44. Chapter 41

Chapter 41

The Gold calls to me when I close my eyes. Like when I was a boy. The mountain of treasure, and him lying on top of it. This time, I am not asking for a trade…

~King Gethin, personal journals

Tomorrow's going to be a whirlwind of chaos. Another dress will have to be made, this time without me being there, thankfully. Cole has scheduled me for an appointment to a "preparationist", someone I've never heard of before. I guess that's not all that surprising, though. Living in Blackgrove versus Draenyth are distinctly different experiences.

More than any of that, though, tomorrow night is mine and Cole's last night together in Draenyth, and it's going to be spent at that ball around so many of both of our enemies. Unlike every other day here in the capital city of the Immortals, we can't hide from the other Immortals.

My experience with nobles has been anything but pleasant. Both of the times that I've been around Rhion, violence loomed heavily, and the only time that we were around Casimir, he tortured Cole. Why would I think the ball would be any different?

The night seems to feel the weight that hangs around us as we sit on top of the guardhouse roof, just like we did that very first day in Draenyth. The stars light up the sky, but the moon is nowhere to be seen, and the world feels darker than normal.

Tonight is different, and the night knows it. We spent hours with Lee and Darian at the Firelight Café, full of laughter. Full of stories from their childhood. Mari's back on her feet and just as feisty as ever.

And yet, when we sit here, that looming darkness hangs too close to us. Tonight is the last night that's completely ours. Completely free. The last real night for decisions.

The clouds blot out the starlight, and other than the pinpricks of light that dot the city streets, the world seems to hide from us.

I wonder if my words can be heard all the way to the ground with how silent the world is, so when I speak, it's barely more than a whisper. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

Cole huffs, but he's smiling still from our time at the Firelight Café. "I'm not scared of a Midsummer ball. I've only been to a few hundred of them. But…" He pauses, and the smile fades. "I'm not ready for you to leave, Maeve."

The decision. More than any other that's been offered, this is the piece that I have to choose. For me to meet with Calyr as we'd planned and then escape the city or to choose the selfish path and let Hazel die.

If I'm to find my way into Calyr's cave, I'll have to reveal my magic. The entire city will be on high alert. And then if I run… There's no way that anyone will think it's someone other than me.

Cole will be punished, but his father will consider him an idiot if he stays, rather than an enemy if he leaves. If I meet with Calyr, I'll have to leave Cole.

If I stay, Hazel will die. I'll be choosing my life with Cole over Hazel's life. She did nothing wrong. A true victim. In the Immortal city of Draenyth, the answer would be clear. I should let her die because she'd let me die. But I'm not just a Fae, and I don't know if I could live with myself if I let my cousin die just so I could be with Cole.

"It's not forever," I say. "Just until people stop being so focused on finding me. Plus, there's nothing stopping you from leaving the city in a year. You only came for your father's Midsummer event."

A flash of Sia's words dance through my mind, making me pause. You have no chance to save this world, and the best you can do is finish what you came here to do and leave.

I look out at the city as Cole becomes quiet next to me. I put my head on his shoulder and feel his strength, the strength that has sheltered so many people. I'm going to miss this. The city. The magic. More than anything, the man I've spent this entire time with.

But staying won't heal Hazel. Logically, the only answer is to go.

"I don't know if I can wait a year," he says, his eyes looking out into the darkness beyond the city. Back the way we came. "I'm not ready to give you up, Maeve. I'm not ready to end our betrothal."

His eyes burn with flames in a way that I've only seen once before. The night that we connected our souls. Those cold blue eyes that always seem to stare straight through me are gone, and in their place are bright and fiery orange ones.

"I can't stay here, Cole. I'm constantly in danger, and getting in to see Calyr is almost certainly going to end with me revealing myself. There's no safety left for me in Draenyth."

Cole turns to me. "I know that, Maeve. There's no safety for me in Draenyth either. We could walk away from it all. We could ignore the Courts and my father and the coming war. It could all fall on someone else's shoulders. We could just run away. We could run forever. No one could catch us."

His eyes blaze even brighter as he takes my hand and looks at me, those burning orange eyes not letting me look away. "Why wouldn't we just leave tonight? I can fly us far away, across the mountains, to a place where no one recognizes us. We could go somewhere no one's even heard of Draenyth. It can just be the two of us. No responsibilities. No birthrights or blood lines or Houses. Even the Shade won't be able to find us that far away."

It's a wonderful thought. A dream, really. Maybe we could even have a true marriage, to tie ourselves together forever. We could forget all the madness that I've been thrust into and Cole was born into. We could build a little house in the woods, so similar to the one that my father had. I could spend my days in the forest. Cole could… stare at fires all day if he wanted to.

But we could be free. No responsibilities or debts. Just… living. Just existing together for no reason. I smile at him. "It's a wonderful dream, Cole, and maybe after Hazel is cured we'll be able to do just that. But I have to fix my mistake. I can't let her die when I know that I could have saved her. When I'm this close to saving her."

