“Lies are all the weapons a human has in Faerie.”
Fresh resolve shut down his expressions, banishing all emotion from his face. “And you wear them well, Messenger.” He snatched the caged heart and dumped it into his pocket. “This isn’t over.”
I should kill him. He knew too much. He didn’t mean a damn thing to me.
So then why did it hurt so much to see him turn his back on me and walk from the room? I wanted to call after him, to tell him everything we had shared, everything he had done for me mattered, tell him I wanted to be with him and Talen, but I never could be because none of this was my life. Kesh Lasota might as well have been a dream too. I belonged to Oberon.
“Kesh?” Hulia, trembling and dazed, staggered closer. “What just happened?”
I nodded after Kellee. “Follow him. He’s a good man. He’ll help you.”
“I…” She scooted around Eledan’s cold body and looked at me. “Thank you.”
I would have liked to have her as a friend. “Go.”
Alone with the cooling body of the prince, I moved to the windows and watched the fae shuttle land outside the dome, kicking up great clouds of dust.
I had done everything Oberon had asked of me. I would earn another mark from my beloved prince.
So why did I feel as though I wanted to tear out my heart to stop it from hurting? I had done nothing wrong. Eledan was dead—as Oberon wanted. After the exchange—a prince’s heart for the humans of Calicto—the fae would try to put Eledan back together again. They may even succeed, only to find him utterly mad. And he would be forsaken—ruined—just as he had feared. I’d gotten my revenge and more. I was saving people. That was a good thing. Oberon had always planned to return to Halow and claim the system for Faerie. I’d merely been one weapon in his arsenal of manipulations. I was his blade, but I had another edge. I had saved people here.
A sound behind me. The fae were here. I turned and found fierce violet eyes staring into my soul.
“You left us no choice.”
A sudden sting burned through my arm, and Talen’s words followed me down and down and down into darkness.
I did not dream.
Chapter 30
I woke surrounded by glass and steel. My heart and my thoughts jolted to a halt. But neither of the two figures standing outside the cage were Eledan, and this was not Arcon’s shimmery offices. Beyond the glass, floodlights illuminated a familiar rock-lined prison chamber.
The star pinned to the marshal’s coat shone under the prison’s lighting. It was the brightest point on him. The rest of him was shrouded in disgust. Hate. Disappointment. He probably felt all those things. I remembered the pain in his eyes when he told me he had lost everything, how he had said he couldn’t lose me too. He was hurting, but he hid it beneath the hatred my betrayal had summoned.
Talen’s silver hair was gathered in one thick braid and slung over his shoulder. He just looked disappointed and sad. I wasn’t sure which one hurt the most to look at.
I closed my eyes. This could have ended so very differently. They were alive. That was a good thing. And so were many others—hopefully. “Did you make the exchange?”
“Yes,” Kellee answered. “The fae escorted the Calicto refugees off the planet and shuttled them to various outposts. Your people kept their word.”
The fae, my people.
The Calicto refugees would have died on that planet, one way or another. It would have been better if I had made the trade personally. Oberon would have forgiven me. Now? Now he would come looking…
Opening my eyes, I saw them still standing there, watching, judging, wondering if they had known me at all. “And Eledan?” I asked.
“The fae have him,” Talen replied. “They’re reporting he’s alive and well.”
Alive, maybe, but he wasn’t well. If it wasn’t for the people on Calicto, I would have carved out his heart and crushed it—magic and all. I still wanted to. I craved the taste of the mad prince’s blood. But what I wanted didn’t matter. It never had. I served a different prince. I would get my reward—once these two let me go.
“More fae are arriving daily. They’re setting up Calicto as a base,” Talen continued. “Using the magic Eledan found as proof Halow is theirs by divine right.”
Eledan had wanted to keep that well for himself, which was probably why he had returned to Arcon after the invasion. Without his tek heart, he would have been unstoppable. Oberon had been wise to eliminate his brother by way of his mother’s magic.
I swung my legs off the bed and rested my elbows on my knees, bowing my head. A book sat neatly beside the bed. The one with the black-winged bird on the cover. Talen’s gift.
I didn’t deserve it.
I got to my feet. My coat and whip were gone. All I wore were my sweatpants and a tank top. The fae marks wrapped around my arms took on a new weight now that Talen and Kellee knew why I had so many.
I approached the glass. It was ironic how I looked out on Talen when, not so long ago, I had been the one looking in. Did he think it ironic too, or was it justice? I pressed my hand to the glass in front of him. He blinked but didn’t smile, didn’t do anything. Just looked, masking everything from his face. Kellee would have told him everything. The two of them were inseparable. But Talen knew what it was like. He would understand. He would have had saru in his household. He knew how I had lived, how I would do anything to survive, how I owed Oberon my life. My prince was my world. Had Talen always known I was made of lies?
His violet fae eyes searched my face, perhaps for hope. I almost wished I could give it to him.
“Thank you for the book,” I said.
Talen nodded. Kellee growled and turned away. The marshal was easier to read.
“This is a mistake,” I told them. Oberon would kill them for this. They should have left me on Calicto. They could have crafted lives somewhere. Now? “When I was a nobody, my mission was incomplete—”
“You were never a nobody,” Kellee said. “That was a lie.”
I hesitated. I’d lied, yes. But I had it in me to do much worse. “Eledan will tell his brother everything. He won’t have a choice. This rock won’t keep you safe.”
“You used us.” That was from Talen. It hurt all the more because he was so right. I couldn’t deny it.
“Yes. I used you both as a means to an end.”
He briefly looked away. “Was any of it real?”
I could tell them my feelings for them were real, that I knew I wouldn’t be alive without them, that I owed them more than they could know and it pained me inside to hear the distrust in their voices and see the disgust on their faces. But what good would it do? Oberon would come, and soon, I would be my prince’s shadow once more.
If Oberon knew about Talen and Kellee, he would order me to kill them. I couldn’t. I couldn’t choose between my prince and my friends. “No,” I lied. “None of it was real. I do not care for you. I used you both. You mean nothing to me.”
Talen made a low noise in the back of his throat and turned away from my cage. I bit my tongue, refusing to allow myself the luxury of telling them the truth.
Kellee dropped onto one of the couches and spread an arm across the back. His smirk held none of the warmth I had found in his smiles before. “Your prince will come for you, and we’ll be waiting when he does.”
He would get himself and Talen killed.
I curled my hand into a fist and thumped it against the glass. “You can’t stop him. You can’t stop them. They’re here, and there is no going back. Kellee, you more than anyone know what they’re capable of. Leave here—”
“You want me to run?” He chuckled. “I never run from a fight.”
“And all your people are dead.”