22. Keira

Chapter 22

Keira

M y heart hammers violently in my chest as Cyprien kneels before Aldrin, then is helped to his feet. A monumental shift in power has just occurred. Events have spiraled faster than I can keep up with over the last handful of days and I am in over my head.

I never anticipated talks of rebellion and of a king being reinstated on his throne during my pilgrimage.

Caitlin clutches my arm, her fingernails digging into my flesh. She feels it too. The urge that screams: run, run, RUN. Get away before we become embroiled in a civil war.

“Do you yield your prisoner to me?” Aldrin asks Cyprien and my stomach tumbles.

The man throws a quick glance at Caitlin, then back. “Yes. I had no plans for her, besides tossing her through a portal as soon as I got the chance.”

Aldrin’s gaze turns to Caitlin. “You are free.”

Magic brims within me, swelling in my chest until the pressure feels like I will explode. The sound of trilling bells fills my ears, as the skin beneath the tattoo tingles. He has completed his side of the bargain .

Aldrin beckons me forward with a single finger, and I move as though through water. My feet take one step at a time on their own accord, my mind too dazed to be in control.

He puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me to a chair, depositing me in it. One of the thrones. He takes the other, leaning forward so his elbows are on top of his knees, gazing into my face intently. Our legs touch at the knees.

“Keira. Tell me your story.” White tendrils of magic curl away from his lips with his breath.

My mind becomes groggy. It moves so slowly, like I am intoxicated and have no mastery over it. There was something I was supposed to remember.

I greedily scan Aldrin, as though the answer lays there. The sharp angles of his tanned face. The broad chest with unbound hair draping down it. Bulky, muscular thighs with large, callused hands hanging casually between them. I should be afraid of him, but I can’t pinpoint why.

My throat dries, and I swallow hard. “I didn’t plan to take the pilgrimage. I didn’t think I deserved it, that I had the right to an adventure for self-discovery. How could I risk myself, when the entire kingdom needs me?” The information is forced right out of my mouth. I should feel horror, perhaps there was a revelation in them, but I can’t mutter any emotion at all.

Caitlin’s sharp intake of air is a distant thing sliding over my senses. Aldrin’s expression as he raises his eyebrows and turns to Cyprien means nothing to me.

“I spent my life preparing for the day Prince Finan finally committed to marrying me, for when I was to become queen.” A shudder ripples through me. “I studied alone with my tutor. History. Battle tactics. Foreign politics. Diplomacy. Except no one in the royal family cared to hear my ideas. I devoted my life to him, but then discovered he would toss me aside if a better bride came along. He would take my own sister if the king demanded it. My carefully planned future crashed down around me.”

A tear rolls down my cheek, but I have no idea why. More spills from my lips. “I chose the dangerous pilgrimage because meeting the fae and learning their culture had been my dream as a child. I came here to experience life, before becoming locked away in another castle. Before becoming bound to Prince Finan.”

I fall silent, panting at the exertion, and staring at nothing. A great void opens within me and I tumble within it, falling deeper and deeper into that despair.

The magic tugs at me, and I hear Aldrin as though he is very far away. “More. Tell me more. What is the pilgrimage?”

I hardly register the words that fall from me. “It is the greatest honor. Women who take it and return are celebrated. We become priestesses, and are offered a comfortable life in the temple if we want it. Upon taking up the call, women are schooled in all we know about this realm, but it is precious little. We are trained to defend ourselves, and then we are guided through the portal, like lambs to a slaughter. Our mission is to bring magic back to our lands, sometimes a relic or a heart-stone, sometimes a woman returns pregnant. Some never return at all.”

Anger ripples across Aldrin’s features and I can hear Caitlin telling them to stop what they are doing to me, that none of it is true.

I was supposed to hide any information that would betray my realm. How can a single woman hold back the tides of the ocean?

“Was that your intent?” Aldrin’s low rumble is filled with fury. “To return pregnant?”

“No.” My every muscle is limp and I wonder if I will fall out of this chair. “No. I came to look after Caitlin. To learn about the fae, not to gather information on an enemy, but to write an academic tome. To learn the magic of these lands and the language of the runes. We planned to make a bargain with a Lake Maiden and return home with the gift of her seed-stones, one in my pocket and one in Caitlin’s belly.

“Not all humans are so considerate. Some would steal and lie and kill in their desperation to return magic to our realm and save our way of life. Fae slip into my world to kidnap our women and turn them into breeding slaves. They take from us what they need, and we do the same. It is not moral, but it is necessary to save thousands of human lives.”

“Is this celebration of the pilgrimage, of killing fae, celebrated universally in your realm?” Aldrin practically growls.

“Yes.” I half-choke, trying to keep the word in.

“How do you feel about this cruelty and prosecution of the fae by humans?” He probes.

“It is wrong. It weighs heavily on my conscience. I am powerless to it,” I say.

“How would the humans react to the portals opening permanently again? To the idea of an alliance and coexisting?” Aldrin’s voice is rough.

I glance around the room and find Cyprien holding Caitlin back from me while she kicks and claws at him.

“Fear. Mistrust,” I utter. “If the portals opened without prior agreement, they would be met with a human army.”

I try to focus on my breathing, in and out. On tensing each individual muscle, to bring myself back in control of my body, but the haze is so thick.

I want to clamp my lips down, but the words keep escaping. “The priestesses would have the power and influence to make an alliance. They reside in every province in the kingdom and are almost as powerful as the king. These women have traveled to these lands and they are an authority on the Otherworld and magic itself. If any could convince the lords of the benefits of connecting our realms, it would be them, but it would incite a bloody civil war. Prejudice is strong.”

