Maeve
Brie is… radiant. She glows in her simple white dress of lace and satin, her hair falling loose over her back and shoulders as Logan slowly, tenderly, lowers the hood of her dark blue cloak. The temple is quiet and dim, moonlight flooding the altar. Logan knits his fingers in Brie’s and brings her knuckles to his lips, pressing a kiss against them. They’re bathed in silver, the windows behind them dancing in starlight. It’s beautiful, really. It’s what I envisioned for her, one day, what I thought would be… years from now.
I watch my sister–the person I love the most in all of the world–intertwine her soul with someone else, forcing myself to unravel the ribbons binding my heart to hers.
She doesn’t belong to me anymore.
Logan looks at her as they kneel before the priestess in her silver robes. They lean into each other like being inches away is too far apart. And the look on his face as he brushes his lips over her temple… he loves her. He’s devoted–body, and soul.
My heart is in my throat as I sink into the pew beside Blake at the very back of the temple. We watch in silence as the priestess begins the late-night marriage ritual, taking her sweet time.
But there’s no rush. I could sit here forever just to witness the smile tugging on Brie’s mouth–a smile of complete and utter happiness.
“This isn’t fair to them,” I whisper without realizing I’ve said the words out loud. “This is just… grossly unfair.”
Blake sighs heavily, his voice low and monotone, “You understand why they’re sending him to Emberfyll. You must.”
“Because they have the means to cross its veil? That doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be watching my sister’s heart get torn from her chest when he leaves, Blake. And he–he doesn’t want to go. He changed his mind.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s an Alpha King by blood. The family needs him to claim his seat–”
“His seat at our table, you mean?” I hiss, meeting his eyes as the ceremony continues without our undivided attention.
“If there’s a threat of any kind in Emberfyll, it needs to be dealt with. I don’t blame our fathers and grandfathers for making that decision.”
“By sacrificing her mate to the cause.”
“With an army behind him,” he whispers sternly, but his eyes remain on Brie and Logan, a soft purple against a sea of stars.
My quiet scoff is nearly silent. “You weren’t in the room when it happened–when they told him he was going back. It wasn’t a question of if or when. He wasn’t given the choice. His face, Blake, I can’t describe it. He looked at her and just… crumpled. I could see it in his eyes.”
“I didn’t take you as a romantic.”
“I’m not. I know my place in the world, I know my purpose. But Brie… Brie was meant to love and be loved, and that’s been taken from her the moment it began, and I’ll never support it.”
“You love her.”
“Have you ever once questioned that?”
“I think she’s the only person in the world you’re capable of loving.”
“Then you understand where I’m coming from,” I say, swallowing hard past the knot in my throat. “Seeing her hurt makes me want to… burn the world down and spread the ashes at her feet.”
“You have the ability to do so if you wish.”
“Don’t mock me. I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m not mocking.” He stretches out his legs under the pew in front of us. His head tilts to the side as he watches the priestess say her blessings, her voice a gentle, rhythmic hum. “I just find it odd you haven’t… stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
I scowl. “What do you mean by that?”
He shrugs one shoulder, picking an invisible piece of lint from his finely tailored suit jacket. He sticks out like a sore thumb anytime he visits Moonrise or Veiled Valley–Eastonia in general, honestly. Wearing only drab grays, blacks, and dark blues. Never white. Blake wouldn’t be caught in a white shirt even if his life depended on it. It’s like his very soul was sucked from his body once, erasing whatever creativity and joy he had, leaving behind a shell of a person.
He reminds me of rain, the kind that pours without ceasing, the kind that thunders, knocking the leaves from the trees. The kind that leaks through nail holes in ceilings, leaving scars in its wake.
Blake washes reminders of life away. He’s an incubus–a sucking, consuming, soulless being.
Yet, he says, with a glimmer of his own heartbreak, “She’s pregnant.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t know yet. It’s too early.”
