As Devlin returned, the look on his face was dire. “She’s summoned me to the hall.”
Devlin entered Sorcha’s main hall. The insult of being summoned in front of all and any who cared to watch pricked his temper. He tried to suppress it as he had done for eternity, but he was failing. He’d been advisor, assassin, family to her for eternity, yet she beckoned him into her hall in front of the masses.
The High Queen sat on the throne looking emotionless. Behind her, Seth stood with one hand on the back of the queen’s throne. Like Sorcha, his emotions were hidden. Devlin, for a change, did not endeavor to disguise his feelings: he was furious. Sorcha had come near to unmaking Faerie, but she acted as if she were unfazed by her folly.
Devlin crossed the crowded room to the dais. He stopped in front of her, but he did not bow. For the first time, he did not bend his knee to the High Queen.
No one in the room spoke. But they watch—and she knows. He had not spent eternity simply killing for his queen; he knew how to wield unspoken as well as physical threat.
“How much have you hidden? That is the question I am forced to ponder now, Devlin.” Sorcha sounded calm, but there was an edge that was new. There, in front of the denizens of the High Court, she spoke to him like he was nothing.
He crossed a line then that he’d never crossed: he stepped up and grabbed his sister’s arm. “We will not discuss this here.”
“Cease!” she demanded. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.
“You embarrass us both by doing this here,” he whispered.
Seth stepped forward, but in Faerie, he was mortal, and mortal movement was not fast enough. By the time Seth had moved, Sorcha and Devlin were well away from the dais.
Devlin glanced back and said, “The
High Queen is not in physical danger.”
The assurance was primarily for Seth, but the rest of the assembled faeries heard the words as well.
Seth nodded.
Sorcha continued to resist. She shoved ineffectually against Devlin’s chest and hissed, “Release me.”
“Sister, you will come gracefully, or we will discuss everything in front of them.”
The High Queen pursed her lips, but she stopped resisting.
Then he dragged his sister-mother-queen across the room and shoved open the door to her garden.
She stepped in front of him, and for the first time in the millennia they’d stood alone together in her private garden, he saw ire shimmering in her eyes. The silver veins in her skin glittered like moonlight storming beneath the surface.
“How was Seth made faery?”
“I don’t see that—”
“How?”
“You know the answer or you wouldn’t be acting like this. I gave him of my own essence to remake him. I did not expect the consequences or emotion, but I don’t regret it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I wanted a child of my own. I wanted a son, and he needed a m—”
“You had a son, if you weren’t too cruel to admit it….” He pulled his gaze away from her.
“No, I have a brother. You are my brother, made by order and violence. I wanted someone who was just mine.” She grew agitated, not orderly, not in control of her emotions as the High Queen should be. After an eternity of balance with her twin, she was unsettled—because she had made herself so. The High Queen, the Unchanging Queen, had changed.
“It was the right choice,” she insisted. “I needed him. He needed me.”
“Could we sit?” Shakily, Devlin gestured to the space between them.
Sorcha made a table and two chairs appear. He sat and stared at her. After more millennia than either of them likely could recall, Sorcha had changed everything. Devlin wasn’t sure what that would mean for Faerie or the mortal world, but the consequences thus far—Sorcha’s mourning and Faerie’s almost ending—weren’t particularly encouraging.
Carefully, Devlin touched her hand. “What have you done, Sister?”
“Freed myself from her. We’re different from one another now. I have taken a mortal’s taint into myself, given him part of me. Don’t you see? Bananach and I are no longer perfectly opposite.” Sorcha smiled, and the moon glowed brighter overhead. The air tasted purer as her happiness grew. “It was not my intention, but it has… oh, it has given me so much more than I realized I could have. I have a son, a child of my own, emotions I did not understand, and I can see my twin-no-more without feeling unwell. I may even be able to kill—”