Page 12 of A Reign of Roses
Inside was a delicate, carved hairpin.
Two identical iron spears met at the top where three daisies of different sizes curved around the outstretched wings of a swallow in flight.
The smile that cracked my lips was the first I’d felt in months.
3
Kane
My fists crackled with obsidianthorns and shadowed scales as I beheld Len, no longer on a worm-rotted wooden stool, but now seated in a sleek upholstered leather chair. Fit for a king rather than a man. Or a witch or a beast—I still didn’t know what Len was. He hadn’t answered my question.
“Whatareyou?” I snarled once more. My rage sent the flames of the white candles around us flickering.
“Would it make a difference? I can’t help you.”
Fury—blazing fury—radiated through my chest. “Whynot?”
“I serve the many realms. Not heartsick boys.”
Serve the many realms…“Do not lie to me.”
The man that wasn’t Len frowned as he stood, his chair scuffing along the luxe rug beneath us. “About which part? The heartsick boys or…”
My mouth was inexplicably dry as I watched him pour himself a glass of whiskey from an ornate carafe. “A God? You’re a Fae God?”
He dipped his chin. “Frankly, I thought you’d get there quicker, boy.”
Was it possible that a God truly stood before me? I jerked my head around as if I could shake the shock away. “What is a Fae God doing holed up in Vorst?”
Irritation crested in his depthless eyes. “Do you have no fear? Most used to bow before me.”
Used to.My mind scattered and realigned itself twice over. “A disgraced God. A banished one,” I murmured. “What did you do?”
The man that was not the White Crow took his seat once more, now with a swirling amber drink. “I interfered with the lives of mortals. Who knew compassion for lesser beings was an existential sin?”
I had come all this way. Flown through hail and wind and ice. Topped clouds and peaks and pines higher than the stars. I’d scoured the Pearl Mountains for the White Crow. Scaled a mountain—and plunged from it—for days trying to reach him. And now I beheld a true Fae God. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the only chance I would get.
“You know what I seek,” I said, so low I hardly heard myself. “Can you make me full-blooded? I’m nearly so already. My father, Lazarus—”
“I don’t require your recounting, boy. I watched your father rock in his cradle.”
“Then you know what a monster he is. You know that blade may be gone already. Turn me, and let me rid this world of him.”
“The blade cannot be destroyed,” the God said, bored eyes on his drink. “Not by anyone.”
“That won’t stop my father.” I would have tied a thousandweights to the thing and sunk it to the bottom of the Ocean of Ore. Or fed it to an ogre, the blade safe within its monstrous gut.
“It didn’t stop him. But the blade always found its way back. If the Blade of the Sun cannot be with its master, it will find a new one, mortal or otherwise.”
Adrenaline and lighte both recessing, I slumped into my own plush leather chair across from him. “Where is it now?”
“With your father. In Solaris.”
“Turn me,” I said, heart in my throat. “I will do anything you ask.”
“I did ask. You answered incorrectly.”
“Your questions don’t matter,” I bit out, slamming my hands onto the heavy table between us. “She isn’talive.”
