Crown of Roses, page 34
“Indeed.” Cas turned to the side and when the faint glow of amber faerie lights fell across him, she could finally see his face. It was drawn, pulled down with exhaustion. A kind of sadness haunted his eyes, and the coldness, the deadly accuracy from before, was gone. “But the warrior didn’t give up on her. He fought her battles, all of them. He used the fullest extent of his power, shape-shifting into that of a dragon to wreck worlds for her. Then one day he realized, maybe it was his own magic the princess desired. He convinced himself she would come around, that she would overcome this desperate craving for more, if he could simply get her to see the truth of his heart. And then a plague spread across the realm.”
She was tracing one finger over the glamoured Aurastone when her body went entirely still. While the tea kept her emotions and reactions calm, it was no match for her mind. Something about this story was painfully familiar, a memory she didn’t want to relive, from a time she’d forgotten. “Cas…”
But he continued on like she hadn’t spoken. “The sorceress who ruled the spreading darkness claimed love always conquered. If the warrior chose to remain in his mortal form for eternity, it would remove the temptation of his endless power, and his princess would be saved from that which would eventually destroy her. The sorceress would bind his soul to her and in return, she would bind him in his mortal, human form. It sounded too good to be true, because it was. You see, the faerie princess was too far gone for redemption.”
“No.” The whisper scraped through the air between them and Maeve’s mouth ran as dry as a stream without rain. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be saying what she was hearing. Not Casimir. Not him. She’d known him all of her life. She’d trusted him since the day she was born. For years, he’d been her friend, her constant ally. Her protector and guardian. “Tell me it’s not true, Casimir. Tell me it’s not her.”
His eyes were lost, focused on a memory she couldn’t see. “One day, the faerie princess became so obsessed with enhancing her abilities and magic, that she killed her own mother. And as punishment, the gift of the anam ó Danua was ripped from her. Her power was seized by force. The goddess Danua graced all of Faeven with her presence, and she rid the realm of the horrors brought on by the wicked sorceress Carman. And when Danua banished Carman to the mortal realm, the warrior—soul-bound by an oath—went with her, leaving his true love behind.”
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be…she would’ve known. Wouldn’t she? She sank into the bars supporting her, while her mind tried desperately to piece together the puzzle pieces Casimir tossed her way. He was the warrior, the one who’d traded his soul in exchange for the ability to remain in his mortal form for eternity, in an effort to save Parisa from her power-crazed madness. But he’d failed, because he wasn’t enough. He was in love with her, but his love wasn’t enough to save her, to help her see past the thirst for more control. Maeve sucked in a breath but it was mildewy, and tinged with lingering smoke. Casimir and Parisa. Parisa and Casimir. All this time, all these years. She’d placed her trust in him. Fully and completely. He’d taught her, molded her into a formidable weapon, albeit one who loved books. But she knew him. Though now, it seemed, she knew nothing about him at all.
A tiny, insignificant detail flared to life from the darkest corners of her mind. From the place she didn’t want to go, from the truth she feared most.
Maeve shoved up from the ground and her accelerated movement sent her careening across the cell. She lurched forward and grabbed onto one of the bars in an attempt to hold herself into place. On the other side, Casimir stood and faced her. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just watched her watch him, and she hoped he burned under the heat of her gaze.
“Are you free from Carman’s soul bond?”
Casimir shoved his hands into the pockets of his loose black pants. Silence emanated from him.
Maeve’s grip on the bars tightened. The cold metal burned into her skin and she rattled them until she ground her teeth against the clanking racket. Bits of stone and pebble shook from the ceiling.
“Answer me, you bastard!” Her arm shot out between the bars, and her fingers snared into the collar of his shirt. She dragged him, crushed him to the bars, so their faces were less than an inch apart. His hands flew up and captured her wrists, but it was all for show. He wasn’t applying any pressure. He didn’t fear for his life. He wasn’t even threatened by her.
“Yes.” He nodded sharply. “I am.”