I sway in my seat as my vision blurs in and out. “The lords could combine their forces to push the king into an alliance. But not the current king. Not King Willard. He is too old and hateful. But Prince Finan, the man I am to marry, I could convince him. The lords, the priestesses, and the druids could convince him. My grandmother is the high priestess, my brother a druid and my father the lord protector of the lands that border this realm.”

Aldrin leans into me, his face so close to mine. “If you became queen, would you push for an alliance between our lands? ”

“If I am convinced your people would treat mine with respect and as equals, then yes, I would,” I say.

There is a long pause. I can almost see the gears turning within Aldrin’s mind as he looks away from me.

“Do you want to marry Prince Finan?” Aldrin speaks ever so gently.

“No. I do not.” My statement hangs between us. “What I want doesn’t matter. If I do not become his queen, if I do not control and guide him, his reign will be a disaster that will be felt across the kingdom.”

A series of expressions pass across Aldrin’s face and I can’t read a single one of them. “I have one last question for you.” He seems to hesitate, eyes utterly vulnerable. “Are you the second daughter of Edmund, Lord Protector of Appleshield?”

What a strange question for him to ask.

“Yes,” I whisper, and he recoils as though slapped. Aldrin collapses back into his chair. I watch him, still drowning in the magic swirling in my head.

He raises an arm. “Thank you for telling me your story. You’re released from the bargain.”

Conscious thought crashes down on me like a physical weight. That damper on my senses lifts abruptly and I am overwhelmed by the crackling roar of the fires, the heat that threatens to suffocate me and the scent of smoke. The ragged breathing of each person around me as their stares remain transfixed on me.

Confusion whirls in my head as I stare at them, then at Aldrin. My arm stings and I pull back the sleeve to watch the wisps of magic curl away from it in silvery light, the tattoo disappearing.

“What did you do?” I turn to Aldrin, but the memory slams into me of what he compelled me to say. “What did you do ?” I leap to my feet and back away from him. The anger at the abuse roars within me, clashing with terror. “You forced me to speak against my will. To tell you things that are a betrayal to my people. How did you get inside my mind like that? It’s a violation. ”

Aldrin stand and reaches out for me, and I take another step back, just outside of his grasp.

“A violation?” His voice is pitched high in shock. “Keira, this is what you agreed to in our bargain. To tell me your story.”

“My story is about the horrible man I am promised to and my girlhood dreams. Not tactical details about the power structure in my realm or the intricacies of the pilgrimage!” I yell and tears run freely down my face.

How stupid was I to think I knew this fae? That I could trust him at all. Trust any of them.

The fae are known for taking what they want.

I am horrified that I betrayed my people, to a fae king none-the-less. It is so much easier to throw that anger at Aldrin instead of myself.

“The intricacies of the pilgrimage!” Aldrin growls back. “ That is the violation here. These practices are the reason we fae closed the portals in the first place. And you are one of them.”

His hands clench to fists at his side and he towers near me, but he doesn’t yell or get in my space.

Self-righteous rage rolls through me hot and hard and bitter, but it’s tainted with deep shame. He is right. Not his methods, but his judgments of us.

“It is not this woman’s fault for the practices of her people. She came here with no ill will,” Cyprien chimes in.

I let another man near my heart, and he betrayed my trust.

“It is not my fault you don’t understand the nature of a bargain.” Aldrin doesn’t meet my eye.

“Well, maybe you should have informed me before you trapped me in one.” I spit at him.

“How could I have known it was going to compel you to speak truths you didn’t plan to share?”

“But you took advantage of it, anyway.” Pain radiates throughout my chest. He is a king of the fae. Of course he took advantage of you, you silly girl.

“I will not use the information to harm your people, you know that,” Aldrin replies. “Even if humans have been committing crimes against us for generations.”

“I don’t know anything about you.” I spit, then turn on my heel and stalk out of the grand hall.

Caitlin follows me out into the frozen night, gripping me tightly around my arm and leading me to our rooms.

“What am I doing here, Caitlin?” I sniff as I hold my emotions in. “I cannot trust my own instincts anymore. He used me.”

She quickens her pace. “Keep it together, Keira, until we have privacy.”

I need to kill this softness in me, if I am to be queen. I trust too soon, too easily, and am devastated when it is broken. We rush through an alleyway, down winding paths and up the staircase that hugs the apartment building.

I can’t get Aldrin out of my head. Those golden eyes that swirl with fire. The quick half-smile that warms me from head to toe, that penetrates to the depths of my soul. Aldrin is a man I could love. By the gods, he might drive me to insanity, but I could love him with my whole heart. The emotion he flares within me puts to shame the pitiful spark I hold for Prince Finan, and it will only grow the longer I let him in.

After witnessing the devastation of these lands, I know for certain that I have to marry Finan. The fate of two worlds depends on me. My shoulders sag from the sheer weight of it. From the heartache of having to tie myself to that man.

Caitlin rounds on me as soon as we are in my chambers. “I know you want to leave, but we need to finish what we started. We will complete our mission and have something to bring home. And you will stay with Aldrin long enough to work out what he is going to do with the information he took from you.”

I lock away that pain deep within my chest. “He is high fae and outmaneuvered me. I shouldn’t be shocked. There won’t be a next time.” I toss myself onto the bed and let out a shuddering breath. “By the darkest realm, I was enjoying his company too much. Of course it wasn’t real.” I laugh bitterly. The pain will come later, in the depths of the night when I am alone in my blankets.

“He has probably had hundreds of years to learn how to manipulate and get what he wants,” Caitlin offers.

I sit up on the bed. “We need a plan.”

Caitlin smiles wickedly. “We will learn theirs. If high fae open the portals, the Appleshield Protectorate must be prepared for them.”

Surely it won’t come to war.