Darkest Mercy Page 16

  Finally, Keenan pulled away. “Think of the soil, Ash.”

  “The soil?” she echoed.

  “The earth. Think of sunlight falling—” They plummeted, and Keenan said, “Gently. Falling gently, Ash.”

  She nodded, and they slowed. “I’m doing this.”

  “You are,” he confirmed. “Sunlight isn’t bound to the earth. Neither is the Summer Queen.”

  Her feet touched the soil, and Keenan released her. She would’ve fallen to her knees, but he steadied her. Carefully, he helped her sit on the ground.

  As her hand touched the soil, vines shot out and wove together into an elaborate flowering throne. It lifted her from the ground, and she looked toward him. “Keenan?”

  He backed away from her. “It’ll be okay, Ash. Tavish will tell you what you need to know. You can do this. Remember that.”

  She blinked and looked past him to the park. The trees were a riot of blossoms. The hedges had grown as tall as trees, creating a formidable barrier. It was not yet full spring, but the area outside of the Summer Court’s park was in bloom. All through the park, her faeries now stood waiting. She felt connected to each one of them more intensely than ever before.

  Except Keenan.

  Her gaze went to him. Her Summer King was . . . not Summer. She held out a hand to him. “Keenan?”

  He took her hand and knelt. The sunlight that usually pulsed back when they touched, that had all but drowned her in pleasure barely a moment ago, was absent.

  He lifted his head to look up at her. “I would hope to be welcome in your court, but this is not where I belong now.”

  Aislinn was speechless. The faery who had remade her, who had been the other half of the embodiment of summer, was no longer sunlit. In their good-bye kiss, he had somehow given her the sunlight that had been his own.

  I am the only Summer regent.

  “I would’ve given up the faery I love, devoted eternity to you, to them”—Keenan glanced to her left, where Tavish now stood, and then looked back at her—“but I need the love and passion you do not offer me. So do you. The lack of passion, of love, of happiness weakened my . . . your court. The court is now stronger than it’s been during my life.”

  “But . . .” Aislinn tried to stand, but found her legs still too weakened to support her. Tears slid down her cheek, and she saw rainbows arc across the sky, matching the trail of her tears. “If you could walk away . . . I don’t understand. Why couldn’t I? This is what you always were.”

  Keenan pleaded for understanding with his expression. “I was born of two courts, Aislinn. There was a choice for me. One I couldn’t make before, but now the Summer Court is in capable hands.”

  “And you are what?” She tugged on his hand, trying to pull him to his feet, but he shook his head.

  “Dismiss me,” he requested. “As the only Summer Court regent, give me your first command.”

  Tears clouded her vision, and rainbows flared all over the sky. “Keenan . . . you are ever welcome in my court should you need solace or a home. You remain a friend of my court . . . under our protection should you need it.” Then, in a shaky voice, she added, “You are dismissed.”

  He stood and silently left the park. As he passed, the rowan knelt. The Summer Girls curtsied as one; their vines became like solid ink on their skin as they stood, no longer depending on their king-no-more. The curse that had bound them to him was ended.

  They’re free.

  Chapter 28

  After Evan’s death, Donia felt numb. Evan had watched over her since she’d first become fey. He had been her guard and her friend for decades. To some, that was but a blink. For him, it was a moment. To Donia, it was the whole of her second life. There was rage, grief, heartbreak, but she kept those emotions submerged in the weight of the snow and ice inside of her. I cannot wail, not yet.

  The Hound Chela had deposited Donia and Evan’s body at the Winter Queen’s home, and then elicited promises that Donia would not cross the line of guards and Hounds stationed outside—not that they alone would be enough to stop Bananach.

  Which leaves the king-in-mourning, the fey-only-a-year queen, the Summer King, or me.

  Donia thought of Beira, the late Winter Queen, with an unexpected pang. Beira was diabolical in many ways, but she was strong enough, cruel enough, and skilled enough to fight Bananach. And dead. Donia sighed. Beira’s death had saved lives—including mine—but it had eliminated the most powerful of the regents on this side of the veil.

