Chapter 43

GOLL

Black. Black. Black.

My mind and body flooded with darkness. Wrath was no longer an emotion. It was a living, breathing spirit guide that had fully taken hold of me with an iron fist and scalding flame. It burned through my blood, filling me with grotesque, satisfying images of Ferryn being torn apart, limb by limb. There was no death good enough for him, no torture painful enough that would satisfy my all-consuming need to end him.

It wasn't simply that he'd betrayed me as his king or his kin, or that he'd killed his brother, or that he'd defied the gods by taking what was not his, for Una had been ordained by Vix himself as mine. She'd swam in the black lake, survived, and given herself to me. I'd chosen her before all of my people. Vix had blessed our union with a child. Ferryn had defied the gods by taking her from me.

And yet, it wasn't any of those things that stirred the deadly desire blazing through my entire being, my enflamed soul, to kill him. It was the fact that he'd caused her one moment of fear, one instance of pain.

It was unforgivable. For that, he would not live much longer in this world.

Drak soared close to the earth, speeding through the sky like a falling star. Windolek was within sight.

But it was the flashes of Una's mind, what was happening to her, that had me blinded with black rage. She'd managed to run and hide, but he'd caught her.

Another flash. He had her pressed to a wall, her cheek against rough stone, the outside of the stables, his hands trying to both hold her and pull up her chemise while she struggled.

I roared my fury. Drak felt my anguish and roared with me, beating his great wings to fly faster over the long field to the castle.

My mate screamed and reached back, clawing her nails across his face. He gripped her arm and jerked her around then slapped her cheek, knocking her to the ground. Then he was on her.

A guttural whimper escaped my throat, my entire body humming with malice and terror.

There was no redemption for Ferryn now. No words he could say that would prevent his death. Not even the gods could stop what was coming to my half-brother.

The shock of the reality that Meck and Ferryn weren't my cousins but my brothers had given me pause for only a moment as Meck confessed it to me with his dying breath. Guilt of what my father had undoubtedly done to sire them on my aunt—through coercion or brute force—was unforgivable.

They should've told me long ago. This entire night while I'd searched for Una and Ferryn, I'd tried to imagine what Ferryn was thinking, perhaps to right some wrong my father had done. But the second Ferryn put his hands on Una in violence, blood did not matter. Nothing mattered but her safety—and his death.

Wights surrounded the castle and filled the inner yard. Drak swooped down right outside the gate, landing and crushing several wights, the creatures screeching beneath his giant clawed feet. He flapped his wings, sending more spiraling backward. I leaped off his back, storming for the gates of Windolek.

More leaped toward Drak, but he reared up onto his hind legs, wings beating the air. As he came down, he spewed red-hot dragon fire, incinerating every wight in his radius as I rushed forward.

The corpses of shadow fae crowded toward me, gnashing their teeth and stretching out clawed hands. I raised my arms to my sides, the surge of feyfire filling my body, my flesh, my blood. It enveloped me entirely, flooding my soul with the burning fire of the gods. A righteous knowing invaded my mind; I was no longer a fae or a king, but an extension of their will, their wrath.

Ferryn had wronged them. Not as much as he'd wronged me. Still, they filled me with their power. Vix was here and present, walking with me, seeing through my eyes, guiding my fury. His power vibrated with strength and violence.

A wall of flames stretched out the sides of my body like giant wings, slicing outward like a blade, cutting across the land, speeding farther and farther until the fire extended beyond the walls of Windolek. As I marched forward, the flames moved with me, edging closer to the enemy, eating them and incinerating them with fire as hot as Solzkin's true heart.

Wights gibbered and screamed, igniting and burning to ash where they had stood seconds before. One lunged for me, claws swinging toward my face.

"No." The calm word left my lips, exploding him into cinders and dust.

I marched faster toward the gate, my wall of feyfire devouring creatures as I went. The bars of the gate were bent with scratches like teeth or claw marks. Regular wights didn't have that strength.

Ducking through, my wings of flame diminished to my sides, but lashed out like a whip to any wight who dared attack me. I didn't even need to give the command. The fire protected me as if it had a will of its own. The wights crept slowly, moving in a circle around me, hesitant.

They weren't completely mindless creatures. They wanted to survive like any other living thing. Though they had no souls, there was life in them. Until their master was dead. Which would be very soon.

I stalked through the bailey at a quick clip. "Ferryn!" I bellowed on a growl.

A Meer-wolf wight stepped out of the shadows of the stables with Ferryn at his side. He held Una in front of him, his arms holding her captive against him.

My heart left my body at the sight of her—the skin of her arms and legs scraped, her cheek bruised, her chemise torn down the middle to her waist, her eyes wild with fear and defiance and hope. The evidence of her claws streaked Ferryn's face where she'd fought him.

Wrath seized control again, wielding his burning desire for death and retribution as I walked forward, intent to pull her from his arms and rip him apart.

UNA

"Stop!" Ferryn yelled, his command vibrating through his chest to my back.

