Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

67. Veyka

67

VEYKA

“Parys gets tearful embraces, and I get a black eye,” Arthur groused, gingerly touching the eye in question.

Thank goodness he was solid and not some strange ephemeral spirit. That would not have been nearly as satisfying.

“Not much of an afterlife if I can hurt you here.” My own hand ached, a small split appearing in one of my knuckles. The tiniest line of blood rose to the surface. I was bleeding. The scabbards were still back on Avalon. And apparently, I could bleed in the after realm. Interesting.

“The living are not supposed to be here at all,” Arthur commented. He’d stepped back when I punched him in the face. Now he used the distance to look me over.

I stared right back at him, righteous anger overcoming more than a year’s worth of longing. “Yes, well. It turns out I am something of a special case.”

A soundless chuckle lifted his chest. “You always were.”

His chest led to his neck, which was firmly attached to his head. Thank the Ancestors. Though after seeing Parys fully intact, I’d expected as much. I inhaled every detail of him, from the top of his overgrown golden hair down to—was that an amorite earring in his ear lobe?

“You lied to me.”

“Veyka—”

“Every day of my Ancestors-damned life, you lied to me! And then you died. You died on purpose. You left me alone to—”

“To do what you were always destined to do, Veyka.”

“Fuck that, and fuck you, Arthur.” I spun on my heel, determined to get away from him. Then I remembered that he was the whole reason I’d been sneaking away from Arran in the dead of night to search the void. Morgyn was not the only irritating sibling I would be dealing with today.

“Would you like to hit me again?” he offered.

I did not answer.

“I deserve it. Every bit of your anger.”

That… deflated me a bit. I turned back to face him. Arthur extended a hand, and I accepted, letting him lead me to sit on a log at the center of the clearing.

We were in a—where were we?

It was a forest clearing, but I did not recognize it. Not anywhere near Baylaur, the trees were all wrong. Thick green leaves spread out in a canopy overhead so that the sunlight that did reach us was dappled. Wildflowers dotted the grass below our feet. Birds chirped. My brother had created quite the idyllic little paradise for himself.

He sat beside me on the log, stretching his long legs out alongside mine. Ancestors, even our legs were the same length. I’d never noticed that. I’d always been so busy cataloguing all the ways we were different—the ways I was less than.

I’d wasted precious time comparing myself to the one person who’d never judged me at all. Arthur, the source of all things good in my world for the first twenty-five years of my life. There were so many questions I yearned to ask, so much I wanted to tell him. But all of it seemed inconsequential when I could just be with him, soaking in his presence.

“Do you know what makes me the angriest?” I said after a while. “You chose Annwyn over yourself. Over staying with me.”

He uncrossed and re-crossed his legs. “And don’t you plan to do the same for your kingdom?” A long exhale. “To your mate?”

Irritating sibling. “What if I said that it is different.”

“I’d ask you to tell me how.”

“If you had lived, Arran would never have become the Terrestrial Heir. I would never have fulfilled the prophecy and the succubus never would have come to Annwyn.” And Arthur would have lived.

Did that also mean that I never would have found Arran? Would never have recognized him for my mate and fallen in love? Even the vague possibility of that made my stomach clench with terror and protest.

But Arthur was shaking his head.

“The succubus would have come either way, Veyka. They were already here, even before my death, slipping through the rifts that Gorlois opened in his selfish quest for power. Eventually, they would have found another way through. But I was not the one destined to stop them. If you’d never gained your power, the succubus would have overrun Annwyn and that would have been the end.”

Fuck. I’d asked for the truth and he’d given it. Maybe I liked the lies better.

I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder. For once, he did not wear any golden armor. It was just his shoulder beneath a white silk tunic. If I listened hard enough, I imagined I could hear his heartbeat. “It isn’t fair, Arthur.”

“I was only king for a short time,” he said. “I suspect that you understand even better than I can that life is rarely fair. Ruling a kingdom is even less so.”

I elbowed him in the ribs. “You were always such a comfort.”

He exhaled a long sigh. “You speak about me in past tense, even as I sit beside you.”

I shot upright. “Arthur, I’m sorry—”

But he caught my shoulder, keeping me beside him on the log. “No. I am glad of it. It means you have accepted my death and that you have moved on.”

I wanted to argue with him, but… I couldn’t. Fuck. When had that happened?

“Tell me about your mate,” Arthur said once I’d finally relaxed enough to rest my head back on his shoulder.

“He’s an overprotective ass.”

“Good to hear,” Arthur snorted.

“Is this place not all seeing?”

He shrugged. “I find that I am thankful for the things I do know, and do not lose heart wondering about the things I do not. It is peace, I think.”

Peace. I could not even fathom it. But I could answer his question.

“Arran is… everything.” A word that was supposed to encompass enormity and that felt pitifully small. “He sees me. From the very beginning, he has seen me. I don’t think that anyone has ever looked into my soul like that, into the very depths of who I am, even the parts I am scared and ashamed of… and loved me for all of it. Not even you.”

It felt like a betrayal to say it. But when I looked up, Arthur was smiling. “You should go back to him, Veyka.”

I wanted to. I needed to. “What do I do?”

My life or my soul. Was one worse than the other? What did it even mean, to live without a soul? Was that just another way of describing death? Or something worse—because both Parys and Arthur’s souls seemed perfectly intact, even though they were dead.

Arthur stood, but he tugged me against him as he did. Time to go.

“I cannot tell you what choice to make. That was not your purpose in coming here,” Arthur said. He planted a kiss against my hair, then released me. Stepped back. The log was gone, now. The chirps of birds faded away.

My heart stuttered in my chest. “Will I be able to return?”

Arthur nodded. “You would not have come here if you’d truly doubted it.”

“Not to Annwyn.” He was right. Even now, I could feel Arran tugging on the bond, reassuring himself that I was still his. “To you,” I whispered.

The void began to tug at me, calling me back. Arran, using the tether to rescue me from the darkness.

Arthur did not reach for me, letting me go back to where I truly belonged.

“We will see each other again, Veyka,” he promised.

Then he was gone. Nothing more than a memory.