36. Aldrin

Chapter 36

Aldrin

I run my hand through my hair, but my fingers snag on the knots. When was the last time I even brushed it? Cyprien is talking and talking, agitation showing in the taut lines of his shoulders and his jarred hand motions, but I can’t focus on a single thing he is saying.

I am so fucken tired. I wear a soul deep, weary fatigue like a cloak.

I am an utter mess, physically with crumpled clothes that smell of sweat and stubble across my cheeks, and emotionally.

Half the time I cannot even think straight.

The oak desk before me is covered in crumpled parchment. Letters that have found their way to me at the Frozen River Fortress, some with their seal still unbroken. Others are in my own hand, that I started drafting before getting interrupted. I am constantly getting interrupted these days.

Cyprien pulls a chair from the opposite side of my desk and deposits himself in it. There are deep, black rings under his eyes. Even his usually bronzed skin looks pale.

“You’ll have to repeat that.” I massage my temples.

He passes me a neatly folded parchment with a gold seal. “This arrived in the mail portal. Transported straight from the palace. ”

I take it and inspect the seal. It is an imprint of Titania’s profile. Only she would be arrogant enough to use her own face as her sigil. I tap it against the surface of the desk. “No spells or traps on the letter?”

Cyprien huffs an agitated breath. “None that I could detect.”

I examine the letter for a long moment, staring at it like I have a viper ready to strike in my palms. It will be filled with as much poison. Apprehension coils within my stomach.

“The letter will not disappear from you avoiding it,” Cyprien points out.

I break the seal and open the folds. The letter doesn’t shatter into a thousand needles and plunge at me. It doesn’t release a choking gas or a flash of light bright enough to blind me for days. None of those kinds of spells could kill me, but I wouldn’t put the pettiness past her.

I scan across the lazy scroll, anger building in my blood with each sentence.

My Dearest Aldrin,

Do not believe I have forgotten about you. That I will ever stop coming for you. I will strip you bare, and not in a way you will like. I have taken your crown, your title and your power. Now, your life, your dignity, your good reputation will all be mine.

Fear not, I am at no risk of running out of money to pay for your night time visitors. Trade has been very good since I relieved you of your incompetent rule. The Assassins of Belladonna will keep coming to play every single night, until you surrender to them. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, is coming to your defense in the Senate.

You see, the official word is that you were in collaboration with our oldest enemy, the Winter King. That you had sold your soul to him, shared his bed, and then attempted to sell your very people to him. That is why you tried to make them believe he is no risk to the Spring Court, all while he readies his forces for an invasion.

I also had them swallow, dear Aldrin will hate the irony of this one, that the Winter King commissioned the Assassins of Belladonna to kill you. I made up some utter nonsense that you failed him and revealed your hand to me, enabling me to thwart two enemies at once. How clever your old subjects thought I was.

I would wish you a pleasant night, but I’d much prefer you strangle in shadows and burn in molten light.

High Chancellor Titania

I toss the parchment to my desk. “She is playing games.” I spit.

Cyprien reaches for the letter, his eyes quickly skimming from left to right. His teeth grind so hard I can hear them. “This letter was pointless.”

“Not if her aim is to taunt us,” I mutter.

A high-pitched whoosh sounds as air rushes toward the letter, and the parchment still clutched Cyprien’s fingers catches fire abruptly. He drops it to the ground cursing, and I lean over the desk to watch flames quickly lick across the pages and consume it until not even ash remains.

“The only damn time she speaks the truth is when there is no evidence left of it.” He shakes his head.

I don’t want to think of Titania today. Not when there is nothing that can be done about her right now. It would have me stewing in impotent rage and frustration.

“What other correspondence came today?” I point to the stacks of letters beside Cyprien.

He silently hands me another one, the seal already broken, and I swiftly read over it. “Lord Cedar will not bring any potential allies to the border to witness the rifts while assassins have a commission against me. They won’t risk it, not even during the day.”

