Thorns of Frost (Fae of Snow & Ice, #2)(55)
His throat worked a swallow, his entire body going rigid.
“You killed my family. How can I forgive you for that?”
He moved so fast it was like lightning struck. He suddenly towered over me, making my head tilt back so I could meet his stormy expression as my chest threatened to swell.
Go to him, a voice inside me seemed to stay.
I didn’t. I couldn’t.
“What if I didn’t kill them?”
I laughed, the sound as bitter as I felt. “Not this again.”
He clasped my chin, his fingers cupping that one small part of me. My toes curled when a blazing jolt shot through me. My mate. Mine.
The words echoed in my mind, reminding me that I would forever have to live with this torment, this anguish that the one fairy who was meant for me was the one I would never allow myself to have.
He lifted my face more, angling it so I had to look him directly in the eyes. “I’m not being cruel.”
I whipped my chin from his grip, a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue.
“Ilara,” he growled. “I’m not, and I can prove it.” He took a deep breath, the sound encompassing the weight of the realm.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“What I’m about to show you could get me killed.” When my frown only deepened, he added, “I’m trusting you, Ilara Seary, daughter of Mervalee Territory. I’m entrusting my soul to you. What I’m about to reveal has the power to destroy me completely if you choose to do so.”
I didn’t have time to process those words before his arms whipped around me, and the realm disappeared in a twist of mist and shadows, air and wind.
My scream caught in my throat from how unexpected the sensation was. And when my feet once again touched solid ground, my breath sucked in as a fierce wind and a spray of stinging ice pelted my face.
The prince hooked his arm around my shoulders, his wing stretching out around me to block the violent weather.
Blinding snow flew everywhere, obscuring my vision. A second later, a pulse of his magic bathed my skin, and then the fierce storm stopped due to a solid wall of air surrounding us.
“Where are we?” I asked. The cold no longer bit into me as warmth filled his protective dome.
“We’re on the Cliffs of Sarum.”
My eyes widened, and my entire body began to tremble. “Blessed Mother.”
The Cliffs of Sarum were deadly. Stories floated throughout the continent of the magic encased within these icy cliffs and glaciers. Many fae had lost their lives here, getting lost in the labyrinth of enchanted caves and crevices, sucked in by magic, or falling prey to their own stupidity.
“I don’t understand,” I finally said as a shiver coursed through me.
He took another deep breath. “I created a small village here, hidden by so much illusion magic that nobody knows of its existence. Not the locals. Not my father. Not Nuwin. None of the council members. The only fae that know of what I’ve done here are my guards. Them and now you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I may be the Death Master of the continent, but I’m not what everyone claims me to be. I bring fae here, fae I was supposed to execute, but they are fae that I cannot kill. I stopped murdering innocents a long time ago, but my father doesn’t know that.”
My heart beat harder. Faster and faster and faster. Innocents. Innocents were my parents and Tormesh. He couldn’t be saying what I thought he was saying. He couldn’t have brought me here to . . .
My legs wobbled, my knees threatening to give out as I grasped his forearms tightly, my nails digging into him.
“Are you saying that my parents—” My throat grew dry, my tongue nearly paralyzed. “That my brother—”
But I couldn’t say it.
I couldn’t even think it, because if I was wrong, and this was all one giant misunderstanding or some twisted game that he was doing for his amusement . . .
It would destroy me.
His eyes softened. “Yes. They’re alive, Ilara. They’ve always been alive. I never killed them.”
CHAPTER 18
I collapsed. I fell to the ground, wet snow sinking through my pants and soaking my legs. Ice lay underneath it. Cold, slippery, clear ice that threatened to sweep me down the cliffs under the weight of my disbelief.
I shook my head over and over. “Where? Please! I need to see them.”
A gigantic swell of his power ripped through the realm. Just outside of his protective bubble, a shimmer manifested, like a veil. The crown prince worked his jaw as the tendons in his neck strained. I blinked, then blinked again as the raging storm around us fell away, and an opening in a wall of ice appeared.
And behind that opening . . .
Fae walked within a hidden dome, visible in splotchy images as the ice fragmented their forms.
I stood, stumbling toward them, but the prince got there first, whispering something, a spell perhaps, and the opening widened, as though unlocking from his masterful touch.
Warmth from inside rushed over my face, and when I crossed the threshold, a layer of protective wards—so strong that it put the dome encasing the castle to shame—gripped me. For a moment, it held me as though analyzing my intent, and then in a rush I was released.
Houses and lanes, shops and fountains—every which way I looked were signs of life. Of a fae’s home.