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“When she went into hiding, of all the villages she could’ve chosen, she wandered into mine.” He turned to me, smilingmirthlessly. “If you think me handsome now, you should’ve seen me when I was young and in my prime. I couldn’t walk in a straight line for all the women throwing themselves at my feet. The men too.”
I snorted, though my mind summoned the image all the same. Alisdair even handsomer than he was now? If such a thing were possible, I would’ve surely been one of the women shackling myself to his ankle, unwilling to let his beauty out of my sight.
“Constance coveted me from the moment she saw me. She cared not that I was already mated and had three children.”
The truth would’ve shocked me if I had any left to give. I just took his hand, lacing my fingers through his. “You had children.”
“Three beautiful daughters. Just as quick, mischievous, and perfect as their mother, Raelina.”
I squeezed my eyes shut—an emotion I couldn’t name rising up and strangling my tears before they fell. I wasn’t sure at first, but right then I knew. This wasn’t simply any historical tale. This was a story of tragedy and woe, and I’d be forever changed after it was told.
“TheRaelina?” I whispered. “The Raelina that Salman...?”
There was pause, then he nodded. “Constance pursued me relentlessly, growing more and more enraged with every rejection. Meya owed her, you see. Not one but three of her lovers were murdered by mobs and witch hunters. Now that she had foundloveagain, she refused to let a little thing like my free will stand in her way.”
I was already so sick, I nearly threw up. “What did she do to you?”
“It wasn’t what she did to me. It was what she did to Raelina,” he said. “One day, I came home, Raelina was gone, andthat womanwas sitting on my couch—cool, calm, and braiding my daughter’s hair as if she was exactly where she belonged.
“She told me she’d locked Raelina away somewhere. Trapped her in an inescapable prison, and if I wanted her to ever emerge alive, I’d leave with her right then and never look back.
“With her hands that close to my child’s throat, I agreed. I didn’t have a choice,” he growled, anger bleeding into his voice. “I left with her, hoping that if I did, she’d free Raelina, and my loves would be together and safe.”
“But she never did.”
He shook his head. “She held Raelina’s imprisonment over me like a puppet master tugs the strings. I tried to free her. I tried to kill Constance and free us all, but she never let me anywhere near a thing resembling a crystal. Even when I summoned the power, I couldn’t store it, so I had one shot and one shot only.
“I missed.”
“Oh, Alisdair, I’m sorry.” I rubbed his hand, trying to spread my love and comfort into him, but I knew it was as useless as my sorry. Nothing anyone said or did could make what she’d done to him better.
“She was never going to let us go,” he continued like I hadn’t spoken. “And all the while, my girls were alone. So, I escaped her and ran back to them again and again—each time finding a new hiding place and a new hope that she’d finally give up and wouldn’t find us. But every time she did.”
“What was wrong with her? How could she be so sick and obsessed?”
“I don’t know, but sick and obsessed she was. She got it into her head that I kept running back to my children because we didn’t have a few of our own.”
“Oh no,” I breathed, clapping my hand over my mouth.
Alisdair fixed back on that spot on the wall. “She violated me over and over again—shoving so many love and lust potions down my throat it’s a wonder I didn’t drown from the inside out.But for all her magic, there was one single truth she couldn’t defeat, and it drove her deeper into madness and obsession.”
My voice was soft. “What was the truth?”
“We’re not the same species. We cannot reproduce.”
My head slowly bobbed. Of course it was as simple as that. Meya was exacting in her rules. “But again, she didn’t give up, did she?”
“No. The opposite. She got it into her head that her becoming a summer fae was the key to everything. She’d belong in Elva if she was fae. We’d accept her as empress if she was fae. I would love her and she’d give me abetterfamily... if only she were fae.
“She put herself and innocents through indescribable, torturous experiments all for the sake of trampling the laws of nature, and the result was just as hideous as the acts.”
“She didn’t become fae?”
“She became something resembling fae. The right appearance, the right mannerism, the same affinity with nature, but if you got close enough to her. Truly saw into her heart, you’dfeel it,” he hissed. “That she waswrong.”
He growled, lips twisted. “Even though she thought she succeeded, she still wasn’t able to get pregnant. I broke from her and ran a final time, and she snapped. If my children were the string that led my heart away, she’d sever that string. Permanently.”
“Alisdair, please.” Tears spilled down my cheek. “No.”
