Page 167 of A Song of Air
Fractured Resistance
“He will never forgiveme,” Weylyn whispered.
They’d washed the blood of the Unseelie King from their fingers. The servants had removed his body from the throne room in preparation for burial. The blood had been cleansed from the floors, but Bryson knew the memory of it would haunt the stones forever. It would haunt Valerio forever.
Bryson knew who Weylyn was talking about. She lifted her head to stare into his eyes. He had not displayed remorse in the throne room. Everything had been tense after Valerio’s begrudging acceptance. Something within the Resistance had seemed to fracture. They’d all firmly been on one side, but with the death of the king, Weylyn and Bryson had created a terrible unrest between them all.
Bryson smoothed her hand down Weylyn’s long hair. “I knew you liked him,” she whispered, if only to lighten the moment.
His pained expression turned to her. “Perhaps I do, and I did not realize it until that moment when he was staring at me from over his sword. I touched his mind and he wanted to kill me. He would have, if given the chance. He still might.”
Bryson’s chest ached to think of Weylyn dying. They were free from the chains of the Unseelie Queen. She did not come this far with him just to lose him now.
“Don’t think of it,” Bryson whispered, though her voice cracked. “We are free now, and isn’t that what matters?”
Weylyn’s frown was replaced with a soft smile as he gazed at his mate. He didn’t say the words aloud or in her mind, but she didn’t need to hear them just like she didn’t need his mind reading magic to know what it was he was thinking.
They were free.
And nothing was ever going to tear them apart.
Long Live the King
The entire kingdomhad gathered around the castle of Dana. Fae and humans alike clustered together to look up at Prince Valerio as he stood before them all in his best robes. His cutting features glared furiously across the crowd. They looked up at him, some stoically, some smiling. He could feel the eagerness vibrating through them as he slowly knelt to the ground and bowed his head low.
He had lived through this once before. Back when he had assumed his father had died. Back when he’d taken up the mantle of King Regent, hoping against all odds that his father was alive. He’d thought his father dead once. It had cleaved him from the inside out, but that was absolutely nothing compared to what he was feeling right then.
He’d lost his father twice, and the second time was no easier than the first.
