Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

ARTEMIS

" D id you hear what Elle and the kings did with your mother?" Kian questions before letting out a sigh. "It's chaos down there, with her grandmother just appearing along with a dead army. I was happy to escape up here even before you found me."

I nod. It's exactly why I came in here, to find him. I needed him, and I needed my mind off the madness of the castle and the haunting knowledge it's my parents causing all of this. Just for a second, I can be with the man I love and imagine the world isn't falling apart outside of this room. If Elle and the kings lose, we're going to lose everything good in this world. I won't live in this world with my parents ruling, and I know for certain the first person they will go after is Kian because I love him. My mother will revel in torturing him, breaking his soul, right along with mine. I believe in Elle; I believe in the kings and their strength. I feel somewhere deep in my soul that good always wins…but what about the people in the grey? "I know we should be down there offering advice or doing anything to help, but I can't. Something doesn't feel right to me."

"Because they're your parents?" he softly questions. He's lying on his side, elbow bent and his head propped up in his hand. He is completely naked, except for the blanket covering his waist, and he is so pretty it hurts to stare for too long. Even now, knowing exactly what my parents are, he is offering me a moment to grieve for the parents they could have been with no judgment. He never judges me, and sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve him.

"No, they are already dead to me. I don't hold love for them anymore, and I'm learning slowly that I likely never did. It's more than that. Every night, I'm haunted by the same dream." Dream is a light word for it. The feeling I get, the peace like nothing could ever touch me, is what makes the dream feel so alive.

"What's your dream?"

I turn on my side to face him and his question, the sheet falling down my back. His eyes drag downward with a burning heat that is in direct contrast with the cool, calm personality he has. He reaches forward and tucks some curls of my hair behind my ear. They only bounce back of course, but it makes Kian smile, the way he only smiles at me.

I clear my throat. "It's weird."

"Tell me." His soft demand brushes against me. He touches my nose gently. "No secrets, no barriers between us."

Our promises to each other. Our vows written only in our words, spoken under bedsheets in the dead of the night. I trust him, even with the ugly things like my dreams. "We're swimming, me and you, but the lake is black and red. Not like blood or dirt, but a beautiful glittering shade of vibrant red like fire and black like death. We're laughing and splashing water on each other. We look so happy. Not older than we are now, but just happy. This dream just keeps coming back again and again to me, and it always feels so strange, not like a normal dream."

The dreams began when I really got a hold on using my magic and the training I've had. I'm not great, not by any means, but I think I can use my power to defend myself. I can take energy, power, from another person, and I only need to touch them for it to work. Kian thinks I've only touched an inch of my true power and reminds me I'm the daughter of two powerful gods, and it makes me a god, too. A title I never wanted but will use to protect my friends. My true family.

"I can take you swimming anytime, but I am unaware where there is a black and red lake." He sighs. "Dreams with water are sacred in my family. It's said when a royal has a dream about water, it is a prophecy."

"Do you think because we are together, and I take your energy, your power, by accident most days…I could be seeing your dream?" I nervously question.

"If you are, I look forward to swimming with you in this strange place. I don't care as long as I am with you." He kisses me softly. "I have to leave. I'm on healer duty for tonight. But I can take it off if you need me. I know you must be scared of all the changes in the castle and a dead army outside."

"I'm not scared of them." I rest my head on his shoulder. "Well, they are creepy to look at, but I'm more concerned with my parents and their plans. If they kill Grayson's sister, if my father doesn't let go of Emrys's body…and what if Emrys is gone? I can't live?—"

"I won't let anything happen to you." He cups my cheek and turns my tear-soaked eyes to his. "I am in love with you and the good heart you bury deep in your chest. I have loved you since I first met the real you down in those dungeons, when I saw that you were so fucking confused and trapped by family guilt that you couldn't breathe let alone make choices for yourself. But I knew then, or suspected at least, that I wanted you forever. You are so brave, so brilliant, and I know you will never forgive yourself for your own past actions, but I think you should. I want you to marry me. Be my mate, my wife. Every binding term there is known to all the gods. Just be mine."

"I've always been yours, and yes to every single binding term," I whisper. "I loved you too, you know. The moment you told me that story of the whale, when we were never really speaking about the whale, were we? It was… I always thought myself a villain in the story. I didn't deserve a happy ending. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to get out of the dark, even if it's just into the grey, so that I can be with you."

