Page 26 of Crown of Wrath

He frowns, his expression darkening as realization takes hold. “But if you’re an adult, and you know about your powers…” His gaze shifts—not to my eyes, but to my forehead, where the golden-brown glow of the Painted Crown shimmers across my brow. His voice falters, edged with something between awe and unease. “You’ve claimed the Painted Crown.” He pauses, his words slow and deliberate. “Then where is your mother? She should be here. She should be teaching you… guiding you.”

I shake my head, struggling to absorb his words. I’ve been so angry at my mother—at Brenna, the Queen of Shadows—that I never stopped to think there might be more to her choices. She might have more reasons for the lies. I wasn’t supposed to send my father to the void, and I wasn’t supposed to grow up in the care of Trevor and Prudence. My Da was supposed to be the one to tell me everything when the time was right.

“You knew everything?” I ask, my voice trembling.

He nods, his gaze steady. “Brenna never lied to me. I’ve always known—about the bloodline that runs through our veins,the Painted Crown, and the Shattering. Whatever you think you know about your mother, Maeve, it’s only a fraction of the truth. She was someone else before she met me. A Queen. A warrior. A High Fae. All of that was her past.”

He smiles softly, the kind of smile that eases the weight in your chest. “You are your mother’s daughter, Maeve. Hard and furious and clever when you need to be. But you’re kind, too, in a world that doesn’t deserve it.”

Kind. The word feels foreign, like it belongs to someone I used to be. I shake my head, the cracks in me widening. “That… that was the old Maeve,” I whisper, my voice breaking under the weight of the truth. I’ve held myself together with nothing but force of will for so long, and now it’s all unraveling. I’m falling apart.

He takes my hands in his, his grip firm but warm. “Little Star,” he says gently, “you don’t have to act like that with me. Maybe you’ve had to harden your heart against the world, but that doesn’t make you cruel. That just helped you survive. Deep down, you’re still the girl I raised. You’re still your mother’s daughter.”

His words, the warmth in his hands, and the quiet certainty in his voice—they pull at me. It’s so similar to when I was a child. Back then, I didn’t run to him for protection. That was Vesta’s role. No, I went to my father when my heart hurt. I went to him when I needed to be reminded that there was still love in the world.

Somehow, he’s doing the same now. His voice, his touch, and the look in his eyes melt the ice I’ve packed into the cracks of my broken heart. Sandor Arden has done, with a single conversation, what I couldn’t manage in fifteen years.

“I love you, Maeve,” he says, his voice steady and unshaken. “Everything’s going to be okay. Things are hard, but they’re going to get better.”

Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. My father has never had the power to change the future, but right now, maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe, deep down, I already know I’m strong enough to protect myself. What I can’t do is heal the wounds in my heart.

But my father might be able to help. When he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close, I don’t resist. I’ve needed him for so long. Fifteen years of longing, and now he’s here.

And I’ve never doubted his love.

Chapter 13

We knew the hunters would come. The Old Ones had no more desire to be destroyed by them than we were, and so they allowed us to put them to sleep. It was the kind of sleep that would last millennia. At least long enough that the hunters would consider this region of the Unending Sea purged of magic. We put them into a sleep that none, save a dragon, could wake them from.

Calyr the Gold, A History of Magic and Dragons

Maeve

My father was a little overwhelmed by everyone at the nightly fire, and he retired to the cottage early. Bog the goblin, Rivertail the faun, Lirael the banshee, and all the other members of the village of Aerwyn were excited to see us again, though myexcitement was dampened. Cole was absent from dinner, but that’s not very surprising.

With Cole and Da being mostly absent, no one seemed surprised when I excused myself early. They may not have known what exactly was going on, but they understood thatsomethinghad all our emotions tied up in knots.

Like so many nights in the past, I wander into the forest in search of clarity. The scent of pine boughs is everywhere in the dark wind, and big red oak leaves lay on the ground in piles at the base of the enormous trees that hide the cottages.

Even in the darkness, the tangled mess of greens and browns of the forest are muted compared to this summer when I was here last. Everything has a touch of gray to it, just another reminder that winter is coming, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

As I walk, the familiar sensation of shadows streaming from my fingertips reminds me that things have changed. It’s like coming home. Even without thinking about the Shade or Cole, I know that there’s more to me than the Queen of Earth. There’s a part of me that is still human. I am Maeve Arden. The Queen of Earth is my title, not who I am.

Like Darian said, I remember what it was like to have humanity in me. Iwantto feel it again.

“Your father’s alive,” a voice says from behind me.

I turn, a grin on my face for the first time in what feels like forever. Cole is standing there, leaning against a tree. He’s wearing his red gambeson, a stark contrast against the gray and dark world around us. He’s handsome in a way that no human could ever claim to be. The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

And I don’t hate him.

And I’m desperate for him.

But I’m terrified of what that means.

“He is.” The words are soft whispers in a world of silence. We haven’t spoken since I pulled Da out of the void. The Shade just seemed to disappear a few moments after we’d come to Aerwyn. “He doesn’t remember being in the void at all. I guess that my mother protected him from it.”

Cole pushes off from the tree trunk and steps toward me, his bright blue eyes fixed on me. “You seem better. More…whole.”

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