  A veil that is now closed.

  With a solemnity that she used to hide the sorrow inside of her, Donia stared at the earth; then, with a breath, she lifted all of the snow from the tree beside her favorite spot in the winter garden. The Scrimshaw Sisters, Hawthorn people, lupine, and myriad other of the Winter Court faeries clustered in the garden. Several of the guards carried Evan to the spot she’d cleared.

  Silently, they arranged his empty shell on the wet soil.

  When they were done, Donia pulled the remaining moisture from the soil on which he rested, and Evan’s body sank into the earth. Tears slipped down her cheeks as the ground accepted him, and as she wept, snow fell from the sky. “Good-bye, my friend.”

  She bowed her head, and her faeries began to depart. They were mostly all gone from her presence when three of the Hawthorn stopped. One of them asked, “Would you prefer solitude or companionship for your mourning?”

  “Solitude.” She lifted her gaze to them. “Unless business requires it . . .”

  With soft brushes of their hands over her arms and shoulders, they left her alone in the winter garden where her friend, guard, and advisor was now buried. As soon as they were gone, she parted her lips for the shriek of hurt and rage that she’d held inside. The sky tore open, and a winter storm whipped around her. The wind lashed her cheeks; the ice hammered her upturned face; and the snow wrapped her in its much-needed embrace.

  The Winter Queen knelt on the again-frozen earth and wished there were more she could do to avenge the death of the faery who had protected her in her years as Winter Girl, who had helped her adjust to being Winter Queen.

  I want her death. She paused. This is what Niall feels. What Gabriel feels.

  There was no doubt in Donia’s mind that the actions Bananach had taken were planned: she wanted their pain and rage.

  Why?

  Donia forced her emotions back under the calming press of the snow she carried inside her and walked into her home. She was a faery in mourning, but she was also a queen in conflict. She wouldn’t allow her emotions to keep her from being a good queen. Evan might not be there advising her, but he had counseled her often enough that she knew what he would tell her: understand Bananach’s motivations, study the patterns.

  Inside her house, Donia sat before the vast stone fireplace in one of the lesser-used rooms and started writing down what she knew. The activity had the added benefit of distracting her.

  She was shifting through Evan’s piles of letters and papers, hoping for more information to add to her puzzling-out of Bananach’s behavior when one of her fey came into the room.

  “Donia? My Queen?”

  She looked up at Cwenhild, the Scrimshaw Sister who waited in the doorway. “News?”

  “A guest.” Cwenhild frowned. “He waits to see you.”

  Donia motioned for her to continue. “Who?”

  “He . . . the faery . . . the . . .” The Scrimshaw Sister shook her head. “I’m sorry, my Queen. He’s in the garden. I can bring . . . him if you . . . I didn’t think.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I find peace in my garden. That has not changed.”

  Cwenhild nodded, and Donia went to her garden. Once there, she understood Cwenhild’s inability to answer her question. The faery who waited for her could no longer be named by the title they had always known him by. Keenan sat in the center of her garden, peacefully waiting on her favorite bench—and his sunlight was gone.

  The snow in her garden didn’t bur
n away as it fell near him. Instead, it collected on his no-longer-sunlit skin. The copper of his hair was unchanged, but the glints of sunlight were replaced by a sheen of frost. He looked up. “I’ve never felt at peace here, you know.”

  “What happened?” She stared at him. The sunlight that he had wielded as a weapon, as an extension of himself, as a part of his very being, was gone. He was still fey, but he was not filled with light.

  He slid over and patted the bench beside him. “Would you sit with me?”

  “What have you done?” The cold air from her lips didn’t steam away as it touched him.

  Keenan smiled tentatively. “Changed.”

  “I can see that.” Without meaning to, her hand lifted as if to touch the glitter of frost on his skin. She lowered her hand almost guiltily.

  And he sighed. “I’ve given my sunlight to the Summer Queen. I am not of that court anymore.”

