Soldiers on either side began fleeing.
But the Cauldron whipped me away as Helion unleashed a blast of light toward the commander, its quarry not to be found on that battlefield.
Come, Nesta’s power seemed to sing. Come.
The Cauldron caught her scent and hurtled us onward.
We arrived before the king did.
The Cauldron seemed to skid to a halt at the clearing. Seemed to coil and reel back, a snake poised to strike.
Nesta and Cassian stood there, his sword out, Nesta’s eyes blazing with that inner, unholy fire. “Get ready,” she breathed. “He’s coming.”
The power Nesta was holding back …
She’d kill the King of Hybern.
Cassian was the distraction—while her blow found its mark.
Time seemed to slow and warp. The dark power of the king speared toward us. Toward that clearing where I was neither seen nor heard, where I was nothing but a scrap of soul carried on a black wind.
The King of Hybern winnowed right in front of them.
Nesta’s power rallied—then vanished.
Cassian did not move. Did not dare.
For the King of Hybern held my father before him, a sword to his throat.
That was why he had looked to the sea. He’d known Nesta would land that killing blow the moment he appeared, and the only way to stop it …
A human shield. One she’d think twice about allowing to die.
Our father was blood-splattered, leaner than the last time I’d seen him. “Nesta,” he breathed, noting the ears, the Fae grace. The power sputtering out in her eyes.
The king smiled. “What a loving father—to bring an entire army to save his daughters.”
Nesta did not say anything. Cassian’s attention darted through the clearing, sizing up every advantage, every angle.
Save him, I begged the Cauldron of my father. Help him.
The Cauldron did not answer. It had no voice, no consciousness save some base need to take back that which had been stolen.
The King of Hybern tilted his head to peer at my father’s bearded and weather-tanned face. “So many things have changed since you were last home. Three daughters, now Fae. One of them married quite well.”
My father only gazed at my sister. Ignored the monster behind him and said to her, “I loved you from the first moment I held you in my arms. And I am … I am so sorry, Nesta—my Nesta. I am so sorry, for all of it.”
“Please,” Nesta said to the king. Her only word, guttural and hoarse. “Please.”
“What will you give me, Nesta Archeron?”
Nesta stared and stared at my father, who was shaking his head. Cassian’s hand twitched, the blade rising. Trying to get a good shot.
“Will you give back what you took?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I have to carve it out of you?”
Our father snarled, “Don’t you lay your filthy hands on my daughter—”
I heard the crack before I realized what happened.
Before I saw the way my father’s head twisted. Saw the light freeze in his eyes.
Nesta made no sound. Showed no reaction as the King of Hybern snapped our father’s neck.
I began screaming. Screaming and thrashing inside the Cauldron’s grip. Begging it to stop it—to bring him back, to end it— Nesta looked down at my father’s body as it crumpled to the forest floor.
And as the king had predicted … Nesta’s power flickered out.
But Cassian’s had not.
Arrows of blinding red shot for the King of Hybern, a shield locking around Nesta as Cassian launched himself forward.
And as Cassian took on the king, who laughed and seemed willing to engage in a bit of swordplay … I stared at my father on that ground. At his open, unseeing eyes.
Cassian pushed the king away from my father’s body, swords and magics clashing. Not for long. Only long enough to hold him off—for Nesta to perhaps run.
For me to finish what I had let my family give their lives for. But the Cauldron still held me there.
Even as I tried to come back to that hill where Amren had betrayed me, had used me for whatever purpose of her own— Nesta knelt before our father, her face a void. She gazed into his still-open eyes.
Closed them gently. Hands steady as stone.
Cassian had shoved the king deeper into the trees. His shouts rang out.
Nesta leaned forward to press a kiss to our father’s blood-splattered brow.
And when she lifted her head …
The Cauldron thrashed and roiled.
For in Nesta’s eyes, limning her skin … Uncut power.
She gazed toward the king and Cassian. Just as Cassian’s bark of pain cut toward us.
The power around her shuddered. Nesta got to her feet.
Then Cassian screamed. I looked toward him. Away from my father.
Not twenty feet away, Cassian was on the ground. Wings—snapped in spots. Blood leaking from them.
Bone jutted from his thigh. His Siphons were dull. Empty.
He’d already drained them before coming here. Was exhausted.
But he had come—for her. For us.
He was panting, blood dribbling from his nose. Arms buckling as he tried to rise.
The King of Hybern stood over him, and extended a hand.
Cassian arched off the ground, bellowing in pain. A bone cracked somewhere in his body.
“Stop.”
The king looked over a shoulder as Nesta stepped forward. Cassian mouthed at her to run, blood escaping from his lips and onto the moss beneath him.
Nesta took in his broken body, the pain in Cassian’s eyes, and angled her head.
The movement was not human. Not Fae.
Purely animal.
Purely predator.
And when her eyes lifted to the king again … “I am going to kill you,” she said quietly.
“Really?” the king asked, lifting a brow. “Because I can think of far more interesting things to do with you.”
Not again. I could not watch this play out again. Standing by, idle, while those I loved suffered.
The Cauldron crept along with Nesta, a hound at her side.
Nesta’s fingers curled.
The king snorted. And brought his foot down upon Cassian’s nearest wing.
Bone snapped. And his scream—
I thrashed against the Cauldron’s grip. Thrashed and clawed.
Nesta exploded.
All of that power, all at once—
The king winnowed out of the way.
Her power blasted the trees behind him to cinders. Blasted across the battlefield in a low arc, then landed right in the Hybern ranks. Taking out hundreds before they knew what happened.
The king appeared perhaps thirty feet away and laughed at the smoking ruins behind him. “Magnificent,” he said. “Barely trained, brash, but magnificent.”
Nesta’s fingers curled again, as if rallying that power.
But she’d spent it all in one blow. Her eyes were blue-gray once more.
“Go,” Cassian managed to breathe. “Go.”
“This seems familiar,” the king mused. “Was it him or the other bastard who crawled toward you that day?”
Cassian was indeed now crawling toward her, broken wings and leg dragging, leaving a trail of blood over the grass and roots.
Nesta rushed to him, kneeling.
Not to comfort.
But to pick up his Illyrian blade.