Talen writhed and clutched at the bedsheets, bleaching his knuckles. His eyes were pinched shut, as though he were fighting not to see. Kellee held him down while Sota reported on Talen’s fluctuating life signs.
Hours had passed since Eledan had taken his wings. Talen hadn’t woken.
“Kesh, come closer,” Kellee said.
I’d already tried that when they’d brought him to this room, and now, as I stood at his bedside, took his hand in mine, and watched him twist and arch in agony, it was almost too much to bear, because I didn’t feel a damn thing. The bond—that connection we’d shared for so long, the one that told me I wasn’t alone, that he loved me, that I loved him, the one we shared everything through—was gone. Not faded, like when we’d been worlds apart. Gone. Dead. Broken. I knew it, the same way I knew something else, something I had no hope of containing, had shaken loose inside. The polestar. I couldn’t think on that yet. On any of it. I’d lost Talen.
Eventually, his body-wracking shudders faded, and he lay still, his chest rising and falling. Occasionally, his brow pinched, but he’d settled into his dreams, where I hoped he might heal. Would the wings grow back? It seemed unlikely. What had losing them done to him?
Sota sat against the wall across the room. He pulled his knees up and draped his forearms over them. Kellee was sprawled in a chair on Talen's other side, looking like a vakaru who’d lost a fight. The green handprint paint had smudged, making him appear fiercer.
“What by Faerie are you doing here, Kellee?”
He blinked a few times, sucked in a breath, and held it until I began to wonder if he would ever breathe again. Finally, he sighed and said, “We had to come. We’re stronger together.”
“He’ll use you against me.”
“He won’t,” the marshal grumbled.
“He just did!”
“Stop it,” Sota snapped. “Bickering will not solve this. What were you thinking coming here, Kellee? Eledan could just as easily have killed Talen instead of…” He couldn’t finish. The memory of what had happened on the balcony stamped itself across my vision. My insides roiled.
“It was the guardian’s idea,” Kellee grumbled.
I narrowed my eyes. “You never follow fae orders.”
“It wasn’t an order,” he growled. “He said Eledan would have a crowning ceremony to prove his reign. Something public. We figured if we pledged ourselves to your court, we’d get in and get you out. Eledan couldn’t refuse us. And then you went and got suspicious—”
“What the hell was I supposed to think? This isn’t Calicto, Marshal. You don’t kneel on Faerie without meaning it.”
His glare hardened. If he’d had hackles, they would have lifted. “I meant it, and so did Talen. You weren’t supposed to reject him.”
I scooped up Talen’s limp hand and squeezed it. His skin was cool and damp. What if he was dying? “I didn’t reject him. I rejected the whole fucking ceremony. It was karushit and you know it. Eledan was preening his peacock feathers in front of the fae. I would have dealt with it, but you showing up made everything a hundred times worse.” Eledan had freed the saru, but the victory felt hollow, like I was missing the punchline to his joke.
“Who did you choose, Kesh?”
“What?”
“Your choice. Free the saru and Eledan gets you, right?” He leaned forward in the chair. “Sirius told us. Eledan just freed the saru, so what does that mean for the Messenger?”
“It means I have it under control.”
“Karushit.”
My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. “You can’t free the saru with a few words. Until they stop loving the fae, they won’t be free and Eledan will no more own me than you do.”
Maybe it was the way I’d worded it, but the fight drained out of Kellee. He fell back into the chair. “I’m sorry…” He blinked up at the ceiling. “Since Oberon, I haven’t been thinking clearly.”
“I can see that.” He’d torn out Oberon’s throat—with his teeth. I’d seen his eyes, seen the unseelie in him rejoice. Maybe ancient fae blood didn’t do a damn thing to a vakaru, or maybe it did. We hadn’t had the time to discuss it.
He rubbed his eyes. “That bastard took his wings, Kesh.”
Eledan had taken more than that from Talen. He had taken Talen’s identity as the Nightshade and my bond with it. “Eledan knew Talen was the only fae left who could challenge his rule, and you delivered him right to his feet. That was never going to end well. We can’t make those mistakes, Kellee, not here. Faerie doesn’t allow for fuckups.”
“He wanted to be here, with you,” Sota said from his spot by the wall. “Kellee couldn’t have stopped him. None of us could.”
What was I supposed to do with the three of them? This was exactly what I’d been afraid of. “You shouldn’t have come. Eledan knows how I feel about you. He’s known since this started. To beat him, we have to be smarter than this.”
Kellee fell forward and ran his hands through his hair. “I know. You’re right.” He looked up. “What happened on that balcony… to you?”
“I…” The echo of some other power plastered over me, it hadn’t felt good, like when I’d used fae magic in the past. A second longer and it might have torn me open. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” Sota said. “Kesh opened the bond wide, like when Talen broke free of Shinj. You almost died then, Kesh. This time, a part of Talen was dying. Kesh pulled that pain out of him.”
“I did what?”
