The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Remy woke, Hale was not there. Her sweaty clothes had dried. Her body felt mostly healed. She drank half a skin of water, her throat so dry. Sitting up, she combed a finger through her hair.

She needed to talk to Hale.

Remy grabbed her bow and arrows, in case the lions still prowled, and followed Hale’s scent into the forest. Finding him downhill in a little grotto, he knelt before a fae fire. He had pulled up the hood of his charcoal gray cloak, obscuring his face. The base of the flames glowed green with fae magic instead of their normal blue. Remy winced at the green flickering light, the same shade as the lake that had nearly killed them both.

Hale crouched over a small fire, speaking to someone. A guttural male voice spoke out of the flames.

Remy waited at the edge of the clearing, camouflaged behind a tree. This was not a conversation to be interrupted. She willed enough of her magic into action to hear Hale’s soft voice from the distance ahead.

“Yes, Father.” She heard him say.

He communicated through the fire to the Eastern King as he had on their treks through the Western and Southern Courts.

A distorted voice spoke out from the flames, “My patience is growing thin. Every day Vostemur’s power grows stronger and closer to unlocking the Immortal Blade. We need that blade in Eastern control and to do that we need the High Mountain Prince dead.”

It took all her strength not to gasp.

Dead?

Remy was certain the Eastern King would say they needed the High Mountain Prince to wield the Immortal Blade and restore balance to the turbulent kingdoms. Wasn’t that the goal they had been working toward all this time? The Eastern Court had been allies for centuries with the High Mountain Court.

The truth smashed into Remy all at once. They had never wanted to help the High Mountain Court. Norwood wanted to find the last High Mountain fae and kill him. With the last living prince dead, it would release the Immortal Blade from the magic tied to that bloodline. Whoever then possessed the blade would have unworldly power over the other kingdoms.

King Norwood was making a play for the blade. And Hale knew. He knew all this time, and he didn’t tell her.

“We are getting closer every day,” Hale said in a dark voice. Remy didn’t know that voice. It was like he was speaking a different language.

“You are being too soft to that little bitch witch.” The voice from the flames spoke again. “Make her bring you to the prince. Now. If you are not up to this task, I will send one of your brothers to do it for you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hale snarled. Who was this man before her?

“Good,” the voice crackled as the flames shrank. “Don’t disappoint me. Kill the prince and bring me that blade. And son, the moment you find the prince, you put a knife in that bloody witch, no loose ends.”

“Yes, Father,” the Eastern Prince said, and the flames flickered out.

Her spine snapped straight at those last words. He was planning to kill her. She couldn’t wrap her brain around that thought. Had it all been a lie? Had she come back to life for Hale only to die by his hand? How had she not seen it? Had she been so blind? She knew giving in to Hale’s gravitational pull might lead to her death, but she never thought it would be by the prince’s own hands.

Her blood was boiling. She was ready to nock one of her arrows and put it through Hale’s back. She needed to get away.

Remy ached. The witches who died for her to live would be so deeply disappointed in her now, trusting their enemy. Each breath felt like a punch to her chest. She had fallen in love with a man who wanted to kill her.

* * *

She started to run, but a twig snapped under her foot.

Dammit. She was not paying attention.

Hale stood, spinning around.

“Remy?” he said, scanning the trees. “Is that you? How are you feeling?”

He was going to lie to her even now. He did not know she could hear him from that far.

She heard his feet crunching through the leaves with that fae speed. He moved toward her until he was standing downhill, only a few paces away. One glance at her face and he knew she had heard everything.

They stared and stared at each other, neither one ready to call the other’s bluff.

“You really are a bastard,” she hissed, trying not to cry. She saw her words pierce him like an arrow before he steeled his expression again. “If you were planning on killing me, why didn’t you just let me die?”

“So you did hear that conversation,” he said, almost amused, confirming what he suspected.

Why was he not angry? Why was he not upset? She felt her heart being shredded, and he seemed so damned calm.

