“I don’t understand,” I finally said as a shiver coursed through me.
He took another deep breath. “I created a small village here, hidden by so much illusion magic that nobody knows of its existence. Not the locals. Not my father. Not Nuwin. None of the council members. The only fae that know of what I’ve done here are my guards. Them and now you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I may be the Death Master of the continent, but I’m not what everyone claims me to be. I bring fae here, fae I was supposed to execute, but they are fae that I cannot kill. I stopped murdering innocents a long time ago, but my father doesn’t know that.”
My heart beat harder. Faster and faster and faster. Innocents. Innocents were my parents and Tormesh. He couldn’t be saying what I thought he was saying. He couldn’t have brought me here to . . .
My legs wobbled, my knees threatening to give out as I grasped his forearms tightly, my nails digging into him.
“Are you saying that my parents—” My throat grew dry, my tongue nearly paralyzed. “That my brother—”
But I couldn’t say it.
I couldn’t even think it, because if I was wrong, and this was all one giant misunderstanding or some twisted game that he was doing for his amusement . . .
It would destroy me.
His eyes softened. “Yes. They’re alive, Ilara. They’ve always been alive. I never killed them.”
CHAPTER 18
I collapsed. I fell to the ground, wet snow sinking through my pants and soaking my legs. Ice lay underneath it. Cold, slippery, clear ice that threatened to sweep me down the cliffs under the weight of my disbelief.
I shook my head over and over. “Where? Please! I need to see them.”
A gigantic swell of his power ripped through the realm. Just outside of his protective bubble, a shimmer manifested, like a veil. The crown prince worked his jaw as the tendons in his neck strained. I blinked, then blinked again as the raging storm around us fell away, and an opening in a wall of ice appeared.
And behind that opening . . .
Fae walked within a hidden dome, visible in splotchy images as the ice fragmented their forms.
I stood, stumbling toward them, but the prince got there first, whispering something, a spell perhaps, and the opening widened, as though unlocking from his masterful touch.
Warmth from inside rushed over my face, and when I crossed the threshold, a layer of protective wards—so strong that it put the dome encasing the castle to shame—gripped me. For a moment, it held me as though analyzing my intent, and then in a rush I was released.
Houses and lanes, shops and fountains—every which way I looked were signs of life. Of a fae’s home.
I nearly fell forward in my haste to see them, find them, hug them, love them, greet them. Mother Below, I didn’t know what I wanted or what I was going to do when I saw them, but if they were alive and here and—
“Ilara?”
I stopped in my tracks. The voice that had just called my name . . . I would know that voice anywhere.
“Mother?” I whispered. I turned, almost afraid to do so, terrified that this was all a cruel illusion, that the prince was really my mate from the underworld, come to wreak havoc on my soul while playing demented games with my mind.
But then I faced her.
She stood just behind me, her expression a slew of disbelief, happiness, and joy. Silvery white hair cascaded down her back. Blue eyes sparkled with growing tears. Wings with quivering muscles splayed out on either side of her as her hands balled into fists. Those gentle hands had curved hair behind my ears, swatted me playfully when I beat her at her favorite game of cards, rolled dough on the counters in our worn kitchen, and carefully tucked covers around me, Cailis, and Tormesh when we were children, before she kissed us on our noses and wished us dreams of traveling through the stars.
And then she was running.
I was running.
Tears spilled onto her cheeks, mine doing the same. We collided in a crash of limbs and chests, wrapping ourselves around each other as incomprehensible sounds and words tumbled from our lips.
And then my father was there. Tormesh was there. Their laughter, smiles, and hands were everywhere, and their touches, kisses, and embraces obliterated the sorrow that I’d been feeling for so very long.
And it was all real. They were real.
I didn’t know how long we stood there in a tangle of love and hope, but all of us were talking and blubbering. My father’s lips lifted in a grin, and Tormesh’s wings rippled in the icy light.
“How?” I finally managed. “How are you all alive and unharmed? How come Cailis and I didn’t know?”
My mother cupped my face before pressing a kiss to my forehead as my father wiped tears from his eyes.
“He put us here,” Tormesh finally said and nodded toward the crown prince.
A heartbeat of silence passed before I realized that Norivun stood near the village’s threshold. His arms were crossed over his chest as he leaned against the ice wall. A sad smile played upon his lips as the northern storm raged just outside of his protective barrier.
I stared at him, so many emotions tumbling through me that I didn’t know where to begin. Why? How? For how long? Why? WHY?
He’d said something about creating this place because he wasn’t what fae claimed him to be. That nobody knew about it, not even his father.
“Why?” I finally said, unable to align my thoughts to anything other than that one word.
He walked toward us, gliding like mist over the sea. “To keep them safe. To keep all of them safe.” His throat bobbed in a swallow, but he waved a hand behind me, to the tiny village, to the other fae mingling about, some whom had stopped to watch my family and me as we dissolved into a mess in one another’s arms. I counted them. Five, fifteen, no twenty-five. The list grew. So many.
“I still don’t understand,” I choked out.
Prince Norivun’s smile grew, but the gesture was filled with a heaviness that made the expression look forced. “There’s much you don’t understand, Ilara, but I couldn’t hide this from you, not any longer.”
Mate.
The unspoken word hung between us. He’d shown me this because of what I was to him, what he was to me. He’d known that even though I felt the mate bond as viscerally as he did, that I would never allow myself to succumb to its pull, not after what I thought he’d done.
My mother pulled me close again, her arm wrapping around my shoulders as her wing spread protectively around my side.
“It was the only way,” she whispered into my ear. “As much as it pained me, your father, and your brother to know that you and Cailis believed us dead, we knew it was the only way. The king had ordered us to be executed, but it didn’t stop us from hoping and dreaming that this day would come. My girl.” She pressed another kiss to my temple. “My baby girl. I’ve missed you so much.”