Page 50 of Kingdoms of Night

She felt something move at her wrist and looked down to see the bracelet he had placed there first turn back to a flower, then dry and crumble into dust. She thought the very same thing must be happening to her heart as she watched the remains swirl to the ground around her feet.

She applied herself to the ingredients, trying and failing to tune out everything else.

“You don’t have to respond, or even listen,” Blackthorn told her quietly after a moment. “But I’m going to tell you the reason behind my mission. You deserve to know.”

She silently cursed her foolish heart for aching at the sound of his sweet voice. After today, she would never hear it again. When she continued working without responding to him, he began to speak.

“I am told that my mother was once kind and joyful,” Blackthorn said thoughtfully. “She wandered the gardens as a child with her older brother, Spinosa. She danced and laughed.”

Farrow knew this. She had seen it in the memory of the persimmon.

“When they grew up, she was a great beauty,” Blackthorn went on. “She even captured the eye of the King. Her brother was happy for her, but he sought no such life for himself. The royal court held no interest for him. Instead, he fell in love with a mortal girl, a woman from the village that used to be not so far from your own. Together, they lived a simple life. They were deliriously happy, and they had two beautiful children.”

Farrow stirred the dry ingredients, doing her best not to listen, but unable to help herself.

“When the man king had his prophecy read, he lashed out at the Fae without warning,” Blackthorn said sadly. “He viciously chased my people from his towns, even sent away any mortal with a touch of magic. And he commanded his engineers and soldiers to build the great wall.”

Farrow knew all about the forbidden magic, and the wall. She had practically grown up in its shadow. But she’d never heard about any attacks on the Fae.

“You know about the magic because of your own situation,” he said. “But did you know that the Fae were once welcomed here, and mortals in our kingdom? Did you know our guard protected your people, and we shared in our various holidays? There was love between our peoples in my parents’ day. We still talk of it on the other side, though it is forbidden here.”

Her parents never spoke of such things. And she had been so little… Farrow began to melt the chocolate, trying to keep her heart from softening, too.

“When the man king declared he would put up his wall, my uncle and his family were devastated,” Blackthorn went on. “His home was in its path, and he would be forced to move back to the Fae kingdom with my mother. Only, your king’s decree forbade Fae and mortal to live together. So, his wife would have been forced to stay on the mortal side, cut off from her family. My uncle and his children would never have seen her again.”

She could see them in her mind, the Fae man and his wife, so much like her, and their frightened children.

“Instead of separating, they chose to take a stand, along with many other bi-cultural families,” Blackthorn said. “They and their allies stood in the place where the wall was to be built, forming a living barrier against the man king’s cruelty.”

Somehow, she knew what was coming before he told her. She wanted to stop him before he said the words, but couldn’t bring herself to.

“Your king himself led the charge to cut them down. Every single one,” he said, his voice brittle with grief. “Every man, woman, and child, down to the babes in arms. Not one was spared.”

A teardrop found its way into the melted chocolate. Farrow swiftly wiped the others from her cheeks.

“My mother was never the same,” Blackthorn said. “I was born later that year and she named me the common name for the same tree my Uncle Spinosa was named for. But she could not love me as she loved him. I do not know if she can ever love that way again.”

Farrow pulled the flower and berries out and began removing the fruits from the stem with trembling hands.

“And the queen is not the only one who suffered,” he went on. “My people were devastated by the man king’s actions. And those actions continue to this day. He isn’t out there in the field himself anymore, but if I told you of the atrocities he enacted against innocent Fae families using vicious spies who infiltrate our side, it would break you. This wickedness must be stopped.”

He was telling the truth. Of course he was - the Fae could not lie. But she didn’t need that to know - she could feel the weight of his words in her bones. No wonder she had gotten such a cold reception on the other side.

“But I will not poison your king, Farrow Barton” he said softly. “You know what he has done. You have the opportunity to end my people’s suffering. I have seen your kind now, and I know their hearts are not as wicked as his. A new king could take down the wall and welcome back our old accord. Our peoples could live in harmony once more, before the damage is too great to heal. But I leave it in your hands.”

He took her hand and slipped the thistlebaum into her palm.

She looked up as he stalked outside to study the ovens, leaving her alone with her swirling thoughts.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

BLACKTHORN

Blackthorn stood back with the other assistants, bowing low as the king’s guard entered with their cudgels, followed by the man king himself.

The man king’s robes were a rich scarlet that looked too much like blood, with burnished golden buttons. He wore a deerskin mantle and a crown of polished white antlers. His posture and lazy gait indicated power and regal grace.

But all Blackthorn saw was a brutal mass murderer, bent on genocide, all to keep a single blade from his own neck.

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