  “Is it . . . real?”

  He nodded. “I came here as soon as I was . . . free.”

  For a moment, she looked at him, the faery who’d stolen her mortality, whom she’d been willing to die for, whom she still dreamed of—and she couldn’t help but marvel at him. After all the things she thought she knew about the world, this was new. He was new.

  Yet he was still the faery she’d known, and as they sat there, she realized that she needed to tell him about the loss that had left her in sorrow. “Keenan?”

  He looked at her, and she said softly, “Evan’s . . . gone.”

  “Gone how?”

  “Bananach kill—”

  “When?” Keenan’s no longer summer-green eyes widened. Icy blue filled them, reminding her of the other side of his heritage.

  The side that makes him able to sit in the winter garden so comfortably.

  “When I left the loft,” she admitted. “Bananach was waiting for me. The Hounds came; my guards came. Including Evan, we lost just over a dozen faeries.”

  As calmly as she could, she told him all she knew, all that had happened. She did not weep on his shoulder, although the temptation was there.

  “She’s taken Irial, Evan, and . . .” Keenan exhaled a cloud of frost, but didn’t seem to notice that he’d done so.

  He belongs to my court. He is the last Winter Queen’s son.

  Donia was speechless at the revelation, and at his seeming obliviousness to it. He was never as unaware as he appeared, though; he was merely skilled at disguising the things that he would rather not share.

  For several moments, they sat in silence, and then he looked at her with now winter-blue eyes and said, “I have no right . . . to be here or to touch you. I know that.”

  “You don’t have the right to touch me,” she agreed, but she wanted him to claim the right to do just that. He’s hurt me. He’s failed me. He’s promised things he couldn’t do.

  “I want to hold you, not just because you are hurting but because I can now,” he admitted. “May I?”

  He held open an arm, and she slid closer. Cautiously, she leaned her head against his shoulder. The rightness of it, the way her body felt against his, filled her with a sense of completion that she’d never known.

  They sat there together for several moments in silence until he said, “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “And yours.” Donia lifted her head and looked at him. “He was your faery first.”

  “I was relieved that he came to you when you became queen.” Keenan kept his arm around her. His fingers were curled around her shoulder still, holding her to him as if afraid she’d flee. “I knew he would keep you safe the way I hadn’t.”

  She couldn’t stop herself: she reached up and ran her fingers through Keenan’s hair. It felt different, not sharp enough to hurt, but soft. There was no pain, no steam, no clash—so Donia continued trailing her fingers over his changed body.

  He closed his eyes. He stayed perfectly still as she caressed his cheek and traced her fingertips across his jaw. In several decades, she’d only had one Winter Solstice, over a year ago, in which she could touch him without pain to either of them.

  “You’re not a king now. What does that make you?”

  His lips curved in a smile, and he opened his eyes to stare directly at her. “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve not offered fealty to anyone. Yet. I would. I would offer anything I have to the right queen.”

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  “I don’t belong in the Summer Court, not now, not ever again.” He ran his fingers through the snow that had accumulated on the bench on the other side of him. “When I was a child, I could exhale frost into the air, and then melt it in the next breath.”

  He knew. He wasn’t oblivious, but he wasn’t hiding it either. At least not from me. Keenan carried his other parent’s heritage, had buried it under sunlight for centuries. “I didn’t tell anyone. My mother knew, but she didn’t tell anyone either.”

  “You are of my court,” Donia said, her words as much a question as a statement. “You are heir to the throne I hold.”

  “No. I don’t want your throne, Don; I only want you.” Keenan stared into the snow-covered garden. “My mother told me that she’d loved only once. She would’ve done anything for him, but he betrayed her. She didn’t recover from that.”

  Donia moved away from him. In the midst of everything going on, on the edge of war, with faeries defecting and faeries dying, Keenan was sitting in her garden telling her about his childhood.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” she told him.