I rub my hands over my face and across my temples. The pain there builds and builds, reaching claws back across my skull. “I knew his support would disappear at the first hint of hardship.”

Cyprien nods, the beads in his dark braids clinking. “Many fear they will earn their own commission with the assassins. Titania has the funds and is spiteful enough.”

I read three more letters in the same vein. There is a sinking feeling in my chest, as though I am being dragged down into inky darkness and despite how I fight and claw, there is no stopping this descent. Sometimes, I feel like giving up. Handing myself over to despair.

It is so much effort to keep fighting every single day, no matter the backlash or consequences, no matter the rejection from the people I am trying to save.

It is draining me.

“This isn’t going away on its own, Aldrin.” Cyprien leans over the desk. “The assassins will keep coming, no matter how many we kill. Titania made that clear enough. Any support you have gathered will disappear if we let this drag on. There are only two ways to end the nightly assaults. Kill the high chancellor yourself, or put your own commission against her and have the assassins do it. I will fund it. Their order does not balk at having contradictory commissions. Both orders would be complete when one of the clashing targets is dead.”

“I will not kill Titania.” My chair clatters to the ground as I rise in my seat suddenly, slamming my palms on the desk. “I will not stoop to her level. When I return to power, it will be because I have outmaneuvered her and the people have willed it. What power would I have as an unwanted dictator?”

“Your stubbornness will get us all killed, Adrin!” Cyprien gets up and stalks across the room. “It will destroy this entire realm. These are your only options.” He grabs the decanter of brandy and pours himself a long drink, then drains it. He holds it up as a silent offering to me, but I shake my head.

“There is another way.”

“What other way?” Cyprien turns back toward me, scowling. “No. Whatever you are thinking, it’s a bad idea.”

“It is a terrible idea.” I concede. “But it is another way. If I can make it work, then we will have a sharply honed weapon at our disposal.”

Cyprien stalks right up to me and points a finger into my chest. “You have gone insane. Do not even consider it.”

I push his hand off me. “Everyone has a right to take the trials of Belladonna, to be initiated into their order. Their assassins cannot interfere with one taking the trials, and are forbidden from killing one of their members. Not only would I train with them and learn their ways, I could challenge their leader for the rule over the order. Imagine having that might at our disposal.”

Cyprien stares at me with his nostrils flared wide. “Where would you even find them? The Order of Belladonna?”

“I have heard they dwell on a mountain peak shrouded in mist, in the land between the Shadow Court and the Sun Court. But all I have to do is make a formal appeal to one of their assassins, and they would be obligated to take me to their order.”

“What happens to any who do not pass the trial or the training?” A deep frown occupies Cyprien’s face.

I let out a long breath. “They are killed, of course, in a thousand creative ways.”

“I will take this trial with you, to make sure your back is protected.”

“You can’t,” I cut him off. “I need you as my contingency. If anything happens to me, you need to become the next king.”

Cyprien nods. He already knows of the plans I have for him.

I right my chair, then collapse into it.

The gold and oak grandfather clock in the corner of the study chimes five times and my stomach hollows out.

“Go, Cyprien, and get the soldiers ready for tonight. I need time alone with my thoughts.” I rifle through the loose pages on my desk, and only notice he is gone when the door clicks shut.

I brace myself, waiting for the waves of utter devastation to drown me.

There is a pit of writhing pain within my chest, poisoning every single moment. It taints my blood, twists my innards, and puts a dampening blanket across my thoughts.

The beast was born the moment Keira said she was leaving. It burst free from its bindings when she disappeared within the swirling mists of the portal, and I knew I would never touch her again. Feel her bare body pressed against mine again. Never coax a smile from her or hear her brilliant thoughts .

Those feelings are my own, and despite how they tear at me and threaten to break me, I can function while I carry them. Only just. Even as they follow my every waking moment and bleed into my nightmares.