Goll stopped, his expression that of a man possessed. He looked every inch the demon wraith king of Northgall with murder burning bright in his eyes. He wore only a loose white tunic unlaced at the neck and the doeskin pants he was wearing last I saw him in our tent, his cloak billowing off his shoulders.

But it was the flowing cape of flame that whipped around him, a glowing corona of demon fire, that had me hypnotized. He was Vix incarnate, his eyes luminous with bloodlust and rage.

He said nothing at all to Ferryn, simply stared with that terrifying expression, his eyes flashing brightly with otherworldly fire. His dragon ancestry seemed to be shining through them.

He was haloed by flames entirely that licked out and lashed any wight that came too close, bursting them into dust.

"If you use your fire on me," said Ferryn, "you'll kill her, too."

I heard it. The first tremble of fear in Ferryn's voice. He was afraid. He should be. My king wore nothing but death in every hard line of his face.

Goll began to take slow, steady steps forward again. His voice was low and eerily calm. "Do you honestly believe that any part of me could hurt my mate? My mizrah?" The flames haloing his body flared brighter, reaching outward along the ground, like a burning phalanx to take out his enemy.

The wights had stopped attacking him, but now circled with a wide berth. It didn't matter. Goll murmured some inaudible words and waved his arms outward. In a flash, the phalanx extended in all directions, finding every wight in the yard and incinerating them into sparks and charred dust, smoking the air with the echo of their screams and black ash.

Ferryn's arms tightened around my waist and chest where he'd bracketed me to him. The Meer-wolf wight behind us snuffled the air, a low growl rumbling.

"I'll kill her if you come closer!" Ferryn snapped, his hand finding my throat.

Goll froze, but his expression never wavered. His gaze found mine. For a brief moment, he blinked away the maelstrom of rage, wrath, and hard determination, letting a second's worth of adoration shine there. Then it was gone, his attention back on my captor.

"Ferryn," he said with chilling, dark certainty, "nothing is going to happen here that does not end with your dead body in my hands. It's best if you accept that now."

He scoffed. "You and your fucking arrogance."

"Is that why you wanted to be king? You thought me arrogant? Unworthy?" More steps closer.

Ferryn shuffled back. I stumbled with him, my hands on his forearms, his fingers tightening at my throat.

"You were doomed," Ferryn growled. "My mother told me you were likely dead already in that dungeon. She raised us on her own and told us over and over that I should be king, her firstborn." His breathing became ragged with anger. "One day, my time would come when I could slay our father and take his throne. It was her dying wish." He laughed with derision. "I was making plans to do just that when you appeared out of nowhere, killed him, and took my place."

Goll tilted his head, looking more animal than fae. "It was never your place."

"It is now," he growled and then shouted, " Stygrim! "

The wolf wight lunged toward Goll in a run. I screamed as the giant skeletal beast opened its jaws and launched through the air at him.

Goll caught the creature by its fangs, pushing back and keeping it from sinking its yellowed teeth into him. He whispered in demon tongue. Etheline didn't mean "fire" or "ignite" as I once had thought. It meant...

"Come alive," grated Goll, calling to his magick to live and breathe for him.

It did. Flames blazed up his arms and licked two lines across the undead wolf's back. The creature howled and snarled while Goll still held its jaws with unfathomable strength that I hadn't known he possessed.

Then I felt them. The presence of the gods surrounding us with their oppressive, almost painful, power. Yet it wasn't coming from the heavens or the earth. The power emanated from Gollaya himself. My king. My mate. My love .

A low groan slipped from Ferryn behind me before he started hauling me backward, his hand slipping free from my throat.

By now, the wolf wight was completely engulfed in flames. Goll pulled apart its jaws. The cracking of bones and snapping of rotten sinew rent the air, and then he shoved the burning carcass with both physical and magickal force so that it crashed into the castle wall.

He turned toward us, pulling his dagger from its sheath on his belt, and stalked our way with those bold, fearless steps, his expression nothing less than the embodiment of cold, merciless fury.

He was utterly beautiful. I couldn't look away if I tried.

Ferryn's hand found my throat again, but Goll whispered something and a snake of flame shot from his chest and wrapped around Ferryn's wrist.

Suddenly, I was free of Ferryn, falling roughly to the stone courtyard. Instantly, I scrambled backward, ignoring the biting of small pebbles under my palm and the pain in my wrist.

"You're safe, my mizrah," Goll said with a soothing, serene voice, his feral gaze still locked on Ferryn.

Ferryn was now held in place with four ropes of fire, his arms outspread, his feet held in place. His gray complexion had darkened with the exertion of trying to free himself. The flames weren't burning his skin, but simply keeping him still. Goll wanted to do the killing himself. He wanted it to be personal.

"I'm your brother!" screamed Ferryn.

"You were," said Goll, only a few steps from him now. "But then you touched my wife and dared to hurt her. Now, you're nothing. You're ash in the ether."

His wife? I swallowed thickly at the emotion swelling inside me at his cavalier admission. Like it was nothing for a wraith king to claim a wife.

