Chapter 41

41

Kane

As we walked across the avenue that bisected the Fae encampment, I could almost hear the soldiers' snarls. Hundreds of Amber and Garnet men were stationed at the fringes of the camp with their forges and tents, studying us, sizing us up, casting venomous glares, some more lecherous ones tossed at Arwen and Briar.

The thought crossed my mind that most of these witless toads hoped our ceasefire would not hold. They longed to slice and maim—their eyes told me as much.

And the silver-clad Fae, thousands of them, positioned closer to that looming, pallid gray tent at the center, packing snow-coated wagons with spears and supplies, rolling glass barrels of stolen glowing lighte…they studied us with even more loathing. True contempt. The fallen prince of Lumera—Lazarus's volatile son.

Due now, for his penance.

And all of this, every crackling fire and lug of metal shields, constructed through the heart of the Shadow Woods. My fucking woods. Icy, rageful fog drifted along my ankles, as if the woods themselves agreed, seeping out from the tree line and curling as we walked. I hoped at least one of these sorry pustules had been ravaged by a chimera or ogre just for taking up residence in their domain.

I might've felt the thrill of vengeance brimming in my bones. Might have relished how soon I'd rid my woods of the weasels they were teeming with.

But my plan was far from seamless.

The biggest strategic issue in any battle with my father was his ability to step inside your mind and study your schemes before you could enact them. It was safest if everyone walking behind me truly believed we were offering Arwen back to him in return for a ceasefire.

Even if Griffin knew me well enough to assume that with the blade in hand I'd never surrender my own wife. Or if Arwen wondered as much, too—knew how it would kill me to see her chained in lilium and brought back to Solaris.

But their doubts were safer than physical memories of a plan explained. That was what would dart to the front of anyone's mind when told, Do not, under any circumstances, think of this conversation in his presence.

But that still left the blade.

I could only hope Lazarus would have no idea that the Blade of the Sun wasn't safely locked up inside his palace anymore. Even if that were the case, he'd still likely search us.

Which was why Briar was the only one I'd told my intention to. She had lived in Solaris long enough, had spent enough years in court with the man, to know how to hide her thoughts from his prying lighte.

I'd asked her to spell the weapon. And when the moment came, the blade would reveal itself within my grasp.

The cloudless sky and beating afternoon sun had melted the top layer of snow even in the tree-covered woods, and our feet sloshed in unison as we approached. We came to a halt before the rounded, high-topped tent that rose well above the rest of the canvas lodgings, flanked by at least a dozen Fae soldiers.

Two silver-clad men approached and began the demeaning task of frisking us for weapons. Running their hands across our chests, waists, and pant legs.

"Easy there," I growled at one stocky young Fae, staring daggers into his hand as it slid up Arwen's thigh. The silver-plated soldiers outside the monstrous tent braced themselves. Some reached for weapons.

But when the young soldier's face twisted up to mine from where he knelt, he had the good sense to cower from my glare. He continued his frisking on a lower section of Arwen's leathers.

"They're clear," the nervous little pig called out to the tent. And it was true. The men had not felt a single lick of steel strapped to any of us. Even Lieutenant Eardley—the bravest mortal I'd ever known—strutted into the camp of Fae warriors without a weapon to his name.

Griffin entered the tent before me, and Eardley after him.

It was ice-cold, despite the sun permeating through the dark canvas and two roaring fires—one beside the broad topographical table that mapped Shadowhold and the surrounding woods and one beside the large down bed.

My father stood from a leather chair, setting down a book and removing his spectacles as if he were a tired parent of difficult offspring.

Briar strolled in behind me, and Arwen after her until we stood in a cluster before him. I sucked in a steadying, iron-laced breath. If everything we had worked toward for months went according to plan, I'd die in the next several minutes. If I knew it wouldn't give us away, I would have pulled my gloves off, reached my hand for Arwen's, and stroked the soft skin of her wrist one last time.

Without letting panic seep into my expression, I urged my mind free of anything related to our plot and shifted my thoughts to our impending loss, my fallen keep, fisting my hands tightly and releasing them.

Guilt, remorse, weakness—

"Son," my father said quietly.

"Father."

"I'm told you come with an offer?"

"Your numbers outweigh ours too significantly." A notched blade through my gut, each word. "I don't wish to see my men slaughtered."

"Again," he added.

