Fated Crown by Eva Chase
Chapter Twenty-Five
Talia
As I limp alongside him across the icy plain, Laoni’s coterie man lets out little huffs of breath that sound almost like grumbles, as if he’s annoyed by my limited speed. As it is, my leg is already throbbing from the pace I’ve pushed myself to. I’m tempted to snap at him that this would go a lot faster if Laoni would come out to meet me or if he’d arrange a carriage, but my innards are tangled so tight I’m not sure I could form words anyway.
Laoni doesn’t want to come out to meet me because apparently she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s come down with the cursed sickness. I’m not sure what to make of that. Does she not want the flocks to see me healing her, making me even more a hero in their eyes? Or is she not really sick at all, only carrying out some new scheme?
She gave an oath, one her coterie man was able to convey to Corwin. One Corwin trusts. He wouldn’t let me go alone if he wasn’t sure she has no ill intentions.
The fae don’t lie. I can take some comfort in that, even if I have seen them talk their way around the truth plenty of times.
What could Laoni intend to accomplish with this gambit if it is a gambit anyway? It’s the castle she wants destroyed, not me. Or at least, she’s not so selfish that she’d let any desire she has to destroy me overwhelm what she knows is best for her people.
At the shining iridium castle, the coterie man ushers me in and leads me upstairs. I’m surprised by the thought that Laoni might be willing to let me into a space as private as her bedroom, but the room he directs me into is a small lounge. My reflection wavers on the smooth walls around me, looking paler and frailer on those not-quite-mirrors. A faint scent like dried flowers reaches my nose.
Laoni is sitting stiffly on an ivory settee at the far end of the room, her chin raised and her hands clasped on her lap. There are a couple of matching chairs near her, a side table and a bookcase and a picture window that offers a view over the nearby cliff. It’s Spartan and uncluttered, which doesn’t surprise me from what I’ve seen of Laoni’s personality.
The air is cold against my skin. Even though the curse’s chill must be seeping through her, she hasn’t conjured a fire or any warming magic. I guess she’s realized it wouldn’t really help.
“You may leave us,” Laoni says tightly. Her coterie man bobs his head and slips away, shutting the door behind him.
A prickling sensation runs over my skin. Other than yesterday in her front hall with August just outside, this is the first time I’ve been alone in a room with the most hostile of the Unseelie arch-lords.
I’m right here with you, Corwin says, softly but firmly through our bond. And I know that I could call on Whitt in a similar way if I really needed to. But Laoni is watching me as if she expects me to lash out at her somehow, even though it’s always been the opposite.
I wet my lips, not sure what to do with myself, and sink gingerly onto one of the chairs. “Your coterie man said you’re ill. Are you sure it’s the curse?”
Laoni’s jaw flexes. “I’d hardly call on you like this if I wasn’t.” She seems to catch herself and smooths the sharpness from her tone before she continues. “I felt some tightness in my limbs and a bit of a chill developing earlier this afternoon, but I dismissed it as mere tension. Over the past few hours, it’s become increasingly impossible to ignore. I—”
She glances down at her hands and lifts one of them, the fingers curled toward her palm. “I can no longer straighten my fingers. My skin is turning cold even against fabric that holds a warming spell. I know what the signs are.”
When I look at her closely, I can see the hints of it in her skin, a bluish tinge that’s starting to creep into the usual tan hue. And is that the beginnings of a frost pattern touching the edge of her dark irises?
But that could be an illusion, couldn’t it? I swallow thickly and can’t help pointing out, “You’ve claimed an arch-lord was cursed before, and it turned out to be a trick.”
“I have no wish to play games at the moment,” Laoni snaps, the edge coming back into her voice. “I want this ailment gone before it interferes with my work. If I’m not sick, your cure certainly won’t do anything for me, so there’d be nothing to gain in tricking you. Just heal me.”
Even now, she doesn’t offer me so much as the basic respect of asking rather than demanding. I study her for a long moment, my stomach knotting.
A shiver Laoni tries to restrain passes through her frame. Her gaze darts away as if she’s ashamed to have let even that much weakness show. Her fingers twitch and clench tighter.
I don’t think she’s faking it. She’s right that there’s no obvious reason for her to do so anyway. With no audience, this is between only her and me.
I still feel a little sick myself, a queasiness winding through my gut. Because this woman is asking me to cure her so that she can go back out there and get right back to trying to destroy one of the few good things I’ve gotten in this world—something that was for my benefit too, not just that of the fae.
“What happens after?” I ask quietly. “After you’re cured—because of the power that as far as we know only I can wield. Are you going to go back to my new home and keep claiming that I don’t deserve any special considerations, that there’s something wrong with the love I share with my mates?”
Laoni narrows her eyes at me. “Are you trying to bargain for the cure? Not the selfless savior anymore when you have a personal vendetta?”
A laugh sputters out of me. “The only one here with a vendetta has been you. I don’t care what you do with your castles or the men you love, whether you wish you didn’t or not. I’ve never once acted against you except in my own defense.”