“Yes, I heard you conspiring with your father against me and the High Mountain Court.” She sneered, feeling a bottomless pit of sorrow opening beneath her, ready to swallow her whole.

“Interesting,” he said, lips twisting. The gray of his cloak made his eyes even darker from beneath his hood.

“What?” Remy’s fingers twitched, readying to grab her bow.

“Only the fae can communicate through fire,” Hale said. “You shouldn’t have been able to hear that.”

Shit.

“It was witch magic,” Remy said, even as she retreated from him again. She knew she gave even more away by retreating, but she needed to create distance in case he rushed her.

“It was not witch magic,” Hale said, his gray eyes darkening as he took a few slow steps forward. She thought she still might be able to outrun him if she summoned all of her powers. “I know who you are, Remy . . . or should I say, Your Majesty?”

Without a second thought, Remy grabbed her bow and nocked an arrow, pointing it at him. She did it in less than a blink of an eye. If he knew who she was, there was no point in hiding her speed anymore either.

He knew.

Hale stared at her in shock, watching her unleash her full speed.

“You are incredible.” He grinned.

Why did he seem so pleased, even awed, by her? He looked at her the same way he always had, and yet seconds ago he had promised to kill her. Why was he still pretending?

“Why are you smiling?” Remy’s voice filled with rage, even as she blinked away the tears filling her eyes. She would not wipe them away. She would not move her hands from her weapon. Let him see all the ways he had broken her trust.

She didn’t let Hale answer. Her anger consumed her as she released her arrow.

It flew straight for the middle of Hale’s head, which she knew he would dodge. She knew how he would move, like a part of her lived inside his body. The arrow landed precisely as she planned, pinning the hood of Hale’s cloak to the tree behind him.

He looked up in surprise. He reached to release his hood, and she unleashed another two arrows in rapid succession. Remy knew Hale’s movements that well. She skewered his sleeves, one above his head and one by his side. He would break free any moment, but it would give her a head start. She turned and took another step uphill.

“Remy, wait.” She hated that Hale’s voice made her feet halt.

“Why should I?” The knot in her throat tightened again as she looked at him, and she saw that his calm, amused mask was crumpling too. “You have sworn to your father that you will kill the last High Mountain fae and the bitch witch, and now you realize I am both. My elder brother Raffiel is a ghost, I’m sure of it. I am the reason Vostemur can’t wield the Immortal Blade . . . you will kill me the second you are free.”

“I will not,” Hale said, his jaw hardening. “I was only lying to my father until I could get you close enough to the Immortal Blade. I will never hurt you.”

“You liar.” Remy laughed coldly at him, even as more tears welled. “Why not?”

“Because you are my Fated mate.” Hale’s voice was thick with gravel as emotion overcame him too.

The breath stole out of Remy. She had known it, too, for so much longer than she was willing to admit to herself. The night Carys told her that Hale’s Fated was from the High Mountain Court, she had wondered. The thought was a glimmer of light in Remy, a whisper of “I wish it were me,” a wish she could never acknowledge even in her own mind. But she had hoped she was his Fated all this time.

She had hoped because she knew there was this undeniable thread tying them together. She loved him irrationally from the moment she first looked into those smoky gray eyes.

“Why should I believe you?” Remy gritted out even as another treacherous tear slid down her cheek.

“Because you know it’s true.” Hale’s body remained taut as he stared at her, a hint of desperation on his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Remy bit her lip between her teeth to keep it from wobbling.

“Because I thought you would either run or shoot an arrow through me . . .” Hale looked up at the arrow lodged mere inches from his head, “I suppose I was right. Your name is Remini, isn’t it? Remini Dammacus, third child of the King and Queen of the High Mountain Court?”

Remy floundered, staring at the prince trapped against the tree. When was the last time she had heard her full name? She could not remember.

The morning sun rose in the sky as the birds sang.