  Several moments passed, and he said, “I am going to see Niall. I need to help him if I can. After that”—he stood and turned to face Donia—“I will be back. I’m a solitary faery now, strong enough to be . . . whatever you are willing to let me be. You see what I am. Both summer and winter lived inside me as a child. I chose one because my father was slain and his court needed me, but I’ve left the Summer Court. Once Niall is well again, I will swear fealty to you, or I will remain solitary. I will be your

  subject, your servant, solitary but not of your court. Whatever it takes to have the chance at being yours, truly and forever—that’s what I want.”

  He bent down and pressed his lips to hers. Then he said, “I am my mother’s son in some things, Donia. I would’ve tried to be loyal to my queen if I had to, but she knew—and you know—that she was never first for me. I know I don’t deserve you. I never have, but I want to find a way to be worthy of you.”

  “Keenan, I don’t—”

  “Let me say this.” He knelt in the snow that drifted around the bench. “When I told you I wanted to try, I spoke the truth. When I turned away, it was for my former court, and when I tried to make another faery love me, it was for that court. I’ve lived for my whole life trying to bring the Summer Court back to the strength it once was. In all of those years, in centuries, I’ve only wished myself free of duty because of one reason. You.”

  “What if—”

  “Please?” he begged. “The only thing that stood between us was a court that is no longer my concern. Tell me what vow you want me to offer you, what promise. Anything.”

  Donia thought back to the times when he’d looked at her with that same raw hope—and the times she had felt that hope. They’d been in this moment so many times. This time is different. She felt it, knew it the same way she’d known they would fail before.

  She took a breath, exhaled slowly, and then told him, “If you fail me, I’ll kill you. I swear it, Keenan. If you fail me, I’ll rip your heart out with my own hands.”

  “If I fail you, I’ll cut it out for you.” He stared up at her. “Let me love you, please? Tell me you’re saying there’s still a chance, Don?”

  She couldn’t breathe around the pain in her chest. “Tell me I’m the only one.”

  “You are the only one. I love you,” he swore. “I have loved you for years, and if I could’ve, I would’ve made you my queen. You know—”

  She leaned down and kissed him, stopping his words,
and tumbled to the snowy ground and into his arms. It wasn’t Solstice, but that didn’t matter anymore. He was here, in her garden, in her life.

  Mine.

  For now and for always.

  Chapter 29

  After the king-no-more had left, Aislinn remained in her park, surrounded by her faeries, and wondered at the intensity she felt. If she’d thought being coregent was overwhelming, having the other half of Summer fill her was soul-melting.

  I can’t imagine if all of this had hit me at once. How did Donia do it? How did Niall?

  At the thought of the other recent regents, she straightened. They had done it; they’d taken control of their courts, led them, guarded them. Undoubtedly, they’d had struggles she hadn’t known of, but they’d done it.

  And so will I.

  She squared her shoulders and looked at her court. First things first. You’ve been doing this with half the strength and handling it while he was away. You can do this. The Summer Queen smiled at her faeries.

  Tavish came to stand beside her throne. Several of the Summer Girls stepped forward. Some of the rowan took position as guards; others moved throughout the crowd. Three glaistigs who were attached to the court under temporary vows of fealty divided into other positions—one to either side of the throne where she sat and the third to the far edge of the park. Aobheall had stepped outside her fountain and stood between the Summer Girls and rowan people.

  Her court waited for her to lead them.

  “I’m guessing all of the Summer Girls”—she let her gaze drift over them—“are free to leave the . . . my court, but I would like you all to stay.”

  Most of them nodded or smiled; a few looked unsure.

  “You do not have to decide today,” Aislinn added. Then she sought two of the girls who had been instrumental in helping her understand what it took to lead the court. “Siobhan? Eliza?”

  “My Queen,” they said in tandem.

  “I’d like you to join Tavish as my court counselors,” she said.

  Eliza gasped quietly, but Siobhan grinned.

  “Summer Girls are foolish, spinning things, my Queen,” Siobhan said lightly. Her eyes widened in a faux attempt at naïveté.