He nods to me, a knowing and wistful expression on his face as he turns back toward the star-strewn sky, most of the fire fading from his eyes. "I knew you'd say that. Maybe that's what I like about you. There's no oath binding you to your cousin. She shouldn't even be a part of your world at this point. You're a powerful Wyrdling with the magic of a nearly dead Great House at your fingertips. You could make your place anywhere in the world, and yet, you're worried about a cousin in some unimportant part of the world just because you can save her. She'd never have done all of this to save you, but you're going to save her, anyway. You're going to be better than she could ever be."

I look out into the blackness and sigh. I know that Hazel's never tried to help me. She's never stood up for me. Not even against her parents. She's never really done anything for me. I've bought her presents. I've made sure she was safe even when she didn't know it. She's never helped me do anything.

But she taught me to play. She gave me a reason to smile when the rest of the world wanted to crush me. She was the only person in the entire world who cared whether I came home every night. I know that even right now, while she's worried she's going to die because of the Fae magic in my veins, she wishes that I'd just come home safe.

"Maybe it's not logical for me to want to help Hazel, but she's the only reason I didn't become a real animal. She's the reason I didn't become a typical Wyrdling, living in the woods all alone and having conversations with the pine cones. She's the reason I'm still mostly sane. That deserves some loyalty, Cole. She saved me just by being kind. By ignoring what everyone said and just believing that I was her friend."

Cole grins. "Kind of like how you're trusting me?"

"Kind of. I still worry that you're going to get hungry one day."

His grin just grows, and I can't help but smile alongside him. "You know," he says, "I wasn't sure if you were going to make it through the entire trip to Draenyth, and I was positive you were going to get killed as soon as we got here. Surprisingly, you've done remarkably well for a Wyrdling in the capital. Maybe you'll finish this whole thing. Maybe you'll survive and make it back to Blackgrove to save your cousin. It seems possible at this point."

He's right. We've gone through so much. Far more than I'd expected. And the entire time, it all felt so insane and impossible. But now we're here. Tomorrow I'm going to a ball and will have to put on my "Betrothed to the Prince" mask one more time, but then the very next day, I'm going to talk to a dragon. The dragon. Calyr the Gold. The most powerful being in the world. The only dragon left in Nyth.

And I'm going to fulfill the promise I made to Hazel.

"What are you going to do after the Midsummer event for you fancy nobles?"

His smile fades. "I don't know, Maeve. To be honest, every time I think about it, I stumble. I don't know what's going to happen after that. What I would love to do is to fly away from this city and all the terrible Immortals in it and go back to Blackgrove with you."

He sighs. "Once your cousin is healed, you and I could make a little house in the forest. We could be a part of the Blackgrove community. I could even show you how to hide the fact that you have Immortal blood. People might remember you as the Wyrdling, but it won't make sense if you don't look like it anymore. They'd forget."

"Why couldn't we do that?" I ask. "It sounds lovely."

Cole shakes his head. "Because I'm the reason that the House of Shadows was shattered, and just like you have to make amends for your mistakes, I have to do what I can to fix mine. We've spent enough time together that you should know that my happiness doesn't matter anymore. At least not as long as the world is broken. Maybe one day we can end up in the forests outside Blackgrove, but it won't be after Midsummer."

I reach my hand out, and Cole doesn't hesitate to take it in his. He squeezes my fingers tight, and a warmth washes through me. Soothing me and reminding me of the man that I've been able to count on from the very first time I met him.

At every turn, he's been there to make sure that I was safe. I didn't believe him initially, but we've been through too much together to believe anything differently at this point. He is not what the stories make the Fae out to be.

That warmth is how I feel about him. A fire in a cold and heartless world. A light in the darkness.

"I'm going to miss being this close to you," I say. "More than anything else, I'm going to miss being bound to you like this. You make me think the Immortals got at least one thing right."

He turns to me, and I look up into those bright orange eyes. "I don't want to end this betrothal. I don't want to stop being tied to you. Maybe we can't be married yet. Maybe we can't live together, but I don't want to stop being your betrothed. Not now. Not ever."

"I don't either," I say softly. "I thought I was happy. I thought I had everything I'd ever wanted before I met you, but I was wrong. Everything that matters was missing. Cole, I don't want our betrothal to end either." He smiles at me before turning back to look out at the city below us. The wind that comes down from the top of Skycrest blows past us, bringing a coolness with it.

We sit there together in the dark and silently stare into the night. Just like we'd stared into the fire on the way to Draenyth together. The only difference between then and now is the way our fingers fit together and how our emotions and minds brush against each other so wonderfully.

Now that I think about it, that's a much bigger difference than I'd have ever expected. And maybe that difference is why I'm smiling now instead of annoyed.

It's why it's going to be so hard to walk away from Cole in two days.