“You didn’t see you, but we did. Your eyes were silver, and your whole body was aglow and haloed in darkness, just like Talen is when he goes full Nightshade. You took part of him inside you, or maybe it was always in you since you first bonded and we’re just now seeing it.”
I looked to Kellee. He nodded. “Sota’s right. You looked a whole lot like the Nightshade for a while there, sans wings.”
I’d felt it too, the dark reaching outward, but I’d also felt the light. I needed answers. I needed someone to tell me what his polestar could do, what I could do, and how I could control it. And where it all led. Eledan would only tell me if I could convince him it was in his interest, but if that failed, there was another option, one Sirius could help with. “Where’s Sirius?”
“On Shinj with Hulia, waiting for our signal.” Kellee’s gaze fell to Talen. “If we can get him back to the ship, Shinj can help heal him.”
Sota stood and approached the end of the bed. “Physically, his body is showing signs of exhaustion, but I don’t think what Eledan did was physical. I can’t read magic. As he is, he’s not strong enough for us to move him. We need to wait until he’s conscious.”
Still holding his hand, I silently begged his fingers to grip back. He didn’t respond.
“He’ll recover,” Kellee said, sounding surer than the worry on his face suggested.
Before the bond broke, I’d felt Talen’s agony. He might recover physically, but mentally? “He didn’t deserve this.”
He had only ever tried to protect me. I owed him the same. I needed answers.
I shrugged off my coat, laid it over the back of the chair, and climbed onto the bed, gently lying down next to Talen. If the bond was gone, I’d stay close to him this way and hope it was enough.
Sota pulled my abandoned chair close to the bed and settled into it. He nodded at my glance. He wouldn’t leave either, and I didn’t need to look at Kellee to know the marshal would stay for as long as it took.
“It’s not your fault.” Talen’s fingers brushed my cheek. I leaned into his touch and fell into his sleepy gaze, admiring the way his pale lashes highlighted eyes layered in violet, indigo, and lilac.
He had woken moments ago. Not with a gasp, as I’d expected. He’d simply come around as though he’d just fallen asleep. His arm had wrapped around me, tucking me close against his chest. After what Eledan had done to him, his soft smile pricked my eyes with tears.
“He took your wings,” I whispered, bumping my forehead against his.
“It’s all right.” His knuckles brushed my cheek, then his fingers stroked my hair, setting it right, like he needed everything to be in its place.
Nothing was all right. I was so tired of the pain, the endless battle.
His lips brushed my forehead. “He took what he thought was most precious to me…” Talen’s warm fingers captured my chin, his gaze fierce. “He was wrong.”
I wanted to rest with him, to bury myself against his chest and breathe him in until he became a part of me again.
“I did something to our bond,” I whispered. “I broke it.”
“I don’t need a bond to tell me how much I love you.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and buried my face against his shirt so Kellee and Sota wouldn’t see the tears. Talen clutched me close. We stayed like that until Kellee rose from his chair, signaling time was not on our side.
“If we leave now, we may get off this planet—”
“We’re not leaving Faerie.” Reluctantly, I pulled away from Talen’s arms and eased him upright. “I need answers. We need answers. Leaving solves nothing. We stay on the ground.”
“Leaving will keep you alive,” Kellee argued.
None of this had ever been about keeping me alive.
Sota rushed in to help Talen, but he waved him off while Talen pushed to his feet, albeit carefully. “I’m fine,” he said, noticing how we were ready to catch him if he fell. He swayed and steadied himself on the bed. “I will be fine…”
“If we stay on Faerie, Eledan will try to tear us apart.” This came from Sota, and the raw fear on his face almost had my determination wavering. “He’ll try to take us from you, Kesh, one at a time, like pulling the legs off a spider.”
I frowned at the analogy, but he wasn’t wrong. Eledan would try to break us, but he wouldn’t succeed. “This spider bites.” I tossed him a grin like the ones when I’d scored a valuable delivery back on Calicto. He dragged his own smile onto his lips. “There are fae who know a lot more about the polestar and my place in it. Fae who will speak with me.” I adjusted my whip, making sure it was seated home, and breathed in to clear my thoughts. “Signal Sirius here.”
Kellee moved in and Talen hooked an arm around his shoulders.
I held the vakaru’s doubtful glare. “The dreamweaver and I are going to have a heart-to-heart chat.”
“Kesh, if he takes you again…” Gold rimmed the marshal’s dark eyes. The unseelie beast within him peered back at me. Sota was right. Kellee was a twitch away from going feral. I’d need to speak with him too—alone. I should take the time to sit with them all and soon, but not here. I had a prince to corner.
“He won’t hurt me, Kellee. He needs me to keep the saru in line.”
Kellee’s gaze skipped from the recovering Talen to Sota and back to me. He flexed his fingers. “I can’t keep losing you.”
“You won’t. Just… trust me? I can handle Eledan.”
He nodded curtly. “I’ll signal Sirius, but if you’re not back in a reasonable time, I’m coming after you.”