She crossed her arms over her stomach and shook her head, “I can’t believe it. Why would he do that?” She glared at Rodan. “You attacked us. You attacked me. Tried to kill me. This is more like something you would have done.”
“I tried to squash a rebellion,” he corrected, his voice surprising in its gentleness. “If I had wanted to kill you, you would have been dead the moment you started stirring up trouble in the Five Realms. If I were the tyrant your dear Sebastian painted me to be I had ample opportunity to lead you both to your demise. Yet here you are. Alive. Well. Setting me as the villain in your children’s books.”
Her mind buzzed from the onslaught of new information, threatening to tip her entire world over. What Rodan said would nullify everything that she ever believed in. All that she stood for. She shook her head. “If you’re really a nice guy, then let me go back to my world. Run the trials yourself. Find someone else to be your second.”
Rodan shook his head in return. “I have chosen. The rest is up to you. I have shown you what Sebastian is.”
“Why me?” Maeve asked. “I’ve only worked against you in the past.”
“But you have worked for the Realm,” King Rodan explained. “In all your many ventures, in all the kingdoms you conquered on your way to the high seat, you were gentle with the subjects. You were the one who had the power to change things, to bend situations to your will. It was not Sebastian,” he spat the name, “who won the throne. It was you. You, the interloper. The maiden from beyond the veil.”
She flushed as he said her old titles, both good and bad. She remembered the ‘Wanted’ posters that sprung up in villages and cities with her face sketched upon them, branding her an interloper and offering a monumental reward to anyone who would aid in her successful capture. Many tried, over those many years, but none succeeded. Some got close, and she shuddered at the memory.
Rodan was right. She did just as he said—helped conquer each of the kingdoms on the way to crown Sebastian as high king.
Sebastian, she thought, looking around her at the little clearing in the woods. He should know I’m here. He always sensed when I came through the veil. Just like her, he could use magic. Possessed senses others did not.
Her heart gave an involuntary flutter.
After all those years of adventure, she thought that she and Sebastian would rule here together. That after she crowned him at his coronation, he would call her back to him to be by his side. His summons never came, and no matter how many times she revisited the places where the world grew thin, admittance to the Five Realms was denied her.
She assumed that she no longer could, but now Rodan had proved that wasn’t the case. She was here.
Rodan, of all people, had pulled her through.
“This can’t be right,” she protested, her words sounding weak even to her own ears. “It can’t be. Sebastian would never have ordered the execution of these people. He couldn’t have. He—”
“I what?” called a familiar voice.
Maeve jerked at the sound and turned, heart leaping but stomach sinking at the same time. Rodan only lifted his chin, otherwise remaining stock still.
Striding toward them across the clearing stepped an older, more weathered Sebastian. Crisp dark blue eyes flashed under a mop of unruly red curls, and his smile was the same. His gait and the way he tilted his head in greeting was the same. Her throat tightened.
“Sebastian, I—”
“Maeve,” he interrupted, holding his arms out from his side. “How splendid you look.”
Before she could react, Sebastian enveloped her in a firm embrace. He smelled sweet, like sugared cookies and flowers, but with an undercurrent of something else. Something wrong. Sour.
He pulled away from her and held her at arm’s length, grinning. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
She couldn’t help but echo his smile. “Neither did I.”
He let her go and turned on his heel toward his old nemesis. His golden crown of roses and thorns flashed in the sunlight. “Rodan. You’ve returned.”
Rodan swept into a formal bow, extending his arms out to both sides. “Sebastian Sekou, high king of the Five Realms, I hereby declare my intention to challenge you to the throne. Name your terms, and let the trials begin.”
Maeve felt a strange chill run through her. Those words felt—odd. Significant. As though they carried a weight of their own.
Sebastian put his hands on his hips and gave a long-suffering sigh. “I knew you would pull something like this one day. A duel, hey, old man? Do you think you can take me?”
Rodan remained silent.
“Very well,” Sebastian said, his voice taking on a wheedling, high tone. “I’ll see that the challenges are laid in your path. You have, mm, six months to make it to my castle, or the duel is forfeit.” He tapped his finger against his chin, looking between Maeve and Rodan. “Who is your second, old man?”
“Maeve Almeida,” Rodan declared, straightening and facing her. “So long as she accepts.”
Sebastian laughed. He laughed so hard that he almost doubled over, the crown slipping a little on his head, listing to the side. Wiping tears from his eyes, he continued to grin at Maeve. “Is he serious? Do you accept the mantle of second and companion to him during his trials?”
Maeve hesitated, on the brink of saying no. She licked her lips. “Sebastian,” she said in a soft voice, soft enough that she hoped it did not carry over to Rodan. “What happened here?”
Her old friend moved his gaze around, nodding a little as though concluding something. “So, he told you, did he? Told you that this place harbored traitors?”
A lump formed in her throat and it felt as though a boulder was settling on her stomach. “What?” she rasped.
“I have to hold my throne, Maeve,” Sebastian said, his tone condescending. “Do you think the trials were hard? They’re a cakewalk compared to the governorship.”
Her eyes burned, but she blinked back the tears. “Why didn’t you call for me, then?”
“What?” Sebastian snapped. “So you could take credit for everything else that I do? No. You were better off in your world.”
Maeve took a step back from him, legs shaking a little. “Take credit? When did I ever—”
“You know what you did,” he snarled.
Maeve glanced at Rodan, who stared back at her with an unreadable expression, silent.
“But you did this,” she said, her voice shaking. She pushed through it. She needed the confirmation. “You killed these people.”
“Don’t be crass. I had them killed. They were treasonous, the lot of them.”
A tear fell, Maeve helpless to stop it. “The children were treasonous? How?”
“They would have grown to be a problem, and you know it,” Sebastian said in a smooth, silken voice, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “What would you have me do? Allow someone else to take over the throne? To throw away all your hard-won victories? Aren’t you proud of me for holding onto the world you gifted me?”
With those last few, mocking words, Sebastian’s blue eyes glittered with malice. She took another couple of steps back from him, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. You’re what he said.”