Page 100 of The Vanishing Throne

Oh, for god’s sake.

Kiaran doesn’t answer. His boots thump across the carpet, and suddenly he’s close to me, so close that we’re almost touching. ‘What happened on the other side?’ he asks.

When I don’t respond, he puts a hand on my cheek and turns me to face him. His eyes are so different than they were in the past. Notempty. ‘Kam?’

What do I tell him? The truth the Cailleach showed me? Kiaran tried so hard to hide from that part of himself. He changed his name. He sacrificed his throne. He gave up everything, and I wasn’t supposed to know about it until he was ready to tell me.

The way he looked down at the other Falconer, the way he touched her … I wasn’t supposed to see that, either. I was an intruder in his most intimate and private memories. Just like Lonnrach was in mine.

I pull away from him and watch the snow fall again in big fluffy flakes that cover the ground and turn trees white. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘Kam.’ His voice is hard. ‘Tell me.’

Just don’t look at him.‘I saw the Cailleach.’

If I weren’t listening, I might not have heard his sharp intake of breath. The air between us turns cold. He moves away. ‘Then she offered you something. I assume it wasn’t life.’

The snow falls harder, harder now. Not even the front steps of the house are visible. ‘She offered me truth.’

The silence between us stretches vast; it seems like hours. If I were to look at him again, I know I’d find his expression cold and calculating as he decides what to say next. Kiaran is careful like that.

‘I see,’ he finally says.

And that’s it. He doesn’t explain; he doesn’t need to. He knows what I saw and what I learned.

‘Why did you kill her?’ I keep my gaze on the blizzard outside, the intensifying weather, even though I can barely see the ruins of the city through it. ‘That’s the only thing I don’t understand.’

I don’t need to explain who I’m speaking of. He knows. I can tell by the way he tenses beside me, by the way he goes so quiet.

‘Nothing had ever surprised me like she did,’ he says. He stands by my chair and watches the snow fall. ‘I never thought I was capable of feeling anything until I met her. I never thought I could …wantanyone. Not the way I desired her.’

But you murdered her, I almost point out. I don’t say anything; I keep my gaze on the snow piling high outside, lit gold from the street lamps. ‘Not even Sorcha?’ I ask tentatively,and then wish I hadn’t. It’s just a guess, a stupid guess.

Kiaran looks at me sharply but I don’t meet his gaze. ‘Did she show you that, too?’

I wish I wasn’t right. I didn’t want to be. Tears prick behind my eyes. ‘She didn’t have to,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen the way Sorcha looks at you.’The same way Ilook at you.

Kiaran’s hand curls into a fist. ‘Sorcha was my consort,’ he says evenly.

My fingers brush the scar that holds the memory of when I first met Sorcha, when I first realised she and Kiaran knew each other.You’re still bound by your vow to me.Feadh gach re. Always and forever, remember?

‘Then your vow—’

‘It’s an old custom to make a vow to one’s consort. So I said the one that bound us together.’

He made you think he cared about you. Kadamach doesn’t give a damn about anyone, least of all you.

I wish Kiaran had told me all of this before when we ran throughthe streets at night and killed monsters together. None of it would have mattered then because Kiaran was my means to an end. He was how I planned to achieve my vengeance.Teach me everything you know and I’ll tear out her heart for what she did to my mother. Tit for tat.

But now … now I wish he had no past, that he was a slate wiped clean the moment he saved my life and whispered six words:We’re going to kill them all. Then it wouldn’t hurt so damn much that the faery who murdered my mother was also his consort.

‘How did you meet the Falconer, then?’ I ask, not wanting to talk about Sorcha any more.

A slight smile plays on his face. ‘She tried to kill me.’

Most people would be dismayed by an attempted assassination, but Kiaran seems to regard it as either flirtation or flattery – possibly both. ‘And that must have warmed the cockles of your dark Unseelie heart.’

‘Of course not,’ Kiaran says. ‘But after several attempts I began to admire her tenacity.’ His face softens. ‘That was the first emotion I’d experienced in a thousand years and I wanted toknowher.’

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