Page 68 of His Dark Delights
“I don’t need you to be sorry,” I retorted. “I need you to unlock my fae essence.”
She reeled back as if I’d smacked her across the face. “No. I won’t do that. I locked your essence up as a baby to keep you safe. I won’t undo it now.” She crossed the floor until she stood on the other side of the table. “You must return to the farm away from the war.”
“It’s too late for that now,” I squeezed through a tight throat. Sobs clawed up in my chest, and I refusedto let them free.
Lunaric stepped in. “I’d have to agree with… my sister,” he said almost sarcastically before his tone became earnest. “Lilliana saved my life from the Butcher. She’s the only reason I’m alive right now, Mother.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, and she peered at me, almost in a new light.
“We made a deal. If she got me out, I’d ensure her essence was unlocked. Lilly jumped in front of the king’s blade at a very public execution and set me free. Now I owe her more than my life.”
“Damn the gods,” she ground out. Her hand swiped over her face, leaving a smear of blood on her high cheekbone—human blood.
“They seem to have an odd sense of humor.” Lunaric’s head angled to me, and his wings quivered. “Well, it seems I have my older sister to thank for saving my life. As much as I’d love to stay and continue this family reunion, I think you two need a moment, yes?”
His mother—our mother—nodded. The prince vented a breath through his nose, then his wings fluttered, carrying him into the air. When he vanished through an open window, the buzzing of wings vanished, leaving me alone with the Fae Queen.
I looked into the face of the woman I’d wondered about my entire life. I’d felt her love for me like a passing breeze, and now I stood before her.
“Father was always there for me, and you never were.” I didn’t know what I was saying, but the words tumbled off my tongue. “You were never there for me. I never knew you. Not who you were, and not even your name. It took an odd twist of fate to bring us together.Now my father is dead, and I don’t know you—”
“Ellaria,” she said. “My name is Ellaria. And it broke my heart to leave you behind.”
“Yet you still did it.”
She winced and a wobbly sigh escaped her.
“I had to. I was engaged to the former Fae King. He would have killed us both if I’d returned to the Fae Wild with you in my arms,” she continued. “Your father was the safer option.”
“You chose a crown over me, a throne over my father. All those years he still loved you, you know?”
“And I loved him,” her voice broke. “I never stopped loving him. Your father, my Eddard, he was the only man I ever truly loved. But Oberyn was a possessive, vengeful man, and he wouldn’t have let me go for anything.”
I sank into my seat, swept away by the emotions wreaking havoc in my chest.
“How… How did you meet my father?” I asked in a daze. My eyes cast to the table and the crumbs from dinner.
“Flower nymphs often travel to different lands. We attune ourselves to the plants and flowers we find. It strengthens us, you see. I got injured in the mountains near Eddard’s village. He found me, nurtured me back to health, and not long after I discovered I was with child.”
I watched, listening carefully. Ellaria, my mother, the queen, walked around the edge of the table, peeling off chunks of her armor as she went. Her pauldrons, her bracers, her breastplate all thunked on the floor while she talked. Eventually, she was down to her padded clothing and dropped into a seat at the end of the table, a few chairs away.
“But the future queen of the fae can’t have a bastard with a human man,” I suggested.
“No, she can’t.” Ellaria took a half-empty cup of wine on the table and chugged it down. Her eyes stayed on the wisteria chandeliers as she continued. “Flower nymph pilgrimages can last years. It gave me enough time to birth you, feed you, ween you, lock up your essence, then leave.” Her head turned, catching my gaze. “It broke me the day I had to leave you and your father. Never doubt that, Lilliana. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
“I understand,” I assured. As much as it burned me inside, I truly did. “I knew you loved me. All those years, I knew. And now that I’ve seen more of the world and how cruel men can be, I understand more than I’d like.”
“I still do. I always will. You were my first babe. I carried you, birthed you, just as I did your brother. And you have your own story to tell, my darling, and I’m sorry for it. Tell me, how’d you come to be in the presence of the Butcher?”
My heart yearned for an ear to listen to my tale, to unload the burden plaguing my chest. Somehow it meant more that it was my mother listening, and more still that she might understand. We had an unfortunate love for the wrong man in common.
I told her of the man I found in the woods and who I assumed him to be, then of the gradual love that grew between us. How Ren was kind and selfless and helped me when he didn’t have to. And I told her of the knights who came to take him away and the realization of who he was that broke my heart.
I told her of my time in the palace, scared yet hopelessly in love with a man who’d kill me if he knewthe truth of my heritage. She remained silent, but at some point, she moved into the chair next to mine. Her hand was warm, and I didn’t mind the dried blood becausemy mother was holding my hand.
And I finally wept. Tears broke the stunned barrier within me, spilling down my cheeks and dropping into my lap as I cried through my tale. Gods, what a fucking tale it was.
By the end, the wetness gleaming in her eyes broke free, streaking rivers of sorrow into her elegant cheeks. Her silver eyes were lit with magic and fire but dimmed with grief and empathy.
