Page 99 of Ulune's Daughter

“Which is?” I demand.

“She’s a banshee,” Law says. “A blood fae. Faery’s dark star. Humans romanticize the banshee, casting them in the same role human women have occupied in your death rituals. Mourners. Washers of the dead. But the old Fae were not gentle. They were warriors. The washer at the ford isn’t washing winding sheets. She’s washing her cloak and claws clean of the blood of her enemies. She’s a gore crow. A blood goddess.”

“Kellan ... Kellan’s not?—”

“Sheis, Rho,” Luca interjects. “You saw it in the jackalwere’s cave. You saw her cloak. You saw her tear the Shades off us. You saw her clean the water with the dead.” Luca glances at his brother. “I’ve been doing some research. There used to be five. They were the Badbh, the Crow Queens of Faery. In some legends, they’re confused with the Morrigan, the triple goddess. But I think they stood apart. They had their own courts on the boundaries of the Summerlands. They ruled the Shades of Faery, giving them rest or torment as their actions in life deserved. And for at least a thousand years, there have only been four.”

He glances at his brother again. Law nods.

“Cait legend says that long ago,” Luca continues, “the Seelie fae broke the courts. They cast out what they found ugly and undesirable. They sacrificed their own souls to divide Faery and drive the Unseelie out of the Summerlands. The Unseelie didn’t lose their souls, but they were damned. What awaits Law and me when we die ... it’s worse than the human version of Hell.” He shudders. “But it wasn’t always that way. When the Seelie first broke the courts, the Crow Queens called the dead. The souls of the Cait dwelt with the other Unseelie souls in the halls of the Crow Queens, only suffering if they’d done wrong in life. It was when the fifth Crow Queen disappeared that the souls of the Unseelie were condemned to the Umbra Wood?—”

“Stop,” I whisper, unwilling to hear anymore. “Kellan is not the fifth Crow Queen.”

“Why not, human?” Law growls. “Why shouldn’t she be our savior? She’s our fated mate. Why shouldn’t she have a destiny that’s more than your small halls of learning?”

Because I don’t want her to be. I want her to be uncomplicated. I want her to have as limited a future as I do. I want her to be mortal. I want her to be enough like me that she can be mine.

“She’s mostly human,” I argue.

“The old blood runs true in her. It’s washing away her humanity. It will do more and more every time she calls her power,” Law says.

“She walked you into Faery from her spring,” Luca adds. “That shouldn’t have been possible. Her Element is Air, not Water. She doesn’t have enough fae blood to open doors to the Fae Ways like Law and I do. She tore open the Way with hag claws. You’ve seen them. That’s one of the specific powers of the Crow Queens.”

Luca picks up a book from the chair beside him and puts it on the table.

“These are the songs of Eira, translated from Brythonic. That’s the language spoken in parts of England before the Roman occupation. That’s the last mention I can find of the fifth Crow Queen. She was the youngest of the five and called Caileán.”

He pronounces the name “Kay-len.” I don’t need to be a linguist to understand the relationship to Kellan’s name.

“She held the northern border of Faery. The Court of Cold Mist. She wore the Crown of the North. After she disappeared, Ferran, the Storm Lord of Ivywhile took the crown. He rose to Holly King on the crown’s strength, but he didn’t call the Shades of Faery. Then he lost the crown to a Black Empyrean. That’s the crown that’s recently returned to the high fae. The Holly King was wearing it at her opening. I swear he just showed up to get a look at her. He certainly hasn’t shown any interest in Bevington before. This isn’t a coincidence, Rho.”

“So, she, she?—”

“Whatever she is becoming,” Law says. “Today, now, she is a college professor, basking in the glory of her discovery. We’ll do nothing to take that from her. Just understand that she’s more. She’s becoming much, much more. You won’t do anything to take that from her either, human.”

I rub my hand over my face, ashamed. “There’s no future for us.”

Law chuffs at me. “Why do you think so narrowly? She’s calling her consorts as she rises in power. The Queens of Faery have always had multiple consorts, to better bear their Queen’s demands. Kellan has called you, human. And although I question my mate’s wisdom in this?—”

“Fuck you, Law.”

He rolls his eyes.

Luca reaches across the table and grips my hand. “What he’s saying, in the most assholish way possible, is that you have as much of a future with Kellan as we do. She’ll need all of us.”

I rub my thumb over his knuckles. “Lu, do you really believe that? I’m just?—”

“You’re just you. I’m just me?—”

“If you say, ‘Law’s just Law,’ there will be consequences,” Law says, pointing his fork at his brother.

“We’re all what we are, Rho,” Luca continues with a grimace at Law. “I’ve always known you were special. But even if you weren’t, all that matters is you’re Kellan’s choice. Don’t you get that?”

I shake my head, unable to meet his eyes.

He moves, half over the table and half around it, and lands in my lap. “Why are you denying it? What are you afraid of?”

I snake my arm around him and rest my face in his neck. “Losing you. Losing her,” I whisper to him, giving him the only half-truth I can.

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