“It’s you though, isn’t it?” Hale’s throat bobbed, overcome by the same emotions that were roiling through her. “You are my Fated mate.”

The tears came slipping heavily down her cheeks as she heard him call her that. That’s why she couldn’t deny him anything, why she stepped toward him when her brain told her to pull away. Fate had pulled them together.

“When did you know?” Remy still stood there, frozen, as tears poured down her cheeks.

“You run through the woods too easily, too fast. You can hunt in the dark. But I truly suspected when the Shil-de ring glowed in your hands. That ring was meant for you, for your family.” Hale’s cheeks dimpled even as he swallowed again. “But there is only one reason I know for certain that you are my Fated.”

“What?” Remy could barely breathe.

“I am so desperately in love with you,” Hale said as tears welled in his eyes.

A sob racked Remy.

Hale slid his arms out of his still-pinned sleeves, leaving his cloak like a ghost against the tree. He ran to her. Colliding into her, he pressed Remy against a tree trunk as his lips covered hers. He kissed her with a desperation she matched with her own.

It was real. Her Fated mate.

She wasn’t sure whose tears covered her cheeks. Remy wrapped her arms around Hale’s back, pulling him in tighter until every part of them touched. She needed this, needed him for so long. He was the other half of her soul. Their love had existed before they were even born.

“You almost died,” Hale cried, his lips still on hers. The impact of that past night was hitting him at last. She thought of his grief-stricken face holding her lifeless body and kissed him harder.

“I’m here,” she promised, sliding a hand up to his cheek.

Hale’s hands gripped her hips tighter. Remy opened her mouth to him, letting his tongue explore into her. Hale groaned hungrily. Remy grabbed him around the neck and hoisted her legs up around his hips. He pinned her against the tree, and she moaned as his hands moved along her body. She would not feel whole until their souls melded into one.

An ear-splitting growl rent the air. They froze. She heard their horses’ restless whinnies from far away. It did not sound like the mountain lions from the night before, but some other beast that called this forest home.

They both looked at each other, resigned and deflated that this joining would have to wait until later. They needed to get out of the forest. Hale gave Remy one last gentle kiss and put her down. His fingers threaded through hers as he led her back to camp, unwilling to let go of her.

As they began their long trek out of the forest, there was nothing else, nothing but their certainty and the silence in the morning forest between them. They were Fated mates.

* * *

Having sold their horses at the Northern Court border, they now trudged on foot. They planned to buy Northern horses, bred for the cold weather and thick snow, once they reached their lodgings in Andover. Remy knew Rua was alive, and so they could not delay. They had come so close to death. The quiet now pulled those horrors into stark relief. The adrenaline had worked out of her system, and she faced the terrible truth of who she was: the next in line to the High Mountain throne.

How could she claim that? How could she put an entire court’s hopes onto her shoulders? She and her sister may be the last of the fae, but there were the red witches to consider too. Yexshire was home to others as well: many humans, witches, and fae who had called Yexshire home, all displaced by war. She would need to rebuild the city . . . and that’s if she took back the Immortal Blade from her family’s murderer, King Vostemur. It was too much, far too much to even fathom.

“Are you okay?” Hale’s voice sounded so far away from where Remy sat resting. He appeared through the midday fog like a phantom. He knelt down to her and placed a warm hand on her cheek. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until that warm hand was there. Snowflakes dotted the air and snow would soon cover the land. Hale took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, that salt air smell enveloping her as he sat.

“I thought you were dead too,” Remy whispered, exhaling a curl of steam.

The vision of his gaunt, skeletal face flashed in her mind. She still felt gripped by that fear, thinking of the scaly beasts emerging through the murky water. An unwelcome tear slipped down her cheek. Now that she had started crying, she wasn’t sure if she would ever stop.

“Hey,” Hale said, wiping her tear with his thumb. “I’m okay. We’re okay, we’re safe now.”

The word safe was her undoing, and the tears spilled down her face once more.

