Page 60 of The Shattered Kingdom
I don’t know any other faeries who can hold open a portal long enough for a unit of soldiers to travel through. I can make it if I shift into my animal form and run through the night.
I doubt my father would invite me onto his lands if he didn’t have something to share. He has either Callie or Lillian, probably both. He’s willing to negotiate.
“It’s not possible,” Kie says. “I’m not sure what game Alpha Theon is playing at, but—"
“I can do it,” I interrupt. I have noother choice. “If I take off from the entrance at Farbay and run throughout the night, I’ll make it to Traul River just before sunrise.”
Abby’s chewing her fingernails, gnawing at the skin like a little cannibal. She’s nervous for my safety. I can see it in her eyes. I can’t remember the last time somebody was worried about me, and my chest fills with warmth as her gaze flickers rapidly between me and Kie.
Kie shakes his head. “I can open a portal there and back. I’ll go.”
“Why?” His offer makes no sense. “Alpha Theon will be expecting me. He won’t be willing to negotiate with you, especially considering your recent title change. He wants to meet with the king. Me.”
My words are harsh, but they’re true. For the first time in our lives, my word holds more value than Kie’s.
“You can’t go, Mace,” Kie says. His voice is deceptively soft. He uses it when he’s trying not to upset me. “Your father isn’t the honorable man you think he is. He’ll take advantage of you, and it’s best if you remain here with Abby.”
I work my jaw side to side, my eyes darting toward Abby. I don’t appreciate what Kie’s implying, but I don’t want to lose my composure in front of her. I’m trying really fucking hard not to frighten her, and I’ve been doing an excellent job these past few days.
“I am perfectly capable of handling this meeting myself,” I insist.
Faeries hate shifters, especially my father. They want to see us eradicated, they always have, and Kie is no different. He may not voice his feelings out loud, especially not to me, but they’re there. He hates my kind, and he’ll disrespect my father. He can’t be the one to go.
Kie drags his fingers through his hair. “There are things youdon’t know about Alpha Theon.”
“Like what?”
I’m under no illusions that my father is a wonderful, loving man. He abandoned me to the faeries. He’s a shit father, I know that, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a fair leader. Besides, I’m still his son. Family means something to shifters.
Kie looks like he wants to scream, but he won’t. He won’t lose composure. It’s not the way faeries operate.
Kie sucks in a deep breath before continuing. “My mother offered your family to visit you on neutral grounds every summer for fifteen years, and she even offered to give you leave, allowing you to enter the shifter lands for a week for your eighteenth birthday. Every attempt, and there were hundreds, she made to reconnect you with your family was rejected.”
My heart thumps, and I swallow down the painful disappointment.
Kie continues. “My mother only ever received one letter from Alpha Theon that addressed you, and—”
“Where is it?”
Kie blinks. “What?”
“Where is the letter?”
I don’t care to hear his inaccurate interpretation of what my father said, and the queen was notorious for saving her correspondence. She was painfully organized, and nobody knows her office better than Kie. It was meant to be his one day, after all.
“I don’t think you—”
“Where. Is. It.”
Kie sighs. “Top left drawer of her desk.”
I turn toward Abby. “Stay here.”
Leaving her makes my skin itch, but I push the discomfort aside. Kie is more than capable of watching her for a few minutes. I repeat that to myself as I storm through the property.
The late queen’s office is beside Kie’s, and it’s locked. I break the handle and force my way inside, my ears ringing as I rip open the top drawer of her desk. There are several letters inside, and I flick through them before finding the one from my father. I faintly recognize his handwriting.
There are only two sentences inside.
