Page 94 of A Fate Everlasting

The guard dipped his head. “They were recovered. They are with the High King.”

“Good.” There was a pause, one single, razor-thin breath. I knew I would feel the wrath of it. Whatever warmth had been in her voice before, whatever careful persuasion she had attempted, was gone. She turned to me this time.

“The High King will see her now.”

45

The chains bit into my wrists. A surge of cold air snaked through the passageway, cutting through the stagnant heat. I flinched at the shift in temperature. We were rising, ascending the Sanctum. The stairs twisted beneath my feet like they wanted to swallow me whole. I couldn’t tell how far we’d gone, only that the air was getting thinner and colder.

“Move.” A gloved hand clamped around my arm and yanked. I’d paused to catch my breath, to map the way back if they dragged me here again. “The High King doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

My legs wavered, stiff with fear. My wounds ached, a burn blooming in my gut, but I wouldn’t be weak for this.

We wove through the Sanctum,up and up,until we reached the level of the throne room. The heavy stone doors to the chapel groaned open with a deafening screech. My lungs screamed for air, but the scent of incense mixed with something acrid, my body rejecting every inhale.

The cold caught in my throat. It pricked along my skin, raw in my lungs. Darkness clung to the corners like reclusive spiders, shifting back from the blue glow of etherlight. So didthe man at the center pew, until he rose slowly, like he already expected me to kneel.

He was not cloaked, this time. He was a contradiction to everything I’d imagined him to be. That made him all the more terrifying.Not some monstrous Daemon, not a gnarled, decaying relic. He was beautiful. Ageless, otherworldly, the same sculptedness as his son. But where Dante was storm and shadow, his father was ice.

Light struck the cut of his cheekbone, pale hair spilling like silk over a jet-black mourning coat. He balanced a black wood staff, siver filigree spiralling along it. The High King of Elsewhere stopped before me, studying me like a puzzle he had not yet decided was worth solving.

“At last, Arabella.” His voice slid over me, unhurried. “We meet.” I didn’t let myself tremble. I didn’t bow.

He flicked his hand, and an unseen force yanked me upright. “Stand,” he said. “And breathe. If I wanted you dead, you would be.”

My knees trembled, blood stalling as if his stare had throttled the beat from my veins. Still, I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

He studied me, faint amusement curling his lips. Then, almost like an afterthought he said, “So this is the only living child of a Fallen Angel.” His gaze traced over me, unimpressed. “I expected more.”

The chapel buckled, the words splintering like shards of stained glass. I staggered, my vision a swirling sea of light and dark.That couldn’t be true.

Blood roared in my ears. It was a deafening, frenzied drumbeat that drowned out everything but the searing truth that had just been spoken into existence.The daughter of a Fallen Angel.

A soundless scream tore from my throat. “That’s not possible,”I breathed. “Fallen Angels can’t have children. Their blood dies with them.” I looked at him. “You’re lying.”

“Lies are a waste of breath.” His staff traded hands. “It shouldn’t have been possible, but your mother wasn’t fully Fallen when she conceived. You were born in that threshold, somewhere between light and damnation.”

I thought of her then, really tried to remember. Her hands were always cold and trembling. Her eyes were always rimmed with darkness underneath like she hadn’t slept. She’d always seemed worried, especially the last few years.

I wanted to scream that he was lying. I needed him to be, but like everything else I’d learned, something in me knew in that terrible, marrow-deep certainty. I licked my lips, tasting salt, and willed the tears away.

“No. I saw it. She escaped. You gave her the Lumen to make her human.”

“Human?” His laugher was tight. “No. She’d been marked. She was just the illusion of one.” He continued smoothly, like he was relishing every flicker of disbelief that crossed my face. “Your mother was an Angel. A top-scorer, until the day she called upon me.”

“Shewasan Angel.” The room shrank around me. “Then how did she Fall?” My voice barely carried. “If she had so much going for her, why did she need an escape?”

“Fallen Angels are created through an action so morally depraved or selfish it can never be undone,” the High King said. “She traded you, and in that moment, she Fell.”

The chapel swam. I grabbed for something, anything to hold onto, but everything slipped through me. My mother had made her choice. And it had been me.

“No.” I whispered it, but I wasn’t sure if I was denying him or the truth of it. “What was she so afraid of? What was she running from?”

He smiled cruelly. “So many questions, and still not the right one,” he mused, tilting his head. “Evangeline wasn’trunning from anything. She was in love.”

A strangled sound escaped me, a laugh. Or maybe a sob. “Love?” The words scraped raw against my throat. “You’re telling me she did all of this—all of this tome—forlove?”

The High King breathed through his nose, like he was bored of my ignorance. “She foolishly fell in love with a human. She did not want to go to the After. She believed if she escaped Evermore, she could leave it all behind and become mortal. She wanted nothing more than to walk among them as if she had never been marked at all, and she was willing to pay eternally for it.”

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