31. Veyka

"Veyka."

A soft voice. Imploring but gentle. Not across the room, but beside me on the bed. A warm hand encircled mine, the fingers daintier but the will they manifested so strong.

"Tell me, Veyka."

I wanted to collapse. I wanted to scream and cry. But that hollowness was taking over again. I tried to shove it back, tried to let myself feel. Feel Arran, feel the love he'd given me, the love I'd finally let myself feel in return.

"He was holding Arran. He was going to kill him. And Arran was going to let him."

Go, Veyka.

"Arran was ready to die, so that I could live."

I love you, Veyka.

"He did not realize…" I couldn't breathe. My voice was hoarse, gasping. "I don't want to live without him. I can't—"

My voice broke.

Please.

I broke.

The hollow emptiness was no match for this—my love for Arran, my heartbreak at his loss. I felt everything. Every inch of my body screamed at the loss, the acute pain of a part of myself ripped out and missing.

The hand tightened around mine.

I clenched it tighter. Bones cracked. But I could not stop myself. "How? How could he not know? That without him there is nothing? I am nothing?"

Save yourself.

I couldn't see through my eyes. I was wet. Not with sweat now, but hot salty tears that covered my face, fell on my chest, slid down between my breasts. I was melting. Dying.

"I used my power. I threw the sword. I killed G—" I choked on the name, unable to let it past my lips. "But I was thrown off balance. The sword went into Arran's chest…"

Elayne gasped. I held tighter, lifted our joined hands until they were between us. Trying to make her understand.

"We were wearing the scabbards. Each of us. Our blood cannot be spilled while we are wearing the scabbards. He was supposed to be safe."

Hair flying. Longer hair. Hair Arran had tangled his fingers in. Arran, oh Arran. My mate, my love. My mistake.

"But not from me. I can draw my own blood, even with the scabbard. And the mating bond… we are not safe from one another. He wasn't safe from me."

"I begged the Lady of the Lake to take him to Avalon, where no one can die."

I released her hand.

All that remained of me was the bond. The fragile, tenuous golden thread now stretched across realms was the only thing about me that mattered anymore. But I did not deserve it. I did not deserve him. I knew it, and now Elayne did as well.

"And then I left him. I came here to warn you, to try to save Annwyn. I left my mate." And I hated myself for it every second of every breath of my miserable, cursed existence.

It should have been me.

I should have taken the blow. Arran was the one who should have ruled. The strategic one, the commander, the most powerful fae in millennia. The greatest power Annwyn had ever seen. Lying prone and injured in the human realm because he had made the mistake of falling in love with me.

Elayne grabbed by my hand. This time she held it much tighter, so I could not twist away.

"It is not your fault," she said. I recognized where Arran had gotten the steel that so often lined his words.

My lips were trembling. No, that was my chin. "I nearly killed my mate. The High King. Your son." My entire body was shaking with the force of silent sobs.

I did not see Elayne shaking her head in the periphery of my vision until she lifted her free hand to my face and turned it, so I had no choice but to look directly at her. I did not have the will to fight. I was not even sure how I was still upright.

Her dark gaze bore into mine. "I absolve you."

"You can't," I whispered.

She held my chin tight between her fingers. All the command of the Lady of Eilean Gayl, the female who had survived rape and torture and somehow found love, raised a male like Arran, was in her gaze and in her words. "I love my son. And I have no trouble at all seeing why he fell in love with you. He would be proud of you now for trying to do what is best for Annwyn."

I tried to shake my head. She would not let me. I tried words instead. "I promised him a thousand years. I promised him I would wait."

"For Arran, there is no higher calling than duty."

"Except love." I dreamed about the first time I'd realized it, standing on the cliff edge on the other side of The Crossing. When I closed my eyes, that was the moment that came back to me most often—not when he'd told me, but when I'd felt the absolute certainty of his love through the mating bond.

"Why must they be in opposition?" Elayne released my chin but waited, perhaps to see what I'd do. But I sat still. Frozen. Broken. "You can love Arran and your kingdom, Veyka. There is enough of you to love both."

I actually laughed. A terrible, unhinged sound that mocked the word. "My mate, my friends, my subjects… the more I love, the more I stand to lose."

"I see."

She did not try to argue. I was thankful for that.

"You are soaked through. I will call for your handmaiden. How convenient that fire of hers must be at bath time. Then you are to bed." She spoke with such calm conviction. Do this, then this, next this. Simple steps to move through the next minutes and hours, when nothing about my life was simple anymore.

"People do not usually give me commands," I said vaguely.

A hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing. "Mothers are exempt from such strictures."

I knew my chin was wobbling again, my whole body trembling as I looked up at her. Maybe it hadn't stopped. I probably would not have noticed.

Mother.

I hardly recognized the word.

Understanding flashed in her dark eyes. I did not have the energy left to protest, to explain, to deflect… not as she eased me back onto the bed and walked to the adjoining door to summon Cyara.

"Rest, Veyka. You are safe for tonight. Tomorrow, we shall plan."