I nod, biting my tongue for a moment. “She’ll be so happy when she finds out. I can’t bring myself to tell her. Logan will be… at sea. She won’t be able to tell him for months, if she’s able to at all before the baby comes. It’s a boy, too.”
“I know.”
I look at my cousin–the only person in the world who truly understands my burden–my powers. We’re alike in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to guarding the people we love, even if that means pushing them away, hiding things from them. Even if that means our own people fear us instead of adore us.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask.
He gives me a short, knowing nod, like he’s already aware of what I’m about to ask. At the altar, the priestess directs Brie and Logan to rise. She binds their hands with a length of fabric, murmuring prayers to the Goddess. The couple bows their heads. Brie’s eyes are closed as she repeats the prayers, but Logan… he’s watching her in awe, like he can’t believe this is his mate, his wife.
I blink back tears as I ask, “What do you see when you look into their futures?”
Blake takes a shallow breath. “They’ll have a handful of sons, no daughters. I can see their children's timelines well.”
I continue watching the ceremony, smiling sadly to myself as Blake continues, “Logan will outlive her. It will destroy him, but he’ll be an old man by then–with grandchildren, great-grandchildren. He’ll follow her into death within days.”
My heart quakes. “Will they be happy?”
“Yes. But the time they’ll have together won’t feel like enough. I doubt it ever feels like enough for anyone.”
Tears spill down my cheeks, glinting in the moonlight as the priestess places a silver coin on the fabric joining their hands, an old tradition meant to test their bond. Blake shifts his position beside me, settling against the pew. We watch the rest of the ceremony in silence, neither of us blinking as the priestess blesses them again, and Logan kisses Brie–the kind of kiss that makes her smile and giggle against his mouth.
I’ve told myself I’ll live vicariously through her great love story. I’ll never have one of my own. I can’t feel the mate bond. I’m not a shifter. I’m the only one of my kind, and my purpose has been, and will always be, to be queen, and to give Eastonia as many Firestone daughters as I can. It doesn’t matter who their father, or fathers, will be.
The man in the mask from the tea shop invades my mind. I blink, banishing him before his memory can fester. I’ll admit I haven’t thought about him since that night. Why would his image spring up now? A man whose face I haven’t even seen?
I think of the tattoos on his hands and fingers. I remember them vividly, like they’re tattooed in my own mind, forever cemented in my memory.
I shove the stranger's image away, tucking it deep in my memory and locking it away for… later, maybe.
Brie and Logan rush past us in a flurry of white fabric. The priestess disappears into the recesses of the temple, which falls quiet and dark again, but neither Blake nor I make any moves to leave the pew.
We sit in companionable silence for several minutes, listening to rain, letting our powers simmer beneath our skin, like our energies are calling out to each other, speaking in a hidden language only they know. Eventually, we leave the temple, walking side by side into the rainy night air.
“Where do you think they’re going after this?” I ask him when the silence becomes too much.
“I’d rather not think about what a newly married couple does on their wedding night,” he replies pointedly.
I roll my eyes. “Oh, please. You spend most of your free time in underground clubs.”
“I like the music.”
“You like the topless women.”
Blake chews his lower lip. I like to think he’s doing it to stop from smiling, from showing a single ounce of emotion, but then he replies, “The music, it–it helps.”
“With what?”
He taps on his temple, his powers shuttering behind his eyes. “It turns things off, makes me feel normal, stops me from… seeing things I don’t want to.”
He steps away from me until he’s nothing more than a hazy outline of himself in the shadow of night, rain falling in droves all around us.
“You should find that thing that shuts you off from time to time, Maeve.” With that, he disappears into a swirl of dark mist.
Alone on the empty, rain-soaked street, I stare at the cobblestones where Blake was just standing only seconds ago, mulling over his words.
I turn in the other direction, toward the castle, which casts a long, shimmering shadow over the street. Glowing amber light pours from a few of the windows, and as I look up to the towers, I watch as Brie’s bedroom lights flickers on then off.
