Page 37 of The Fallen Kingdom

Between touches I whisper that soon we’ll have to go back out into the world and face our fates. Kiaran doesn’t answer. He just kisses me like I’m going to die all over again. I haven’t been able to tell him yet that I still might.

“Let me tell you a story,” I say instead. “Once upon a time, there was a girl whose life was saved by the faery king—”

“This story sounds distinctly familiar. I think I might have heard it somewhere before.”

I shush him and say not to interrupt. “If anyone asked her how she felt about the king, she would have said she loathed him. He ruthlessly trained her to fight his own kind. He taught her to kill. She learned from his lessons how to quiet the rage that burned inside her. But she had already decided that one day, when she had grown strong enough and learned everything she could about battle, she was going to murder him.”

Kiaran goes still, his eyes glittering in the darkness. He says nothing.

“Her opportunity came one night when he decided she was ready to hunt her first faery. It was a skriker that had been terrorizing a nearby village, slaughtering children in the night. The king handed the girl his sword and ordered her to kill the goblin-like creature.

“She barely won. But in the end, as she thrust the sword deep into the monster’s gut, she felt something so profoundly that she thought it would consume her. So she told the king. She whispered the words and meant them with every part of her rage-filled soul: ‘I hate you. I hateallof you.’ When she lifted the sword again, she intended to pierce it right through his heart.

“That was the first time the girl had ever seen the faery king smile.”

I lift my hand and press my palm to Kiaran’s cheek. “You’ll have to finish the story. She never knew why he smiled. Just that one day, she wanted to see him do it again. So she dropped the sword and spared his life. And she never told the king what really happened that night.”

Kiaran looks amused. “The king knew the girl’s plan all along. He smiled because he decided he liked her. She kept things interesting.”

I stare at him. “So the faery king is a deranged sort. As the girl always suspected.”

“How about his side of this story?” He pulls me close, his lips soft on my shoulder. “He never told the girl that during a hunt, when she ran alongside him with the wind in her hair and the moonlight behind her, that she was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen and he wanted her.”

Then Kiaran’s hands are in my hair, lips brushing mine. “And when the king watched her in battle, she’d look over at him with a smile and he desired her.

“It was never at once,” he continued. “It was after everything they had gone through and then it was the king and the girl facing an entire army together. And he knew the truth. His heart was hers. It always was. It always will be.”

A shadow crosses Kiaran’s irises. A reminder that he’s still fighting. Just to be here. With me. He shuts his eyes, expression strained. Before I can ask if he’s all right, he pulls me against him and holds me close.

His next words are spoken under his breath, so low I wonder if I heard them at all. “The girl helps the king keep his darkness at bay.”

In the hours before dusk, I know it’s time to tell him everything. “Don’t go to war with Aithinne.”

He sighs. “Kam—”

“She doesn’t want it,” I interrupt. “I’m the one who killed your soldiers.”

“I gathered that when you announced it in my hallway,” Kiaran says dryly. “And when you made quick work of my men outside.” He’s counting my vertebrae, fingers sliding up one at a time, inch by inch. His touch is gentle. When he kisses my back, his lips are as light as moth wings.

“I had to get your attention. It was Aithinne’s idea.”

“I thought that dramatic entrance had suggested-by-Aithinne all over it.” His fingertips sweep down, down across my spine. So slow that I shiver. “I can feel the pulse of power straining beneath your skin,” he murmurs. “I know it’s not yours. You’ve made a terrible decision, haven’t you?”

“How do you know?”

“Easy. You have a knack for attracting mayhem.”

“I think it was a wonderful decision, all things considered. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You’re using my affections to garner sympathy. It won’t work.” He pulls back and looks down at me, serious now. “Tell me what you did.”

“What I had to do,” I say.

There was no other choice. The decision between death and one final goodbye isn’t truly a choice. The Cailleach gambled on me saying yes.

She placed her bet and she won.

I tell him about what happened after Sorcha killed me. “If we find the Book, you don’t have to kill Aithinne,” I say softly. “It’ll end the curse. We can change everything back to the way it was before all of this. All the people we failed to save will have their lives back, their homes back.” When he doesn’t respond, I press closer, whispering in his ear, “You and I will run through the night again. We’ll dance in the rain and watch the sun rise over the sea. This time I won’t even mind if you show up unannounced at my house as long as you don’t break my father’s vases again.”

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