“Remy,” he murmured, as he gathered her into his arms, holding her with a gentle firmness.

Safe.

She had never felt safe in the past thirteen years. She knew she wasn’t safe from the world, even now. But being in Hale’s arms, feeling that warmth and love radiating into her from every angle, it was the closest she had ever felt to safe.

“I had to jump into that lake. I had to,” she said into his chest, the tears heavy again. “I couldn’t watch another person I love die.”

Hale’s arms tightened around her in silent acknowledgement.

She heard his voice through the rumbling in his chest, “I love you too.”

He stroked a hand softly across her tousled, black hair, circling her back. With gentle, caring strokes, he moved as though massaging the pain out of her body.

He loved her.

She pulled back again to look at him. Her Fated mate was so handsome. The moment she met him, she had thought he was the most gorgeous male she had ever seen. Looking into those shining gray eyes made it hard to breathe.

She knew they were Fated mates, but to hear him say it, the last little barrier surrounding her heart crumbled. She loved him. She loved him, and it was terrifying. The Northern King had taken everything she ever loved from her.

Remy looked out over the mist-covered hills. Frost covered the grass. She heard the faint bleating of sheep as the sun warred with the clouds, its strong rays banishing the mist.

“I wasn’t in the castle that night,” Remy said into the fog. She felt Hale’s eyes shift to her. “I was meant to be at that banquet. I was meant to put on a pretty dress and parade around to the courtiers and have the Northern King and his soldiers compliment my clothes and my features and make some inane comment about how I make an excellent princess, perhaps one day I would even make a good queen, and try to bargain my hand to Renwick.”

Hale growled at her side.

“The council had been gossiping about it for weeks before the Northern Court’s arrival. My father knew Vostemur was ambitious—he thought that meant he’d try to secure a High Mountain bride for his son, not . . .”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not slaughter all their people.

“I was six,” Remy continued, sniffing, “and so stubborn.”

“I see some things never change.” Hale laughed. Remy elbowed him.

“I knew all the secret ways to sneak out of the castle, all the low windows I could climb out of. The servants indulged me. I remember their laughs and how they rolled their eyes at me. I thought I was so sneaky, but they all knew what I was doing and let me do it, anyway.” She laughed.

“I was on my way to the red witch temple—it was a short walk through the valley, sitting on the foothills of Mount Lyconides.”

“I remember it well,” Hale said. Remy stole a glance at him, lost in his own memories.

“I forget you had been to the Castle of Yexshire yourself. Of course you had.” She sighed.

They had probably met each other before, though she had no memory of it. King Norwood would have seized every opportunity to get Hale before the High Mountain Court, presenting him as their future son-in-law.

“You were at the temple when it happened?” Hale asked, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his legs.

“No, I had just left the castle. I dressed as a human child to fool the guards. I had thought nothing of all the extra soldiers outside. I thought that the Northern King was just overly cautious . . . I did not know they were there for battle. I just thought it was strange.” Remy took a deep, slow breath. “I was nearing the tree-lined path to the temple when Baba Morganna . . . well, she was just Morganna then, she came running through the forest. A few breaths later, the screaming began.”

“Her first Sight?” Hale recounted from the story Remy had told them around the fire weeks ago in the Western Court.

“Yes,” Remy said. “She had Seen the doors locking, the fires starting—heard the screaming before it happened and ran to warn the guards. Instead she ran into me. She stopped to save me—if she had kept going . . .”

“Don’t,” Hale warned, his voice the only thing holding her to this moment and keeping her from being sucked into the depths of that horrible memory. “Don’t play that losing game. She would not have been able to save them. It was all she could do to save you.”

Remy bobbed her head. Guilt still twisted a knot in her gut. She had thought she was the only one spared that night. Now she knew Rua had made it out of there too.