I gather my cloak against my body, blinking rapidly to try to dry my eyes as I stand alone in the downpour.
Eventually I find my nerve and start to move, but when I close in on the gates of the castle, I abruptly turn on my heel and walk back into the city, bundled against the rain. Thankfully, it’s warm, but my clothes are damp, and my cloak is sopping wet when I reach the inner city, a trio of streets stacked on top of each other on the rise of the mountain overlooking the valley below.
I close my eyes, feeling the warmth of my necklace radiating over my skin. My clothes dry instantly. My skin tingles as power rushes through my veins, curling and stretching until I feel myself changing.
I open my eyes, splashing through puddles while passing a restaurant, a diner, one that stays open all hours of the day and night. I catch my reflection in the glass door before yanking it open. On close inspection, it’s still me. The porcelain, flawless skin. The pointed chin. The blue-green eyes that shine like polished sea-glass. But now my hair is a deep red and pin straight. My face is rounded, less hollow in the cheeks. It’s enough to get by without being recognized.
But I can’t keep this disguise for long. My powers are already simmering, stretching to their limits when I slide into a booth, ordering a cup of coffee and nothing else.
Rain streams down the windows. I can’t see much beyond the flickering fluorescent lights of the diner casting a glare against the glass.
The thought of going home right now is just… impossible. Maybe in the morning. I’ll face a future where I rule without Brie by my side tomorrow.
I curl my hands around the stale, but hot, coffee, keeping my hood on despite the dry warmth radiating from the kitchen across from the diner bar. Smoke spices the air as a group of men walks in–warriors, it looks like. I recognize a few of them. They pass me without so much as looking in my direction, but I turn my face to the window just in case.
Another group of men–younger men, men dressed in jeans and worn-in T-shirts, murmurs in a booth in my direct line of sight across the diner. They eye the warriors wearily before rising, shrugging into coats.
I glance at one of them in particular as he slides his muscled arms into an old, brown leather jacket, his head bowed, his face just out of sight. Black gloves catch my attention. Ghost issued gloves. I’d recognize them anywhere.
It’s not uncommon, I guess. The Ghosts are everywhere, but they don't just… wear their gloves in public. He has dark, chestnut brown hair. It curls softly, the ends shining a golden blond like it’s highlighted from the sun… or the unforgiving fluorescent lighting.
“Probably a good call,” one of his friends says as the group moves toward the exit, having to pass directly in front of my booth to do so. “What about grabbing a drink at Raleigh’s? They’re open until, like, 3:00 A.M.”
The other guys nod, mumbling in agreement as they raise their hoods or slip on ball caps to shield themselves from the rain, but Gloves shakes his head.
“Not tonight. You guys go ahead. I have to meet up with someone in like twenty minutes.”
The other guys tease him, oohing and awing as the group brushes past my table.
I turn my face to the window again, a sudden jolt of panic rushes through me when I catch my reflection. My usual features are already bleeding back into view. I pull my hood down over my forehead, fishing in my pocket for a few coins for the coffee as the men reach the door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Gloves hesitating at the entrance, he looks over his shoulder, his face cast in the shadow of his ball cap. Only his mouth and jaw are visible as he glances at my table. He’s halfway out the door, but he goes still. He reaches up to the collar of his shirt and pulls what almost looks like a scarf from the base of his neck and pulls it over his face until the length of thin black fabric covers his eyes and nose.
My heart stops. I turn to look at him, shock reverberates through my system as the man from the tea shop steps out of the diner and into the rain.
Did he see me? Even if he had, he wouldn’t have recognized me, right?
I wish I’d gotten a better look at his face, taken in some kind of detail other than his hair color.
He’s a Ghost. Why else would he have the gloves?
I wait a single minute before darting from the diner into the rain, my powers flickering out as they weaken, my disguise fading into my normal features. Rain pounds the top of my head as I look around wildly, but I’m alone in the street.