The queen leaned forward; her gaze locked with mine for several long seconds. Finally, she folded her arms, her brows tightening in a frown. “A coup d’état, how delightful,” she sneered. “But marriage? We are not like you humans. A bond such as marriage can only be forged in love. How can such a union occur when you clearly do not love him?”
“I do.” I said it without flinching or pausing or tripping over my words. Hawthrin said we must be convincing. “I’ve come to love him.”
“And he you?” She scoffed. “Why marry, when you could have your way with her and be rid of this obsession for good?” She studied us both and then her gaze lowered to my stomach. “Are you with child?”
“No.” We both answered at the same time.
Zanthiel lifted his chin and I could hear his jaw grind before he forced himself to speak the words he’d hoped we’d never have to. “I want more than a mere dalliance. One taste was not nearly enough. I long for her as I do breath.”
A chill rippled through me at the rawness of emotion behind his words. I reminded myself they weren’t real.
“You were right in your belief she has me bewitched, Mother. But no magic could conjure the feelings I have. I love her. She is under my skin, and I will never be free from her spell. Nor do I wish to. It seems marriage is a solution to many dilemmas. Including uniting the realms under one ruler.”
I nodded, moving closer to Zanthiel. When I could reach him, I placed my hand on his cheek and gazed in his silver eyes. “I never believed in prophecy, but he has shown me a different way. Our love is fated. I don’t want to fight it any longer.”
He turned his head and pressed cool lips to my palm. I held my hand there, not only to sell the illusion, but because it felt sort of comforting. I lowered my hand and turned to face his mother.
This was the plan that would save my life, but in this moment, with the queen’s venomous glare on me, I was sure Hawthrin’s advice was going to get us both killed.
Anger flashed in her eyes. She feared losing power…giving up all she’d worked so hard to retain to someone like me. But I knew she was also considering what our union might mean for her.
She leaned back and folded her brittle hands under her chin. “Are you aware that what you are asking is treasonous, punishable by death?”
She didn’t need a reason to kill me; the fact that I’d given her one hadn’t put my life in any more danger than it was already in.
“I do. But I also know it’s my birthright.”
She looked at her son. “A union forged by fate. How prophetic. Well then. So it shall be. If we are to be kin, then there is much you need to learn about our ways. About my land. And about me,” she said with a slow smile. “We must plan a fete at once.”
It didn’t take a seer to know her sudden acceptance of me in her son’s life had to do with an ulterior motive, one we might not discover for some time.
“That will not be necessary,” Zanthiel said. He’d been silent for some time. I knew he wasn’t as okay with this as he was pretending.
“It’s a little too soon to hand over the keys to the kingdom and throw a party,” I said. “I still have to convince the other rulers of Faery Courts to hand over their crowns. That is, if you are willing to give me yours.” I still had no idea what this woman was up to, or what she planned to do with me. For all I knew she could hand it over right now, but have it dipped in some sort of poison that would seep into my brain and cause a frontal lobotomy.
She smiled, bitter and sweet. “Of course, dear heart. I know of what you speak. Love. Madness. Hatred. Death. They are all a piece of life. And yet, you choose this path before you. I applaud your reliance and willingness to do the unthinkable. You demand my crown, and…” She rose and everyone in court sucked in a silent gasp. This was where she’d kill me. Or try to. I wanted to run, to close my eyes, to hide, but I remained frozen in place, my eyes glued to her every movement.
“And…” She waved her hand toward her guards. “You shall have it. Fetch my crown,” she said as she glided toward me, arms outstretched. “My willingness to let you both live is of course under the assumption that you will be successful in obtaining all three crowns of Faery. Summer, Winter and Shadow Courts. Should you fail, then, we will have to reconsider things. Once you have announced your engagement at the Mythlandria Solstice Ball, you will both be escorted back to me to plan the happy event.” She clapped her hands with a smile that looked almost genuine.
But as she embraced me in her cold thin arms, my heart hammered against my chest. This was more terrifying than any threat she’d made so far, because her easy acceptance foreshadowed something so much worse.
The Queen of Air and Darkness smiled at her son, a smile that radiated such warmth and emotion one would believe they shared a special bond, that is if one didn’t know she had just tried to end his life for protecting mine.
