CHAPTER ELEVEN
ARABELLA
It wasn’t a bunny. But surprisingly, despite the trouble O’Hare had caused, I wished it was.
Emerging from the grass was an enormous spotted cat, sleek and lithe with a thick tail that stood out behind him like the rudder on a boat. The cat’s eyes fastened on me and he released six rumbling grunts, like he was panting deeply. A tree sprang up from the ground beside us and the cat jumped up, shredding the trunk with its claws until the tree came to rest. The cat lazily stretched out over the lowest branch, tail twitching back and forth.
And then… he spoke.
Carden and I both took a step back.
“It is time for you to make a decision,” the cat purred. “Walk north, and you will find Arabella’s mother. Walk south, and you’ll find Carden’s brother.”
“Find them?” Carden asked tentatively. “I know where my brother is.”
“Do you?” the great cat questioned. “There is only one way to know for sure.”
“How will we know it’s not an illusion?”
“You’ll know in your bones,” the cat answered before yawning. His teeth were enormous and sharp. My head would fit easily in his mouth.
And the voice was eerily familiar. No doubt he was fae.
All at once, he was gone. In the single moment he was there, the sun moved across the sky and began to sink toward the west. I pointed to the north and south. “She’s trying to divide us,” I warned. “She knows you want to see your brother, and she knows I want to know where my mother is.”
“If she divides us, she wins,” he remarked softly. “As much as I’d like to see him, I know he wouldn’t feel the same. Besides, I know he’s in Tierney. Do you want to see your mother?”
“More than anything,” I admitted. She left us years ago, and I wanted to know why. Why didn’t she take us with her? Where did she go? Was her life as much a struggle as ours was?
“Then we’ll go north,” Carden declared, still looking toward the south.
“Are you sure?”
I hated to be selfish, but this might be my only chance to know what became of her. At least he knew his brother was alive and well, lying in a comfortable bed each night, a fine crown resting upon his head. I had no idea what my mother’s life was like.
“I’m sure.” He strode toward the north, glancing up at the tree limb again. “You trample the grass and I’ll watch our backs. I don’t trust the leopard.”
“Leopard,” I repeated, tasting the word. I’d never seen one before. Never heard of something so beautiful and deadly.
“Not that it was an actual leopard. Those don’t exist anymore,” he added.
“But the fae do,” I mumbled.
“Unfortunately.”
The grass receded around us until it was just above our ankles, enabling Carden to walk easier. I didn’t have to march ahead in my heavy boots, bending down the thick blades. We took a deep breath as evening began to fall around us. The sky was painted with bright orange, pink, and gold, all so vivid they didn’t look real. I had to remind myself that none of this was.
We found ourselves walking down a wide, cobbled road. Sea birds floated on warm breezes overhead, and from the earth on either side of the road sprang an assortment of houses. Some were modest, while others were grand. Children chased each other in the yard of one home, while at another, husband and wife rocked on their porches. The houses were painted white and blue and pink. The scents of stew and fresh bread made my stomach turn somersaults.
The road came to an end at a large home that was markedly different than the rest; larger and built of sturdier stuff. Great wooden beams held up a balcony on the second floor, and on that balcony, a door stood open. Pale curtains fluttered outside, twisting in the same salted wind that ran its fingers through my hair and Carden’s.
She stood there, hands braced along the railing, calling out to two children who played in the yard to the right. I hadn’t even noticed them, but there was no denying it was her. She told them it was time for supper and to come in and wash up. She was their mother, too. Except, she wanted these children. They weren’t disposable.
“You look like her,” Carden remarked gently.
“I know.”
“This may not be real, Arabella.”
“It is.” I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew it all the same, all the way to my marrow. She left us and took everything she could, as if she were running away from the devil himself. And maybe she had been. Look at what my father became. What was he like before he became a shriveled, fumbling version of himself?
The children dusted their hands off on their pants and ran inside, no more than six and eight.
She took everything she could carry and made a new life for herself. With a new home. A new husband. She bore him new children, forgetting the old.
