39. Veyka

It was a nightmare. It had to be.

Any second I would wake to find myself alone in that stone bedroom, the four walls closing in on me like a prison. The place I'd thought was a refuge, that had called out to me with the promise of family and home, was slowly making me lose my mind. Tomorrow, I'd leave for the coast and the amorite mines. Whatever excuses I had to make to Elayne, I'd find them. I just could not stay here. The echoes of Arran were too strong. Now I was having visions of him while waking.

"Who are you?" he asked again, singling me out from the crowd of terrestrials.

Wake up.

I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to clear the fog that had conjured this vision. Nothing happened, nothing changed. The wine must have been drugged. My hand flailed behind me, reaching for—

"Your Majesty," Lyrena murmured, appearing at my shoulder. I recognized the warmth of her flames, still dancing at her fingertips.

Arran's dark brows rose higher still on his golden forehead.

"Elementals," he growled.

Damn it, Veyka. Wake up.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

"Arran," Elayne's voice sounded in my ear a second before she swept by me, putting herself between me and Arran.

There was only one reason she would do that.

I had come to know the Lady of Eilean Gayl over the last few days. I believed I had seen her true heart, and I'd shown her mine in the ways that I could. I knew that there was only one reason she would stand between me and my mate, knowing the depth of my loss, the guilt and longing that plagued my every breath.

This was real.

I was not dreaming.

My mate had risen from his enchanted sleep, healed and whole and powerful once more. And he did not know who the fuck I was.

There was such stillness, we could have been a painting.

Arran and I, staring at each other, while every single being around us held their breath.

He might not know who I was, but he'd marked me nonetheless. I was not wearing a crown, no magic danced around me. But he still singled me out. Some part of him knew, even if his mind did not.

A low, rumbling growl filled me. Arran's beast brushed up against my consciousness, sliding into me with familiar ease, caressing the parts of my soul that not even I was brave enough to touch. But Arran's face did not shift. The male was not aware of the what the beast did. Or, at least, did not recognize the meaning of his beast's reaction to me.

I could not move. I could not think. The golden thread of our mating bond was strong around my heart, compelling me to go to my mate and seal our reunion with a physical touch. I'd always been able to sense his nearness or distance through the bond. But over the last few weeks, it had been so frayed I'd detected nothing beyond its existence. Now, the force was strong enough that it took all of my own strength to keep myself from falling into his arms.

Arms that would not close around me. Would shove me away. Might even draw the battle axe from his belt.

His belt—the jeweled scabbard.

It was there.

Relief washed through me. He was safe, at least.

Arran seemed to realize at the same moment, his thumb stroking over the lip of the scabbard while his eyes fixated on the one at my waist, the twin to his own. The matched pair. As we were meant to be.

Oh, Ancestors. Oh no.

I sucked in a breath. Another. Too fast. I was going to start hyperventilating. I could not do that here, could not fall apart in front of all of these terrestrials. I had to be the Queen. They knew who I was, even if he did not. Oh, Arran. Ancestors fucking hell…

Elayne grabbed my arm.

But she spoke to Arran.

"We will speak privately. There is much to apprise you of, son." She did not call him Majesty. Did not reference his title. Because if he did not remember me… did he remember that he was the High King of Annwyn?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The Offering, the Tower of Myda, the Void Prophecy… even the succubus? How was I supposed to face all of it alone? Without Arran… with Arran, but alone still? This was worse than death, this was—

No.

Not worse than death.

Pant and Arran were walking now, exchanging words I could not hear over the roar in my own ears and the sounds of the Yuletide celebrations resuming. If no one was going to die, the terrestrials weren't overly interested. I'd never been more thankful for their base brutality.

The Lord of Eilean Gayl steered his son out of the great hall, down a corridor I had not yet explored. Elayne kept her grip on my arm. Later, I'd be grateful for her steady guidance. Then, I could not process any of it.

I saw the flash of white in the corner of my vision. Tiny, hovering near the door, bright white eyes dashing to and fro. My mouth opened and closed like a fish, trying to acknowledge Isolde. She'd brought him here, to me. Watched over him and gotten him here safe and whole. I owed her everything, but I could not form words. Lyrena spoke, but it was muffled, like hearing underwater. I was vaguely aware of a flash of white. Movement, as Isolde fell in line with my Knight.

Elayne and Pant guided us to a comfortably appointed room at the end of the corridor. Thick carpets, lush hangings, heavily stuffed furniture. There was a book left here, a sewing basket there. Private quarters of some kind.

Much smaller than the great hall and left unheated. No one had planned for it to be in use tonight. Lyrena lit the braziers in the walls with a flick of her wrist. A fire raged to life in the hearth. She lingered at my side, Percival nowhere to be seen. I could not bring myself to care if he was alive, escaped, or dead on the floor with the terrestrials.

Arran's eyes flared at Lyrena's fire, marking us for what we were—elementals.

Deceptive, self-serving elementals. That was what he'd thought of us when he arrived in Baylaur. What was worse… it had been true.

"I do not need to be managed," Arran said sharply, loud enough that Pant blanched.

Elayne, standing between us once again, was steady as always. "You certainly do not," she agreed. "Out. Everyone, out."

Pant followed her without question. Lyrena did not move from my side, Isolde behind us at the door. What reaction she would garner from the residents of Eilean Gayl, what Arran had made of her upon waking… I'd sort through that later. Deal with it later.

"Go," I said softly to my golden knight, knowing she would never leave my side otherwise. Percival be damned. She opened her mouth to protest, staring daggers at Arran. He looked her up and down and then dismissed her with the ease of someone who knows their own strength. The Brutal Prince.

"He will not hurt me," I said, knowing that he heard the words as well. Nothing I could do about that—nor that I wanted to. Anything, to trigger his memory. Anything, Ancestors, please. I will do anything.

