54. Chapter 50

Chapter 50

My dearest Sandor, our Little Star will be gaining her powers soon. If anything should happen and you find yourself lost in the dark place I showed you, don't be afraid. Think of me. Go back to the mists in my mind, and you'll be safe. I'll find you, my love. No matter how long it takes me.

~Queen Brenna, letter to her husband

Cole

Maeve's cousin is dead. She was taken by the Nothing, probably to catch us. It's a good thing that my flames aren't powered by anger because I might have lost control if that'd been the case.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Lee asks. She's pacing like she always has. The tap, tap, tap of her boots on the floor of our room at the inn is only making my frustration worse. It had all been simple initially. I'd picked up Maeve, and Lee had carried Prudence to Stormhaven as we expected she'd be more at ease with a female carrying her than a male. Darian followed behind.

"I don't know," I say, feeling uncertain for the first time in almost thirty years. Ever since Brenna gave me the Shadowed Cloak, I'd had a plan. I'd known what came next. But now, what do we do? Maeve wearing the Painted Crown was the end of my plans. The House of Flames is beaten and mostly eliminated. My father is hidden in the Keep of Steel's dungeons. Draenyth is controlled by the House of Steel completely, but they don't have the Painted Crown.

We stole that away from King Gethin. That's all we managed to do. Maeve is refusing to speak to anyone, and she's currently laying down in a bed in the room next to this one. She hasn't uttered a word since her cousin was taken by the Nothing.

"Is she really just going to let the entire House of Flames be destroyed?" Lee asks. "The war's started. She knows that, doesn't she?"

I bite my tongue to keep from lashing out at Lee. She doesn't understand. If someone had killed Darian, she'd be useless, too. Especially if she blamed everyone around her for that happening. I could have helped her to heal Hazel the first time that she called for the Shade. She wouldn't have even needed to call for me if I hadn't drawn her ring off her finger when she'd gotten angry.

It had taken so many weeks of constantly watching them together to find a day that she got angry.

"Don't blame Maeve," I say. "She's… she's gone through more than we can really understand. Remember, it wasn't long ago that she thought she was human. We've been dealing with this for decades, and we've been Fae for a very long time. She's…" I don't have the words to explain the feelings that I know are coursing through that beautiful body and mind of my betrothed.

She is everything I could have hoped for, and more. Dark and terrible and so beautiful. She is exactly what the world needs. She's exactly who I need.

Lee hears my words and immediately ignores them. She picks up a chair and throws it at the wall, and it shatters into a thousand pieces. She snarls at me. "Cole, we have to do something. We have to get our people out of Draenyth before Gethin puts steel collars on everyone that isn't House of Steel."

I shake my head. That'd be suicide. Even for me. Without Maeve, we can't get in and out of Draenyth. Even with the Shadowed Cloak, I can't carry more than one person, and it's exhausting. I've spent so much of the power I've spent almost thirty years gathering. I don't know how many more long shadow walks I have in me.

"We need to give Maeve some time."

Darian looks up at us then, a haunted look on his face. "She would have let us die, wouldn't she?"

It's the first thing he's said since we got out of the darkness. "Yes. But she wanted to let herself die as well. Maeve… Maeve is not well. Shadow walking without control of her emotions is as dangerous as immolation without control. We have to give her time."

That's all I can say. She nearly let us all die. Nearly every High Fae in Draenyth is currently being collared or killed. We're planless and nearly powerless against the forces against us.

Maeve needs more time.

Still, Queen Brenna hasn't shown her face. I did what I promised. She should be here. She should take over now. I wasn't supposed to have to take control of Draenyth with only Maeve, Darian, and Lee. Queen Brenna should be here with the plan and the forces to take my success and move forward.

I can feel Maeve walking a dark path in her mind. Darker than ever before. I've wondered if she was House of Earth or House of Shadows so many times since I met her. Her abilities indicated Earth with how much she struggled with shadows, but her emotions said something completely different.

