Caldris pulled on Azra’s reins ever so slightly, slowing the horse’s gait until we dropped to the back of the group. Holt’s gaze lingered upon us as his steed strode past, and he gave a nod of understanding.
“Mab does as Mab pleases. She holds no respect for what the Fae protect at all costs. She will stop at nothing to gain more power, doing whatever it takes to maintain it and keep the other Courts loyal to her,” Caldris said, resting his hand against the pants covering my thighs.
The blisters had just begun to fade, the pink and white of new flesh forming where they’d been only moments before.
“How did you come to be raised by your father and stepmother?” I asked as I thought back to all the pieces of the puzzle he’d given me. I knew Mab had hated him all his life and his father had done very little to protect him from the consequences of her ire.
He sighed, his weight heavy at my spine. “She had her daemons steal me from my crib in Catancia when I was a few days old. They killed the guards and women who were caring for me while my mother and stepfather were distracted by an urgent meeting with Mab. She made no secret of her fury that my mother would dare to touch her husband, so my mother thought to smooth over the ruffled feathers.”
“Your mother was married to another man as well? And he tolerated her affair with your father?” I asked, completely unable to understand a world where a woman could do such a thing. At Mistfell, to be with anyone other than the man chosen to be our husband was likely to have us retrained by the priestesses or hung, while the men were free to do as they pleased.
“Marriages come after mate bonds. My mother and father were fated mates, but my father was already in a political marriage with Mab by the time my mother came of age. Usually when that happens, the political marriage dissolves amicably, but Mab wasn’t willing to respect tradition and return to her brother in the Summer Court. She only came to be Queen of the Shadow Court through marriage, and to give that up would mean no longer being Queen.”
The snow gleamed in the growing darkness as the sun began to set, the Wild Hunt pausing in the middle of the clearing. Caldris pulled Azra to a halt, keeping his distance from the group as the riders dismounted their horses and pulled materials from the carts to set up a few tents to sleep in.
“But children cannot exist outside the mate bond, and my parents didn’t have a chance of producing an heir with either of their spouses. They came together one Winter Solstice, planning to hide the affair and the resulting child from Mab by claiming the child was a consequence of my stepfather’s affair with his own fated mate. Unfortunately, Mab is quite gifted at gleaning the truth through riddles and play with words. She always knows what questions to ask and how to phrase them, and she accompanies those with more painful interrogation methods. My father wasn’t able to keep their secret. So, she took me to punish my mother, and quickly realized just how loyal a woman will be when you hold her only child in your power. I was the first of the children she stole, but I was far from the last.”
“She’s taken others?” I asked, my horror mounting. It was no wonder Caldris felt no sympathy over Mab’s missing daughter, but if children couldn’t exist outside the mate bond…
Who was Mab’s mate?
“Most of the Court royals don’t have children to steal,” he admitted, shaking his head. “But she’s taken at least one child from every Court, the highest ranking offspring she could get her hands on. Maylea is the sole heir to the Spring Court, Rieka is the daughter of the Summer King’s best friend, and Lycus is the Autumn Queen’s nephew. There are others—the children of advisors who thought to challenge her—all uniting to create an elite force of unwilling Fae who cannot defy her because of the way she bound us to her magic when we were too young to fight back. Sometimes I wonder if the lack of access to our mates and potential offspring has had the benefit of slowing her reach of power. You cannot steal what a Fae does not already have.”
He kicked Azra forward as I fell into silence, the darkness reigning as it descended upon the plains in truth. The absence of trees to shelter us from prying eyes made me nervous. Even if I didn’t want to travel with the Wild Hunt, I didn’t want to experience the feeling of iron dust sinking into my skin if the Mist Guard happened upon us, either.
“The two of you take the tent all the way at the end,” Holt said as the riders of the Wild Hunt ushered the Fae Marked into the three remaining tents.
“We don’t need an entire tent to ourselves,” I said, thinking of the dozen Fae Marked being crammed into three tents. “I assure you privacy is not necessary.”
“I need Caldris rested come morning. He won’t sleep if he has to worry about the others stabbing you in your sleep. I’d rather you didn’t ride him until the sun comes up, so he can get some sleep, but privacy is necessary in this instance I’m afraid,” he returned, winking at me with an infuriating grin. He turned away to help get the Fae Marked safely tucked inside their tents for the night.
I ignored the flush staining my cheeks. I would not be riding anything until the sun came up. Caldris dismounted Azra from behind me, reaching up with mostly-healed hands to grasp me around the waist and pull me down. The tent he guided me toward was small, a simple tan linen draped over a wooden post in the center. The canvas was secured to the ground in four corners, the front flaps of the fabric tied open to reveal the entrance.
“Come, min asteren,” Caldris said, placing his hand at the small of my back. He guided me toward the tent, closing the distance between us and the place where we would be well and truly alone. I didn’t trust myself to be with him, not with the emotions over what he’d given to protect me from the harm of the iron colliding with the fact that I remained shackled in chains like a prisoner.
The actions were so oppositional. They couldn’t come from the same man.
Like warfare, my mind conflicting with my heart, I wanted nothing more than to reconcile the man I’d known with the cruel Fae male who thought the ends justified the means. “You said Mab will want to have control over the Marked. Does that mean they’re in danger? That they aren’t being brought to their mates?” I asked, letting him guide me into the tent.
He smirked slightly, shaking his head as he turned and drew the fabric closed. Knotting it tightly with the ties sewn into the canvas, he turned to me with a cocked eyebrow.
“Their mates will negotiate for their release. Mab will just get what she wants from them in the process,” he said, taking a step forward.
“But wouldn’t it be better to find some other place to bring the Marked? Somewhere that nobody can find them?” I asked, stepping backward before I realized what I’d done.
The way he looked at me, his eyes blazing with desire and amusement, felt like an assault. Like he’d managed to weaponize all the things I loved about him, turning me against my own best interest.
“Do you intend to continue to avoid lying down beside me, Little One?” he asked, cocking his head to the side as a laugh bubbled up his throat. There was nothing amusing about the fact that we discussed the fate of living beings, as if they were pawns in a game they couldn’t understand.