Page 58 of Heir to His Court

“What is dead?”

I ignored that asinine question. He was taunting me. “Is it somehow imbued with your recollections?”

Embry led me off the tiled plaza and across the grassy lawn toward the rows of buildings. As we approached, the din of a well-planned city grew louder. Foot traffic, the creak of carts and clop of horses, the murmur of conversation. Laughter and curses and the general busyness of everyday life. Spiced cooking meat scents filled my nostrils and I realized I was hungry.

“You could say that,” he replied.

“I could, but you're not. What answers the questions, Embry?”

“I am.”

“That makes no sense. You'redead.”

Embriel stopped walking and turned to me, his cerulean eyes grave. The golden glow of his skin paled to milky white, his well-formed lips taking on a bluish tint. It wasn't the white or blue of a corpse, though it referenced it. His hair remained just as gold, his eyes just as bright. His chest rose and fell with his breathing.

But now I saw through the illusion.

Now I saw the scar tissue across his neck.

I stared at the silent accusation, stony.

“Your mother didn't teach you all the words for death,” Embry said. “Or how the Dark Fae might embrace it. I think because she must not have wanted to awaken that side of your nature so young. The pull of our bloodline is strong, and there was always a chance you would never dive into the Dark. You are Psion’s as well, after all, though by oath not blood. Time will tell which pull is stronger.”

“Are you telling me that you’re alive? Is this real?”

He said nothing.

No, of course it wasn’t real. But I could believe that it was Embry’s book, testing me. “I'm sorry. You didn't deserve what I did to you.”

His expression was gentle in a way I had never seen, not even with Raniel. Gentle, and open. “It's fine, Aerinne. I forgive you. In any case, it's good you learned that lesson so young.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“How else are you to learn the cost of taking a life unless you take one undeservedly?”

“You weren't the first person I killed.”

“No. But I was the first death you truly regretted. Some never regret the deaths they cause, and so we are plunged into endless cycles of war. Another is coming. We aretired,Aerinne. We think you may be able to help us.”

His eyes went distant as he looked over my shoulder in the way older Fae would do when seeing things long in the past. “Too many of our bloodline have turned into tyrants, and monsters. It's easy for us to kill. It's not as easy to grieve. To learn when to stay your hand when there's no one powerful enough to force you to mercy.”

“And this is what you want me to learn?”

“Yes.” Embry refocused on me. “This is what youmustlearn. My father called you his anchor, and you are. But you are also his executioner. My grandmother. . .” he looked away. “She will not survive killing another one of her children.”

“I don’t understand.”

His smile held infinite sorrow. "Did you think Nayya and Assariel, two of the most powerful Ancients, who together produced four tens of children, never had to kill any of them? My aunt, who my father called his mother, was not the first. Shemustbe the last. And if my father cannot find balance, then he must not be allowed to live.”

Embriel’s aunt, Raniel’s older sister who had stolen him at birth to use as a hostage against Nayya and Assariel, and raised him as her own. And later, been executed in front of the young boy as her punishment.

“Your grandmother wants me to bring Raniel to Ninephe. It would have been helpful had she included instructions on how to do that.”

Embry nodded. “Yes. We need the general. Juhainah is waking and her armies gather in the Dark mountains. It will take time to come down and cross the deserts, but once they do. . .”

I shook my head. “She thinks she can call Raniel and he will come? Does she not realize he's never forgiven her?”

“We know. My father’s deepest desire is to retake Avallonne, his childhood home, to claim the power of the Trident and march his re gathered armies on Ninephe to avenge the insult of his sister’s execution. Their reckoning has been many thousands of years in coming.”

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