These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(30)

“It’s Oberon’s power,” Misha says. “The power of the crown must give her a connection to them.”

“That’s one theory,” Amira says. She looks to the setting sun for a beat. “We should head back. It will be cold soon.”

As we collect our horses, I let myself feel the emotions in the air. There’s heartache and loneliness, homesickness, but there’s also joy here. A feeling of security. They’re safe. And that tells me more about Misha and Amira than any conversation ever could.

As the stable hand helps me mount my horse, I catch myself thinking of Finn. He’s Unseelie. Does that mean I’d be able to feel him too?

I wonder if I’ll ever get to find out.





Chapter Eight

Misha’s lips are soft against my knuckles when he stops at my door back at the palace. “Sleep well, Princess,” he says, slowly releasing my hand.

Ignoring the awkwardness I feel at his gesture, I shake my head. “I’m not sure I can. There’s too much going on in my mind.” Between the realization that I could feel the Unseelie at the settlement, my own emotions, and what I’m constantly picking up from Sebastian, I was reeling the entire ride back. “It’s so overwhelming, I can’t even trust my own thoughts. Did you know—that I could feel the Unseelie like that with Oberon’s power?”

He slides his hands into his pockets. “Not at all, but there’s a lot I don’t understand about your magic. I do know this: you’re more powerful than you realize. More than even I would’ve guessed.”

I cut him a look. “Obviously.”

He snorts. “And so humble too.”

I shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. My power comes entirely from Oberon, from the Unseelie throne. I’m not being pompous. I’m simply agreeing that I know nothing about the depth and extent of this power.” Before tonight I didn’t even know I had any empathic abilities at all—though I suppose I’d used them at the queen’s camps.

“Hmm.” He takes a step back and looks me over. “That’s an interesting assumption.”

“It’s an accurate assumption. Where else would it come from?”

“Honestly?” He draws in a deep breath. “I don’t know. But I’m trying to figure it out. Finn wondered the same thing.”

I straighten at the name. I can’t think of the shadow prince without my chest becoming a tangle of conflicting emotions. “But he knew,” I whisper. “He knew where my power came from.”

“He knew his father’s magic. Was quite familiar with it. So he was the first to recognize that you wielded something different. Something . . . more.”

I somehow doubt it. I think I surprise these people so much because they never expected a human girl to have any sort of power, but I don’t feel like arguing. “I’m tired.”

He nods. “I asked Genny to draw you a bath. It’s waiting.”

“Thank you. For that and for taking me along tonight.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“I’m not sure I ever properly thanked you for giving me a place to stay.” I bow my head. “You didn’t have to do a thing for me, but you have anyway.”

He chuckles. “I have my own reasons.”

I’m sure he does. They all do.

“Sleep well, Princess.”

I step inside my room but hesitate before closing the door. “Why do you call me that?”

Misha’s eyes light up, and he grins. “Only because calling you Queen would be inaccurate,” he says, then turns and disappears down the corridor.

“What nonsense,” I mutter, turning into my room. A fresh sleeping gown waits on the bed, and I can feel the humidity in the air from the warm bath that waits in the connected bathing room.

I quickly strip out of my clothes and head to the tub, where I sink into the hot water, sighing as it envelops my aching thighs. When everything goes quiet around me, I feel Sebastian so intensely—his grief and sadness—that I want to cry. I miss him. I miss believing that he loved me, that I could trust him.

Hoping to keep my hair dry, I tie it up as best I can, but several locks are too short to stay and they fall in my face and around my neck. The curls tighten in the steam rising off the bath. I wash the rest of myself quickly, as if getting out of this tub will help me escape these emotions and this overwhelming loneliness.

By the time I’ve dressed in my sleeping gown and am under the covers of my bed, the light of the rising moon slants into the bedroom windows. Exhaustion pulls at me, but every time I close my eyes and try to relax, I picture that little boy screaming in the middle of the road, remember his horror racing through my own veins.

I don’t know why Misha thinks that I, of all people, could unite a divided court. Any loyalties Sebastian and Finn feel toward me are just complicated by the fact that I have something they both need. That doesn’t mean I could get them to work together, or that I would have any idea how. But I can’t deny that the queen can’t go unchecked. Not after seeing those camps. Not after hearing that little boy’s screams of terror tonight.

So maybe I can’t do everything. Maybe I can’t heal a broken land or mediate power struggles, but I could do something about those camps if I knew where to find them. And that would be worth asking for Sebastian’s help.