Page 54 of The Dark Will Rise

It had always been about choice.

Shay had his choices taken away, pushed into a marriage he hadn’t wanted for the good of his creed. He had been forced into taking the role of chieftain once his father had passed.

The marks on our chests weren’t there by choice. Whatever Gods looking down on us from the Tuatha Dé Danann had made a plan. I didn’t want Shay to be a casualty of whatever vengeance the gods wrought on me and mine.

It took all the strength inside of me to pull my lips from his. The warmth, the electricity, and the deliciously sweet scent of his magic seemed to seep from every pore.

“I can’t,” I whispered, stepping back.

Shay’s gaze hardened. “You should go back to your Shíorghrá.” He brushed his thumb against his lip as if wiping my taste from his mouth. “They’re probably looking for you.”

Cormac Illfinn found me at the entrance to the guest camp. Standing with his arms crossed at the wooden archway.

I was already raw. As if someone had fished me from the reef like a sea urchin and scooped out my insides with a serrated knife.

Lust and rage were close cousins, and Shay Mac Eoin’s magic had left me exposed. Panting and wanton, though I had been the one to reject him.

Cormac’s smug, knowing grin was enough to push me over the edge. His chest was bare, showing the scar over his heart that my uncle had given him. The strap over his shoulders proudly displayed the Illfinn royal crest. The only thing missing was the blood-red tail in his natural form below the waves; instead, he stood on two legs, crossed at the heels as he watched me approach.

I thought he would let me pass. Surely, he wasn’t stupid enough to goad me as I limped back to my tent, defeated.

But, if there was one thing I knew about Cormac Illfinn, he was stupid, as if his arrogance had swollen too large inside his body to accommodate any sort of intelligence.

I made it two steps past Cormac before he made the grave mistake of clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. His voice dripping with saccharine sweetness. “The wedding feast was barely cold before you made your move, Lady Cruinn.” Cormac’s eyes were wide and innocent. “Surely you could have waited longer before you came to collect him to your cause.”

“My cause?” I scoffed, turning on my heel. “What conspiracy have you conjured up now, you overgrown fish?”

Cormac’s cheeks flushed red, but the smile fixed on his face twitched. “I know only what I see. A Cruinn burrowing her way into every Kingdom in the Twilight Lake. Now that the Undine king is dead, will you take his place, little one? Is this what it’s all for?”

My fists clenched, and my teeth gnashed together. “I don’t want the High Throne.”

“Everyone wants the High Throne.” Cormac’s jaw hardened, and he stepped toward me before stopping himself.

My breath was shaky through my teeth. “I don’t want it.”

Cormac’s eye twitched. He didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care.

We stared at each other in challenge, and my fingers itched to pull the dagger from my bloomers, to press the blade against the small of his back where he had stabbed me.

Cormac tilted his head, looking down his nose at me. “We are even, you and I.”

“Even?” I spat.

“You killed my mother.” He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Lady Bloodtide was one of the eldest Mermaids in the Lake. You left not a scrap. She turned to foam and went to the Tuatha Dé Danann alone. No one mourned for days as we searched Tarsainn, hoping she was still alive.”

“I could name the many sins of your mother if I must,” I lowered my voice, meeting his eyes in challenge. “She ordered the younglings dead at the Frosted Sands. She threw me in the dungeon for saving your life and then tried to kill me when you made it clear you wished to marry me. Need I continue?”

Cormac looked away, shaking his head, the muscle in his jaw ticked. “She was my mother.”

“Don’t you feel tired of it all?” I rubbed my hand over my face, closed my eyes, and took a deep, shaky breath. “Of the death. The valleys of history that we build our battles on. Blood. Death and violence.”

“Do you intend to end the war?” Cormac scoffed.

“Isn’t it already over?” I held out my arms, gesturing around us. “King Irvine is dead. If he killed your father, then King Ullurick has been avenged.”

Cormac opened his mouth to argue, but I held up my hand.

“I am never going to rule. I don’t want the High Throne. I know this and swear it on every drop of water in the Twilight Lake.” My wrists itched with the scars from the throne’s teeth. “Go to Cruinn if you want justice for the Mer. Make your complaints and demands. I don’t care what you want. The moment you stabbed me, you became my enemy. When you refused to listen to your friends, turning against them, you became someone I knew I could never trust. You held onto Liam Cruinn, the heir to Cruinn and King Irvine’s stepson, for weeks. I allowed Rainn and Tor’s good opinion of you to sway my own, but you are not my friend. You have only ever brought pain toward me. If you raise a hand to me again, I will kill you.”

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