War of Hearts(92)

Now, however, was not the time to be thinking of such things when my glimmering mate was leading me toward her chamber.

It was as we moved from one floor to the next that we heard a harsh male grunt and a cry of pleasure. Both our gazes flew to an open doorway, a servant’s bedroom, where I flinched to see my brother and Lir naked. Lir was on his hands and knees as my brother powered into him from behind. And I knew him well enough to know he’d deliberately left the door open.

I curled my lip in distaste.

It was a sight I’d have liked to have gone an eternity without ever seeing.

As Andraste and I hurried away, she giggled.

I glowered at her.

She shrugged. “Your brother is so contrary.”

“He’s a dominating bastard.” He would just love that. Taking pleasure from Lir, making him vulnerable to him. It was his own way of punishing the fae for hurting the humans. To make him want him so much, to have power over him.

Eirik was good at that.

“I need you to spell the image from my head,” I grunted, pulling Andraste into her bedchamber. “Love me until there is nothing but you.”

And so she did.

The queen left the following day. Andraste and I stayed in bed for four nights to celebrate our privacy.





Thea glanced up from the entry to find Conall out for the count. If Jerrik’s journal of his time in Faerie was a lie, then the guy had an amazing imagination.

Staring at Conall, however, Thea believed Jerrik had once had a mate. The way he described his love for Andraste was the way Thea felt about Conall. The mating. It was intense.

She fought the urge to lean over and kiss Conall’s scarred cheek and instead turned the page to the next entry. Jerrik filled the pages with tales from the court, and as Vik had mentioned, he spoke of the queen’s fury over the fae who turned to werewolf and the fae who died trying to do so. The revelation had worried Andraste as she feared the queen discovering their secret, but Jerrik had refused to leave her side.

Finally, Thea skimmed through his entries until she got to the one that interested her most: the closing of the gate and the supposed spell upon the human world that Thea was a consequence of.

(Roman Calendar Year 128 BC)

It cannot be. I sit here in my cold stone home, no windows to guard against the sun, and I cannot fathom that Andraste is lost to me. Hours ago, she’d been in my arms. Hours ago, another world had made my existence worthwhile.

It is now lost to me too.

“Are you going to mourn forever?” Eirik had asked upon our arrival home. “Because that will grow tedious.”

“Do you not care she is forever lost to me?”

“No. She was beneath you. As they all are.”

“They made us, you ungrateful heathen.”

“Yes, but rather like a man whose mother pushed him out as a babe only to leave him to starve in the woods, I bear no loyalty to my creators.”

I’d attacked him.

Viciously.

Both of us were bloodied and broken but healing physically.

I did not know if my heart would ever heal.

Listen to me. My mind is so overwhelmed by the happenings. I need to find order in the chaos. I’ve started at the end. I must go back to this morning. To explain.

The queen’s seer had a vision.

I had been living on Faerie for months. Eirik would visit occasionally. “To make sure you are still alive.”

For me, however, even separated from my twin who had once been my other half, my life was here. With Andraste.

The fae celebrated each country throughout the year and it was time to pay homage to Samhradh, the lands of eternal summer. Samhradh Palace stood in the heart of Solas, the royal city of the Day Lands. If I thought the palace at Réalta astounding, there were no words for the queen’s home. It differed from the other palaces. Where they were long and rectangular, a building wrapped around a huge inner courtyard, the palace at Solas was tall and enchanting. A castle. Towering turrets of different sizes, spires, and a magnificent gated entrance created from gold. It appeared to be crafted entirely of shattered pieces of the opaque glimmering utilized for windows. Those shattered pieces, placed together, miniscule bit by miniscule bit, gave the castle the appearance of a building made entirely of diamonds.

It shimmered, flashing and winking in the blazing sun. It was a wonder to even walk beneath a sun that could not kill me, but to enjoy the beauty of Samhradh at the same time was a marvel. It was a joy to escort Andraste to the Solas Festival.

That morning, Andraste woke me, frantic. “The palace is abuzz,” she said, hauling me out of bed. “The queen’s seer has had a vision and now the queen has demanded we all attend the Reckoning.”

I groaned, as I had already decided I did not want to attend the Reckoning. It was the fae version of a justice system. Any supernatural, human, or fae caught breaking the laws of Faerie were kept in confinement at a prison near the gate between worlds on the coast of Samhradh. They were brought out of confinement every quarter during a festival to be judged by Aine.

“Hurry, it has already begun.”

“What has the seer prophesied?”

“No one knows. But rumor is rife that the queen found the news disturbing.”

“The queen is never disturbed.”

“Hence my current disquietude.”

So we stood beside Eirik, who had to come to Faerie to enjoy the festival, as prisoner after prisoner was brought into the throne room to be judged by the queen.