For hundreds of young boys, if not thousands, to rush to their deaths?

Against a Fae king that could not be beaten without the Blade of the Sun? Which we still didn't have?

"We'll need to approach from the North Gate," Kane was saying to the group when I neared.

"I want to see," I said, before I'd even really thought the words.

Kane's and Griffin's gazes, and about seven other sets of eyes, fell to me.

"See what?" Kane asked.

"The soldiers. Our position." I made for the doors of the great hall, and the tens of guards standing menacingly before it.

"No," Kane said, not harshly, but with that cold, unwavering command. "You can't go out there." Then, his jaw working, "My study."

Exiting the great hall through the back, I realized I'd never heard Shadowhold so silent.

The castle wasn't known for its noisiness, but now that there was none, I ached for the fluttering pages of books and idle suppertime chatter. The rowdy, masculine noises from the barracks and pleasant footsteps as nobles and children shuffled up and down the sprawling stairs and across the cozy, candlelit halls.

And it was frigid .

Despite everything, Shadowhold was always warm. Either due to breezy summer wind or roaring winter fireplaces—the keep was nothing if not filled with life. A dark, cold shell that served to protect a warm, beating heart. The mirror image of its king.

If I lived to survive this war, I'd never scrub the image of Shadowhold like this from my mind.

And all I could hope as we climbed the narrow stairs was that I wouldn't.

Best-case scenario was that I'd end Lazarus, and thus myself. Otherwise it would mean we'd failed. Lazarus would take Evendell, starting with Shadowhold.

Or, it would mean Kane had taken my place. And as my eyes fell to his face, features etched in furious stone, and his hand, despite it all, clasped tightly around mine as we scaled toward his study, I couldn't imagine anything more awful than for him to lose his life protecting me.

Rather than entering Kane's study through our sleeping quarters, we circled around the back entrance and Kane uttered the spelled passcode, moving that glittering display case of treasures aside and allowing us to enter.

"Mari," I breathed, finding her and Briar hunched over a grimoire on the leather couch at the center of the room. "Bleeding Stones."

When she stood, her face was even paler than usual. Her lovely blue dress was ripped and spotted with blood. "Tell me…" Tears gathered in her bloodshot eyes. "Tell me it isn't true."

I swallowed hard, my chest threatening to cave in once more. "I—I can't."

Mari's face crumpled and I knew mine had done the same.

"Octavia should have burned at the stake long ago," Briar murmured from the couch.

The guttural wrath that warped Kane's face as he interlaced his fingers tighter in mine was ancient and deep-seated. For Dagan, for me, for his mother…

But Mari wasn't listening. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."

I faltered for words. Neither had I.

"He knew you had gotten to safety," Griffin said behind us, his voice hoarse. "He saw you flee the temple."

I didn't know if Griffin was lying, and I didn't want to. Possibly a vestige from my more naive days, but I couldn't stomach the thought that Dagan's final breaths had been occupied worrying about Mari's or my or anyone else's safety. I told myself he'd died doing what he couldn't so many years ago…saving children. Perhaps not his children, but Leigh and Ryder, even little Beth—they were as close as it came for him.

And for Dagan, I'd do the same. I'd save everyone I could.

I moved purposefully for the southern windows.

Nobody followed me.

"We've sent for reinforcements from Willowridge," Eardley told Kane behind me.

"There are fewer men there than stationed here," Griffin said, too low.

The study was on the highest floor of this wing. Though not as tall as the library or the temple, it was elevated enough that the sea of gray surrounding Shadowhold's gates looked like dirtied snow to me at first.

So much so, I'd almost felt a rush—thought Lazarus and his men might have vanished altogether.

It was like discovering your shadow was actually a cloud of buzzing flies—not snow at all, but thousands and thousands of Fae warriors. Spilling deeper into the Shadow Woods, poised on foot, on horseback, on winged mercenaries. And past them, through pockets of the forest—golden armor and rusty red as well. Amber. Garnet. All of them.

They outnumbered us at least fifty to one.

It would be a bloodbath.

"We can't fight them."

My eyes hadn't left the window, and Eardley's snort behind me shook my focus. "We sure as shit won't surrender without trying."

"Can't you see?" I turned to face the room. All the worried, dirtied faces. "We've already lost."

"How long will your wards last?" Mari asked Briar.

Briar patted down the wrinkled silk of her fine lilac skirt. She had dressed so nicely for our wedding. "A couple of hours. At most."

"And then they'll breach the walls with ease," Kane promised, ice sliding through the room with his words. "They'll take Shadowhold before nightfall."

"Can we run?" Mari asked, no shame in the question.

"There's nowhere we could go where he won't find us," I said. "And we'll just rack up more death while we delay the inevitable."

"Arwen…" Kane cautioned.

We were powerless.

I'd been powerless to stop Dagan's slaughter and the deaths of so, so many more. Had almost seen both Leigh and Ryder killed—the thought alone like an arrowhead to my heart. We were at the mercy of Lazarus now, and Kane knew, whether or not he could admit it.

I had one final weapon in my arsenal. "But I have an idea."

Kane stepped toward me, face drawn with bleak understanding. "Why don't we discuss—"

"I'll return to him."

"You are not his ," Kane hissed.

"But he still wants me to be. I'll go to him, willingly."

"In what Gods-damned world?" Griffin bit out, voice rough as a cliffside.

Noticing how my hands shook, I folded them across my chest. "It's our only bargaining chip. If I offer myself up in return for a ceasefire before war even begins, maybe we can spare everyone. He still needs me to bear his heirs."

"No way," Mari said. "Absolutely not."

"It won't work," Eardley added. "He'll take you and still obliterate the keep."

"See? No chance," Mari said again. "Tell her, Kane."

But Kane said nothing. His eyes only fixed on mine, a great well of sorrow pooling in them.

My throat tightened.

"It's Arwen's life. It's her choice."

"Oh, what the fuck?" Griffin rubbed his temples.

"It's not her life if he kills her ," Mari snapped, just as a strange wind pulled through the very fabric of the room's atmosphere and turned all our attention toward movement near a cluttered bookcase.

"We're not going to let him do anything of the sort," a surly feminine voice said.

Amelia emerged from a rippling, undulating chasm in the physical threads of the room. A portal—and with her, Hart Renwick…as well as a familiar face that made my shriveled heart inflate.

Wyn, smiling.

And in his arms—singing only to me a song of paradise and loss and ruin—the gleaming Blade of the Sun.