Blake
It’s quiet in my office. The air is still and empty, scented with coffee and fresh ink. I move from my printer and sit at my desk, fanning through the papers I’ve just printed, which are still warm. The door leading to my suite opens with a squeak, revealing Marianna, who peeks her head in and says, “She’s asleep.”
I can’t do more than nod. “Will you let me know when she wakes up?”
“I will. Um… the moonstone sphere? I put it on her bedside table. Is that where it needs to be? Or, like, under her pillow?”
For the first time in days, I feel a single slice of calm pierce the roiling mess of emotions currently taking up all the space in my mind. It’s simply because of her, the image of her clutching the door, her dark hair swishing around her shoulders and her eyes… so blue. The perfect blue. I don’t deserve this. I never have. “That’s just fine.”
Marianna’s gaze holds mine, scanning, deeply inspecting, but I’ve trained my entire life to keep people at arm’s length.
Including her.
It’s killing me.
It’s killing her.
She doesn’t hide the disappointment shadowing her expression. She gives me a tight nod before wordlessly slipping out of sight, the door closing behind her. I close my eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to lock the door.
To lock her out.
It would be safer that way for all three of us.
I turn my attention to the documents now littering my desk. Misty sent copies of the texts from Arthur almost immediately after I didn’t show up to the family meeting in Veiled Valley. She did her best to translate some of the fables, but large gaps render them useless. Her notes say as much.
We’re damned.
I’m damned if my vision of the Goddess means anything other than me effectively losing my mind.
“Please,” I say as the main door to my office opens despite it being locked and shielded against intruders, “I’m busy.”
“As your queen,” Maeve replies hotly, “I have the right to be here. You still live in my castle, by the way.”
“By next spring, you’ll rarely see me.” I pull several highlighters out of a drawer, glancing at Maeve. Fallon isn’t with her. I’m sure Soren returned to Moonrise with her after the meeting. I’m sure he’s upstairs with her right now. I’d rather he be the one stepping into my space instead of Maeve. He’d at least try to joke, to tease in an effort to break the tension threatening to suffocate the room. He’d tell me to snap out of it and maybe that’d be enough, but Maeve is here, already digging in her heels.
“I need you to tell me what you saw.”
“There’s no point.”
“There is. I just spent the last three hours going over every scenario with your father, my parents, and our grandfathers in the event our shores are invaded. We have plans in action; we’re just waiting for a spark–”
“There won’t be war on Eastonian soil.”
She stops in the center of the fine carpet, her arms slack at her sides. “Why?”
“Why? What kind of question is that?”
Her eyes narrow to cat-like slits. “I see the old Blake is back.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You really think no one else can see? That she can’t see it?” She motions to the door to my suite with a scoff. “What’s wrong with you, Blake? You hid your mate and your kid from us for seven years and then suddenly there you were, surrounded by family, and we had the real version of you for a few weeks before you–you turned into this again.”
“This is just who I am.”
“You’re a liar. You always have been. A fucking brilliant liar.”
I methodically rise from my chair as tension crackles between us.
Maeve continues without skipping a beat, “You’ve been lying to your parents. You’ve been lying to Marianna, and you’ve been lying to me.”
“Do not bring my mate into this–”
“Soren is the only person you’re remotely honest with and–”
“Soren is the only person who has ever seen me as something more than a monster!” I shout, and she startles. I… flinch, my throat tightening, like it’s unused to the level of volume I summoned. I tug at the collar of my shirt, which is suddenly tight enough to strangle me.
“What’s wrong with you? I’m asking that from a place of concern, Blake. What the hell is the matter with you?”
“I’m not talking about this with you.”
“You’ll lose them, Blake. Both of them. Marianna knows how precarious this situation is. I saw her this morning when the two of you returned to the castle. She looked heartbroken, and it’s your fault, isn’t it? What kind of game do you think you’re playing with her? Is it because she’s your mate? Do you think she’ll just allow you to be like this, to shut her out–”
“If you say her name again,” I snarl, my vision going red, “I’ll kill you. I swear on the Goddess.”
“Marianna,” she croons as her powers crackle. “Marianna, Marianna, Marianna!”
I take two determined steps in her direction before her powers flare at their full strength. Heat blasts through the room, a promise of painful, slow death, but I raise a hand.