In the hour when day turns to night, it changes. It is like the gates to my heart are ripped open and that grief and loss doubles. Triples. I swear that in these moments, the pain is not only my own, but I feel hers as well. I can hear her wail my name.

I turn toward the slits of windows high in the room, and examine the pink and orange stains across the late afternoon sun. It will be soon now.

The pendant of my necklace begins to burn against my skin, like a fire that runs as cold as ice. I pull on the leather thong and the chip of moonstone falls out of the neckline of my shirt.

It glows faintly.

I run a finger down its dulled edge and receive a shock of energy.

After Keira left through that portal, I took my sword and hacked at it until a shard of moonstone the length and thickness of my thumb broke free. I keep it on me at all times, so if she returns, I will know. If the portal is activated again, I will feel it.

The first time I felt the pendant brim with static charge and freeze my skin, I had thought she found a way back to me. I raced through the forest as though the wild hunt themselves were after me, despite the oncoming sunset, only to find the portal utterly dormant.

The stone was dull and milky white, with none of the shimmering radiance and flashing colors present when the gateway is open.

I broke down and cried then, falling to my knees and pulling at my own hair.

My scream echoed off the trees.

If it hadn’t been for Cyprien, Silvan and Klara dragging me back, I would have given up right then and there. The assassins would have found me on my knees a broken man and finished the job of my utter destruction.

I run my hands across my face, then place them on the desk. I riffle through the papers and find a letter to finish writing while I wait, but my hands shake too violently. A tightness forms within my chest that squeezes and squeezes until it is unbearable and I cannot breathe.

The moonstone pendant zaps charges through me again, sparking and freezing the skin of my chest, as the emotions intensify.

Keira’s face appears in my mind. Those doe eyes are huge as she stares at me with awe, as she did when I taught her new magic. They glitter with green swirls within hazel.

The image changes to parted rosebud lips with ragged breaths and moans escaping them as I take her again and again.

Then to those curls of her long hair fluttering in the wind as she gazes out from a balcony in a Watchtower Tree, the sunlight causing the colors of red, orange and gold to shimmer vibrantly.

The gods know I miss her more than I have missed anything or anyone in my life. I would give everything to touch her one more time. To the hells with regaining my crown, if I could have her.

The moonstone pendant hums with increasing power. The connection between our souls broadens, and the link of my pendant to her bracelet snaps into place again. On her world, Keira cries for me.

A sudden wave of agonizing torment and hopelessness crashes over my entire existence, the ripples of it so intense that nothing else exists. They mirror my own feelings, amplifying them tenfold.

I am dragged down and down until my thoughts are filled with nothing but churning darkness. Sobs burn up my throat and fight to break free, and I fear I will choke from the intensity of them. I grip the edge of my desk and try to slow my breathing, but I have no control over the turmoil crashing within me.

Aldrin. Oh, Aldrin.

My heart stops dead as the words flow through my mind in Keira’s voice. It feels so real, like she is wailing right next to me. But I can’t put my arms around her and wipe away her tears.

Aldrin, find your way back to me. I need you more than I have needed anything.

There is such desperation in her siren’s call, but I cannot get to her. I take the moonstone pendant in my fist and grip it tightly, despite how it burns my flesh.

This is real.

It has to be.

I am not going insane or imagining this. I know because if I let go of the piece of moonstone, her calls and her emotions will disappear. It connects us somehow, my pendant and the bead on her bracelet. It allows me this tiny piece of her, and I will greedily take whatever I can.

I grit my teeth through wave after wave of pain, riding it in solidarity with her, letting my own emotions run free alongside it, until the connection ebbs and wanes and winks out.

Part of me wants to tug Keira back, pain and all, just to feel something from her. I collapse backward in my seat, utterly wrung out but still craving the sound of her voice.

I glance down at the pages beneath my hands. The ink is smudged and the parchment wrinkled from water. It takes a long moment for me to realize that the moisture is from my own tears.