“She bade me to run. She practically dragged me into the woods through the snow. I tried to turn back: I saw the fires blazing and heard the screams. The smoke was so thick, even from that far. The smell . . .” Remy swallowed a hard lump in her throat. “I could hear the skirmish of our guards with theirs. I heard the swords clashing. I heard so many people die.”

Hale put a steadying hand on Remy’s back as she willed the tears welling in her eyes not to spill over again. She wanted to curse those tears. She had never shed so many in her life.

“So many people fled into the woods . . . but they had expected that. Soldiers were stationed at the other side, waiting to cut down whoever ran forth. A few more red witches had found us, and we all ran together. Our only option was to go up and over the saddle of the northern mountain, Eulotrogus. It was a straight climb.”

“You were six.” Hale shook his head.

“The witches’ magic helped me,” Remy replied. “They practically levitated my body up and over. But the soldiers chased us—they knew we would go that way. They were torturing blue witches for their visions even then.” Remy let the anger wash out of her in a heavy breath. “There were so many of those soldiers chasing us. Baba Morganna turned back. I watched as her magic crushed the top of that peak: she brought down the summit of Eulotrogus with magic alone, and I watched as the rocks tumbled into the saddle and blocked the pass.”

“They say her magic felled a hundred soldiers, the rocks falling perfectly all around her so that only she survived,” Hale whispered. “No one knew a High Mountain Princess was with those fleeing witches.”

“I did not know Baba Morganna lived for many years. I thought it was her midon brik”, the last stand of a witch, used to swap her fate with another, “I thought she was swapping her life for my own. All five of the other witches went that way: one by one, we were chased down, and each one sacrificed their life for my own. Heather was there when the last red witch fell, and she took me in. They sacrificed their lives for me.” Remy seethed against that pain. “They sacrificed their lives for a hope that even after thirteen years amounted to nothing.”

“No,” Hale said in an adamant voice. “Not for nothing. They pledged their lives to protect your family, and they died with honor, fulfilling that promise. That sacrifice is meaningful, powerful.”

“It is only powerful if I make it count for something,” Remy said with quiet wrath. “And I have done nothing but hide. I have not once dropped this glamour since I was six.” Hale’s eyes widened at her. “What?”

“I forgot that this is not your true form,” he said, shaking his head. She would not have been able to convince many that she was a human, since she could not glamour her witch magic the way she could her fae form. But with her red witch magic, it was easy enough for people to assume she was just that: a witch.

“I don’t feel fae. I don’t know that I want to feel fae,” Remy said more to herself.

“Can you do it? Can you drop your glamour?” Hale asked. “Are you ready to?”

Remy half grinned. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

Dropping her glamour meant facing who she really was, something she had been hiding and denying for the past thirteen years.

Hale put his hand on her knee and squeezed it. He didn’t need to say anything. She knew he didn’t care what form she possessed, that he saw her true essence through any glamour. He, of all people, knew what it meant to face the truth of who you are.

Remy reached for that flicker of fae magic, straining as if lifting with a phantom muscle, but she was pulling against nothing. The memory of her fae form was as fogged and distant as the images of her fallen family. She was a ghost even to herself. Her eyes searched desolately, scanning for that feeling inside her.

“It takes time to face it,” Hale said, as if reading her mind. “Permit yourself that kindness.” He idly stroked her back again. “And when you are ready, I will be there.”

Her heart clenched again at that. He would be there. He wanted to be there. She felt the tears welling again. Every time she thought she had cried herself dry, a fresh wave would rise.

“It’s too much,” Remy said, choking on her words. “I am the only person between the Northern King and the Immortal Blade.” She thought of her elder brothers, Raffiel and Rivitus, and of her little sister, Ruadora, and the weight her sister must also feel on top of her. Remy would do anything to keep her sister from feeling that same way.

“I had held out hope for so long of finding Raffiel,” Hale said. A tear slid down Remy’s cheek as she heard his name. He was twelve during the Siege. The memory of his face had faded, like looking through a fogged mirror. “Raffiel was a good person,” Hale said. “So unlike the other firstborns in the courts. He was the only one who treated me as an equal.”