“To spare a life is to take responsibility for it.” She lorded over me, her cold swirling around me like the fog from dry ice. “Is this what you choose, to give yourself freely to this Shadow faerie of the Winter Court?”
I watched him—the dark faerie I’d cared deeply for since the first time I’d met him so many years ago. He’d made me special, made me into more than what I was. And for that I owed him this. At the very least.
His lifeless eyes glinted silver, reflecting the harsh white light of day. Haunting and yet so strangely beautiful I couldn't look away. "Yes. This is what I want.”
Zanthiel winced.
"You understand that in undertaking this oath, you will be binding your soul to his.” She jabbed the air with her staff, pointing toward her son. “You will carry the chill of winter in your blood for all eternity?"
“Do not do this, Lorelei.” Zanthiel’s words were halting. Life seeped from his body with every passing second as his mother held him pinned in place with her iron staff. He paused, glancing at me with pain in his eyes.
I looked away, refusing to let his stubbornness change my mind, and nodded.
"If you should take another you will never belong fully to them, but will always in part belong to him, and by extension... to me.” Her cold eyes gleamed, and she smiled ever so slightly. “Betrothal to another will not free you from your tie,” she warned. “Not until another accepts this fate, will you be free of the cold."
"I understand.” I nodded, ignoring the forceful thoughts Zanthiel was pushing into my mind. “No. I won’t let you die. I can’t.”
“Then kneel before me, whelp.”
Icy leaves brushed against my side as I bent down to kneel before Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. The woman who gave birth to the faerie to whom I was now giving my soul. The prophecy was coming to pass.
She stepped toward me, her cloak moving of its own volition. As the shadows of the branches fell across me, a wisp of blue and black smoke curled from between her lips, and floated into mine. As it swept down my throat, my head wrenched back in agony. Ice coated my body from the inside out. I screamed in terror, then fell to the ground as everything went black.
When I opened my eyes it was darker. The sky had faded to a deep purple and torches had been lit within the frigid hall. How long had I been out? I climbed to my feet, unsteadily at first, but managed to remain upright. It was no longer as cold as it had been before. Or perhaps I wasn’t as cold.
My head felt heavy, unbalanced. Lifting my hand, I placed it on top of my head, only to find the source of the weight. It was a crown. Fragile as light, yet heavier than solid gold. I lifted it and set it next to me, at once awestruck by its beauty and repulsed by what it represented. There had to be a way out of this.
Zanthiel was no longer strung up with iron chains. He’d been freed, and though the gashes and lacerations still covered his body, he was alive. Silently I exhaled a relieved sigh.
He extended his hand to me.
There was nothing of thanks or gratitude in his stare, only that familiar look of carefully controlled fury.
He pulled me to my feet and I leaned into him for support. The magic took so much out of me that standing on my own was pretty much impossible. I looked up at him, and his face warmed for a brief moment, then cooled again.
“Zanthiel, before you say anything, I’m sorry, but I did what I had to do. I don’t expect you to thank me, but can we please just get past it and skip the lecture?”
He shook his head slowly and narrowed his gaze. “Thank you?” He scoffed. “I should end you myself. Do you see now why I told you to stay out of it? Chained for eternity to a being like me… you were right, you would be better off dead. Which is why I’ve decided you need to leave. Now.”
“Excuse me? No. No way. That’s not the plan, Zanthiel.”
“The plan has changed. I have ordered Tilak to send you back while I return to the Winter Court to deal with my mother.”
“Not again.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t do this, Zanthiel. I can’t leave. Not yet.”
“Perhaps you would rather we be wed?”
I stopped talking.
“Don’t worry, Lorelei. I would never have agreed to the wizard’s plan unless there’d been no other way.”
“And I would have? You act as if this is something I actually want.”
“Is it?”
I scowled up at him. “You and I together forever, I can’t see that ending well. I mean, we make each other crazy; neither one of us would ever be happy again,” I muttered the last part, more to myself than to him. But he heard it, and laughed darkly to himself.
“Perhaps you should just save yourself the hassle and let Mab kill me now.” I shrugged, the strain wearing on me.
His smile faded. He stalked toward me, stopping only when we were inches apart.
“I’d prefer that you lived long enough to hate me for all eternity, Lorelei.” He spoke with a deadly serious tone. “Your safety will always matter more to me than your happiness. Emotions are fleeting. Your life cannot be.”