A lump rose in my throat, and I moved closer to him. I wrapped the blanket around him and slid my hand around his broad shoulders to keep it in place. “I’m sure she wanted you there. Even if you were being a brat.”
He leaned into me. “The thing is, I know I’m a king in the enemy’s territory. I need to get out of here, and I need you to go as well. But I really can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to hunt down Queen Mab and Morgant, and end both their lives. ”
I shook my head. “And then what? Then you die in a foreign kingdom. The Seelie and Unseelie go from a cold war to a hot war, and everyone dies.”
“Of course, you are right, changeling.” He turned, sliding back into the bed with me.
He folded himself around me, and when his breathing started to grow heavy again, his heartbeat slowing, my body melted into his.
13
TORIN
Morning light slanted through the window over the kitchen, highlighting the steam curling out of two mugs.
Ava had found coffee beans in this house, which felt like a miracle. She now sat with her hands curled around a mug, staring into the fireplace. “I like it here.”
I had no desire to leave, either. Here, I could touch Ava like I wanted to. On the other hand, at any moment, we could be hunted down, shot with darts, beaten, and then executed. I’d be killed as an enemy of Unseelie, and she’d be slaughtered as a traitor to her own kind. It wasn’t exactly a perfect situation.
I sipped my coffee, and the caffeine was already lighting up my mind. My muscles tensed with eagerness to move, to get her to safety.
In my stolen clothes, I rose from the table. “We should get on the road.” I crossed to the hearth and poured a pitcher of water onto the flames, extinguishing them .
I turned to look at Ava, her hair lit up by pearly light from the window. With her eyes closed, she stretched her arms over her head in a lazy, feline movement.
My chest tightened.
Was I an idiot for climbing into bed with her last night? Obviously, I was. And yet, I don’t think it was a call I could have refused.
She looked at me, blinking. “Any idea where we find this Veiled One?”
I had only the vaguest memory of hearing about her. And truthfully, I didn’t even know if she was real. I only knew the legend: an immortal, eyeless crone living on a snowy, fire-licked mountain who foretold the future for the Unseelie.
Would she help us? Was she still on a mountain? And was she even real at all?
Fuck knew.
A sharp tendril of regret coiled through me. I should have tried to bring Ava back to Faerie. I should have done my best to open a portal when I still could.
I rubbed my eyes. “We need to look for a fire-licked mountain.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Do you mean a volcano? I think I saw it in the distance. East of here. When we get out of the forest, we’ll have a better view.”
“Ava, I can’t promise we will find her, or that we will get what we want from her even if we do.”
She shrugged. “I don’t have any better ideas.”
In the daylight, it hadn’t taken long to find our destination. From the waterfall, we’d spotted it in the distance, a dark, snowy mountain that overlooked a kingdom of stone and red leaves. From a distance, the mountain summit resembled a ruddy jewel resting atop the peak. Wisps of smoke rose into the dark sky, tinged with red light.
And as soon as I saw it, an ember of hope started burning in my mind. If I could get to this oracle, I could get Ava the fuck away from the Court of Sorrows.
Ava was seated astride the horse in front of me. She leaned back, and I breathed in her scent, the smell of the wild Unseelie forest and the air after a storm. I closed my eyes, savoring this moment. Because when I returned to Faerie, my changeling could not come with me.
We’d been riding for a full day. On the rocky path, the skies were darkening, violet streaked with pumpkin, and the dying rays of sunlight pierced the canopy of leaves above us.
The air smelled of smoke and ash, and the horse’s hooves crunched over black rocks on the path. “Ava,” I whispered, “how do you know if a volcano is going to erupt?”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t.”
As the path became too rocky and steep—sleek black rock, covered in snow—we slipped off the horse. I let Ava walk ahead of me in case she fell in the dark, and we continued on foot.
Close to the top of the mountain, shadows gathered around us, and the air grew cool. Ash and snow covered the rocks and dark, bare boughs. Beneath the thin dusting of white, black lava scored the mountain.