Page 140 of House of Embers
“This war will never end,” Irena said with a shake of her head. “My father was just one of a long line of dead.”
“Mab would be devastated if she had made the trip with us, her beloved Samil.”
“Forget the past,” Irena said angrily. “Mab is not here. My father is gone. We only have you, Titania. You must do something. You are the strongest among us.”
Titania ripped her arm from Irena. “You do not know what you ask of me.”
“You fear returning to these new depths? The Dark Depths.”
“I cannot do it. I cannot give my magic to perish like the others,” Titania said.
“Then you are as selfish as all the others!” Irena raged. “Why come here at all? Why leave it all behind? Why live here in comfort when all your kin and your sister’s kin and your husband’s kin die out there?”
Titania rose up, suddenly growing much taller than the younger Fae. “You know nothing of time, Irena. I have favored you this far. What you ask is beyond my control.”
Irena scoffed. “You have nothing for me? Fine. I will go make my own way then.”
Titania let her go. With her nose turned up and her pride wounded at the girl’s very true words, Titania watched Irena go. She watched her kin die, just as Irena said. And when it became most perilous, Titania went back to the girl.
She left the life she had built on the top of the mountain and came into Irena’s war camp. She held a metal crown that absorbed light and offered it to Irena.
“What is it?” Irena asked.
“It was forged by He Who Reigns. It will end this war.”
Irena’s eyes widened. “That does not answer my question.”
“You can control the beasts or you can kill them. You can use the usurper’s great power to deal the final blow. It is up to you.”
“How?”
“Put it on the head of a dragon and choose.”
Irena’s hands trembled as she took the crown from Titania’s hands. “I don’t want to kill them,” Irena told Titania. “I don’t want to end the dragons. I just want a better world where we can live together. Alfheim is not open to us any longer. We must remain here or go to the Dark Depths. I will use this to make them see reason.”
“Good,” Titania said, washing her hands of it. “Win your war, and then come back to the way things are meant to be.”
“Thank you,” Irena said. She bowed to the mother of the Fae. “You will be remembered for this.”
Shadows swirled around Irena, and then she shadow-jumped out of the tent.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Reason
The same shadows dispersed around the clearing, and suddenly they had returned to the altar. Irena was gone. Only Titania stood before them.
Kerrigan’s heart pounded as the memory warred through her. “You…you gave her the crown.”
“Yes,” Titania said.
“You are the reason that all this happened,” Fordham accused.
“I smuggled the crown out of Domara long ago to spite him. I never planned to use it. I did not warn Irena that it was as likely to lend itself to corruption as I gave it to her because Irena was the purest of us all. She truly wanted the Fae and dragons to work together. To ally. But it went all wrong, and I have been here, alone, since.”
Silence stretched between them as the truth of the Irena Bargain was finally fully laid bare. Irena had been trying to help the Fae and dragons unite. With the help of Titania’s interference, He Who Reigns had wrecked the bond. Out of that had come the Society and all their rules to protect the dragons and grow the world the Fae had stolen from humans and were now inhabiting.
No wonder the Fae hated the humans who were here before themand had easily allied with the dragons and the half-Fae who had come from the union of their people—and the dragons they couldn’t quite tame but only leash. The whole thing was horrific.