That’s all it takes. Maeve’s eyes flash violet, her powers snapping, failing, falling to specks of embers all around us.
I am, and have always been, more powerful than her.
I lower my hand, swallowing past a knot of guilt, resisting the urge to vomit.
Maeve sways before righting herself, her hand flying to her chest like her heart is about to shatter in her chest. She whirls to me, tears wetting her eyes. “Blake?”
“Do you not see what I am?” My voice is like ice–frigid, bitter. “You’ve known this entire time, Maeve. You knew. You told me we’d be enemies one day. That we’d be the reason our kingdoms fell, and you were right.”
Maeve’s horrified expression shatters to something dripping with pain. I ignore it, ignore the anguished look in her eyes while I pace to the window overlooking the city I swore to protect and serve–the only place that has ever felt like home.
“I had a vision directly from the Goddess this morning.” My voice carries in a whisper. The air feels like it’s being forced from the room, so silent I can hear the breeze rippling through the trees just beyond the window. “I am not in Her good graces as it stands.”
“Why?”
“Why did She come to me in a vision, showing me Her true self? Letting me, a mortal, see Her image?” My sneer rattles through the room. I finally look into Maeve’s eyes. “Because I’m ignoring the powers She said She gave me, but I think… I know She’s mistaken. She’s either mistaken or terrified I’ll turn on Her because even She sees what I am and what I can do… and it rivals Her own power. These powers aren’t from Her. This curse? This is something else. Something dark, Maeve. Look at what I can do to you just by raising a hand. I’m the only person who can stand toe-to-toe against you, and you wouldn’t stand a chance. She only came to me in a frantic attempt to keep me under control. Keep your enemies closer, right?”
Her silence is deafening.
I step toward her, and she takes a step back. I chuckle darkly. “Hannibal didn’t just want something from me. He wanted me. I am more than a threat to him. I am something he’s been searching for, maybe that his people have been searching for, for a very long time.”
“You have no proof.”
“I know that mystics have been easily swayed to switch sides over the course of our history. The Draven coven is a prime example. Hell, even Richard of Arcane Umbra had–”
“They were forced–”
“They were not.”
Her back straightens, shoulders squared. “You’ve lost your fucking mind!”
“I am not meant to be a hero, Maeve. I was never meant to be an Alpha King. I was never meant to stand here, in this fucking room, working for you.”
“What are you trying to say?” Her voice cracks, and I hate it. I hate the panic in her eyes as she curls her fingers into fists at her sides, and her powers begin to simmer through the distance between us.
“I’ve been fighting against what I am my entire life. Since the day I came to Moonrise for training and saw what I’m capable of, what kind of world I could create with just a thought, a fucking flick of my wrist if I willed it. The chaos, destruction, and pain I could cause. I am the harbinger of death, Maeve. A fallen fucking angel. The Goddess confirmed it. I am death itself in the shell of a man, and I’ve spent my entire life trying to fight my way toward something better, something–” I weakly point at the door to my suite–to my mate and daughter–but tears… tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision. “They are the only things keeping me grounded, and I’m–I’m losing the ability–to keep myself–here.”
I press my finger against my temple, squeezing my eyes shut as I lose myself to emotions I’ve spent my entire life controlling but no longer can. “The voices in my head won’t shut up, even when she plays her music. Even when I’m with her, Maeve, I can still hear them. They’re begging me to act, but they argue about it–about whether I should burn this entire kingdom to the ground and rise as the Old God I am or sacrifice myself to you–your people–the very people men like me tried to exterminate during the fall of the Firestones three thousand years ago. I am a monster, Maeve. And I’m being called home.”
“You’re not–”
“Do you know what they call me at the temple? High Lord. Do you know where that originates? The courts of the Old Gods and the Old Kings that followed–the Kings that enslaved Eastonia–enslaved your great-grandparents and your grandfather. The very kings your grandparents fought against to give Eastonia a chance of becoming this! The fae!” I motion all around me–at the palace Ella pulled out of the lake. At the peaceful, serene city beyond. The souls going about their days not knowing a beast from hell lingers here, in this castle.