So much darkness. Every time I close my eyes since we arrived in Stormhaven, I've seen that haunted forest. A misty place where the shadows bite at me, cutting through me just as quickly as razors. Where they touch, they don't leave wounds; they leave nothing.

I can't enter that forest by lighting a fire because my magic doesn't work there. As soon as the fire sparks into being, it's gone.

Like the darkness of the void between worlds.

This time, when I close my eyes, though, I don't see that forest. I see her emerald green eyes staring right back at me.

Get out of my mind , she growls, and then it's like the bond between us is gone. I know it's not because I'd feel broken. She's somehow found out how to keep me out of her mind, and before I have a chance to understand why or how, the door slams open.

Maeve is wearing a midnight black dress made of shadows, not at all worried about people knowing who and what she is. The light in her eye that I've fallen into so many times since I met her is gone. Snuffed out. Instead, there's a coldness so sharp that I would swear that she had been raised by a High Fae. Colder than ice and more dangerous than flame.

"You all forced this crown onto my head," she says, her voice something dark and terrible. Not an ounce of anger is there, though. Just that coldness. "You have pretended to be my friends. You've pretended to be so many things. Now, you're going to be honest, or you're going to die."

The words she says are so heartless and brutally honest, I can hardly believe it's the person I was willing to break my oath for. "I do not care," she intones, "whether you are ashamed or afraid I will be angry. I do not care if you think I will do something you'd prefer I didn't do. You will tell me the truth, or I will destroy you. There will be no second chances."

Then I realize that she's not just addressing me. Her eyes move to Darian and Lee, and they're just as cold as they stare at my only friends. I don't respond, not wanting to interrupt her, but I bow, and Darian and Lee follow my lead.

"One other thing," she says. "We are not going to war with King Gethin. Let him have Draenyth. Why would I care what happens to that forsaken city? No, we have more important things to do."

I frown at her, but I finally have a chance to really see her. The darkness that swirls around her is so similar to when I'd come to her as the Shade the last time. When she'd faced me, eye to eye, and been unafraid of anything except losing the chance to learn from me, she'd been confident. This is different, but the confidence is so similar.

She sees us like she saw the Shade. Tools. And that hurts more than anything else she's ever said to me. Even when I thought she might kill me after we came out of the darkness between worlds.

But if that's all I am to her, then I'll be the sharpest sword she can wield. My jaw tightens as I stare into her eyes, unafraid. I may not have a plan, but she does, and I have fulfilled my vow.

I bound myself to Maeve because I believed in her. There were other ways to keep her in Draenyth until the Painted Crown was passed. I chose to bind myself to her because I needed to understand her, and it was the best thing I could have done. I thought she was what the world needed, and my trust hasn't wavered. In fact, I believe it even more now.

"What are we going to do, then?" Lee asks softly.

Maeve smiles at us, and I recognize it. It's the same one that I've worn so many times as the Shade. Her eyes start by holding Lee's gaze. Then they move to Darian's. Then they fall on mine, and her lips curl up just a little more.

"We're going to war with the Nothing. Anyone who hurts the people I love is going to die, and if that means that I must fight the Mists, I will do so. Maybe King Gethin and King Casimir will learn a lesson from the Nothing and stay far away from everyone I care about."

Then she walks out of the room, leaving the three of us alone again.

"What are we going to do?" Lee asks, fear in her eyes. I understand why. You can't fight the Nothing. It just destroys. No one can fight the Nothing. That'd be like fighting Death.

But I trust my Queen. I trust the woman I fell in love with. She may wish I were dead, but I've never been more sure of myself.

I give Lee a grim smile. "You heard her. We're going to war with the Nothing. It's been a very long time since anyone's given me a good fight, and somehow, I think that the Nothing might be able to do it."

I just hope that we don't lose Maeve in the process. Because if I had to choose between having Maeve and fixing the world, I'd choose Maeve and watch the world burn.