Page 70 of An Honored Vow

“Moroq.” Nikolai shrugged. “It sounds old Elvish to me.”

“Maybe Vrail knows.” I turned to Gwyn to see if she had come across it in her books, but all I saw were red curls bouncing out of the room.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

“WHAT’S GOING ON?”I asked Orrin, the youngest Shade we’d rescued from the Order, when I got to Myrelinth. She swung along the vines with other children, racing to the Myram tree.

“There’s an announcement.” She giggled, flipping through the air as she caught her next vine.

“Announcement?”

The entire city had gathered, as well as some Elverin from Aralinth. They crowded around the Myram, bubbling with concern and excitement. Riven stood at the base of the tree waiting for the crowd to quiet.

His fingers pulled at the laces of his cloak.

I went completely still. This is not what Nikolai had meant. This is not what Riven wanted. He needed time. I stepped forward but someone grabbed my arm.

“Let him do this, Keera,” Gerarda said, appearing at my side.

I yanked my arm free. “He’s only doing this because he thinks it will appease Nikolai.”

She shrugged. “Does the reason matter? He needs to stop hiding and face what he’s done.” There was no hardness in Gerarda’s voice, just blunt truth.

Riven swallowed. He took a step forward, moving closer to the crowd so they could see the jade color of his eyes as his cloak fell to the ground.

They erupted into shocked whispers. Some pointed at Riven’s eyes, other backed away as if the Elverin standing before them was an imposter and not the Riven they had come to know.

He cleared his throat. “There is something I have been keeping from all of you.” He spoke in shaky Elvish, his vowels clipped and his consonants too harsh for the words. He stopped, taking a breath, and when he spoke again, it was in the King’s Tongue. “Some of you may have noticed my absence. I needed time to decide how to tell you this, to know what to say.” Riven’s head drooped for a moment but then he stood tall.

My body yearned to reach out for him, to pull him back into the safety of the shadows. But he needed to do this. He needed it, and so did I.

“The day Keera Waateyith’thir broke the last seal and returned the magic to our lands, the Fae you knew as Riventh Numenthira died.” A united gasp broke through the crowd. “I used the last of my powers to help Keera break the seal and my life ended.” Riven’s brows furrowed, like he wanted to add something else to that part of the story but he stopped himself. “But Elverath saw fit to bless me with a new life. A life where I could live as a Halfling.”

“His eyes are green,” someone whispered from the back of the crowd.

Riven nodded. “My eyes are green. And my blood is amber. And my shadows are gone.”

Uldrath sat on Pirmiith’s shoulders with a confused look on his face. “Why a Halfling?” He looked down at the veins in his own hand pulsing with amber blood. “Why wouldn’t the magic bring you back as you were? Or an Elf?”

Riven picked at the skin around his thumb. “Because Riventh the Fae was not the only one who died that day.”

The crowd’s gasp was even louder than the first.

“I’m not sure what reasons the others have given you to explain Killian’s absence.” Riven’s hands shook. “But he has not been scouting or studying in the libraries of Volcar or meeting with any of the lords in the kingdom. Those were—and always have been—lies. Or at least only half the truth.”

Riven’s eyes searched for something in the crowd. I didn’t know what it was until I saw her. Vrail, creating an aisle through the crowd as she walked toward the Myram tree, the glamoured necklace hanging from her neck. For the first time, I saw what all the others must have seen before. The striking red of the jacket Vrail always wore as Killian gave color to her cheeks, but wasn’t tailored to her body like the rest of her clothes. It was the costume she wore as she played her part.

But everyone else saw Killian.

Vrail’s leg bounced as she took her spot beside Riven. He gave her a short nod and kept speaking. “The prince you knew also died that day. But only because the prince you knew never existed at all.”

Vrail pulled at the necklace and the clasp broke. The crowd went silent as the glamour shattered and Vrail stood before them—short, black-haired, and definitelynotKillian.

The Elverin exploded into shouts and angry questions. “Why would you do this?” someone shouted from the bridges above the grove.

“How did this happen?” shouted another.

“Did Feron know?”

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