Chapter 18

Kaelan

She still thought I was under that damned enchantment. That she could imagine me so weak that I was dangerous to her felt like a betrayal; it infuriated me.

Late at night, when I couldn”t sleep, I’d found myself haunted by the thought it might be true. But Thorne, Dare, and I had planned for a thousand plots of my father”s. Thorne”s behavior wasn”t part of any of those plans. It didn”t make sense . . . unless he was merely trying to steal Hanna for himself.

”I thought you were so clever,” I gritted to her, and she pulled back.

Fear flashed through her beautiful eyes.

Her distrust was threaded right underneath every other emotion. I loved when she dug her fingernails into my shoulders, that bite of pain that came from her passion, but now she had lured me here for a reason.

I caught her hand in mine and examined her glinting, blood-red fingernails. She hadn”t had such pretty hands just a second before.

”You took my blood,” I told her.

”To undo your enchantment,” she whispered. “To help you.”

”This was all a trick.” I straightened, my voice ice-cold.

She tried to move past me, trying to escape the seat at the arched window, but I pushed her back down to sit.

She cast a quick glance behind her, at the wide expanse and the city streets far below, as if she were afraid.

Or as if she were summoning Thorne.

Both thoughts enraged me. She didn’t need to fear me. I loved her; I would die to protect her.

”You don”t see through Thorne,” I told her. ”He just wants you for himself.”

She shook her head. ”No. He loves you too, just like I do---”

”Don”t.” My voice came out very soft, very dangerous, and she pressed her lips together tightly.

”Kaelan,” she whispered, and I was so tired of hearing my name on her lips, of what it did to me.

I would throw away kingdoms for her. I would throw away a crown just to have her love me.

If I was under any kind of dark enchantment, then she herself was the curse.

As soon as I thought it, it seemed that it must be true. She had just drawn my blood, an essential ingredient for so much deep, personal magic. Had she stolen my blood before? I loved her in a way that was sheer, reckless madness, no matter how she failed and betrayed me.

Could that be natural?

Or had she driven me mad for her with a spell?

She was speaking, but I hadn’t heard any of her previous words. Her frustration and hurt were written across her face, and her voice was urgent. “Please listen to me.”

”How can I ever be free of you?” I murmured. ”Of the way you make me feel, the way you make me weak---”

But she was right there in the window. I could push her, and she would be shattered on the cobblestones below . . .

The image rose in my mind so quickly that it shocked me. Hanna, broken on the cobblestones far below, her arms at odd angles, her beautiful face still staring up at the sky, and blood seeping from under her body.

The image carried with a rush of horror. I would do anything to protect her from such a gruesome fate.

”Kaelan,” she whispered again, and I couldn”t bear it.

“Shut up.” I needed to think, and I couldn’t think through the enchantment I was under when she wouldn’t stop trying to persuade me to her will.

Her eyes flashed. “No.”

“What are you doing to me?” I grabbed her forearms, and her eyes widened in panic. “You’re the one who has me under an enchantment.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her hands had risen helplessly to block me, but she was so small compared to me. Once again, she said my name, trying to control me. “Kaelan.”

I pushed her back toward the window. ”Hanna.”

Her eyes widened. It took a heartbeat before I heard it too. I hadn’t called her wife.

The wind caught her long blond hair and whipped it around her face. Her lips parted in pain and fear.

The urge to shove her to her death engulfed me. Her perfect, frightened face in front of me flashed back and forth with an image of her broken on the ground, and I wasn’t sure which I wanted anymore.

Something was wrong with me. Whether the enchantment was her doing or Seraphine’s, I was lost.

I had to protect her.

I turned us both abruptly, shoving her away from me. Toward the center of the room. She stumbled back.

I threw myself away from her, out the window.

She let out a scream of horror and raced to the window. The wind caught her blond hair as she leaned out and shouted, ”Shift!”

But I didn”t. I fought the impulse that would”ve kept me from crashing to the ground, kept my wings trapped within my body.

I had to let myself fall.

Until I wasn”t a danger to her anymore.

I wished I could tell her that I loved her as much as I wished I could tell her to run.

Then I crashed into the ground.

Into the darkness.

The darkness brightened to dusk. Hanna cried out in the distance, her voice ragged with emotion. It was so unlike her.

”We have to go now.” Thorne was pulling her away as she reached for me. ”Hanna!” His voice was sharp as a slap. ”He sacrificed himself to protect you. Don”t waste it.”

Then they were gone. The streets crowded with people looking to sightsee---and apparently uninterested in calling a healer---but the only two people who mattered were gone.

I felt myself fade again, but with a glow of gratitude.

Thorne would protect her.

Even if he betrayed me . . . he would protect her.