The woman’s hands tightened on the railing as she caught sight of me. She startled when a tall man hugged her waist from behind and kissed the side of her head. And as he held her and she stared at me, her eyes begged me not to take another step. Not to ruin her perfect lie of a life.
In my periphery, I could see Carden watching me. I fought the lump in my throat and the tears that stung my eyes, hoping he didn’t see how weak I was. I curled my hands around my body to keep from wrapping them around his neck. Because I didn’t want him to pity me, even for a second.
“We should go,” he suggested.
“Go where? South? Do you want to see your brother now?”
Lightning bugs lit up the grasses around us, blinking gently on and off. “The game is supposed to end at dusk.”
“Well, it hasn’t. But you’re right. I’ve seen enough.”
As we walked away, the wind kicked up. The beauty of the sunset sky was swallowed by roiling, angry clouds. Droplets of rain stung our skin as they fell. I couldn’t help but wonder if the tempest was somehow part of me. I also couldn’t help but hope that the mother who was supposed to love and protect me above everything else would drown in the rains that poured mercilessly down from my sky.
CARDEN
As the storm rolled over us, an eerie green light filled the atmosphere. It wasn’t as bright as daylight, but was brighter than the full moon. Driving rain began to pour, blurring the houses.
The road bled away beneath our feet, the cobblestones melting and running into a river of swirling paint and rock and earth. The rain disintegrated it all. “It wasn’t real,” I proclaimed over the thunder. Rain sluiced down Arabella’s cheeks. Her eyelashes parted into thick clumps. She didn’t reply. “We’re still playing the game, Arabella. Listen to me,” I begged, grabbing her elbows and pulling her tight. But Arabella stared numbly ahead as if nothing was in front of her at all.
This was how Coeur would break her.
I shook her, and when she didn’t respond, I shook her again, harder. Her teeth rattled, but it woke her out of whatever stupor she was in. “It wasn’t real!” I yelled to make sure she heard it.
She tore her arms out of my hands. “You keep saying that, but I’m telling you it was. Let’s head south and you can see how real it is,” she bit back.
The storm clouds cleared and it almost looked like daytime, but the shadows were strange. I’d seen an eclipse once. The greenish tint to the land had spooked the horses in the stables and our dogs whimpered at the unnatural sight. This was the same unearthly glow… not day and not night, but something in between that didn’t fit together.
The soil beneath our feet dried until it was nothing but brittle, flaked, crusty pieces of curled clay that bit at my bloody feet. Then the ground began to rumble and Arabella screamed as she pulled me backward with her. When the earth gave way, a chasm stretched as far to the east and west as I could see, the gaping fissure too wide to cross; too deep to scale down or even see what lay at the bottom. Too dark to imagine what Coeur hid in the darkness below.
From behind came a great roar—not from a leopard—but from a torrent of water pouring down from snow-capped mountains that stretched into misty clouded heavens… mountains that weren’t there moments ago. The muddy water rushed straight toward us, filled with debris that would break our bodies if the impact didn’t first. We both began to run, but Coeur must have changed her plans and wanted us to die sooner rather than later, because with every step, the weight of my crown grew heavier until my footsteps stamped prints into the dried earth.
Arabella cried out, “You have to leave me behind.”
I realized her boots had become too heavy for her to lift. She cried, swiping at her eyes, begging for me to go and save myself. But that was the deal. There was no saving myself. It was a choice given to me: die with Arabella, or die at the hands of the Queen.
I would stand with this girl until my last breath. I grabbed her hand. “Together.”
She brought in a shuddering breath. “Together.”
For a brief second, I saw myself in the strip of mirror around her neck. A man with a crown, but powerless to help his heartmate.
The water tore over the land, taking deeply rooted trees with it. It thundered toward us and as the ground shook, Arabella and I locked eyes on one another. I pulled her in close and she fisted the back of my shirt, both of us bracing for the hit.
Her back rose and fell rapidly under my hand and I almost cried when she closed her eyes and laid her head against my chest. All I could think of was how damn sorry I was.
I closed my eyes, holding her close and breathing in her scent for the last time.