Aeron’s body tensed against me, and he leaned in to whisper, “Get out of here, quickly.”
Fury flashed in Moria’s burgundy eyes. “Torin is the only one in their family who remained un-cursed. Maybe the Unseelie spared him because they could use him.”
This had all unfolded too perfectly for Moria, hadn’t it? All the lurid threads had woven before us into the vision she’d wanted us to see.
Maybe Modron was telling the truth, but that didn’t mean it was the whole truth. After twenty-four seasons of Hitched and Stitched, I knew selective editing when I saw it.
The visions had been curated.
“I never expected to find that our king has betrayed us,” Moria shouted, her voice growing wilder. “I never dreamed that he’d murdered my sister to protect the Unseelie.”
A clear lie. She’d already accused him of murdering her sister. But who would believe me, the human friend of the “demon whore”?
“Milisandia wanted war with the demons, and he didn’t want it.” She strode across the dais, adopting a tremble in her voice that, frankly, sounded deranged. “Now he lives with them. With their queen. And this is why we must be vigilant. Who else among us has Unseelie sympathies? Who knows who else among us might be trying to destroy our kingdom from within?”
But I’d read Milisandia’s journal, and she hadn’t said a thing about the Unseelie. It was all about how beautiful Torin was, and how he couldn’t touch her. There’d been a bit about Moria’s premonition that he would kill her and bury her body at the Temple of Ostara. Moria had known this would happen even before it did.
My jaw tightened .
I didn’t know what Torin and Ava were doing, but I did know Moria was full of shit.
It was only then that I realized the crowd had turned to me, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Aeron slid his arm around me, his hand shifting to the hilt of the sword.
Around me, the crowd chanted Moria’s name as Aeron ushered me out of the hall, his powerful arm around me like a shield.
“Hide, Shalini,” he whispered. “I need to get you and Orla to safety.”
25
AVA
Ilay on my back, my throat dry as sand.
Who knew why, but Morgant had given up and stopped bringing me food and water several days ago.
Beneath me, the roots were twisted and gnarled, and I closed my eyes, willing them to shift a little. Mentally, I slid into the tree’s mind, feeling the glorious heat of sunlight on a fire-kissed crown of leaves. I drank in the power of light that fed the tree. When I was mentally melding with the tree, I no longer felt the thirst.
Below my back, the roots groaned, smoothing out. I stared at the dark branches high above me, wishing that calling forth rain was within my power.
The newest skill I’d developed was hearing vibrations through the roots and mycelium. Now, I could hear the sounds of footfalls through the castle, movements that sent a faint thrumming through the roots, letting me know when a group of guards marched above .
By the markings I’d made in stone, I was fairly certain I’d been locked in this cell for over a month. With every passing day, my magic grew stronger and more controlled. I could summon vines at will, make them slice through the air like blades. I could twist them into a noose. I could compel the tree branches to groan open. When it rained, I could shift them apart for more water.
All day and night, I’d have conversations with Shalini and Torin. Sometimes, they seemed so real that it felt like they were here.
I could almost hear Torin in the cell with me, calling me changeling.
My stomach rumbled. The lack of food had me growing lethargic.
Sometimes, I’d slip into dreams where I was home again, in the little suburban house with Mom. When the dreams started, I’d feel a total sense of calm, of being cocooned in love. It was the homecoming I’d been looking for when I’d fallen through the portal and asked to come home. I wanted to watch movies with Mom or sit at the kitchen table with her in comfortable silence while she read the news. But in the dreams, she’d always step into another room. She’d wander into the kitchen to make dinner, and slowly, the feeling of peace would grow ragged and thorny, and my heart would start to race. Slowly, I’d realize she was never coming back, and I’d feel a sharp hole opening in my chest.
The dreams of Torin might have been worse. In those, I’d find myself next to him in Faerie, in the Temple of Ostara or overlooking the valley with its icy lake. In every one of those dreams, I’d turn to see his beautiful face. Always in these dreams, he had a hint of that vulnerable, unguarded expression I’d seen just briefly in the little cabin, a rare moment when he dropped the king’s veneer of power and control.