More tears slid down Remy’s cheeks as she asked, “Do you remember my mother?”

Hale put his arm around her. “She could command an entire room with just one look, yet she was kind, gracious. She was the sort of leader any kingdom would want. She was hard but fair. She took up every space when she walked into it . . . just like her daughter.”

Remy allowed the sobs to come. She cried until there was nothing left in her to give to it. And then the voice of Baba Morganna came back into her mind, “Make enough ripples to last centuries.”

That was what she must do. If she wanted to protect her Fated, if she wanted to protect this love that now existed in her life, she would have to fight for it. And if she lost, at least it would be at the tip of her dagger and not hiding in some broken tavern. The world would keep coming for her, keep taking from her, either way. So she would take from the world, she would fight for her right to this happiness.

* * *

The sky was already darkening even though it was before dinnertime. They were almost there. Remy looked forward to the warmth of the inn Hale promised was up ahead. She wanted a greasy meal, a warm bath, and a soft bed with Hale in it.

Horse hooves clopping on the thin blanket of snow sounded from up ahead. Remy turned to the noise. It revealed itself to be four armored soldiers wearing the Northern Court crest.

“Curse the Gods,” Remy whispered, ducking her head so her black cloak fell further across her face.

Hale put a gentle hand on her back.

“Just keep moving,” he murmured.

Another horse and rider appeared in forest-green finery. Remy could tell who it was from a mile away based on that arrogant riding posture alone. Ash-blond hair and green eyes, tall and lithe, sitting stiffly upright on his sorrel steed was Renwick, Crown Prince of the Northern Court.

“Damn,” Hale echoed, clenching his hand in a fist. “Just play along.”

Remy adjusted the neckline of her cloak, making sure that her missing witch’s collar was not visible. Hale was the first to acknowledge the Northern Prince as though it were a pleasant surprise to run into him.

“Renwick!” he called with a wave.

The Northern Prince halted his horse in front of them. A cruel smile spread across his face. His eyes seemed to bore into Hale and then settled on Remy. Without the drinks and that red dress, she thought she may buckle under the weight of his stare.

“Hello again,” Renwick said unhurriedly. His eyes scanned Remy’s cloak as though he could see the missing witch’s collar. She feared in the cold light of day he could see her for who she really was.

“I didn’t know you’d be in Andover,” Renwick said with that casual politeness that courtiers were so well versed in—neither enthusiastic nor indifferent, but somewhere in between.

“What’s wrong with your witch?” Renwick asked, his eyes staring daggers into Remy. She realized how faint she felt then. Her face must have drained of blood.

Remy straightened herself a bit, summoning that stubbornness and said, “Too much moonshine last night.”

“She’ll be fine,” Hale said dismissively. Renwick laughed.

Good, Remy thought.

Let him think Hale didn’t care for her. Let him think she was merely another disposable toy.

“What brings you this far south?” Hale asked, wondering why Renwick would be so close to the road to Yexshire and the Northern Court border.

“It was a sudden trip,” Renwick said with bored detachment. “We have some people to deal with a few towns over.”

Remy’s stomach clenched as he said deal with.

“We?” Hale asked, rubbing his thumb down his pointer finger.

Renwick smiled at Remy, his emerald eyes glistening, as he said, “Ah yes, my father accompanies me.”

As if on cue, another four Northern guards came galloping around the bend, followed by four shining black horses pulling an ornate carriage with blue and silver filigree. Another four riders took up the rear.

Remy’s mind went completely blank as Hale took one step closer to her. Every heartbeat was a hammer to her chest. She sensed Renwick’s assessing gaze, missing nothing in the move.

It means nothing. They don’t know who I am. They just think I’m a red witch.

