“What is it?” I asked, looking back and forth between her and Caldris. He raised his chin high in defiance, glaring down at her.
“Your mate swore a blood oath, and The Fates accepted it,” she said, glaring back at him. “Do you have any idea how foolish this was? You have no idea what awaits her on the other side of the boundary! You are the sole heir to the Winter Court. You cannot gamble with your life when chaos will be the only result of your death.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, staring at him as I tried to understand the words he’d spoken.
“Your lives are now one. The mate bond will tie your mortal life, assuming you are mortal, to his immortal one, enabling you to live longer. He’s made it so that whether you are mated or not, whether you are mortal or immortal, he will die alongside you. If we lose one of you, we will lose you both. It was a fool’s bargain,” Imelda said, looking toward Holt as if she expected him to back her up.
“I think it’s quite romantic,” Holt returned, crossing his arms over his chest with a smirk.
“If codependence is your thing, sure,” Imelda said, her lips forming a cruel smile. “It isn’t mine, and you’ll doom us all for yours,” she added, turning her attention back to Caldris. She pinned him with all the judgment of her all-seeing stare, and I knew that if the force of it had been focused on me, I’d have withered on the spot.
She took Fallon by the hand, guiding the other girl away as they murmured between themselves. There was little doubt they needed to strategize for what they would do when we learned what Fallon was. I’d all but proven to everyone except my mate that I was the lost daughter of Mab.
The same power flowed through my veins.
“Why would you do that?” I asked, staring up at him as he leaned into my space once again. His fingers toyed with the lock of hair that hung around my shoulders, my body seeming to recognize the drum of fate that pulsed off of his hand and echoed off of my body.
“You may not be able to kill me, but that does not mean that you wouldn’t take your own life if you became desperate enough. You will not be a martyr, min asteren. Not unless you’re willing to take me with you,” he said, the confirmation of his outright willingness driving a stake into my heart. While I didn’t doubt the emotion behind his profession, the blood oath had been a very conscious decision.
Tying my life to his, knowing that it would prevent me from doing the one thing I still had any sort of control over. Keeping me from fulfilling my promise to Brann.
My brother. My guardian. I didn’t know what to call him anymore.
“That shouldn’t have been your choice to make,” I said, raising a brow. I wanted to be furious with him, but I was so tired of fighting. So exhausted with pretending he didn’t make my entire world spin and believing that I should hate him simply because it was what I’d always been taught. I couldn’t hold him to human conventions, because he wasn’t human.
And neither was I.
“It is my life, Little One. I get to choose how or when I live it. I choose to do it with you for eternity.”
“We should go,” Fallon said, glancing back toward the woods where we all knew there could be more Mist Guard gathering forces, waiting for back up. Mistfell wouldn’t hold in the long run, but it was the place where all the battles between the humans and the Fae would occur.
I released Caldris’s hand, stepping toward my mother. The serpents finally slithered away, retreating into the woods and back to where they belonged. Only the one who had draped herself over my shoulders remained, coming toward me so that she could wrap around my leg and coil her way up my body to settle on on her perch once more.
“Come with us,” I said to my mother, ignoring the look of shock on her face. “His mother will give you a safe haven in Catancia, and you’ll have a comfortable life. They’ll kill you if you stay here.” I knew without a doubt it was true, that they would take one look at the only remaining survivor and know without a doubt she wasn’t entirely on their side.
Particularly with Lord Byron lying dead at the boundary, his face covered in sand as the tide washed over him.
“I never wanted to go to Faerie,” she said, looking out over the water. A single ship sailed where the waters deepened, barely visible through the cloud of mist on the water. “But I don’t suppose I have any choice but to follow you now.” There was nothing left to tie her to Mistfell. They’d killed her husband, tried to kill her only daughter. “I knew you were special from the moment I fell pregnant. I felt it within me, whatever you were stronger than any babe should be. You took everything from me, and still it wasn’t enough.” She touched her legs, the part of her I’d been told started to pain her during her pregnancy with me. “But I would give all of that and more all over again to see you grow into the woman you’ve become, Estrella.”
“What?” I asked. My mouth dropped open in shock. I’d expected her to pass judgment for the fact that I’d fallen in love with a Fae, that I’d disobeyed what Brann wished for me to have him at my side.
“Sometimes, it is far braver to love the man the world has tried to convince us is a monster. You have always wanted to carve your own path, write your own future. Now you can,” she said, patting the top of my hand with hers. Holt took up his place behind her, shifting her chair to the edge of the sea.
“How do we get to the boat?” Fallon asked, staring out at the ocean. Imelda tilted her face up to the sky and the moon shining above her head, murmuring words in the Old Tongue. The water parted, the waves shifting to the side as a channel appeared in the middle of the ocean. The Wild Hunt went first, guiding their skeletal horses through the corridor she’d created.
We followed.
44
ESTRELLA
Mist floated through my fingers. The land of Alfheimr appeared slowly, the sandy beach leading up to a grass-covered hill. Atop it, a golden gate shone in the moonlight, a fence taller than anything I’d ever seen extending to either side of the gate itself. It traveled farther than I could see to both sides, fading into the distance.
Beyond the shimmering gold, snow kissed the ground, as if what existed on one side of the barrier was one season, and what lay within another entirely.
The Winter Court.
Rocking from side to side on the waves, the boat pulled up to the enormous pier jutting out from the land and two members of the Wild Hunt grabbed onto the rope and anchor. Hooking it over the dock itself, the nearly translucent figures jumped down onto the deck. The wood creaked beneath their feet, as if it hadn’t been touched in years. “Where did the Veil fall on this side?” I asked, looking around for a place where they might have been able to reach it.
“It extended to just outside the gates,” Caldris answered, a shadow moving his face as he stared at the gleaming gold. As if he was seeing the barrier that had once existed between us.
“But that means that the Veil was thick. It always seemed to sway in the wind,” I answered, thinking of all the nights I’d wandered too close. Of all the times I’d barely been able to refrain from touching the shimmering magic.
“We believe the Veil was actually two separate barriers. One was crafted from the flesh, the other from the bone,” Holt answered, stepping away as he helped lay down the gangplank that would allow us to walk off the ship.