Precious minutes I don’t have are spent on pulling myself together, then I rise and dress myself in my battle armor. I pull on the brown leathers first, with disks of metal plate sewn into it. Next, I strap on the bronze, segmented shoulder and arm guards, with spikes gutting from the corners of my shoulders. I fit my chest plate last, not stopping to inspect the swirls of runes engraved into it.

I am finishing up as Cyprien ducks his head into the study. “They have arrived, but are holding back. I expect they will attack when full dark falls.”

I don’t need to ask who. The Assassins of Belladonna have fought us every single night we have been at this fortress, except for that first one.

Cyprien looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on my face. “Did it happen again?”

I stare at him for a long moment, contemplating how much to reveal. “It happened again. She speaks to me, Cyprien.”

He frowns deeply as he takes a step closer to me. “None of us have slept much in days. Weeks. You have had blow after blow in that time. Countless attempts on your life. Betrayal and abandonment by your people yet again. Keira leaving. The emotional toil is expected. It would bring a lesser man to breaking point. Your strength is still needed, Aldrin, and not only for your survival. Let’s not jump to rash conclusions.”

“I am not imagining this,” I snap at him.

He takes in a long breath, as though he is mustering his patience. “Let me inspect the moonstone shard.”

I pull the thong over my head and pass it to him, the pendant still sending shocks of static into my fingers and its surface utterly frozen.

Cyprien inspects it as though it were any other inanimate object, and not one that sparks and freezes. “I don’t feel anything. Are you sure?—”

“Then how do you explain this?” I hold up my palm, where there is a purple and blue imprint of the jagged moonstone burnt into it, and slowly healing.

His lips compress into a thin line. “I cannot, but we have other more immediate matters to deal with right now. Those of life and death.”

Cyprien turns to walk back out that door but I grab him by the shoulders. “She is calling to me, Cyprien. Pleading for me to come find her. Keira is in trouble. I need to go to her.”

He throws my arms off in disgust. “Keira made her choice Aldrin! She chose to return to the human realm, where you cannot follow her. Not only will you lose all credibility with our people if you cross over, hers will kill you on sight. Have you forgotten what happened the last time you stepped into their realm? You have to respect her parting wishes, as much as you want her to call you from the Otherworld.”

He stalks out the door with rage billowing off him.

“What about Lorrella’s prophecy?” I toss at him and he pauses. “Keira is meant to return the magic to both realms at my side.”

Cyprien turns around very slowly. “The exact wording could mean many things. Did you tell her about the prophecy?” I nod and try to speak, but he cuts me off. “The full truth of the prophecy? About what happened when it was told to the humans?”

My entire face falls. “How could I tell her that? There never seemed a right time or way. It was so hard to gain her trust, I was terrified of losing it in a blink. Then she was leaving, and it didn’t seem to matter anymore.”

Cyprien gives me a withering stare for a long moment. “Come, Aldrin. We have matters of life and death to see to right now.”

I glance down to my palm and the mark has vanished from my skin. Maybe I have lost my mind.

Surely I didn’t imagine it.

I march into the main hall of the fortress with Cyprien at my side. The room teams with my followers and they turn deadly silent, waiting for my command.

I skim across each of my people, falling on Drake first. He has dark stubble across his usually clean-shaven cheeks, obscuring much of the silvery tattoo of the tree of life. There is deep bruising under his eyes from lack of sleep, contrasting against the red tones of his skin. We are lucky to have him still with us and that the Living Waters saved his life.

Beside him, Klara blinks heavily as she struggles to stay awake. My gaze roves to Lilly, the oldest amongst us, but the only hint of her fatigue are her bloodshot eyes. Silvan has multiple rings beneath his slitted gaze, and I know pain from a lost lover also haunts him.

We are becoming more worn down by the day and cannot go on like this for much longer. Fighting the entire night and using much of the day to repair damage done to the fortress and replenish the magic of the ward stones.

There has been precious little time for sleep.

We are barely surviving.

I clap my hands. “Everyone to your stations. You all know your places by now.”

