Page 112 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

“I’m sure he can’t be that bad… I mean, surely our mother would’ve encouraged him to bring his mate home if there were no positives to him being there?”

Florian just chuckles. “She didn’t interfere, remember?” His expression turns sad for a second, and I’m about to ask him what’s wrong when he speaks again, “It became pretty obvious that she knew something would happen to Bram just by how she fussed over him. Even when one of his traps resulted in a dryad ambassador having to regrow a limb, she didn’t have the heart to scold him. I put it down to his being the youngest, but I suppose, looking back, she almost seemed guilty.”

I think it’s time to change the subject. Our mother and youngest brother are clearly still weighing heavily on him, and I don’t want him to feel like he has to dredge up painful memories to please me.

“Could you tell me more about my brothers?” I ask. “Madoc and Dare…”

Florian gladly launches into a tale about how Dare almost started a war with the Summer Court that fades into tales about my other brothers. The other two—Uther and Roark—married into the Autumn and Winter Courts, respectively. They seem to be almost as much trouble as Dare. The tales of their antics make me wonder if our mother really just sent her sons to the other courts to cause trouble, rather than advocate for better ties to the other noble fae.

“Will they come and visit?” I ask.

“When the siege is over, I’m sure.” Florian scratches his neck, like he thinks that might not be such a good idea. “The six—sorry, five—of us in one place can get a bit much. We’re lucky you have so many mates to help me keep them in line.”

He adjusted the number because of Bram, and I can’t resist wondering if that means he thinks our youngest brother is dead.

“Do you think he will come back?” I ask, cautiously.

He shakes his head. “Our mother believed so, and she had the sight. She refused to have him declared dead—but I don’t know if that was foresight or just hope.”

Whatever he might’ve said next is cut off by the chime.

Kitarni, finally. I grin at Florian and clamber out of the meditation well, and back towards the reception patio.

The high priestess offers me a tired smile as she walks in, and I frown as I notice a crack in the bark of her cheek that wasn’t there before. It’s glossy with weeping sap, and looks almost like a wound.

It is a wound. Of course, a tree fae wouldn’t bleed blood. Goddess, how could I be that stupid?

What has she been up to?

She rolls her eyes at my obvious concern and waves my questions off before I can ask them.

“Later,” she promises. “There are more important things to discuss.”

The rest of my Guard is just behind her.

Well, except for one of them.

Apparently, the last one is in the dungeon.

Taking a deep breath—because I don’t understand the source of my own irrational irritation—I wave them all in.

“I thought you were flying,” Jaro says, noting my exhausted face with a frown. “You didn’t touch the sky, and yet you look like you’ve been worked to death.”

“Nevermind about that,” I huff, dodging Lore’s attempts to pop his cap onto my head and staring directly at Drystan instead. “I said I’d wait until you got here, but now I want to know. What is my power?”

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