But to be mistaken for a red witch was bad enough. The man in that carriage collected the heads of red witches. He enslaved a whole harem of blue witches and tortured them into using magic for his benefit. Remy wanted to vomit.

She counted again. Twelve soldiers accompanied the King and Prince. Too many. There would be no way to fight off that many swords, and on horses they would be impossible to outrun. They trapped her.

The riding party halted in front of them. The carriage window shot open. “What is this delay?” came a booming shout.

Somewhere in her most distant memories Remy remembered his face: Hennen Vostemur, King of the Northern Court. He had a shock of graying red hair and a fading red beard to match. He had watery, bloodshot green eyes that matched his son’s. His skin was ruddy and marked with broken blood vessels either from too much drink or too much shouting. He had large cheeks and a portly figure that told her he no longer lifted his sword. He spent his days ordering men to kill for him while he sat back and ate rich food and drank wine. But despite having the body of a jolly drunkard, his green snake-like eyes gave him a predatory countenance. He was too still, too assessing. His eyes had swept over Hale and hitched on Remy.

She could not bear it. It felt like a thousand spiders crawling over her skin as he watched her. A hot poker twisted in her gut. This was the man who had ruined her life. He had slaughtered her entire city out of jealousy and a lust for power. She knew it did not haunt him the way it haunted her: the blood, the smoke, the screaming. He had taken away everything she ever cared about just because he could, just because he wanted it. This man was the reason she had to glamour herself for thirteen years, to live in contemptible backcountry taverns, to never talk to strangers, to never draw the eyes of admirers, to be unremarkable and unnoticed by anyone. It was because of this man.

She wondered for a moment if she were fast enough to kill him. Could she use her magic to impale him on his own sword somehow or throw him under his own carriage? Her magic was still recharging, but she might be able to pull it off . . . and then what? It would spend her magic again, and they’d be facing down a dozen fae guards and Renwick, who would delight in occupying the vacant position that his father had left. Then she noticed the wardings on the carriage. They were so subtle, painted over in the same black hue, getting lost in the intricate metal detailing. A witch had warded the inside of the carriage against magic, like that card room in Ruttmore. She could not use her magic to get to the King. Remy couldn’t do it to Hale either way, she realized. She couldn’t let him die for her vengeance. Now that she had found him, her Fated mate, she wouldn’t be able to sacrifice herself or him for anything. Their fates indelibly tied together as one.

“Look who I ran into, Father,” Renwick’s voice cut through Remy’s murderous plots. “It’s Prince Hale of the East.”

Remy sent out a silent prayer that Renwick had not acknowledged her.

“Ah yes, Gedwin’s bastard,” Vostemur said, and Remy had to suppress a snarl. “The Lord of Andover is hosting us this night. Join us.”

It was not a request, but Hale said, “It would have been my pleasure, Your Majesty, if only I had come a day sooner. I fear we are making our way west this day.”

The King paused, looking at Hale with that predatory stillness, a cobra waiting to strike. Remy felt as though any moment a soldier might draw his sword and ram it through them.

“Pity,” he said with a slow cock of his head. He turned his snake eyes to Remy. “Do you have the gift of Sight, witch?”

Remy’s entire body went numb with fear as she said, “No, Your Majesty.”

Vostemur held out a chubby hand to her and said, “Come, let’s see if you can tell the King’s fortune.”

Remy noted how he said the king as though he were the only one, as though he were their king. It was his true plan, and they all knew it. He would not stop until he was the only king in Okrith.

Hale went as rigid as a marble statue at the King’s request. Remy knew she could not decline. She took a wobbly step forward as Renwick watched her with a barbarous smile. Placing her sweaty palm in the King’s hand, she tried not to tremble.

“What do you see?” Vostemur asked in a slow staccato.

“Nothing,” Remy whispered. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

Vostemur paused, turning her hand over in his and swiping his thumb across the inside of her wrist. His smooth thumb traced each of her freckles.