“What exactly are we doing here, Aldrin?” Drake steps forward.

“Buying time.” I grunt .

“Time for what?” He spreads his arms out. “Help isn’t coming, that much is clear.”

“Time for me to gods damn think!” I growl at him.

Drake doesn’t even flinch. He turns and walks out the door grumbling under his breath, and the rest of the soldiers follow close behind him. I wonder for how much longer they will continue to follow me. When they will finally have enough of being loyal to a dead man walking.

Cyprien grits his teeth but says nothing as he brushes past me.

A storm breaks overhead as I step outside. The twin moons are blotted out by thick, black clouds and thunder echoes across the sky as they collide with one another. Streams of water run in rivulets down the wards above my head.

It gives the illusion of standing inside a bubble within a crashing waterfall. A heavy mist settles upon us, penetrating the pores of the wards.

The leathers of my armor are soaked through and trickles of frozen water run down my back by the time I climb the external stairs of the highest watchtower, to the stone plinth of pure aquamarine gracing the platform at its apex.

Cyprien and Lilly already brace their hands against it. The static energy in the air raises the hairs along my skin as they funnel their raw magic into the plinth. The wards ripple with each pulse, bands of light running from the stone into them as they strengthen.

There are four other towers with plinths along the fortress, where my people are stationed in the same manner. The protective wards are at their weakest at the seams between plinths, where water trickles through the barrier and reveals our vulnerabilities.

We don’t have nearly enough warriors to keep them powered.

I place my hands against the warmth of the aquamarine plinth and Cyprien grunts as he makes space for me. His drenched hair is heavy against his face and steam rises from his hands.

I can feel the wards through the plinth like an extra limb. Boots run across it, the vibration of their impact an echo running through my hands. I push my consciousness down the trail of magic and follow its path across the wards, counting the number of assailants. Ten upon the wards, examining our positions and weaknesses.

Thunder rumbles high above us, and a second later the sky is lit up by a great flash of forked lightning. I count another five figures clad in billowing robes of inky shadows, base jumping in the open air above the wards.

It astounds me how long the Assassins of Belladonna can maintain that kind of magic, but no fae can do it forever. Just as we won’t be able to sustain the wards against their attack indefinitely.

The night sky becomes brightly illuminated, then a different kind of rain falls upon us. One of silver needles of pure light, as sharp as any knife. I am blinded by that wall of radiance cascading down and shattering upon our barrier, creating spots of weakened magic.

I focus on the area of the ward serviced by the plinth beneath my hands and channel in raw power to patch those holes before they grow.

Last night, a single assassin made it through a small breech and wrecked absolute mayhem on us before we killed him. It was almost enough to force us to drop the ward. If we had, we would have surely fallen. I feel the floods of Cyprien and Lilly’s power patching other growing holes.

This is an exercise in blind trust. Each team at the separate plinths work in ignorance of each other, assuming the others aren’t overwhelmed. We don’t have the numbers to come to each other’s aid or probe the wards beyond our designated sections.

All we can do is defend. To pour all of ourselves into the wards, because we don’t have the forces to spare any on attacking the assassins.

Except for Odiane.

She materializes as a pure white silhouette from the water sleuthing down the domes of the wards, like a thing of nightmares. Her fingers are long claws, her mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth an inch long and her eyes pure black with no white. Jagged ridges climb up her bare back and spikes jut out of her shoulders, elbows and knees .

I wonder what Keira and Caitlin would think of her, if they saw her like this.

The Lake Maiden screams and the pools of water around her violently undulate. Pain slices through my ears, but the sound is diminished by the wards. The two closest assassins grab their ears and fall to their knees on the barrier, the water dripping from them tinged with their blood.

An assassin leaps toward her and slices a sword of pure, rippling starlight straight through her figure. Odiane cascades into a puddle, but a moment later two of her forms materialize out of the water. She is a queen, and we are merely squatting in her palace.

