Page 143 of Cathmoir's Sons

It's not that I object to accompanying Caileán—although it’s a little strange to be part of her date with another man—it’s that I haven’t been directly involved in the politicking Caileán, Law, and Luca have been doing. But I don’t mind stepping up. Whatever respite dying at Jedburgh Abbey bought me is over.

I take in the fae that Hraena’s indicated. He’s a little taller than I am. His skin gleams like he’s been dipped in honey. His eyes shimmer from summer green to gold and back. He’s swathed in formal robes that start gold around his shoulders but fade to midnight blue by his feet. Tiny golden lights flit over the fabric. I really hope they’re not enslaved will o’ the wisps or something.

During our quick strategy session while we were bathing, Law and Luca warned us not to be surprised by seeing wild or Unseelie fae at Ivywhile. They also warned us, with several growls, that the low fae would probably be enslaved.

Caileán’s expression warned that they wouldn’t remain enslaved for long.

Horns and a bow the same gleaming gold as the Summer Prince’s upper robes interrupt my view of the Ivywhile royalty. A centaur takes careful steps through the crowd. Before she reaches the prince, she bends one knee. When she straightens, she flips hair as black as Caileán’s over her shoulders, showing off golden armor plating her shoulders, breasts, and stomach, with panels of midnight blue silk hanging between her forelegs and over her back.

“Sienna,” Hraena comments, nodding at the centaur. “They were paired by the Oak King’s druadh: the millennial bride and groom. When they went to their bower, he was his father’s pawn, and she was a drug-addicted mortal a fisher dug up somewhere. When they emerged from their bower, he’d somehow gained enough of the Mother’s grace that the millennial ritual didn’t kill him. And she became one of the sky archers. There’s no one Emnyre fears or despises more than Liamnh and Sienna.”

Emnyre’s a name I remember from our strategy session. He’s the Oak King’s chief knight since Aranthann became the Holly King. I haven’t seen him in the crowd, but evidently, he’s unmistakable as he’s close to nine feet tall with huge goldenhorns growing out of his helmet and a burning tree on his breastplate. Luca said we’d know he was coming just from the stink of smoke.

“Possible ally?” Caileán murmurs.

“After the coup, maybe,” Hraena says. “Until the cabal of druadh and knights who tried to sacrifice the Summer Prince to the Green Man are dead or otherwise dealt with, I can’t see Liamnh and Sienna siding with anyone. They’re too wary.”

Caileán hums. “Well, nearly being sacrificed in the name of your father’s continued reign will do that.”

“Indeed,” Hraena agrees. She nods to another fae who swishes past us in a shining cloud of blues and greens, mist and the crackle of lightning trailing in her wake. “Klaya Blackmaben. Former Storm Lady of Bloodelm. She was the only member of her house to escape the court’s destruction.”

Caileán lifts her eyebrows at her sister. “Ally?”

Hraena’s mouth twitches. “Perhaps more.”

Caileán grins. “Are you claiming a consort at last, sister?”

“We’re still negotiating,” Hraena says. “But she’s much happier now that I’ve taken off my mask and shown her my true face.”

Caileán reaches across me and clasps her sister’s feather-mantled forearm. “I’m sorry you had to wear that mask for so long.”

Hraena’s crow-sharp features grow even more predatory. “I’m not. Particularly not since it protected you and Didrane for centuries and allowed me to maneuver unnoticed. I know the courts still need cleansing, but it was much, much worse before the Oak King became so bound in his bark. Your mortals are safe to venture into these halls now. That was not the case even a century ago.”

I grunt. “Hard to believe my family had the right of it.”

I hate it when the zealots are right.”

Hraena tips her head to look up at me. Mighty Fae Queens Caileán and her sisters may be, but they’re pint-sized compared to me. I’m sure they were regal and imposing when the average mortal height was five feet. Now, they’re ... cute.

I’m confident Hraena would not appreciate being described as cute.

“I knew your granduncle. He was mad, but he was not entirely wrong. I am sorry for the injury he did you. I can feel the runes even now. They strain, don’t they?”

I nod. That’s the best description I’ve heard for my uneasy relationship with the sigils carved into my skin. I bear them. I always will. But it’s a strain.

“As mad as he was,” Hraena continues. “He gave you great power. Would you be able to bear the love of a Crow Queen without his ‘gift’? I wonder.”

“Would he have been summoned to Jedburgh Abbey and died there without the madman’s ‘gift’?” Caileán rejoins. “I wonder.”

I turn my head and kiss her temple, brushing the cold metal of the Holly King’s diamond strand that weaves through her locks. “Would you have saved me without them?” I ask.

She looks up at me, not even the light of Faery’s two moons equal to the bright emotion in her eyes. “I came back from true death to fight at your side. Marked, unmarked, your flesh makes no difference to me. Your soul called to me, and I answered. I will always answer.”

There in the stream of fae and their guests joining the high court of Ivywhile for the Wolf Moon Festival, I stop and turn Caileán fully into my arms, and kiss her in front of everyone, so she knows without a doubt that my soul will always answer hers, too.

We findthe Holly King standing in a grove bordered by his namesake, flanked by white-armored knights. I reluctantly surrender Caileán’s hand to him. Hraena squeezes my arm and gives the Holly King a smile that would give anyone nightmares.

He looks like the knight he was tonight: gleaming plate mail covering his chest, biceps, and thighs over his silk robes. His horns tipped with silver filigree; his crimson hair bound back from his face with the Crown of the North. When he shifts to take Caileán’s hand, his robes part to reveal a curved sword at each hip.

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