He kisses me so deeply and brands me with each moment. He groans when bells ring across the castle, the magic castle telling Kian his shift has begun. "I'll work and then meet you after to tell everybody about us. I want to shout it from the castle top."

My cheeks burn. "Alright, I'll try not to hide behind you when they stare."

He shakes his head at me. "They will hug and congratulate us. They are our family." He's right and there isn't a day that will pass that I don't wonder if I deserve it. I watch as he gets dressed in a tunic marking him as a healer from the Water Court, his hair still messy as he kisses me one more time and leaves our room. I go into the bathroom, flip the shower on, and stare at myself in the mirror. The steam slowly fills the room like a fog over the horizon, and the door slams shut with a bang, right before I feel the magic in the air. When I turn around, my mother's right in front of me. She's dressed in a red suit, her long hair braided down the back of her neck. She's standing by the door, the fog flowing around her.

My mouth parts and my hands shake. I slide them behind my back so she doesn't see. She would always comment on how strong women don't shake and how it's a sign of weakness. I know that isn't true. "How are you here—and don't bother answering, just leave."

Her mouth widens into a smile that reminds me of a cat from a story book that was read to me as a kid. The picture of the striped cat used to scare me even then. "You can appear to your blood, call to them, travel to them, even at any time, if you're strong. You're not. I could come and get you right now if that's what I wanted."

"No." I end up whimpering, even if I want to shout and scream.

She laughs into my face. The way she's always laughed at me, not with me. "Has your first love tempered your mind against us so quickly? I'm disappointed with you for choosing their side. This world's going to fall and soon. I'm going to be forced to kill so many, and I thought you'd happily serve at my side. I'll make another heir, maybe one for each court when I have all the kings. But you were my firstborn. You may not have any power, but you are still my child."

Screaming you're a mother doesn't make you worthy of the title. "Have you suddenly grown love and affection for me, or is it some more pretence, because I don't actually believe you. Giving birth to someone doesn't make them love you if you constantly abuse them."

My mother shakes her head at me, more than once, her complicated braid falling over her shoulder. She never braided my hair, no, she always wouldn't because she knew I didn't like my hair in my face, and I asked her so many times. The braid is a silly thing to focus on, but it reminds me of all the ways she failed me. All the times I begged for attention and love, and she gave me nothing. I think the only thing she ever gave me was my name. She was never a mother to me. Still, she wants me back now to use me. I'm another soldier to her and nothing more. "Come back and things will be better. I prom?—"

My body may show how scared I am, but I hold my head high. "No. I will never come back to your side. If this world falls, then I fall with it and my real family."

She sighs like I'm an inconvenience. I don't know what she expected from me, but I get the impression she expected me to come with her. "Do you like being with them so much, or is it just that you're upset over me killing your servant? I'll get you another one. I've just spent the better part of my day making an underwater maze for the water king to die or fail in. I'm tired and in no mood to chase you, so change your mind, cut your hand, and ask for me to be here. The magic will do the rest."

I will be telling Elle and Lysander everything she just accidentally told me. Maybe something good can come from her being here, even if it hurts to see her. "She wasn't just a servant!" I shout at her. "She was the one who sang me lullabies and held me when I cried. She was the one who made me my favourite foods, who sat with me and told me about human culture in a fun way. She was the one who told me I did not need to be what you trained me to be because you never mothered me. You trained me to become your soldier, to become a betrayer, and how to hurt someone, but it never felt right to me to do it, and I wish I'd listened to myself, to my own instincts, and I didn't. I failed myself, but I'm never doing that again. I am loyal to the Spirit Court and its queen. I am loyal to the dragons, not the gods. I do not want you here. So, fuck off back wherever you came from, Mother. I will pray to any powerful entity that will listen, anybody that will give us even an ounce of luck, that she kills you and is done with the fucking goddess of love who knows nothing about love."

Her eyes sharpen. Sharpen the way that I'm used to when she attacks me, but I realise she can't. Without the staff or my blood and magic, she doesn't have enough power to get to me. I open the door, letting the steam fall out. "I'm so disappointed in you. You'll never be loved, you know. Not in the way you desperately want to be. You are unlovable."

I think of Kian. All her lies, everything she's told me a hundred times, none of it is true. For some reason, it gives me closure. Closure on my childhood, closure on everything. To know in this moment right now that it's not true. I ignore her, knowing it will drive her insane, and I walk out. I leave her in the shadows of the fog in the past, as my future is with a Water Court prince who taught the daughter of the goddess of love what love truly is.