Melissa Marr: Fragile Eternity

Aislinn looked at him silently. Her face was tear-streaked.

“You forgave his manipulations over making you his queen. You forgave his manipulations that cost your court Niall’s support and almost killed Leslie. And right now, you’re trying to pretend he wasn’t manipulating you again.” Seth wanted her to interrupt him, to tell him he was wrong.

She didn’t.

“You trust him. I don’t know if it’s a queen and king thing or if you’re just trying to see the good in him. He’s not good, though. He’d have had me killed if he thought it served his purpose. I get that. Niall does. You need to see him for who he truly is. For me, for your court, and for yourself.”

“He’s my partner for the rest of eternity.”

“No, he’s a coworker. I’m your partner ”—he kissed her forehead—“for eternity if you want me. If he’s your king, your friend, your coworker, that’s all fine. I don’t want to keep you to myself with no other people—or faeries—in your life, but I don’t want to share your heart, especially not with someone who keeps hurting you. If you want to be with him, tell me. If you want to be with me, tell me that. You need to figure out what you truly want, Ash. Come find me when you’re ready to tell me that I’m the only one.”

And he left. It ripped some part of him to pieces, but he wasn’t going to wait around hoping for scraps from Keenan’s table.

After Seth was gone from her, Sorcha stayed alone in his rooms. She wasn’t quite ready to deal with Devlin or court matters or much of anything. Truth be told, her only desire just then was to follow Seth and help smooth over whatever conflict he found when he went back to the Summer Queen. Aislinn might’ve been mortal once, but she was the epicenter of summer, a season of heat and frivolity. Sorcha knew Keenan well enough to know that the once-mortal queen would’ve succumbed to his charms.

“How very mawkish, sister.” Bananach came in through the garden door. Her shadowy wings were solid now. “Are you pining for your mortal pet?”

“He’s under your king’s protection. Not my pet and not mortal out there.” Sorcha didn’t deign to look at her sister. Now more than ever, the High Queen must appear Unchanged—but she felt the change. Despite War’s presence, Sorcha felt almost in control of her emotions for the first time in an eternity.

“Precious! All the more access to twist his thoughts then.” Bananach picked up one of Seth’s paintbrushes and sniffed it. “Shall I tell you what he’ll find upon his return? Shall I whisper to you of the ash-queen’s weeping and wailing?”

Sorcha tilted her head and gave Bananach a bland smile. Inside, her heart was aching. The Summer Queen was probably no better than any other Summer Court faery—such a tempestuous, fickle lot.

“Why would that matter to me?” she asked.

“Because she will blame you. Because Seth Morgan’s changing and returning has left Winter and Summer even more at odds. Because Darkness gnashes his teeth about the consequences of your actions, my dear sister.” Bananach crowed the words as she punctuated each statement with miniature sword strokes in the air, brandishing Seth’s paintbrush like a weapon.

“Niall knows where Seth was and why. I was honest with him—as I had been with the last Dark King.” Sorcha stood and stepped around her sister, leaving the close quarters and trying to draw her sister’s unpleasantness away from Seth’s room.

As Sorcha moved past, Bananach snapped her jaw like the animal she was—brutish and crude.

“I’ve no use for your games, Bananach.” The air in the garden was refreshing as Sorcha drew long breaths, letting her sister think she still needed space from her, feigning the discomfort she’d always had when War was in her presence. For the first time, the discordant ripples weren’t touching Sorcha. She still knew they were present, but she was inured to it.

Because I chose Seth to be my son. The touch of his mortality made her something new, not in balance with Bananach now. After all these centuries, I have changed.

The raven-faery wasn’t pleased. She gripped Sorcha’s arm. “Do you truly think I have no other pawns in play?”

“I am sure your machinations are vast.” Sorcha brushed her hands over a cluster of jasmine blossoms and leaned closer to inspect the leaves on a small hawthorn bush. “When you aren’t lost in bloodlust, you are formidable.”

Bananach cocked her head and made a small satisfied sound before saying, “I can be stalled, but Reason always slips, and I wait. And when you stumble, when the regents over there are not wise, I will have my blood.”

“Maybe.”

Bananach let out an ugly caw. “Always. In the end, I always get my blood. One day it will be yours I wear like rouge.”

Sorcha snapped a branch from a shrub, offering Bananach false proof that she’d become so unsettled that her temper slipped out. “Even in your deepest fits of madness, you won’t forget that we are bound. You don’t know what my death would mean for you any more than I do.”

“It will mean that I am free of your wearisome logic.” Bananach’s wings fluttered in an erratic beat.

“If you thought it so simple, I’d have been dead long ago.” Sorcha squeezed the branch under her hand until it cut into her palm. Then she dropped the splintered wood and held up her hand. “Your blood and mine have been the same since we have first existed. Unchanging. If we are the same and you kill me, will you die too?”

Bananach glared at her. She snapped her beak. “Perhaps I should find out,” she hissed, but she didn’t advance. She stood watching.

The garden was silent. No more words were spoken for several moments.

“War is patient, sister mine. You hide here with your dusty tomes and empty art. The Unchanging Queen. Tedious. Predictable. I will move the pawns…and you will make small choices that do nothing to stop the inevitable.” Bananach’s drums of war rose to a deafening volume that echoed through the whole of Faerie and into the mortal world. “They watch each other with mistrust. The fighting comes soon. I feel it. I’ll wait…and you will be as helpless as you always are when I am out there stirring trouble.”

“You’ll not have war this time,” Sorcha told her. It wasn’t a truth but an opinion.

“Why? Will you come after me, sister? Will you bring Faerie into the mortal world to hunt me?” Bananach crooned. Ravens that did not belong in Sorcha’s garden flocked down around Bananach; vermin crawled from the earth like a writhing gray carpet; and Bananach stood with her wings outstretched. War was coming unless something significant changed.

Sorcha remained silent.

“Come after me. Bring chaos to their world,” Bananach taunted. “Come protect your pet.”

“You will not touch him.” Sorcha stepped closer to her sister. “Summer and Darkness will strike you. I might not be able to stand against you, but I will send every faery I have to strike you. Come against him, and I will see you dead.”

“And if killing me means your death?” Bananach tilted her head curiously.

“So be it.” Sorcha kissed War on the forehead. “You’ve lost this battle, sister mine. There will be no war.”

Bananach paused. She stared into the distance, but didn’t share her visions of destruction. She smiled in horrific glee. “No, I’ve not lost yet.”

Then she strode away through the garden with her entourage, and in her wake were charred footsteps and bleeding flowers.

Seth walked into Niall’s home. Niall hadn’t ever wanted him to be there, but that was before. When I was mortal. Things had changed.