Maeve released him and pulled back, recoiled away like he was diseased. Blemished. A hammering noise echoed in her head, and she realized it was probably her heart. “So, my mother, is—”
“Is not Carman.”
There it was, out in the open between them. The bewildering truth of her darkest hope. She was not Carman’s daughter. For years she’d wondered, maybe even imagined…but now the confirmation was almost just as terrifying.
Maeve looked up at him. “If not Carman, then who?”
Casimir straightened, and when he spoke, he sounded eerily detached. The emotion from before now gone, leaving him empty. “You are the youngest child, and only daughter of Dorian and Fianna, the former High King and High Queen of the Autumn Court.”
“What?” Maeve blanched. She searched his face again, but now he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking through her. Like she was nothing. Like she was the enemy. Maeve shook her head. She didn’t believe him. “No. You’re lying. I would know if I was fae. I’m cursed. You know that, Cas. You know it. You were there, remember? You told me—”
“What I told you was a lie.” He pointed to the murky puddle on the ground. “See for yourself.”
She rubbed her lips together and peeked over. The reflection gazing up at her was not the same woman from before. Her ears were long and pointy, her hair fell in pink, strawberry blonde curls, and her face was without blemish. The curve of her body was more defined, more voluptuous. She was different, yet the same—a quandary to her kind, though she wasn’t too keen on calling herself a fae just yet. Her eyes however, were the most discerning change. An endless sea of gray-green, speckled with fiery gold.
“Look at you,” Casimir murmured. “You are fae incarnate. Sunshine and moonlight. The fire of Autumn, the lifeblood of magic. There is no denying your birthright.”
The lifeblood of magic.
Her heart sank and seized, and that feeling, that drowning sensation of angst clenched around her. The beat of her heart quickened and jumped, pulsed with vengeance. Her chest was tight, like she’d been wedged between two brick walls, and with every breath, her lungs squeezed even more. It was the gut-check feeling, the one that slammed into her with such force, she wasn’t sure she would ever recover. If Casimir plunged a blade into her chest, she would’ve been no less surprised.
He stepped closer, but the lines of his face were hard. There was no trace of remorse or regret. “You were still in your mother’s womb when Carman ruled Faeven. So new, such a fresh beginning of life, that not even Dorian knew his wife was with child. So Fianna, wonderful as she was, glamoured herself as a human. She told no one. She abandoned her husband, her sons, and her throne, all to save you.”
Hot tears welled in Maeve’s eyes and she furiously blinked them away. Her heart. Oh, stars, but her heart was ravaged with uncontrollable despair. The truth hurt, it physically pained her. She’d been flayed open, left raw and defenseless, her entire world flipped upside down. Everything she thought she knew, everything she thought to be true, was a lie.
“Fianna made a human king fall in love with her,” Casimir continued, oblivious to her inner torment. “And then she safely birthed you.”
“How?” The word ruptured from somewhere deep inside her. “How do you know all this?
His face remained impassive, his warm eyes, now cold. “Because I’m the one who slayed them. I killed the human king. I killed the Autumn queen. And I conquered what is now Kells, under Carman’s order.”
Maeve gasped.
“I didn’t have the heart to slaughter an infant, so, I brought you to Carman.” His gaze dropped to the floor. “And she raised you as her own…you were barely a year old when we overtook Kells. ”
“You sentenced me to a life of suffering!” The effects of the tea were fading and her fury was rising. But her magic, no matter how many times she called to it, no matter how many times it moved inside her, ready to burn down the world, it remained just out of reach. “How could you have kept this from me?” she snarled.
Casimir shrugged. Careless. “I didn’t realize you were anyone special. I knew you were fae, or at least partially, because of your pointy little ears. The strength of your magic didn’t show right away, and for awhile, I believed you to be a halfling. You were young and harmless, I thought nothing of it. Then that one winter the snow fell for so long, and you were so small, and so tired of it. You created a crown of roses out of thin air and I knew you were powerful. I convinced Carman to put you in cuffs, claimed she could wield you as a weapon once you fully came into your power.”