And I deserved the blow. " Again ," I conceded.

He stood. Patient. Cold. Waiting.

"We have the only thing that you truly care about…" I opened my mouth to say it. To finish what we'd come here to do. But the words—

I couldn't bring myself to utter them.

Weak. I was fucking weak.

Before I could falter too visibly, Arwen took a tentative step forward. "Take me back with you. End this before it begins, and I'll bear the heirs you seek."

For a moment, my father said nothing. Paced once in thought as I forced my mind to empty.

"You are effectively surrendering." It was not a question.

"Yes," I bit out.

His clear silence rent the room.

Ash. Ash on my fucking tongue. "We surrender."

"Is this the leadership that convinced all those rebels to die for you?" Lazarus clucked his pointed tongue. "Personally, I don't see it."

Fire ran through my veins. If it was cold in the tent, I couldn't feel it.

"And the girl?" He didn't look at Arwen as he continued. Only me. And for whatever reason, that fueled my rage more than any other word I'd spoken since entering. Here she was, offering herself to him, her choice, her body, and he didn't care. He only wanted to hear it from me. Whether that was because he knew how it gutted me to give her up or because he didn't respect her authority, I didn't much care.

"You heard her."

"Speak the words."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Arwen's gaze cut sidelong to me. Urging me. Soothing me. I couldn't fucking look at her. "She's yours."

Griffin shifted beside me but said nothing. Briar stood preternaturally still as she always did. I couldn't even see Eardley. Couldn't see past the venomous sheen coating my vision. The throbbing artery in my father's neck.

"That won't do you any good," he muttered.

"What won't?" Arwen asked.

"Your soon-to-be late husband is thinking about tearing into my carotid artery. Futile, childish…He'll never change, will he?"

"End this, Lazarus," Briar said, so low I'd hardly heard her. "End this and let's be done with it."

"And what of my new realm? Surely you can't think I'll be satisfied to stay in the wasteland that is Lumera?"

This, we'd considered. "We split the continent. Amber and Garnet have already agreed to give you their lands. Peridot, too. I believe Rose could be convinced. That's four of nine, and we both know you'd never successfully lay siege to Citrine. You can send all the mortals from your new lands here, to Onyx."

"Four kingdoms' worth of men, women, and children moving into your lands? You'll be overrun. Worse than Lumera, the overpopulation, lack of resources, the bloodshed…" His grin was mirthless. Joyless. Revolting.

"We'll make do."

"You would, I'd imagine. Until they overthrew you." My father paced once more, his eyes on his feet as he thought. "Might be a fitting punishment, actually…"

Out of the corner of my vision I saw Griffin's eyes widen and then shutter as quickly as they'd opened. I knew better than to let my thoughts dwell on whatever he'd seen or felt, lest Lazarus catch onto something shared between us. I cut my gaze back to my father before Griffin could notice that I'd seen something concern him.

The soldiers that shared the tent with us, the ones lining the back wall and flanking the entrance, monitored like hawks. Not a single blink among them. It reminded me how human I'd become in my years here in Onyx. How often I blinked and fidgeted. I stilled my tensing muscles.

"Not interested, I'm afraid," my father said in the end. "Men do not succeed as vastly as I have, rule with as much uncompromising will, make the sacrifices I have made, only to share their conquests with foolhardy, insubordinate sons."

He drew close. So close I could smell the wind and ice on him. Could hear his power rippling beneath his bones.

I grasped my hands behind my back to hide their shaking.

"Perhaps once, long ago, we could have conquered this new world together. The last two dragons in existence. Wings and ice and flame. But you, Kane"—he shook his head, though his silver eyes held mine so firmly my lungs freed themselves of all air—"have only ever disappointed me. And I have grown very tired of you."

One moment my father and I held each other's gazes with such unbearable, raw hatred I feared it might consume all of us—flesh and canvas and wood alike—into a whirlpool of cruelty and carnage. The next, the Blade of the Sun materialized behind my back, the hilt gripped between my closed fists. And—

A flash of metallic lighte shrieked across the room. Spears of ice barreling, not for me, or Arwen—

But for Briar. Whose skirts had not even fluttered with her hard-trained magic. The spell she'd used to conceal the Blade of the Sun nearly imperceptible. Briar, who's face had remained stoic on my father as we spoke. As she'd sent the blade into my hands—

But her mind…

It was the only way he could have known.