"But I'm your blood," Ferryn protested. Then he scoffed, his bravado sounding pathetic, "She's just a concubine."

"No, Ferryn." He finally reached him and took one of Ferryn's horns with his free hand, bending his head closer. "She's my queen. She's everything."

I gulped at the earnest adoration in his voice.

"You should look away, my love," he told me in the calmest voice without looking in my direction.

"No," I said softly.

"Very well."

Then he proceeded to stab Ferryn in the throat over and over. Ferryn gurgled a dying groan, his lips moving, his eyes wide and shocked as Goll held him by the horn and continued his ghastly work. Ferryn's eyes glazed as his spirit left his body. I sensed when the dark essence swept away.

But Goll didn't notice. Or if he did, he didn't care. He moved to Ferryn's chest, even while the rope flames vanished and Goll held Ferryn's body upright with one hand, his dagger plunging deep in a nonstop rhythm of thrusts, blue blood spraying Goll's face and chest.

Nausea churned in my stomach, so I finally did look away. Curling into a ball, I pressed my face into my knees while still hearing the sounds of the blade sinking into flesh over and over. I wasn't sure how long it lasted, only that my mind took me away for a while.

I tuned into the magick surrounding us, the presence of the gods cocooning me in safety. I still shivered, but it was from the cold now, not fear any longer. My chemise was all I wore since I'd been taken, the cold wind nipping at my skin, and my wrist throbbing where I'd fallen on it.

But my babe was safe. I was safe. Gollaya had come for me as I knew he would. As I knew he always would. He'd called me his wife. His queen. I sniffled.

A heavy cloak fell around my shoulders as I was lifted into Goll's lap where he'd sat on the ground in front of me.

"Shh," he murmured, hauling me against his chest, rocking me in his arms. "You're safe now, my precious mizrah." His body was warm and welcoming. "My beautiful mate. I'm so sorry. You're safe now," he ground out against the crown of my head. "I promise I'll never let anything happen to you again."

I uncurled and slid my arms around his neck, peering up into the fierce face of Goll, spattered in the blue blood of my captor. I thought it was me still trembling, but it was him.

"I know you won't."

"Are you hurt?" He swallowed hard, his throat working as his arms held me fiercely. "Did he…harm you?"

"Except for my wrist, I'm not injured. In any way." He needed to hear those words, so I assured him.

"I'm so sorry. It never should've happened."

"You didn't know. You couldn't have known."

"It doesn't matter," he said gruffly, his voice rough and shaking. "It's my place to protect my mizrah. I'll never forgive myself."

I reached up, pressing my palm to his cheek so he'd look at me. His eyes were wild and full of guilt and misery, the flare of gold around his slit pupil bright in the pool of blue.

"Your mizrah?" I asked gently. "Or your wife?" My own voice finally broke, a tear slipping down my face.

"Gods, Una." He pressed his forehead to mine. "You're my everything ."

I didn't care that he was covered in blood or that the smoking remains of hundreds of wights filled the air with a putrid sulfuric smell. I held him close, needing the sensation of his warm embrace. He seemed to need mine, too. We remained there for quite a long time, my husband holding me and me holding my husband.

Sometime later, he lifted me into his arms, keeping his cloak tucked around me as he carried me out of the bailey and into the field where Drak waited, chomping on the bones of one of the fresher wights.

I sniffed. "So King Goll is going to change the laws again. He's going to have a wife, not a mizrah or a concubine."

He looked down at me as he carried me closer to Drak, who rumbled a pleasant growl at our approach. The gray light of early morning lit his face.

"Something I've come to understand about Vix and Mizrah. They may not have been bound in the formal sense—as husband and wife." He stopped before Drak, still holding me tight, his fierce gaze on mine. "But she was his world." Those dragon eyes flicked between my own, holding me captive. "As you are mine," he added, voice gravelly and rough. "There will never be any concubines. But the title Mizrah means more than mother to my children. She was the most precious treasure Vix ever held in his arms." He squeezed me tighter, reminding me I was still in his. "I understand that now."

We climbed up onto Drakmir's back. I sat sideways on Goll's lap. He wrapped me tight against him, cocooning me in his cloak and his protective warmth, his possessive arms.

When I pressed my hand against his chest, wanting to feel the strong beat of his heart beneath, I noticed the threads of our moon-binding shimmering brighter along my hand and wrist. As Drakmir lifted us up and up into the clouds, the kiss of dawn brightening the sky, the threads glowed.

Goll took my hand from his chest and laced our fingers together, aligning our bare forearms, the sleeve of his tunic having risen. The threads of our union actually moved and entwined like they had when we stood in the Moon Temple with Elder Lelwyn. He marveled at them as did I, then he marveled at me as I did him.

"I love you, Una," he said with such sincerity and certainty that my heart beat harder, a knowing sinking into my soul.

I smiled and tucked my head in the crook of his neck. "As I love you," I whispered as Drak carried us through the golden morning sky.