Page 72 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

“Our survival comes before hers,” I agreed, and there was no hesitation in that. If it came down to us or her, I would always choose us.

I thought of the male I’d seen in the trials, the one who stared down at me from his throne while he forced me to perform, to prove my worth. It had to be sacrilege to think that the being who was responsible for the creation of the world was incapable of feeling, but I couldn’t help but wonder if asking him to help was a more difficult task than asking Mab to stop killing.

We could only do what we were capable of, and a creature who was not capable of empathy would have no mercy to offer. Expecting him to help was a dream that would never come to fruition.

In this, we were alone.

But I nodded anyway, hating the way his brow furrowed with my thoughts. While I loved that I didn’t need to try to explain my feelings to him any longer, that I didn’t need to find the words to make them make sense to another being, I wished I could shelter him from the hard truth I already knew.

I stepped into my leggings, pulling the moldable fabric up my legs. It clung to my skin in the humid air of the cove, but I forced my way into the matching undershirt that donned me in black. Caldris dressed in his own trousers and tunic far more quickly than I did, given his weren’t nearly as tight. He was the one to raise my armor from the stone, stepping forward to hold it out. I slid both arms in, turning to give him my back so that he could fasten the latches that ascended my spine. I ran a finger over the golden snake embroidered into the faint green scales of armor, the meaning of it having a far deeper effect on me than it had when the Morrigan first gifted it to me.

It was a symbol of my mother, of the parent that seemed to love me even though she’d been deprived of centuries with me. She wanted nothing more than for me to find my truth and reach my full potential, but I felt a kinship with her that I didn’t think I would ever have with Khaos. Caldris’s fingers skimmed over the bare skin at the top of my spine, the touch a gentle tease that made me wish for nothing more than to stay hidden away in the caves and live out our lives in peace here. He touched his lips to the tips of my ears, his breath soft and warm as if he understood the urge.

For once, I wished we could put ourselves first.

But neither my mate or I had that in us. Neither of us was capableof leaving those to suffer at Mab’s hands and hiding away in this place.

Belladonna slithered up my leg, winding her way around my torso until she came to rest around my shoulder and bicep. She blinked at me, her pretty eyes holding mine for a moment before she closed them. Her entire body turned to a deep amethyst crystal as she hardened, her body shimmering in the dim lighting. She looked like a piece of jewelry rather than a familiar, hidden from prying eyes that might not expect her to be a living thing. I ran a finger over her, the crystalline surface unnaturally warm for stone.

“We have to go,” I said aloud as I petted her, my voice far too weak sounding for the strength I felt physically. I’d thought I understood what it was to be strong, but the simple joining of my soul with Caldris’s was enough to make me feel invincible.

“I know,” Caldris answered, latching the final hook on my armor. He stepped around me, shoving his own on as I forced my feet into my boots.

He stilled suddenly, stretching his fingers out with a pained gasp. I felt the pain in my own palm rise in response as I stepped toward him, following his gaze to where he stared down at his hand in surprised horror. A white circle spread from the center of his palm, extending out into the shape of the points of a snowflake. It wasn’t the same white that had been on hisviniculumbefore it shifted to gold, but the kind that I expected to feel like ice when I touched a trembling finger to it.

“What is that?” I asked, cradling his hand in my own.

He stared down at it, not raising his eye to meet mine as I sifted through his thoughts. The knowledge of it settled in my gut, striking me like a punch.

Twyla was dead. Caldris gritted his teeth through the pain that followed, stumbling back as a winter breeze tore through the cavern. It bypassed me entirely, striking him straight in the chest. His blue eyes glowed white for a moment, magic settling in his body as I stared around at the swaying threads. The silver crown atop his head flowed with ice, turning from that metallic gleam to the sheer form of frozen icicles.

