“Yes. My thegn’s people and, therefore, mine.”
“Enough of this, Lugh,” she snaps. She turns back to Roark, exposing the pale column of her neck and the curve of her cheek. It’s not a movement to signal surrender, just a sign of how little she considers me a threat. “Your loyalty to that human was amusing when you were a boy. You’ve outgrown it.”
The draugr, still furious I fought its hold during our battle with Goodfellow, growls its rage at Mother’s show of pride instead. This time, I don’t tell it to shut up. I agree with it, and in its surprise, it allows me to continue uncontested. “No,” I tell my mother. “I’ve outgrown your Court.”
Before I can blink, Mother’s on her feet, lashing out with a hex. If not for Roark’s swift jostling of her arm, it would have landed. Instead, it strikes the wall behind me and ice clicks and forms over the stone.
It was a sacrifice Roark shouldn’t have made. Mother spins on him, grips his jaw tightly in her hand, and drags him down to kneel beside her throne. Her magick swells and the air is so bitterly cold it hurts to breathe.
Roark doesn’t flinch. He stares up at Mother, one hand clenched around her wrist, his breathing steady even as frost expands from her grip to cover his cheeks, his mouth, and his throat.
Smith is almost as quick on the defense as Mother was in her attack. His hand clamps around Mother’s throat and the air around him wavers from the heat he throws off. It meets Mother’s magick and steam rises as they remain locked in that battle of wills.
“Unhand me.” Mother’s words drip with the promise of pain, and Smith flinches. But he doesn’t falter.
“Release my husband,” he counters.
She glares down at Roark. The frost has climbed higher, nearly to his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would think the expression flitting over her face when she sees him this way is regret. It’s gone too quickly to know for sure, but she releases him. He coughs the moment she drops contact. Smith wraps an arm around his chest, hauling him up and away from the throne. He keeps his body between Mother and Roark, and the ley line sparks in warning for her to keep her distance.
With Roark beyond her reach, Mother glances toward Sláine, who hasn’t moved from his seat. Her eyes narrow and she points at me, though there’s no warning build of her magick. “Will you defend him as well?”
Sláine’s scar stretches when he offers her a wry grin. “I’ve already defected, remember? Why shouldn’t Lugh?”
“You support this?” Mother hisses.
He shrugs. “He’s being a bit dramatic about it, but what can you expect from the baby of the family?”
“Dramatic?” I can’t swallow it down fast enough and Sláine’s shrewd sideways glance confirms I took the bait. Of all my family, he’s always been the best at poking my open wounds, finding my weaknesses, and exploiting them. I never understood his patience. Or his callousness.
“Yes, dramatic,” Sláine states. “This is a war, Lugh. People will die.” He leans back in his chair, feigning nonchalance, though he never turns far enough to lose sight of Mother.
“People like Keiran? Or does he not count because he’s only human? I forgot you shared Mother’s views.”
Smith’s sharp inhalation gives me no pleasure.
Banked fury glitters in Sláine’s eyes and his hand twitches, probably to reach for his scar. He pulls himself back together swiftly. “Be very careful, brother,” he murmurs. “You speak of things you don’t understand.”
“I understand all too well. Mother forced Keiran to transform against his will. She knew he would be vulnerable afterward. She knew the Sluagh would protect him. She used them as a shield while she fled back to this place unharmed.”
“Yet the human lives,” Mother says.
I clench my hands into fists and glare at her. “His people died. He nearly died. Would you have noticed if he hadn’t survived? Would it have given you a moment’s pause?” Behind her the shades drift aimlessly. I wave a hand at them. “Have you ever thought of your victims?”
Sláine’s slouch vanishes. He leans forward and stares at the seeming emptiness I gestured to. I know he can’t see the shades, but his sudden interest is unnerving. “What victims?”
“Everyone she destroyed to claim her throne.”
“You know nothing of the sacrifice required to rule a Court,” Mother says. “You’ve spent your life running from those duties, safe because of what I have done to give you your position—”
“I’ve spent my life running from the shades you created!” I snap. “Did you know they linger here in the sídhe? That they surround you even now, just as they do Goodfellow?”
Every eye in the room fixes on me. The unnatural reality of my power lies exposed to those who could use it to hurt me most. There are no allies here. I long to return to Keiran, who will hold me in his arms without hesitation because this is who I am, and that’s enough for him. Has always been enough.
“I hate this place.” The words scrape out of my throat, biting and bitter and hateful. “You let me play chess with their bones and told me nothing would harm me. Yet even you, the Queen of Air and Darkness, couldn’t prevent these shades from finding me and digging their fingers into my head and whispering all their secrets to me. They tell me what you did to them. How you did it. They thought I would help them. I was a child, and I bore the weight of your actions!”
I turn to look at Roark, my brother who fought to free me from this hell, even if he didn’t understand why I needed to abandon him. “You asked me once what monster haunted me.”
He nods, a fragile, wounded movement, and Smith’s arm tightens around his chest.