When I woke again, I was lying in a bed. The air felt cold, but clammy, and it clung to my skin like cobwebs.

My father’s voice was low and distant and sent a far more intense chill sweeping through my body.

I listened, but he had fallen silent. The past was blurry and came to me in bits and pieces; I couldn”t remember exactly what had happened last and what was just a dream. Had I just seen Hanna? Thorne? I couldn”t be sure.

”Stop pretending you”re asleep,” my father rumbled, his voice irritated and nearer now. ”You”re acting like a child.”

The world felt too bright as I slowly blinked my eyes open. My head pounded; I was too thick and wooly to be sure I could lie, and that was always a problem around Edric.

”What happened?” I whispered.

”I had to come find you,” he ground out, sounding irritated.

I tried to make sense of the room around me. My father wouldn”t have easily left our ice fae territory, and as I blinked and the room slowly came into focus, I realized I wasn”t in grey territory anymore. We were in a military healer”s tent. We must be somewhere on our own border.

”Touched,” I managed. ”By your concern.”

He threw me a cutting look. ”Don”t try to be clever.”

”You never came to visit.” I stopped myself, knowing he wouldn”t care anyway, but he had consigned Thorne, Dare, and me to the front as a punishment, and I wasn”t sure he had ever been here before our time. It was strange that he had come after me now.

”I need you to find Seraphine,” he said.

”Seraphine?” Not Hanna.

My father looked disgusted as he paced the room. ”You ran away to rescue your little princess. Meanwhile, you had an important mission---to find Seraphine.”

”I need to find my wife.”

He waved his hand. ”Have Dare do it. Call him back from whatever stupid mission you”ve sent him on.”

So my father didn”t know Dare had been with me before I was dragged back across the border to safety. Relief flooded my chest, but I knew it didn”t show on my face.

”You don”t understand,” my father said. ”The Snake Queen is ready to attack. Her forces are massing on our border. If we don”t return her daughter to her . . .”

”I understand,” I said.

”Do you?” My father”s voice was acerbic. ”I think you need to see it.”

My head pounded. ”I need a healer.”

”Right,” he said impatiently. He called for the healer.

”Why didn”t you do this earlier?” I asked my father as I heard someone at the door. I”d never ask a question like that in front of anyone, but I had a moment before the healer ducked through the tent flaps.

”I wanted to see what you had to say before you were collected enough to lie.”

I scoffed. But then the healer was entering, so I couldn”t say another questioning word.

The healer tried to fix me up. He was still trying to repair the last of the damage when I pushed myself up, moving away despite his attempts to finish the healing spells.

”Let”s see,” I said, pushing the tent flaps open.

The world outside seemed so bright. I squinted. It had been nighttime when I”d been with Hanna. What time was it now? How much time had passed?

Our tents were massed beneath a ridgeline, just out of sight of the border---and the enemy.

Edric swept an arm, inviting me to see for myself, his lips pursed with irritation as if this war were my fault though it was older than I was.

Hundreds of knights and soldiers were waiting along the edge of the ridge, prepared to take the high ground in a heartbeat”s call. A fortified position was set up further along, and I could see hundreds more resting and feeding there, preparing for battle.

Battle that perhaps I could prevent.

I crept to the edge of the ridge. Through a veil of mist, I could see the massing army of the Snake Queen, writhing in a sea of scale and sinew. She had more monsters than warriors, although they must be somewhere too, massed behind the monsters.

All of them ready to unleash hell on the innocents behind our lines, the moment the Snake Queen dropped their leash.

”How long do we have to find Seraphine?” My thoughts turned relentlessly back to Hanna, no matter what I said. But I had to put my kingdom first.

She would expect no less.

And given how I hurt her---a memory that thrust like a knife”s blade through my heart, over and over---maybe she was safer if I stayed away and served my own mission. Maybe Thorne, as much as I hated him right now, could protect her, until I could unravel whatever had swept over me and if Seraphine was striving to make herself my queen.

”I don”t know,” my father”s voice was dark. ”I think Seraphine is making a play for the Snake Queen”s kingdom. But we haven”t made an alliance with her---still, there”s no reason for the queen to trust us. She believes we are harboring her, or so my spies say. She”s told us nothing except for her claim our people kidnapped her daughter.”

”I see.”

”I”m depending on you, son.”

”What will you be doing while I track down Seraphine?” I demanded.

”I”m trying to arrange a meeting with the Snake Queen.” His jaw hardened. ”Now that our forces are ready. Negotiating in person is usually far more successful than fielding her threats from afar.”

My father was a monster, but rarely a coward.

”I won”t fail.” I”d never fail our people.

But as I looked out over the endless waves of monsters, I wondered if I would fail Hanna in the end.