Chapter 11

Hanna

That night, we moved deep into the forest to rest, taking turns. When Thorne was deeply asleep, I watched him; the rise and fall of his chest, the way his handsome face relaxed and wasn”t so stern for once.

I wondered if he had heard me confess to Ekardo that I loved him.

But then, when he was sleeping between my paws, he moved until his head was pillowed on my paw, and I laid my talons gently over his body, trying to keep him warm as he rested in the forest.

And I thought he had to know.

I eased out from underneath him. He shifted, and I hesitated, worried he would wake up. I studied his face, feeling a surge of affection.

My dragon couldn”t stay mad at Thorne.

I shifted back into the girl, and then pulled Kaelan”s ring off my finger. It seemed to glint under the moonlight with supernatural light.

Ekardo said that the ring had been sealed with emotion, and that magic could be released. I turned it over in my fingers, wondering what magic Kaelan had sealed inside.

I”d thought Kaelan had given me the ring because it had been his mother”s, and that had been touching because I thought the deep wound he had around his mother”s loss was beginning to heal. But now I wondered if he had given it to me because it carried powerful magic.

Kaelan”s words, long ago, before I enchanted him to lose his memories floated back to me. ”I want to give you power. I never want to take it away from you.”

I could hear his deep, warm voice, as if he were standing at my elbow, and a shiver ran down my spine. There was a part of me that was afraid of Kaelan, if he was truly under the influence of magic. I knew how dangerous the Dragon Prince could be. But I also loved him, and I missed him. The combination of the two things made me feel as if I were being torn in two.

And what if Thorne was wrong?

I was pretty sure that Kaelan, Dare, Thorne and I were unbeatable when we were together. Seeing my men’s relationships torn apart made me fear for all our kingdoms.

I longed to hear Kaelan”s voice. Thorne had been unwilling to reach out to Kaelan”s mind with their shared magic, but that wasn”t the only link that might exist.

I held the ring up, watching the way it reflected the dancing firelight.

Here went nothing.

I called Kaelan to mind, using the words of my spell and the potion that I was supposed to save to get back in touch with Honor. I was too far away for my brothers-in-law to scold me.

Feeling self-conscious, knowing how devastated I would feel for him to see the intensity of my emotion, I thought about my feelings for Kaelan. If he had sealed the ring in his pain… then maybe my pain could unlock that magic.

He made me insane. No one pushed my buttons like Kaelan did. But when I remembered the warmth with which he”d looked down at me before I enchanted him, or the pain I had seen in his mind when Edric dragged us both through his memories, or the lust I”d felt when he tied me down to his throne overlooking the arena... There was no denying the rush of emotions I felt when I called to mind the chiseled, beautiful planes of his face. He was maddening... but he was mine.

But nothing happened.

Kaelan”s mind was as far away as ever, and the distance between us yawned like the dark night around us. Something wild screamed out in the trees, and I took a step back closer to Thorne.

I felt someone there before I saw them.

I whirled, drawing my sword.

”That won”t help.”

The soft voice floated to me before a woman stepped out from between the trees.

She was a tall woman, taller than me, and willowy, with long black hair that drifted around her shoulders. Her long gown hung in placid lines around her body despite the cold breeze that teased through the trees, which made me realize she didn”t seem affected by the cold like she should have been.

”Who are you?” I still gripped my sword at the ready. In my experience, pointy things almost always help. ”What do you want?”

”What do you want?” She looked down at the ring I still gripped in my fingers. ”What are you doing with my ring?”

”This is your ring? You”re...”

”Dead? Yes. How did you get it?” Her eyes roamed over my face, and her frown deepened. ”You have that cursed light hair. You”re not one of my people.”

Cursed?Was this the ghost of Kaelan”s mother? If so, she was a delight. Perhaps that was no surprise. ”I”m from the Isle.”

”Did you take my ring from my corpse?”

”No.”

She glanced me over. ”Because you look like you”d loot a corpse.”

I”d heard a lot of insults over the years, but that one was new.

