Fragile Eternity

Niall got up and paced. “I’m tempted. Despite knowing it would be selfish of me, despite knowing it would destroy you if I helped you do this thing, despite how much I care for you…I’m still tempted.”

“You’re losing me.” Seth dumped the ashtray he’d set out for Niall. He might accept his friend’s smoking, but the stench of cigarette butts disgusted him. “Explain.”

“Two courts can work together to create a curse like Irial and Beira did—but I won’t curse you. The only other choice is going through Sorcha, and there would be a cost there as well.”

“What kind of cost?”

“With Sorcha? Probably my becoming a bit mortal, you becoming a bit twisted…Balance. Exchange. That’s her deal.” Niall paused; his stillness seemed almost as jarring as his pacing had been. “She could shift essences. I would assume some of your mortality, making me unfit to be Dark King. I would be done with the burden that Irial foisted off onto me, and you would assume some of my…nature.”

“So you win. You get out of here, and I get to—”

“No.” Niall walked to the sink and rinsed his cup.

“It’s my choice,” Seth said.

“History is filled with people rushing into disaster for love of one sort or another. My history is filled with the results of such deplorable choices.” Niall walked to the door. He looked haunted and strangely afraid of Seth.

“So you made mistakes; that doesn’t mean I would.”

“Not me, Seth. The people whose lives I ruined.” Niall opened the door. “I won’t be a part of your mistake. Enjoy the time you have with Ash, or move on. Those are your only choices.”

Seth sat staring at the door after Niall left. My only choices. Neither of those choices was good enough—but Niall had given Seth another choice.

Sorcha. The High Queen is the answer.

Now Seth just needed to find her.

Chapter 16

The commotion at the door was to be expected. Donia felt the waves of heat pulsing against her from the pew where she sat just inside the entryway. Across from her, on the seats and backs of other church pews, faeries waited attentively. It wasn’t quite popcorn-at-the-movies, but it wasn’t far from it. Sasha wasn’t there; such amusements were befuddling to the wolf. The faeries, however, were rapt.

“I will come in,” Keenan repeated for the third time.

“Unless my queen consents, you will not.” The rowan stood before the door, as imposing and resolute as he had been when he guarded Donia under Keenan’s command. None of them had forgotten that he had once pledged his fealty to the same Summer King to whom he was denying entry.

“Don’t force me to do this, Evan.”

Evan didn’t flinch, although Donia did. The idea of Evan being hurt filled her with fear. If it wouldn’t undermine Evan’s authority, if it wouldn’t undermine her own, she’d tell him to stand down, but letting Keenan walk in freely when she’d ordered otherwise was unacceptable. If she didn’t intend to speak to him, she would call reinforcements, but that too was unacceptable. She needed to talk to him, but he needed to grasp that her door was not open to him. The implied statement of only token resistance, the insult of having only one guard—of that guard especially—at the door would not be lost on Keenan.

It was, like so much in Faerie politics, a game of sorts.

Once more Evan objected, “She has been clear that you are to be stop—”

The thud and hiss of burned wood was startling, albeit also inevitable. The door was completely incinerated. Evan was charred, but not fatally so. It could’ve been much worse. The Summer King could’ve started with violence instead of giving Evan the chance to back down. He could’ve killed Evan. He hadn’t. His restraint was a gift of sorts to her.

Keenan stepped over Evan’s prone body and stared at Donia. “I’ve come to speak to the Winter Queen.”

Behind him, one of the kitsune, Rin, darted out to check on Evan. The fox-faery glared at Keenan from behind a spill of stark blue hair, but Rin’s animosity faded the moment Evan gripped her hand. Several other kitsune and a number of lupine faeries watched. They were standing and sitting and crouching expectantly. They’d make a stand against the Summer King, but Donia wasn’t willing to see any of them injured to prove a point. She’d trusted Evan—agreed with him even—that he needed to deny Keenan admission. That was as far as she felt like going.

“I don’t recall you having an appointment,” she said as she turned and walked away, knowing that he’d follow. She wasn’t airing their quarrel in front of her faeries or going to allow them to feel the pain of his temper.

Keenan waited until they were outside in the garden. Then, he grabbed her arm and spun her around so she had to look at him. All he said was, “Why?”

“She upset me.” Donia pulled free of his grasp.

“She upset you?” His expression of confused outrage was one she’d seen i

“Actually you upset me. She simply added to it.” There was no inflection in her words. She kept her face free of emotions as well. Those dangerous feelings were sunk into the well of cold within her.

“Do you want war between our courts?”

“Most days, no.” She took another step to the side, looking at the snow around her feet as if the whole conversation was of little interest to her. For a moment, she thought the ruse would work—on one of them at least. “I just want you to stay away from me.”

Then he slipped close enough that her resolve faltered. “What happened, Don?”

“I made a choice.”

“To challenge me? To prove your court is stronger? What?”

Ice extended from her fingers. He glanced at them—and exhaled. It melted.

He took her hand in his. “You stabbed Ash. What am I to do about that?”

“What do you want to do?” She curled her hand around his, holding on to him as tightly as she dared.

“Forgive you. Strike you. Beg you not to do this.” His smile was sad. “My court…my queen…they are almost everything to me.”

“Tell me you don’t love her.”

“I don’t love Aisli

“Tell me you won’t try to convince her to share your bed.”

“I can’t say that, and you know it.” With his free hand, Keenan absently reached out to the tree behind her and ran a hand over it. Tiny buds appeared under the ice. “One day, when Seth is gone—”

“Then you need to stay away from me.” Donia could barely see him through the snow that was falling around her. “I don’t regret stabbing her. If your court continues to disregard my dominion, she will only be the first of many I’ll strike. Most of them aren’t strong enough to survive that.”

“I’ll try to convince her one day…but ‘one day’ is not right now.” He eased even closer to her, mindless of the snowfall, melting the flakes and nearly blinding her with the sunlight that shined from his skin. The soil at her feet had become swampy as the heat from his body melted the thick crust of ice. It refroze under her feet, but in that moment it was the Summer King who was stronger. His rage gave him an edge over her. “Listen to me for a minute. You’re the only one I’ve ever cared for like this. I dream of you when I’m not with you. I wake with your name on my lips. I don’t need to stay away. She wants him, and I want you. When she told me that you stabbed her, it broke something in me. I don’t ever want to be at war with you. The idea of striking you terrifies me.”

Donia stood motionless. The tree bark pressed into her skin. Keenan’s hand was gripped in hers.

“But if you touch my queen again, I’ll set that all aside. It’ll kill me inside, but she’s mine to keep safe. Don’t make us have to go there.” He pulled his hand from hers and ran his fingers through her hair, and just as quickly as his temper had flared, it faded. He cupped her face. “Please?”