And I could do that again now, couldn’t I? If I didn’t cure her, if I let the curse take her… would that be murder or merely self-defense?
The thought sends a shiver of my own through me, even stronger and more unnerving than what I felt watching the fae stand against their arch-lords, ready to draw blood on my behalf if need be. I don’t fully understand this power, and I don’t have any clue at all why I have it, but it’s greater than anything Laoni can wield in this moment, when her life depends on the choices I make next. I’m her only hope of survival.
The possibilities slip through my mind as we stare each other down. I could refuse to heal her until she and her allies swear an oath to take no further action against me and my mates. That request would be justified by her actions, wouldn’t it?
Or even better, since I’m not sure I trust her not to weasel out of any oath she takes eventually, I could pretend that I’ve tried to heal her but failed. Eventually she won’t be able to hide her illness any longer. If I make a more public attempt and she dies anyway, I don’t think the fae will blame me. They’ll assume it’s the Heart’s punishment for Laoni’s attacks on me.
Even as those ideas pass through my head, nausea twists around my gut. To barter over her life, over sparing her all the agony the curse will bring—let alone to abandon her to that agony completely… If I left her to die for my gain, would I be any better than she is?
I have more power right now than I ever recognized behind my eyes and in the tips of my fingers. The power to shape the rulership of the entire Unseelie realm. What’s really right in this situation?
What kind of woman will I become as I dispense that power?
“I want to know what I can expect after we’re done here,” I say, pressing my earlier question.
Laoni manages to raise her chin at a haughty angle even now. “Why would you think this will change anything?”
At her sneer, a large part of me wants to spring to my feet and march straight out of the room. I even get some satisfaction out of imagining her hope snuffing out as I vanish out the door. Then my stomach lurches, and I feel even queasier.
Talia? Corwin says softly. All at once, I choke up.
I know what kind of woman he sees in me. That all four of my lovers see. I know what the fae who’ve raised me up as a savior expect of their blessed human.
That’s the woman I want to be. Not a tyrant, not a murderer. I was given this power to heal, not to destroy. There’s so much pain and death in this world already. I will not add any more to it.
My heart thumps hard, but I hold Laoni’s gaze as steadily as I can, letting the certainty I’m slowly building drive the words up my throat. “Maybe it shouldn’t change anything. I don’t know why you’re so set on tearing down the things I’ve built. But if you’ll do just one thing for me, maybe you can set aside all that resentment for just a second and recognize who I actually am.”
“And what’s that?” Laoni demands.
“Someone who’s just trying to make things better for your people, not to hurt them. Someone who’ll heal even you, despite all the ways you’ve tried to hurt me and may continue to after I’ve done this.”
“You expect me to be ever so grateful that you’re serving the Heart’s purpose for you?”
My spine stiffens, but I’m not going to let her insults change me. “I’d like you to see that I have a will of my own beyond the gifts the Heart has given me. I know I could refuse to heal you, or claim that I did and my powers failed me. How many of your people would still stand by you if it looks like the Heart itself has turned its back on you?”
Laoni’s expression turns even more sour. “If you claim you’re not going to do either of those things, why even bring them up?”
I lean forward in my chair. I’m a little afraid she’s going to be provoked into quite literally attacking me, but I can’t stop until I’ve done everything I can to make her understand.
“I need you to know that I know all that, but I’m choosing to help you anyway. My life would probably be so much easier if the curse took you, but I’m not and never will be the kind of person who’d make that trade. It doesn’t matter how many ways you’ve insulted me or how horribly so many other fae have treated me—I’m helping you anyway. That’s who you’ve decided is your enemy. That’s who you’ve decided to fight when there are so many actual villains out there. If you can know that, and keep trying to knock me down however you can…”
What can I say after that? I spread my hands. “It’s up to you. I just hope that when you go back out to your troops and decide what to do against me and my mates, you remember that I held your life in my hands and chose to do everything I could to save it. I don’t worship the Heart of the Mists the same way you do, but I’m pretty sure I can tell which course of action it’d approve of more.”
Laoni just stares at me, her eyes smoldering with restrained emotion, her expression increasingly tensed. I’ve made all the appeal I can to whatever goodness there is inside her. I shouldn’t leave her in the curse’s grip any longer, or it’ll look like I really am out to torment her after all.
“Let’s begin then,” I say, and stand up.
Looking at the fae woman who’s put so much effort into upending my hard-won happiness, it’s hard to summon much sympathy. For a second, I wonder if I’ll fail after all simply because I can’t work up tears on her behalf in the first place.
But then I think instead of the people who’d suffer from her death. I don’t know how much she cares for her soul-twined mate, but he might love her a great deal. Kesral definitely does. All those soldiers on the plain outside the border castle look to her for guidance and protection.
What turmoil would it throw the whole winter realm into if Laoni succumbed to the curse without an heir? How many more people might die in the scramble to claim this castle? What would become of her flock when they’re ousted from their domain?