“No matter,” Vostemur said, more to himself than to her. He released her hand with a twisted smile, and Remy retreated to Hale’s side.

If Vostemur chose to strike, Remy knew there would be no repercussions to their deaths. No one would avenge them—Vostemur left a bloody trail of such unpredictable violence. No one ever held him in check.

Hale bowed then to the Northern King, and Remy followed. Hale put a guiding hand on her back and moved her down the road.

“Don’t run,” he whispered as they walked, his warm hand a shining beacon to her in the darkness of her fear.

“Oh, and boy,” boy the King had called after them, “take good care of that pretty witch of yours.”

Remy’s entire body seized up at his words, but Hale pushed her to keep moving, one foot after another. The clattering of the carriage and pounding hooves sounded again as the convoy took off, leaving a devastating silence in its wake.

“Keep moving,” Hale said softly, continuing to guide her forward. “Just to the bend.”

The sound of the horses faded away as they reached the corner. She kept willing her shaky legs to keep moving, even though she couldn’t feel her feet anymore. Her whole trembling body chilled as though a sudden snowstorm swirled around them.

“Breathe, Remy,” Hale said, his voice so gentle. She had not realized until he said it. She was panting, unable to take a deep breath. They passed the line of sight off the long road to Andover, and Hale guided her to a tree. “Here, sit.”

He had to hold on to her arms as she collapsed onto the ground. Her breathing was frantic now, her muscles seizing as her teeth chattered.

“That man,” she said as her diaphragm spasmed.

Hale cupped her cold cheek.

“I know.” He pulled her in, his arms enveloping her stiff body. “I’ve got you.”

That was all the permission Remy needed before the gasping tears came in a deluge, her body wringing her fear dry as Hale tugged her closer.

“You are not alone, Remy. I’m here,” he whispered. “I can take it.”

She could pour out every ounce of pain, and he would take it. She knew it wasn’t a burden to him, that he welcomed it all, her Fated mate. This is what he did for her, what she did for him. They held all the things together that were impossible to hold alone.

Remy sobbed for a long time until her muscles were fatigued from the straining and shaking. She went limp in Hale’s arms. She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to his slow, steady breaths. The sounds of the air filling his lungs, this beating heart, the heart of her Fated, anchored her here in this life. Without it she was sure she would have drifted away from the storms she now faced.

Screwing her eyes shut, she clenched her fists, demanding her body change back into her fae form.

“What are you doing?” Hale murmured into her hair.

Remy scowled down at the snow. “I’m trying to take this bloody glamour off.”

She pulled away from him and looked up into those shining pewter eyes. “What does it feel like when you do it?”

Hale rubbed the stubble on his chin, thinking for a moment before he said, “It feels like a relief when I take my glamour off. It feels like releasing a tight muscle.”

Remy huffed. She was trying to battle her glamour off instead of releasing it. It was just another one of her failings—just another way she was a hiding coward.

“You will find the right lever to pull. Give it time.”

“I don’t have time!” she growled.

A snow-laden branch cracked behind them, and Remy jolted. She ran her trembling hands down her face, every sound grating against her jittery nerves. It was just a branch.

“It’s over,” Hale whispered, enfolding Remy’s hands with the warmth of his own.

“It’s not over,” Remy bit out. “It won’t be over until he is dead.”

She choked on the words. They filled her with such dread.

She had barely survived the briefest run-in with the Northern King. One look from him had reduced her to a sobbing, shaking puddle. How was she going to kill him?

What that man had done to destroy her life had all flooded back when that carriage window opened. Her secret was a boulder crushing the center of her chest. If Vostemur had known that she was the one standing in the way of his desire to wield the Immortal Blade, he would have sliced her head off. Those snake eyes could stare into her soul.

“You will kill him one day, Remy, and I will be there to watch you do it,” Hale said, brushing his lips to hers. “Now, let’s get to the inn.”

Hale’s trick seemed to work all too well, with that kiss taking pride of place in her mind.