Page 145 of House of Embers
“Uh, hi,” she said.
“How come you to this place?”
“I put the crown on.”
The man tipped his head to the side. “You are the first.”
“The first?”
“To reach me.”
“Who…who are you?”
The man laughed as if he couldn’t believe what was happening, that she could not know who she spoke to. “A shadow of a self, trapped within that crown.”
Kerrigan’s eyes widened as she put the pieces together. “Fairgate?”
He spread his arms wide. “So you do know who I am.”
“I know of you,” she admitted. “I heard the tale of what happened with your brother.”
“That’s good. Don’t use his name. Best not to bring his attention to this place,” Fairgate said.
Kerrigan felt dizzy. She was talking to the brother of He Who Reigns. A man who was kin to her. “I don’t understand.”
“The forging of the crown required great magic. When my brother killed me, he trapped part of me in the binding of the crown,” Fairgate explained calmly. “I do not believe that he thought anyone would be able to reach me.” He tipped his head to the side. “How did you?”
“I…” Kerrigan began, opening and closing her mouth.
Fairgate took a step back, his face shuttering. “You are one of his.”
“Technically, he’s my grandfather, but I’ve never met him. I only recently discovered who my mother was, what my magic was…” She trailed off.
“And you are a demi,” Fairgate said with a small laugh. “It is best that he does not find you. My brother would certainly never look kindly upon that.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said.
“If you are able to reach me, then you are planning to use the crown,” Fairgate said.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Walk with me.”
Kerrigan fell into step beside the man. He was head and shoulders taller than her and otherworldly in every way that she had come to expect of the Doma. And yet he felt comfortable. Like she had known him her entire life. Like he was the only thing that made sense on this plane.
He must have been here for thousands and thousands, maybe ten thousand years or more, but he seemed unchanged. Even Titania had been slowly going mad from her isolation. How could he exist here and remain sane?
“Only he can wield the crown,” Fairgate explained, “or else it exacts a great price.”
“I know. Irena—she was the last person to use it—was stripped of her goodness. She was all darkness after its use, and it didn’t even do exactly what she wanted. It twisted the request into something horrible and insidious.”
“That is its way. That is my brother’s way,” Fairgate explained. “And it will be no different for you.”
Kerrigan sighed. “What do I do? This was supposed to be the way to win my war.”
“You cannot win with faulty weapons.”
“I know,” Kerrigan said. “I thought that because I was his kin, I would be able to access the powers. That it wouldn’t burn out with me as well.”