I'd said I would never beseech the Ancestors again. Wrong. All it took was true desperation.

Lyrena was not convinced. She gave me a pointed look before retreating to the door. "Use your power." If you need to get away.

Arran and I had hated each other once. But never… he would never hurt me. He couldn't. That bond in his chest would shred his heart before he could bring me harm.

At least, intentional harm.

I'd done plenty of damage without meaning to.

Is this my fault?

My eyes stung. No, no, no. I could not allow myself to cry. Not now. Not yet.

The door fit snugly into the archway behind us, and then Arran and I were alone.

For several long seconds, I just stared at him, cataloging every feature. His boots were dirty from traveling; so were his woolen vest and leather trousers. His shirt was fastened all the way to his throat, hiding the expansive tattoo of his Talisman splayed across his chest. But there was the stubble on his chin that he never quite managed to keep at bay. The sharp cut of his cheekbones, precisely the same. He fingered the head of his axe as he returned my stare, as I'd seen him do a hundred times when appraising an enemy.

Is that what I am now?

No. I refuse.

I planted one hand on my hip, drawing attention to the curves of my body that he'd lusted for from the moment we'd met in the clearing outside the goldstone palace, before either of us realized who the other was.

"You do not know who I am." It took every bit of courage and strength within me to speak the words without my voice cracking.

A small but not silent part of me hoped the fa?ade would fall away then. That the entire thing had been an act, carried out in service of some larger plot that he would reveal to me once alone.

But the flash of his eyes—cold and dark—killed my last shred of hope.

Nearly killed me as well.

"You think that I should." He lifted one dark eyebrow. "Care to tell me why?"

My fingers drifted to my weapon as well. The hilt of the dagger, so prophetically carved into the shape of a wolf. If I drew it, it would be to carve out my own heart. That would be less painful than this.

"I'd rather you tell me," I managed, a slight movement of my hip, forward. A bravado I did not feel.

He lifted one arm to rest casually against the mantle of the fireplace. It was one of his tactics. To lean back on something—a wall, a fireplace, a pillar—to make it seem like he was only casually interested. To distract his opponent from the pure brutality of every muscle. "Presumptuous thing, aren't you?"

Call me Princess. Stride across this room and drag me against you, rake those canines down my throat, and punish me for my presumptiveness.

But none of that happened.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Being a queen comes with a few privileges." Irreverence—so easy to slip back on the mask I'd been wearing since my arrival at Eilean Gayl.

But I did not want to wear a mask, not around Arran. Before the male who had seen all of me, the darkest, ugliest parts of me, and told me I was beautiful and worthy and strong. Before Arran, all I wanted was to be loved.

"Queen of what?"

His broad hand stroked the wood of the mantle. Like he had stroked my body.

My teeth stabbed into my lower lip. Tiny droplets of blood beaded up. I saw the scent hit him—watched his nostrils flare—before I could swipe them away with my tongue.

The composure he'd managed, the scowling battle commander that intimidated and killed, fell away before the scent of my blood. I could see the shift in his stance, subtle but there. The wolf inside of him battling for control. A low growl rolled through me.

"What are you?" my mate growled.

Yours.

But I couldn't say it.

"They call me the Queen of Secrets," I said instead. No irreverence, no pretending. I let my voice be gravelly and raw. Let him see that if he was broken, his memory gone, I was as well. What he'd do with that knowledge…

"What is your name?"

It was almost a stammer. He had not wanted to ask, but something inside of him demanded it. The beast, the bond… some echo of the love we'd shared.

How do you forget that you love someone? Not just a female, but your mate? How could he forget the single most important thing in my life? His life, as well.

I'd asked Morgyn to save him.

But this… would I have sent him to Avalon, knowing that this would happen?

Yes.

I would do anything to save my mate's life. Anything. Even at this cost.

Cost.

All magic has a cost.

I thought my heart had been broken before. The pain of Arthur's death. The threat of Arran's. But this was worse. I had done this.

My eyes traced his body again, checking the outline of every muscle. He was whole, but not. My mate stood before me, healed. But he did not know he was my mate. What if he did not want to be?

I reached his face. None of the devastation tearing apart my soul showed there. Only mild curiosity. Arran did not know what he'd lost, so he could not be hurt by it. I wanted to hurl something at him, to rage at the fact that I was suffering while he was not. Even as another part of me was thankful, so thankful, that my mate was spared this pain.

My eyes burned, sharper. I was running out of time. The fa?ade I'd managed was crumbling.

"My name is Veyka," I said softly.

Arran's chin dipped slightly, but no recognition lit his black eyes.

"Veyka." He tried it out— the syllables that should have been familiar but were painfully foreign on his tongue.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This was so much worse.

"Arran." A prayer. A plea. To the Ancestors, who I'd vowed never to ask for anything again. To the gods the humans worshipped. To anyone, in any realm, who would listen to the desperate begging of a female in love.

His eyes widened slightly, like he noted the desperation and intensity of that plea. But he did not move.

"Oh, Arran," I sobbed into the void as I disappeared.

I didn't aim or plan. I moved on instinct, but even those failed me. I crashed into the stupid ornate chair where Elayne had sat days before. I cried out, a reaction to the pain I could not hold back. But physical pain was nothing.

Cyara would come soon. I vaguely heard her footsteps through the shared sitting room. But I could not wait for her or explain. Just drawing a breath was more painful that it had ever been. Even after the water gardens. Even after Arthur.

I threw myself into the plush bed, burrowing into the pile of pillows and thick quilts. I stuffed my face down into the soft mattress, until I could hardly breathe. Only then did I let myself cry and scream. I sobbed into the mattress and did not bother to pray that it would muffle the sounds of my agony.