I didn't have time to strike before chaos split the room. Before Arwen's lighte snapped out—that magnificent, deadly sunfire ripping across the tent for my father, melting the flesh of two soldiers that dove before him. Some Fae soldier's shimmering red lighte, the crests of Griffin's malachite aura all flaming and clashing—

I conjured barrier after barrier, shield after shield of black, rippling shadow. The lighte of ten soldiers shrieking against it as I swung the weighty blade for my father. Ruthless fury and pure dark power surging through my bones.

"Kane!" Arwen's voice.

But I was so close now, my father within reach as he pressed back toward the now-toppled table, wooden pieces bearing both Onyx and Lumerian sigils scattering across the floor—

"KANE!"

I spun, my shield of undulating shadow with me, just narrowly knocking out a Fae soldier and his raised sword.

Briar was crumpled on the ground, leaking blood, groaning in agony. And Arwen, holding her within a tight bubble of soft, glimmering lighte.

"It's not working…My healing, my lighte—"

But there was no way out—Eardley, dodging blow after blow of lighte that would smoke him instantly if it made contact. Griffin, barely punching and blasting through six men his size. And those mercenaries, pulling open the canvas of the tent, Fae that would shift any moment, smiles curling at their lips as they beheld the tumult…

Without Briar…we had no witch—

"No," I breathed as the mercenaries began to shift, and I hurtled for Arwen, knowing it was over, that my father's men had too much power. Would obliterate us—

The blow exploded the tent.

No, disintegrated it.

Gone.

And half his soldiers, too. And Lazarus, thrown onto his back, hacking from some kind of wound.

"What the…" Griffin heaved, squinting into the blinding white all around us, eyes adjusting now that the darkness of the canvas had disappeared with its blown-off roof.

Whatever the thrum of power had been, it hadn't touched any of us.

Not from a mercenary but…

Mari.

Standing within the now-quiet remains of the tent, chest heaving, hands outstretched, wind around her rippling.

"Invisibility," she panted. "More useful than I thought."

The words were playful, but that look—such unwavering courage—uncertain, and all the more powerful because of it. Because of the fear I knew swirled inside her, and hope that had overcome it and forced her after us. Pride and genuine gratitude nearly bowed me to her.

Mari called down to Arwen, who was still cradling Briar. "Run."

Arwen didn't hesitate. She carried Briar out with that Fae strength and sprinted through the encampment, arrows and lighte that rained down on them pinging softly, uselessly, off her shield.

"After them," my father cried from his motionless position, surrounded by shredded books and furs, and one now very extinguished hearth, still steaming into the frigid air. "No mercy. Take the keep!"

The blade sang in my hands. Sang for his death, for the kill. My power funneled through it, turning the silver steel of the weapon poison-black.

I did not falter.

I stalked forward and drove the Blade of the Sun into his heart.

My father shuddered, red blood spilling from his chest. Glory— relief— sang in my bones.

Even as I waited for death to drown me.

Even as Mari cast more spells that drenched the encampment in destruction like rageful, rampant storm clouds.

Even as I watched him twitch and morph…his face, altering. Blowing away. His phantom eyes—

The man I'd stabbed was not my father.

He was not anything at all.

An illusion.

"A Delusion, actually," my father said, from across the encampment.

I darted through the silver bodies, slashing and blasting my obsidian lighte—for him. For his lethal gaze. Drove my sword into his chest.

And watched in horror as he faded into shadow right before my eyes again.

"How many more do you think you'll slay before one of my men strikes you down?"

Octavia's last spell. A fail-safe for her king. One she'd cast before her death at Dagan's hand.

"Kane," Griffin bit out, shaking me from my acute fury. My confusion. "It's a dirty spell. We need to go ."

He was right. Some soldiers were clearing out. Splitting for Shadowhold. Their roars, their steeds, their armor jangling. And some taking off after Arwen and Briar and Eardley, who had run off, away from the keep, deeper into the snow-drenched forest.

And Griffin and Mari were sprinting now, too. Taking out soldiers with magic and lighte like darts through a board. Each shot a bull's-eye.

I looked once more at my father. At the hatred in his eyes. The promise buried there.

It likely wasn't even him.

So I offered a promise of my own upward. To wherever I knew he could hear my thoughts.

You will die today.