Page 111 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“It’s hiding behind my desire to stay alive.”
“I’m with Beau,” Caer said. “This is nonsense. All this parading around and jumping through hoops—all for what?”
“To ensure your safety, lad.”
“But I’m not worth it!” Caer shouted. “All of this—Fort—going into the Deep—I’m not worth it!”
The room stung with silence.
You are to me,Aislinn whispered internally, wishing she could find the strength to speak.You are absolutely worth it to me.
Minerva spoke first. “Caer,” she said, “I understand your reservations. Truly, I do. But if we don’t do this, then Fort’s death was in vain—”
“I can’t lose another one of you. I can’t.”
“I understand that, too. But the thing is, you don’t get to decide whatwethink is worth it. You don’t get to decide about how we feel about you. And are you ready, really, to go back into the world? What will you do? Go home and be hunted? Ask Aislinn’s family to grant you sanctuary, and spend years avoiding human touch?”
Caer’s eyes circled to Aislinn. In that moment, she knew she could not ask him that, knew more than ever what she’d be condemning him to. He’d be alive, yes, but at what cost?
“I didn’t think so.”
Caer swallowed, eyes cast to the floor. “I wish I could promise you all not to do anything stupid for my sake.”
Minerva snorted. “Aislinn alone can make that vow,” she said sagely. “And somehow, I don’t think she will.”
Allinall,DillonWoodfern thought he was adjusting rather well to being dead. Knowing his father was still alive, that a good part of his life hadn’t withered in the years he’d been gone, helped. Knowing that Ladrien, the Unseelie King, hadn’t taken over in the years he’d been gone helped too.
Decades. He’d beendeadfordecades.This was Faerie, so doubtless not much had changed in that time, but still, it was a long time to be…
Dead.He was dead.
Perhaps he wasn’t coping as well as he thought.
Joining a group of dwarves on a mission had been a wise idea. Having something to focus on stopped his mind from wandering too much… although the nights when everyone was sleeping and he wasn’t invited a lot of time for intrusive thoughts. He’d never known such silence. In Faerie, there was always someone awake, some revel happening in the gardens of the palace he’d served.
He sighed, thinking longingly of the few times he and Juliana were on duty together, the jokes they would make about the prince they were guarding.
Who she’d married.
This hardly surprised him. One of the last conversations he’d ever had with Juliana—his last conversations he’d ever hadperiod—had been trying to convince her to realise that perhaps she had feelings for him. He’d known for years about Hawthorn’s affections for Juliana… largely because the young prince had a habit of getting morosely drunk on her days off and had, on more than one occasion, confessed that he found her to be ‘an exceptional woman and infuriating beauty with a range of unquestionably fantastic talents’. These confessions were swiftly followed by a threat and an instruction never to tell her any of this.
Although Dillon had liked Juliana a great deal himself, he was happy that they’d found each other. It was strange. He remembered his death. He remembered his last thoughts being ofher,of wishing they could have been more to one another, but although all of that should have felt like yesterday to him, it did feel like years had passed between then and now—like Juliana was a childhood crush he’d long surpassed.
His death, too, didn’t haunt him in the way he felt it ought to. Ladrien sneering as he pulled out the knife sparked no fear. There was a muted distance between then and now.
Where had he been in all that time?
Mortals believed in gods and a heavenly plain above the clouds, a rest for the worthy. Fae believed that souls became energy—that they fed the flowers, whispered in the air, transformed into magic itself. But if that was the case, how had he come back?
He was no magician, but he was sure that ought to have been impossible. Beau—who seemed far more knowledgeable about such matters—certainly seemed to think it was.
“Hello!” sounded a cheery voice from the doorway of the room Jasper had found for him—a tack room attached to the stables. Whilst they were populated entirely by giant dogs rather than horses, Dillon found the scent of hay to be very comforting. The cat had been helpful too. She reminded him of one that used to lurk around the stables when he was a boy, although she was doubtless dead and gone by now.
His chest warmed at the face beaming up at him. It was Luna, the smallest of the dwarves, now out of her travelling clothes in a soft lilac dress stitched with blue flowers, holding a large basket of steaming baked goods.
“I brought you some muffins.”
“That’s so kind of you,” he said, taking the basket. A sweet, warm scent drifted through his nostrils. How odd he could still see and hear and smell even when taste and touch were largely alluding him. “But… I don’t need to eat.”