Imagining all those figures cast adrift without a home is what finally hits the mark. Heat wells up behind my eyes. I turn around, sure I need to go through the motions of hiding my sadness even when there’s no one else here to see, and urge the tears to spill out.
One and then another trickles over my skin. That has to be enough. I wipe them away, inhale slowly, and return my attention to Laoni.
She holds perfectly still as I graze my fingertips over her cheek. I can’t read the emotion in her eyes, and her face is too rigid to give a valid impression. Then she takes a sharp breath just as I feel the warmth racing away from my hand over her flesh.
She looks up at me, and just for that instant, I think I catch a glimmer of awe in her gaze.
Then it’s gone. Laoni stretches her arms, working her fingers that she can now uncurl, and nods curtly to me. “You’ve done your duty. You may go.”
The words aren’t quite as brusque as I might have expected, but they aren’t exactly friendly either. I’ve said all I need to, so I head out the door in silence.
The coterie man is waiting farther down the hall. He hurries over to me and guides me toward the stairs. “She’s well again?” he asks, unable to disguise his urgency.
I nod. “I healed her. I’d imagine she’ll be out here giving orders again very soon.” My nausea wraps tighter around my gut at the thought of what those orders might be.
We step outside into the brisk air to find a carriage waiting for us, Zelpha at the helm.
“Corwin thought you might appreciate a smoother journey back,” she says, giving Laoni’s coterie man a cool glance. “I assume you don’t mind me taking over her escort from here, now that she’s attended to your lady.”
“I—by all means, go ahead,” the fae man says, awkward enough that I find myself forgiving him for his previous oversight. He must have been panicked over Laoni’s situation.
Zelpha helps me into the carriage, and I slump onto one of the benches, feeling as if I’ve just run for miles. The short walk through the castle has reawakened the pain in my thigh. I rub the spot and look at Zelpha as she directs the carriage back toward the border castle. “Has anything changed since I left?”
“Other than Corwin just about pacing a ditch in the ground?” Zelpha asks, the corners of her lips quirking up. “Not really. They’ve all just stood around waiting. Uzziah and Terisse talked some. I think they were wondering what’s going on with Laoni, since she dragged the two of them into this mess and then abandoned them.”
I’ve been fine, Corwin says through our bond, obviously overhearing her remark about him through my ears. His concern rings through his inner voice all the same. Do you think your words to Laoni made any difference?
I don’t know. She didn’t seem very happy with me even after I healed her.
If it didn’t, there’s no moving her. You were incredible.
A blush warms my cheeks. He must have had some sense of the inner turmoil I was grappling with, but he thinks that anyway.
All I did was speak from my heart, and I don’t think Laoni cares very much what my heart wants. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
The assembled fae on both sides of the stand-off watch with open curiosity as Zelpha brings the carriage to my high terrace. I take my former position, catching the eyes of Corwin and then my Seelie mates below, taking reassurance from seeing them still standing firm and the castle unmarked other than the one crack. Uzziah and Terisse are standing close in consultation again. One and then the other glances toward Laoni’s domain.
Several more minutes pass in the same holding pattern. The troops shuffle on their feet, trying to tamp down on a growing restlessness that’s rippling through the air. I tamp down on the growing urge to vomit.
Finally, a raven with a turquoise sheen to its dark feathers flaps into view. Laoni lands a few paces from where her colleagues are standing in the space between the fae forces, shifting as soon as she touches the ground. She strides over to Uzziah and Terisse and joins their conversation.
Their voices are so low I can’t make anything out from my perch or through Corwin’s ears. At one point, Uzziah lets out a rough, wordless exclamation that sounds like a protest. Terisse rubs her mouth, her forehead furrowed. I have no idea what any of it means.
I know I made the right choice for my conscience, but was it the wrong one in every other way? Could I have saved more bloodshed if I’d let Laoni die?
But then she turns away from the other arch-lords, summoning a pedestal of ice with a quick word and a motion of her hand. She leaps onto it so everyone in the crowd around her can see her easily. There’s still a hint of stiffness to her motions, but I don’t think anyone who wasn’t already aware of what she’s been through would notice it.
“My people,” she says in a commanding voice. “And those of the summer realm who’ve seen fit to be here today. I have meditated long with the pulse of the Heart, and I have come to the conclusion… that I was misguided here today.”
My pulse hiccups, and a murmur spreads through the watching fae. Is she saying what I want to think she is?
Laoni clears her throat and goes on. “We don’t yet know who our greatest enemies are, but I’m sure they’re not among us at this moment. We’ll be better if we stand together, prepared to meet them and see the final end of this curse than if we’re at each other’s throats. The castle may stand as long as the Seelie keep their peace with us and Lady Talia continues to gift us with her healing powers.”
She tips her head in just the slightest nod toward me.
My heart fills with so much light I almost think I’ll float away. A matching joy resonates through Corwin. August glances up at me and grins wide. I grip the railing, so dizzy with relief I need it to steady me.
I don’t think this is the last battle I’ll face with the winter arch-lords… but it may be the worst. And now it’s behind us.
