Page 61 of Beltane

I willed the green energy around us, the magic of Midsummer that had gifted us with the power to be here in the first place. I imagined the four of us standing inside Miri’s castle walls, our fortress, our safe haven, holding hands with an unbreakable grip. We were wrapped together by more than skin and bone, our magic kept us permanently linked. Nothing and no one could separate us again, and as long as we were together, we were immortal. Alberich’s dark swords couldn’t penetrate our emerald shield or our stony foundation. We were forged in the fires of our love for each other, in the depths of our undeniable vow.

Only once I had Carter’s support and Miri’s acceptance, only once I knew Lex wouldn’t fight me, only then did I lower the shield to the connection I’d forged with the king. His dark fury rushed at me, twisting and obsidian like the mist he threw at the queen, but it bounced off us, disintegrating into nothingness at our feet.

I surged forward.

He resisted, throwing up a thick mental cloud of magic. Its tension weighed us down and suffocated us despite how strong our walls had become. But I pushed through, using all the strength I had to shove inside.

My brain splintered, and a sharp dagger of pressure sliced through the center of my forehead, but I held Carter and Miri’s hands tighter, using the energy they offered to ignore that pain, ignore it all, just keep fighting him, just keep going.

He was weaker than the last time I’d tried to crack through his mind, so the barrier between us vanished much quicker than I remembered, almost like he wanted me there. I didn’t waste the opportunity. I rifled through his memories like a spider, twisting through his timeline faster than I had before.

Walking through the veil, knowing Diana would meet me there?—

Toying with Ivette’s siblings, entering their minds to make them believe whatever I wanted, planting scenes for them to play out?—

Meeting with Poppy, going back in time, dark tendrils wrapping around the bow of a sailboat, screams dying in water as Marcus drowned?—

The ache in my chest echoed in Lex’s, and I gritted my teeth to go deeper, further back, past the time he’d spent in the human realm, past the fight with Diana in the first place. There was something hidden here, something he’d locked away a long time ago. I focused on the queen.

Her white light burst through the darkness, and suddenly, we were catapulted into her memories as well. Back before time and space, back before the war with the humans, back when they were young.

He had been beautiful, his jaw clean shaven, his eyes not yet so angry and soulless. He had once used his magic for creation, for breathing life into the planet and the world around him. Together with Diana, they’d built everything we’d ever known of Faerie. They’d created their community, and eventually, the one that had been destroyed when humans decimated their populations.

In this particular memory, they sat in front of a fireplace inside a small home with stone walls and uneven wooden planks for floors. They’d bathed in the same water we had at Midsummer and drank from the same enchanted wine, letting their most vulnerable emotions run wild between them. And now, they’d returned to their home to celebrate the evening in peace.

“I’ll love you forever, Diana,” he had told her, lifting her hands to his mouth so he could kiss every knuckle.

“I’ll love you, too, Alberich.” She leaned in to connect their mouths, and the flutter in his heart had nearly made him gasp. In all his years wandering this dreaded existence, he had never considered that he might feel this way about someone, that he might find his one true love and feel so completely consumed by her.

“Marry me,” he said, leaning back to meet her gaze. She had looked so much younger then, but still as gorgeous and resplendent as she was today. “Be my queen. Share my magic with me, share my soul.”

She smiled, and her eyes shimmered with tears as she nodded. “Yes. Yes, my love. Yes.”

“Until the end,” he’d whispered.

“Until the end,” she’d replied.

He kissed her, his heart overwhelmed with pure, undiluted joy. He loved her so thoroughly, so deeply, he believed there would never come a moment when they would find themselves on opposite sides of a war, much less over a human child.

Once upon a time, Alberich had been compassionate and loving. He’d been gentle to everything—Diana, humans, other fairies. He had an affectionate heart.

Present-day Alberich balked against the memory, trying to shove us out of his mind by forcing his worst memories to the forefront.

Holding Miri down while she struggled and screamed, manipulating her mind to make her believe she liked it.

Relishing in the sounds of Marcus’s dying gurgle.

Watching as Miri’s parents took their last breaths, knowing he could do something to stop it but choosing not to.

That was all it took to draw out that vengeful side of Miri. I sensed what she planned to do before she did it, and I couldn’t think of a reason to stop her.

“Do it,”Carter said telepathically, confirming luck was on our side.

“Ivette,” Alberich teased, “do you think you can make me sentimental? Do you think I could be that easily fooled?”

Miri pulled on the magic to gather the ruby dust, but I kept my focus on distracting the king, ignoring the shimmy through our bond as it vibrated with resonance, with the same thing that gave us our gifts.

“No,”I said inside his mind, inside all of our minds.“But you are a fool all the same.”

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