“Did she show up at the party?” Harper draws an angry breath. “You should have kept Dustan with you. You shouldn’t have sent him after me, of all people—”
Silver hell. “Harper. Stop.”
She stops.
“Lilith has been here for weeks.” I pause. “Months.”
I watch as she absorbs this information, as her face shifts from worry and fear to confusion and bewilderment. I expect her to yell, for this to fuel her tirade, but instead, she turns thoughtful. “Months.” Her voice grows softer. “Rhen. Rhen. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
I hesitate, and she sucks in a breath, pressing a hand to her abdomen. “It’s me. She threatened me.”
“Yes.”
Harper presses her palms together in front of her face, then blows out a breath. She drops into a chair in front of the hearth. “Okay. Start at the beginning. I thought Grey took her to the other side and killed her.”
I ease into the chair beside her. “He certainly tried. She bears a scar on her neck—and for all the other injuries he attempted on this side, she’s never had a scar. He may not be aware she lives.”
“And what does she want?”
“She wants me to win this war.”
“Why? Why does she care?”
“Because she wants to rule Emberfall. She blames my father—my country—for the destruction of her people. She wants the throne.”
“Then why doesn’t she just kill you?”
“You see that my dispute with Grey has already put us at risk of civil war. She wholeheartedly admits that she cannot claim the throne and expect my entire kingdom to bend a knee to her. She is powerful, but not that powerful.”
Harper considers that for a while. I wait, listening to the fire snap in the hearth. I have been terrified of this moment for … for ages. I did not want Harper to know. I did not want her to be at risk. But I did not realize how desperate I was for a confidante until she demanded this truth.
The thought tightens my chest, and I have to swallow the emotion. I still remember the night I met the enchantress, how she tried to charm my father first, and he had the good sense to turn her away.
I didn’t, and I’ve been paying the price ever since.
Harper’s hand falls over mine. “Don’t hide,” she says. “Talk to me.”
She’s kinder than I deserve. “When Grey and I were trapped in the curse, he was the only person who knew how terrible she was. It is … difficult to share that with you. Even now.”
“What does she want to do to me? Leave my body parts all over Emberfall?”
“Worse. She has threatened to return you to Disi.”
Her hand goes still over mine, and her expression freezes. “Oh.”
I hold my breath, worried that Lilith will show herself and make good on her threats, but the room remains quiet. The enchantress does not appear. The fire continues to snap.
Harper continues to exist at my side.
“So she wants you to win this war. She wants you to be king.” Harper hesitates, and her eyes search mine. “And she wants to be at your side once you are.”
I nod.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Do you really want to go to war with Grey?”
“I see no other way for Emberfall—”
“Stop.” She puts up a hand. “Do you, Rhen, really want to go to war with your brother?”
I sigh and rise from the chair, moving to the side table, where I uncork a bottle of wine. “He may be my brother in blood, Harper, but he is not my brother.” I pause to pour. “He ran instead of telling me the truth. He stood in front of me and kept this secret. He declared war on me.”
“No, he gave you sixty days—”
“To prepare for war.” I drain the glass and pour another. “His letter was quite clear.”
“He said, do not make me do this.”
“I’ve made him do nothing. He can stay there and I can stay here and we can all be at peace.” I drain this glass, too, especially because I know this is not true. Syhl Shallow was struggling, desperate for resources and trade, before the curse was ever broken. My father had been paying a tithe to keep Grey’s birthright a secret, but once I was cursed and my father was dead, the tithe stopped being paid. Five years of silver stayed in my coffers—and Syhl Shallow went lacking.
It’s why Karis Luran sent soldiers into my lands, and it’s why Grey is promising to do the same thing if I do not ally with Lia Mara.
Harper appears at my side and takes the glass away. “If Lilith is around, the last thing you need to be is drunk.”
That’s debatable, but I push the cork back in. I haven’t been drunk in months. Not since the night Grey returned Harper to Washington, DC. Before we knew anything about his birthright. Before the curse was broken.
You are incorrigible. I have no idea how I put up with you for so long.
Grey’s words. The only time I’ve ever seen him drunk. Probably the truest words he ever said to me.
He stood with me on the castle parapets before I turned into a monster the final time. I sought to sacrifice myself. I was going to jump. I was terrified.
He stepped up and took my hand.
My throat tightens. I yank the cork free and drink right from the bottle.
“Wow,” says Harper.
“Indeed.” My voice is husky.
She takes the bottle this time. I drop into the chair in front of the fire and run my hands across my face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she says quietly.
“Because I cannot lose you again,” I say. “I couldn’t put you at risk.”
She’s quiet for a while, and I don’t have the courage to look at her. Weeks of anger were bad enough. I have no desire to see disappointment or censure in her expression.
Her fingers drift along my shoulder then, and she curls into the chair with me, her skirts falling across my lap, her head tucking into the hollow beneath my chin. She is warm and solid and sure against me.
She doesn’t hate me, and I nearly shudder from the relief of it.
“That’s why you were putting on such a show for the Grand Marshals,” she says. “Because you need to put on a good show for Lilith.”
“It needs to be more than a show if we’re going to stand a chance against Syhl Shallow.” I pause. “But yes.”
“I wish I’d worn the dress now.”
“I have never seen you as a pawn,” I say, and mean it. “Wear what you like.”
She falls quiet for a while, breathing along my neck for so long that my thoughts begin to scatter and drift, either from exhaustion or the wine. Or both.
“You used to take Lilith’s torments so she wouldn’t hurt Grey,” Harper whispers.
I remember the endless misery the enchantress would visit upon us both. Some days it was boredom, while others it seemed to be vindictive, or a punishment for crimes only she could fathom. Nothing she did would kill us, not when the curse was in effect, but the pain was very real.
I would draw her attention off Grey when I could. He did not earn the curse, I did. He should have fled during the first season, when I first changed.
Sometimes I wish he had.
“It was all I could do,” I say to Harper. “Only his loyalty kept him by my side. No one deserves an eternity of torture for that.”