Candace
"Here we go." Raven's Aunt Nola holds out a squalling, still bloody bundle of baby.
Kieran accepts it like he barely notices the blood. Raven just slumps back against her pillows, sweat-soaked and panting.
"We have a son." Kieran's grin could light up a whole castle.
"Lemme see'm," Raven mumbles.
I twist the towel I was blotting her forehead with between my fingers and try to stay in this moment. In here, nothing matters other than the exhausted, beatific smile that parts Raven's lips when Kieran lays her son on her chest. Out there-
I'm not thinking about that. Right now, I am nothing more than a new aunt.
"He is wonderful," Estrella breathes, reaching for Anwen's hand. Before long, I get the feeling the two of them will have an heir of their own.
"Really beautiful," I manage. It's true, with a smear of dark hair already covering his forehead and what look like Solberg-blue eyes. "What are you going to call him?"
Kieran and Raven exchange a look.
"Altair," she says.
Eva steps back into the tent with a bucket of water. "I brought-damn, did I miss it?"
I nod. She hurries over to join the circle of cooing family members, and it feels right. She talks about his tiny feet with Ingrid and nudges me when it's my turn to talk. But when she opened the tent, she let in a breath of fresh air, and now I can't stop thinking about how everything reeks like blood.
"I'll be back," I mumble to whoever's listening. I don't even know if anyone responds. It's so easy to forget about me already.
Outside of the tent, I suck down mouthfuls of air that taste like anything but the sour iron of all my worst memories. Watching Raven get beaten time after time, never saying a word. Walking past the dungeon and pretending I didn't smell what was going on down there from the top of the stairs. Greeting Fath-
King Gavin. Ex-King Gavin. He's not my father, and he knew all along that he never was. Are any of those memories actually mine? Why did I get lessons and dresses and exotic sweets brought home from his "diplomatic trips" abroad when Raven got nothing but pain and torture? I should've been on the floor next to her. I'm less than she is. Not someone else's royalty, not royal at all. A half-noble from nowhere.
By the time the first sob breaks my lips, my eyes are so foggy with tears I can barely see. I have to get inside. No one can see me like this.
Or can they? What difference does my appearance make if I'm no one?
"Candace?" Hollis says.
His voice washes over me like walking inside after a day out in the snow. Warmth and safety and the promise of a comfortable night's sleep. I twist toward the sound and throw my arms around his neck, feeling like the one time I had too much wine with dinner and the room went fuzzy. I am no one. Nothing matters. And I want my mate.
"Hey! Okay, can you walk with me a little?" He untangles my arms and takes me by the hand.
Of course, I want to say. Anything you want. But I don't know how to move my mouth without vomiting.
Hollis pulls me into my own tent, and my nose twitches. I want him so badly it's almost like his scent beat us in here. As soon as the flap falls shut behind us, I lean up on my tiptoes and try to kiss him.
My lips brush the palm of his hand. Which he put between my mouth and his. My mark screams, but that has nothing on the feeling like I've just been punched in the center of my chest. I sit down on my bed hard.
"You too?" I whisper.
He winces and pulls his hand back. "No. Yes. It's... complicated."
"Do you think I'm-" I can't wrap my lips around the word. "Or not?"
Hollis sighs and crouches next to my bed. "I talked to your mother."
"Never do that," I hiss. "She'll hurt you."
"I know." He rubs my knee through my mud- and blood-stained dress. That must be a good sign. "But everyone was just believing her, so I had to ask if she had any proof."
A small break opens in the clouds of my thoughts. "Did she?"
After a long, painful silence, he nods. "I think. It seemed like proof. Maybe stop taking your heart medication for a couple days, look in the mirror, and then we'll know."
My skin grows cold. "How do you know about that? My parents made me promise never to tell anyone."
"She told me." He shakes his head. "But we're getting off topic. I don't want to talk about your parents. I want to talk about mine."
"Okay?" I say slowly.
"My father," he corrects. "I was talking to him earlier."
I close my eyes. I don't really want to hear what the grumpy old Alpha thinks of me now.
"We've been so focused on Eva that we forgot about the rest of the world," Hollis says.
Icy fear takes root behind the aching impact of his rejection. "What do you mean?"
"I mean getting him to accept anyone other than Eva was always going to be an uphill battle, and he could easily disinherit me for Eva-or someone else."
"Your throne?" I say dully. "That's what you're worried about right now?"
"Not my throne." He runs a hand through his hair. "My future. I was raised to be an Alpha King. There's no one else able to take on that role in Snowcrest. And I'm not ready to do anything else."
"Your throne," I repeat like it'll make more sense the more I say it.
"It probably wasn't going to work anyway!" Hollis says slightly louder. "This isn't exactly a surprise."
"And what is this?" I ask.
"I'm-" He stares at a point over my shoulder.
I meet his green gaze and hold it. "You're what? Say it to my face."
"I'm telling you this is over," he says through gritted teeth. "I think you're only going to get more hurt if we keep pretending this can turn into something more, so I'm ending it."
A gaping pit opens in my chest, swallowing the ache, the ice, everything into a bottomless nothingness. Tears pour down my cheeks. I wrap my arms around myself, the only thing holding me together.
"You were the one thing I thought I could count on," I whisper through my sobs.
"That's not true," he says comfortingly. "You can count on your sisters. On Eva."
My stomach wrenches like it's trying to break its own neck. I can count on Eva because I've spent days lying to her face on behalf of the coward in front of me, telling me this was probably never going to work out anyway. Bile sinks searing fingers into my throat, and I lose all ability to tell what hurts where anymore. I am a writhing ball of pain and utter humiliation.
Who was I kidding, trying not to be like my parents these past few months? Have I even changed at all? I've been kinder to people who are useful to me or who can't leave because of blood or marriage. But I lie, I cheat, I do whatever I must to get the things I want. I was raised in my mother's image, and that makes me a monster. Just yesterday, Hollis and I were lying in our spot, half-dressed and giggling over our secret. Laughing that we were hurting people.
There's a reason I've been dreaming of war. I thought I would start it with my stupid, useless heart. But that was yet another fanciful lie. I'm starting this war that's going to destroy the world because I am exactly the daughter the Solbergs wanted-because I let them make me into it.
"Shit." Hollis looks at me with something like concern in his eyes. "I know this is the worst time to do this. We could maybe keep something? Meet in the trees after dark, maybe we each make a couple visits to each other's kingdoms a year after this?"
"In secret." I'm not asking.
"Well... yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "It's like I said-"
I don't want to hear what he has to say again. Something hot bubbles up inside me. Standing, I put my hands on his chest and shove him back. He barely moves. Too stupidly strong.
"Go," I sob.
"I-"
"I don't care!" Something in my throat scratches raw. Nobody cares. I'm just a body to him, just a piece of meat. My future is to be alone. By the Goddess, I should've seen that coming a mile away. Who would want me? "I never want to see you again."
"Never?" he asks quietly.
I'm done. I drop back to my bed and bury my face in my pillows and sob. Hollis lingers for a long moment, drifting a little closer, then a little farther away. Finally, his scent leaves the tent altogether.
My tears only come harder. Now, I'm alone.