With his mother’s death, Caldris had become the King of the Winter Court. The air around us was the shimmering light of the cavern, but the swirling vortex that surrounded him was all cold and ice. It came in a torrent of a storm, separating us and pressing in closer to his body as it tried to encase him in the eye. I could still seehim through it, see the cool determination and blank expression on his face in the gaps between icicles as they formed, touching to his skin and hanging from his body like the melting waters rushing off a roof. They clung to him, hanging from his brow and his ears, from his forearms where they hung at his sides. The golden tone of his skin cooled slightly under the weight of that ice, paling as it spread across him in a thin layer. His lips turned blue as crystalline patterns of ice closed over his mouth, sealing off a final puff of warm breath in the too-cold air. The pool behind him froze over, white flakes of ice spreading from the shore to cross over the surface. The creatures living within froze in place, movement ceasing as the magic of the Winter Court found a new body to settle into.

I reached for him, snapping my hand back as the bitter cold burned my skin. The winds stopped as suddenly as they’d come, vanishing from Caldris as he inhaled another breath. The ice retreated from his skin far more slowly than it had taken him over, a single inhalation of breath warming his skin back to the golden hue I recognized. Warmth returned to his features as the snow left him, but his eyes were pure ice as he stared at me.

He crossed the gap between us, cupping my cheek in a hand that I half expected to give me frostbite. Instead, his warmth sank into me, leaving me to lean into the touch as I looked up at him. His thumb skimmed over the top of my cheekbone where it met my temple, and then he raised that touch along the curve of my hairline. He leaned down, touching his mouth to the top of my head as cold bloomed atop my hair. A snowflake spread from the point of contact, the feeling of the tiny pieces where they protruded from the center strange against my skin. More followed as Caldris twisted me to stare down at my reflection in the pool in front of us as it thawed, watching as they formed a headband across the top of my head.

My mate pulled the length of my hair into his hands, sweeping it back over my shoulders. Deft fingers worked to fix it into a braid, the gentle ease of the touch feeling just as much about his comfort as mine.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, my voice a soft murmur. I didn’t know what to say to offer my condolences for the woman who had given him life, his own feelings more muted than I would have expected. He couldn’t tuck them away and hide them from me completely, not with the fresh bond pulsing between us, but he did what he could to shield me from his pain.

“I had a feeling you would hit me if I fashioned you a crownfit for my Queen,” he said, his mouth dropping down to my shoulder. I shuddered from the intimate contact even as everything else in me tightened. I hadn’t stopped to think about the implications for Caldris becoming the King, hadn’t even allowed myself to think past what waited for me in the rest of Tartarus.

If we managed to deal with Mab, if we managed to free the Fae trapped under her rule, that meant Caldris had a duty to the people of the Winter Court.

And as his mate, my duty was to be at his side.

So much for my quiet life.

“We don’t need to think about that right now. We can’t do anything to help the Winter Court in this moment, so you should take the time you need to gather your thoughts. Take the time to let yourself feel her loss,” I said, forcing my anxiety over the future to the side so that I could focus on what Caldris needed if he would just stop being too stubborn to acknowledge it. I turned to face him as he finished with my braid, reaching up to cup his face in my hand that was far warmer than his skin. “You need to grieve.”

“I barely knew her,” he said, dismissing the sympathy with a shrug of his shoulders. He stepped past me, giving me his back as he retracted the magic of winter from the pool. The water unfroze, the ice melting until the fairies and serpents located within it moved freely once more, steam rising off the water in the wake of his winter.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t get to grieve her. She was your mother, and the ability to have a relationship with her was taken from you when you were so young. You’re allowed to grieve the knowledge that you will never have the chance to repair that bond now. Even if you aren’t grieving for what you lost, you still have the right to grieve for what will never be,” I said, wrapping him in my arms. I held him firm, waiting for his tense body to soften and hug me back.

When he finally did, it was with a deep sigh of regret that I felt in every muscle of my body. His chin rested atop my head, his body going pliant as we stood there, and Caldris finally let himself feel the weight of the world on his shoulders.

We needed to go, but we took a few minutes alone to grieve together, for what might have been before and could have been in the future.

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