Her arms whip up from her sides, and a column of ice spikes cut out of the water, reaching three feet high. The assassins dart out of that brutal path, the jagged points of the icicles narrowly missing him.

Odiane dances with the assassins the entire night, throwing her spears of ice at them and laughing with exhilaration. They dodge her attacks and dissipate her form, if only to give themselves a few minutes of respite.

My high fae warriors are merely fleas on the back of a dragon, gripping on for dear life. My people channel all that is left of themselves into those wards, while the assassins break their blows of light and shadow against it, trying to shatter our last defense.

With great pain, I spilt my channels of magic in two, sending half into the plinth and the other into attacks. I gather a tidal wave from all the water falling from the sky and running down our defenses, building it and building it, until its huge form curls over three assassins and crashes down on them, washing their bodies from the ward like ticks from my back.

I tighten my fist and force a crushing blow into the mass of water, slamming them into the frozen river below. One cracks upon a thick sheet of ice, and the other two are plunged into the water’s icy depths, where I hope to the gods that Odiane’s court will dispatch of them.

Agony splits through my temples, but I cannot stop.

I grasp of all those trees that should never have been allowed to grow around the fortress, thrusting my power into them until they become colossuses that whip and strike at the assassins that dart around impossibly fast. It is a crude technique, clapping immense branches together while they narrowly dart out of the way. Whipping at them with thick tendrils of roots.

It is like trying to catch a fly in my hand, but I manage to crush a few.

My head spins, my hands shake, and I don’t know if my legs will hold me for much longer. I focus my efforts into the plinth, pouring all my essence into it, while Odiane continues to fight above us. I will join her with my magic again, as soon as I catch my breath.

Beside me, Cyprien has his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted, as though in pain. He is on his knees, elongated fangs and tusks peeking out through his lips and his fingers the same blackened claws as my own. When his eyes open, they are completely black, with no whites.

It is rare that Cyprien reveals his more primal form. Unlike how I lose my grip on it with the first flicker of rage. Only the strongest of us still connect with the original forms of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Lilly mutters urgently below her breath, with her forehead pressed against the hot stone. Thick, curled horns erupt from her bald scalp. Her usual cap of golden runes are now black and colonize the entirety of her caramel skin.

They are both stretched thin and fading.

A sudden clarity hits me. I know this is how it will end for us if I remain here. We will collapse at these plinths, and the assassins will not only kill me, but my loyal followers who will throw themselves in front of me.

Our energy and magic have been greatly taxed by weeks of these nightly battles, but the assassins keep coming, fresh and powerful, no matter how many we kill.

As dim light bleeds across the sky, Odiane’s much depleted form collapses into a pool of water and does not rise again. The assassin’s assault intensifies for another hour without her harrying them, then their silver rain ends abruptly and their forms cloaked in shadows skit away .

I let go of the plinth and lean forward over my knees and heave.

“Have you lost your mind, Aldrin?” Cyprien snaps. “We still need to power the plinths for tonight.”

I examine each of them. “We don’t need to charge them. I am leaving here today.”

Cyprien collapses his back against the plinth as relief ripples across his face. Lilly sits heavily on the soaked ground, but rolls her eyes over to me. “You have made a decision then?”

“I am not going to bloody like it, am I?” Cyprien dries the sweat from his hands onto his leathers, then grimaces at the dirt deposited on them.

“Oh no, you are going to hate it.” I grin at him despite myself. A heavy weight lifts from my shoulders. “In fact, you’ll think it’s my worst idea yet. I will not ask anyone to come with me.”

“You’re not going to hand yourself over to the Assassins of Belladonna to challenge them, are you?” He asks.

“No. Not yet anyway.” I pull myself upright and stumble down those water lodged steps encircling the outside of The Tower.

“Aren’t you at least going to tell us?” Cyprien calls over the edge of the rampart.

“You can find out when everyone else does.” I toss over my shoulder.

For the first time in weeks, there is a spring in my step.