I was feeling more and more convinced she was Kaelan”s mother, given her general unpleasantness, but I had to be sure. ”Prove to me you”re a ghost.”

She sighed and suddenly lunged toward me. I raised the sword and slashed at her, but my blade didn”t encounter any resistance. Instead, she flew into me---then through me---and a flash of cold ran through my body before I whirled to see her behind me. She was closer to Thorne now, and even though she didn”t seem corporeal, I didn”t like that.

”See?” She smirked.

I edged around her, choosing my footing carefully, so I could get myself between her and sleeping Thorne. ”I see. Who are you?”

”You”re the one holding my ring and, it seems, dragging me out of the grave. Who are you, girl?”

I sheathed the sword, so I could slide the ring back onto my ring finger. ”Does that clear anything up?”

”No.”

”I married your son.” I took grim satisfaction in seeing the confusion and disgust wash over her face.

Of course I”d marry a man whose mother hated me.

Half the time, Kaelan hated me, so it only made sense.

”He”s a child,” she gasped.

It took me a few long seconds to process while she gaped at me as if I were a monster. Then she drew herself to full height, towering over me, her chin lifting so she could stare down at me. Kaelan looked like Edric in many ways, but I could see him all over this woman, with the sharp, beautiful planes of her face and the way she carried herself as if she were meant to judge.

”What”s the last thing you remember?” I demanded, before she could say whatever withering thing she was planning next. I”d bet that just like Kaelan, she had a cruel mouth.

She shook her head. ”Explain to me why you married my son first. Why---”

”Because he loves me, even though he”s usually too proud to admit it or even too stupid to realize. But he does have his moments,” I snapped back. ”He”s not a child anymore. You”ve been dead twenty years.”

If she hadn”t been a ghost, she might”ve paled. ”No... no... it was just...”

Her face creased with anguish.

She sank to the ground. Her pale dress shone under the moonlight, falling in a soft circle around her like a night-blooming flower. Her lips parted, though she made no sound, as if she were sobbing.

”Edric”s raised him?”

Unexpected empathy wrung my heart. The worst part of dying as a mother must be leaving your children behind.

I knelt across from her, so we were eye to eye. ”Yes. But he”s a good man.”

She let out a faint disbelieving huff of a laugh. ”You just said he was stupid and proud.”

”He is. But he’s more than that. He’s… complicated.” And he was trying to kill me, so it felt pretty fucked that I was defending him. But then, it was probably more fucked that I still loved him. “He hates Edric.”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That’s never what I wanted. I wanted him to be safe, and he’ll never be safe with Edric unless Edric believes he loves him more than me?—”

“He’s fine,” I said.

Her eyes locked on mine, her brows arching. “Are you trying to tell me he’s safe? While his father—my murderer—is still alive?”

“No,” I admitted. “But he’s a grown man, and he’s a devious liar, and he manages just fine.”

She scrubbed her hand over her face.

“You knew you were dead,” I said cautiously. “But you didn’t know time had passed…”

“It feels like it was just yesterday,” she said. “It’s just been night and… well, it’s still that night. Always that night.” She shivered and looked down at my ring. “How did Kaelan get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because it was on my finger… the bastard must’ve taken it from my finger…but what did he tell Kaelan?” Her gaze was lost, a thousand miles away, as if she were still trying to catch up.

So I made myself comfortable, settling cross-legged across from her, and waited for her to come to terms with the past years.

I couldn’t always make peace with the past either.

“I should have stayed with him,” she said softly. “But I didn’t want to watch Edric turn him into a monster.”

“He’s not a monster.” I couldn’t let her know that I was running from her son.

“When will you see him again?” There was a sudden spark of eagerness in his gaze.

She was tied to the ring, and that meant she was tied to me.

Unless I got it back to Kaelan.

“Soon,” I said, feeling a pang of longing, a surge of dread.

I had to make sure Kaelan’s mother didn’t have a reunion with him where she saw him as a monster.

Because knowing he had never been abandoned, he had always been loved, would’ve changed Kaelan as he grew from a boy to a man.

Maybe it could still change him.