“You should’ve let her kill me.” Maeve stormed to the opposite side of the cell, away from him.
“I could have, I suppose. But I’d grown fond of you. At the age of five, you were already wielding a dagger while most little girls your age played with dolls.” He slumped, and leaned against the bars. “The cuffs were never meant to be permanent. But I believe the older you got, the more Carman feared who you would become. Especially when Rowan arrived.”
She reeled back. Parisa hadn’t been lying. She had sent Rowan to hunt her down like an animal.
“But I found him first.” Casimir kicked a small, stone pebble and it skittered down the hall outside the dungeon. “I didn’t realize Rowan was sent to Kells by Parisa. I didn’t know he’d come looking for you. His cuffs were a means to an end. For information and nothing more.”
“And did he give any?” Maeve snapped.
“No. He took his torture without a word and gave Carman nothing.” Casimir refused to look at her. He kept his gaze focused on the stone floor at their feet. “When we arrived in Faeven, I wasn’t sure we could trust him. Obviously, we can’t—”
“You’re one to talk.”
He ignored the slight and continued speaking. “I didn’t put it together right away. Not at first. But small pieces of the puzzle slowly clicked into place.” He rubbed his hand over his face, like he was trying to wipe away the knowledge of it. Of her. “But when the dark fae attacked Summer that first night, when you were poisoned, I thought maybe I knew why. And then the second time…when I found you in the summer woods, I knew for certain.”
“And how did you know?”
“Rowan told me.”
Maeve reared back. His admission was a slap across her face. Goddess above. Knots of pain twisted violently in her stomach and she planted her hands on her knees. She sucked in gulps of the damp, stagnant air to keep from throwing up. Rowan. Fucking Rowan. Her mind whirred, but she couldn’t focus on a single thought. She couldn’t breathe. “Are you fucking serious? He knew? All this time he knew it was me?”
Casimir took to pacing. His boots clicked almost soundlessly against the roughened floor. “He knew. He knew the reason he was sent to Kells was to find the anam ó Danua; Parisa recognized the burst of power as soon as you took your first breath, but it was faint. When you created your crown of roses, she sent him to find you and bring you back to her.”
“Then why didn’t he just turn me over to her as soon as we got to Faeven?” Maeve demanded. She charged across the cell, kicking up hay, and grabbed the bars. Hands clenched around the cold metal, she rattled them, wishing for a brief second it was Casimir’s neck instead. The reverberations left her teeth aching. “Why didn’t he just throw me at her feet? Why drag me along, why torment me, why make me suffer?”
Casimir stilled. “Only he knows the answer to that.”
Maeve screamed. She screamed until her throat ached and her chest burned. Power flowed inside of her, bursting, nearly breaking her. “I hate this place! I hate all of the stupid riddles, and all the dangerous games. I hate that not a single soul in this goddess forsaken land can even speak one fucking truth!”
Silence descended upon them. It was heavy, weighted with tension and heartache. She slumped down to the ground, let her head fall back against the cell door, let the bars hold up the weight of her body.
“So it’s me.” Her voice sounded like a half-dead frog. “I’m the anam ó Danua.”
“You are.”
She was an Archfae, daughter to Dorian and Fianna. A High Princess of the Autumn Court. Which meant Aran, Garvan, and Shay were her brothers. Siblings. She had a family. A slightly dysfunctional one, but that was beside the point. A new kind of betrayal sliced through her. “Casimir.”
He flinched when she used his full name.
“Why have you brought me here?”
“Don’t ask me that question.” His lips grew thin, and he paled. “You already know the answer.”
“You asshole.” She jumped up from the slimy ground and slammed her weight into the bars with as much driving force as she could muster. The clattering pained her ears, but they didn’t budge. “How could you side with her? You know what she is and what she does. You’ve seen her kill and destroy, wreck and ruin, yet still you choose her?”
“Parisa doesn’t want you dead.” He shifted his weight back, away from her, and flipped up his hood. “If you simply do as she asks, she’ll keep you alive.”
“Well, then.” Maeve crossed her arms and let the resentment flow from her. “That explains why you’re still here.”