Maeve reads between the lines of my total mental breakdown. She turns her withering expression to steel, her eyes going bone dry. “What are you planning?”
I laugh darkly, my eyes still blurred by tears.
“This whole time…. You knew what you were capable of this entire time, didn’t you?” She doesn’t move from her spot on the carpet even though I pace toward her. She has a shield around herself, and I don’t blame her. I can now sense Soren’s presence in the hallway–frantic–but he’s locked out. She’s locking him out–not me. That’s telling, to say the least.
This is the showdown we’ve been inching toward since childhood. A make or break moment that will define the future of the kingdom we share–and love. The moment that could fracture a family forever.
“You knew what happened to Brie. You knew where she was, what she was going through, that entire time.”
“No.”
“But you could have simply looked, and you didn’t. You pick and choose how and when to use your powers, and you’ve… never used them to their full extent. Not even close.”
I stop pacing a few feet from her.
“You knew Marianna would be cursed, that she’d die without intervention, and you still kept her at arm’s length. You saw that, didn’t you? Or did you choose to let fate take your own mate instead of using your gifts to–”
“To dictate a future of my own making? To weave those threads into existence against their will?” I ask, and she pales.
“Because you can do that, can’t you? You are the decider. You can… change the future. You can do it. You’ve always been able to do it.”
Silence sweeps through the room. Soren pounds on the door, but Maeve doesn’t look away from me, her eyes locked on mine.
“You hid it from everyone so easily.”
“Hannibal and his people will come back to Eastonia for me if I don’t give in to them, Maeve.”
“I don’t care about that right now. I care about you.” Her voice breaks. “You were going to–to die. Soren told me you were begging him to just let you die–”
“He should have.”
Her lower lip trembles. “Blake–”
“If I allow myself to use my full powers, I will not be the same. It will consume me. Your powers are nothing in comparison,” I tell her as steadily as I can manage. “If I had used my powers to rewrite Marianna’s fate, I would have lost her regardless because I would have been brought to my fucking knees, Maeve, and culled. I don’t know how else to describe it. It would have killed me at a soul level. Only darkness would remain, and that’s the one thing I’m trying to prevent. Because if I lose this part of myself–the shifter side, the side capable of having a mate–capable of being loyal and loving–of understanding what it means to live–I will kill everyone. I will enslave Eastonia. I will turn the mystics against you. I will kill you and sit on your throne, taking back what the Old Gods believed our Goddess took from them. The family has been asking me to act, to help, for years now. You have to see that I’ve done what I can. You have to know that I’ve been holding myself back to save everyone we love.”
“And now what? You… you what, Blake? What are you trying to tell me?”
This is the moment. The confirmation she’s been looking for. The spark.
“I can find Hannibal. I can find the fae and stop a war you already know we can’t win. I can do it.”
Her eyes soften with dismay.
She understands what I’m trying to tell her–why I told her everything. The secrets I’ve been holding onto since I was fourteen, when I saw my future split into two lifelines. One life spent hiding, pretending.
One… spent in darkness, but for a much, much shorter period of time.
“I can go to them and stop them, stop the war from happening, but I will not return.” I edge toward her, my eyes lighting from within with my powers. “And if I do, Maeve, ever step foot on Eastonian soil again… you have to kill me. You have to promise.”
“No.”
I grab her forearm, our powers mingling against her will. She winces, baring her teeth as a blood oath crackles between us. “Kill me if I come back. I will not be the Blake you know.”
“Does she know?”
The thought of Marianna cuts me to my core.
“She will. I’ll tell her. Swear you’ll take care of them.”
Soren kicks through the door. Wood shatters around the room as he barrels toward us, but it’s already done.
“I will,” Maeve rasps, tears shining on her cheeks. “You’re a fucking bastard, Blake.”
Soren forcefully separates us, shoving me back several feet. He stares at me in both awe and fury. I don’t blame him as he smoothes his hand over Maeve’s forearm, which is now marked with fading swirls and unintelligible patterns of violet and crimson that sink into her skin, shimmering before they disappear.
“What have you done?” he asks me in a broken whisper.
But it’s the soft, shallow exhale that truly breaks me. I close my eyes for a moment before turning to the door to my suite. Marianna stands in the open doorway, clutching the door I didn’t lock.