Casimir’s gaze darkened, but he didn’t correct her. “You’ll be her greatest weapon, Maeve.”
She spat at his feet when he turned away. “I’d rather die.”
“I’m sure you would,” he muttered, and started walking away.
“Fuck you, Casimir!” It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. But all she could think of, all she could focus on, was her intensely passionate fury for the man who’d once been her friend. “I hate you.”
He stopped, frozen in place, then turned just enough for her to hear his whisper. “I thought you might.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Maeve paced the tiny cube of the cell for what felt like hours. Maybe more. With every step, she grew more aware of the magic vibrating within her. It was the same awareness that helped her understand the cell was charmed, that there was some kind of magical ward surrounding it which kept her power at bay. She could feel the magic flowing through her, but she couldn’t touch it. She couldn’t access it. Parisa was no better than Carman. She was the same. Vile. Cruel. And foolish. Maeve stalked from one side to the other, listening for voices, forming a plan. She couldn’t sit, she couldn’t remain still. Images from pages of books she’d read flashed in her mind as she tried to recreate the truth of her past. Unbidden knowledge overcrowded her mind, bits of memories that were stolen from her, innate abilities gifted to her from her birth parents, the High King and High Queen of Autumn.
No wonder she’d experienced those wild images when she forged a Strand with Aran. No wonder Shay demanded her identity; he must have been able to sense something between them. A bond of some kind. Perhaps that was why the Autumn forest protected her, and kept her hidden from trooping fae when she fled from Garvan and Shay. Autumn recognized her. It knew her blood, it knew her magic. It was home, and like always called to like.
Maeve stared down at her hands. The Strand forged between herself and Tiernan was still there. The golden sun inside in her palm.
She wasn’t sure of her magic yet, of what she could and could not control. From some of her studies, she knew she would automatically inherit her mother’s magic. Fianna’s magic. Unfortunately, that was a blank spot, an emptiness she wouldn’t be able to fill on her own. Except…Rowan mentioned Fianna controlled fire, which would supposedly pass to Maeve. She also knew the anam ó Danua transformed her into a magic source. Not only could she give life and create, she could also bestow magic. At least, she remembered as much from what Rowan told her.
A nagging voice pilfered through the jumble of thoughts in her mind.
What if Rowan was lying?
Her heart shattered. There was no reason for him to be honest and she supposed it all made sense now. Another rule of the fae had been broken. Years and years of written word said fae were bound to the truth, that they were unable to speak a lie. This never stopped them from bending statements with riddles and twists; it enabled them to fabricate their own honesty. Or lack thereof. But she was fae. And she’d been able to lie, easily and often. Which only proved the original theory to be wrong. Fae could deceive. And Rowan had done as much to her. Deceived her. Mortified her. Her past had been stolen from her. Her loyalty, betrayed. Everyone, everyone, had lied to her. Everyone had tried to break her, to weaken her, to kill her.
Everyone except Saoirse. But Maeve was fae now, perhaps even her best friend would turn away from her. If she was even still alive.
Another wrench twisted through her. She would not go down so easily.
She would not be made to suffer and endure, to tremble and fear. She was the hidden dawn come to destroy the night. The cliffs that withstood the thrashing of the storm. Nothing, and no one, would ever break her again.
“Maeve,” a sing-song voice called her name. “Are you awake?”
Her body went on full alert. Her muscles clenched and her joints stiffened. Ready to attack. To fight. One hand slid to her thigh, and though she could feel the hilt of the Aurastone rub against her palm, she couldn’t grab it. Not even her weapon would respond to her.
Her throat worked, and she blew out a slow, even breath. She would face whatever Parisa brought to her without fear.
“Oh good, you’re up.” Parisa floated around the corner. This time she was in a dress of pale pink, and it tightly cinched her waist and thighs, then spread out like a fan near her calves. Jewels dotted her fingers and the same raindrop diamonds sparkled along her ears. She no longer looked mythical and lethal. Now, she looked like a spoiled princess who always got her way.
