Eledan dropped to his knees.
All those dreams, all those fantasies he had forced on me, twisted me up inside. This was the one he had never let me live, but I was living it now. I stepped in close like he had done to me so many times and reached my left hand around his trembling shoulder. He bucked and snapped his teeth at my neck, until I pulled the dagger free from where Hulia had left it. His gasp scattered twisted ripples of pleasure through me. Wraithmaker. They’d crafted me to kill for them. I was made for this. And as I looked down into his eyes, I realized nothing had ever felt as right as this single moment. I would kill for them. I had killed their queen, and now I would kill her son.
I pulled the tip of the dagger down his face and watched his sweet blood well in its wake. Flicking the blade off his chin, I brought the bloody dagger to my lips. I had vowed to taste fae blood again. His tasted like victory and revenge.
I set the tip against his shoulder and swept it down his chest in lazy s patterns. He tried to twist free, but the whip tightened. The resulting strained gasps delighted my ears.
“I promised I would carve out your heart.”
His mouth moved, but the prince with the pretty words couldn’t speak.
“I promised I would ruin you.”
He tugged again, but his efforts were weak, trapped inside my whip’s coils.
I stopped the point of the dagger above his heart where the scar ran. I wanted this. I wanted it so much I wondered if this too was insanity. If it was, I welcomed it.
“Can’t…” he wheezed.
I eased the dagger into the scar tissue, slowly, reopening the old wound one careful millimeter at a time. “Can’t I?”
“People…”
I ignored him and watched the blade peel back his skin. Tek gleamed beneath. Beautiful, functional, elegant tek encased his black fae heart. A cage like the one he had trapped me in. A cage like the one he had buried my mind in.
Kellee called my name. I pushed the sound away.
The dagger cut away his flesh, painting streams of blood down his chest. I flicked my gaze to his eyes and found them wide with fear. He hadn’t believed I would hurt him. I had told Sota my secrets, secrets he had stolen. He had listened as I’d told the drone how I loved the fae, how I would do anything for them if they would take me back. And he had believed it.
His black heart thudded inside its metal cage. So small a thing. So fragile now that it was exposed.
I wiped the flat side of the blade across his gasping mouth and leaned in so close. “Did you truly believe my human lies, Dreamweaver?”
Tremors spilled through him.
“Did you believe your mother sent me to save her forgotten son, or was that the hope of an insane mind clawing at its own dreams?”
Confusion clouded his face. He tried to shake his head, shake the understanding away, but the truth had him. I had him.
“I am a messenger, Prince. But not for Mab.”
Oh, what a beautiful thing it was to see his reality come crashing down around him. To see the blinding truth—the truth with its hand around his heart. I licked his blood from his lip. “You were right about one thing. The chances of us finding each other were impossible. I came to Calicto for you. I waited for you to make a mistake and reveal your whereabouts. And then I did what I was sent to do.” I paused, making sure he was looking only at me and listening only to my words. “Oberon sends his regards. He told me to tell you, You’re in my way, brother.”
“You’re… his?” Eledan rasped.
“Goodbye, Dreamweaver. And thank you for making this message feel so damn good.” I thrust the blade in, cutting around the cage, cutting into spurting arteries and veins, jerking the blade’s edge through the wires and metal structure. Eledan’s back arched, and his head jolted back. I dropped the whip and smeared Kellee’s blood across the prince’s poisonous mouth. His trembling turned into vicious convulsions.
I let go and watched him fall.
At my feet lay an empty shell—the carcass of the prince who had toyed with my mind, and in my hand his heart beat, safe inside its tek-built cage.
I looked up, blinking through cold, empty tears. Kellee stood to my right. The fear in his eyes betrayed him. He had heard it all. Every. Single. Word. I was Oberon’s assassin. I had lied to him, lied to everyone, lied to myself. I had lived the nothing life of Kesh Lasota to keep the truth safe. And now, my work was done.
I stepped back from the prince’s body.
Eledan’s caged heart thudded, nestled and warm in my hand.
I tapped my comms. “Talen?”
“Kesh, are you all right?” Relief sent his words in a rush. I had told him to wait, no matter what happened. Wait until he heard from me. Would he still want to serve me knowing what Kellee knew? Would he still look at me like he had, as though he cared what happened to a saru?
“Hail the fae ship,” I ordered, my voice like stone. My real voice.
Silence. I felt the heat of Kellee’s stare scorching my skin.
“Do it,” I told Talen.
“I don’t understand.”
“Use the magic stored in this building and mentally hail the fae vessel in orbit. Tell them I have their prince, and if they want him alive and intact, they must let the surviving population of Calicto escape.” I could do this one thing and save Natalie’s people.
“Kellee?” Talen asked, deferring to the marshal. He didn’t trust my words. I couldn’t blame him.
I looked up. Kellee’s claws glinted. He had heard Talen through my comms. When he replied, he revealed long, dagger-sharp fangs. “Do as she says, Talen.”
It was the only way to save the people. He knew it. He didn’t like it, but he knew it had to be done.
“You’re handing him over to them?” Kellee asked me, the beast inside him so close to the surface that perspiration beaded on his face.
I lifted my chin and looked the marshal in the eye. “My orders were to kill him. I wanted nothing more than to crush his heart. But I’m going against Oberon’s wishes to save your people. When the fae arrive, as far as anyone is concerned, I am Kesh Lasota, the messenger saru who Eledan manipulated to retrieve his mother’s magic. Do you understand, Kellee? They cannot know who I’m working for.”
Disgust twisted Kellee’s mouth downward. “Was it all Oberon’s doing? He planned all of this?”
“You already know the answer.”
He shook his head and backed up. “I thought I knew you.” He flinched, all the memories hurting him. “I saved you from him. I helped you recover. I thought—”
“And I am grateful. Believe me or don’t, but I do care for you.”
“Believe you? I don’t know who you are!”
I did care for him. Everything Eledan had done to me—the imprisonment, the dreams—wasn’t a lie. Kellee and Talen deserved more. But I couldn’t give it to them. But the people—I could save the people, just like Kellee had hoped I would.
I approached Kellee and held out the prince’s caged heart. The marshal snarled at it, at me. “Take this and take shelter somewhere nearby. When I contact you, you will return it to me and I will make the trade.”
“The marks…” He blinked, refocusing on me, seeing the truth standing in front of him. “They would never give a saru the fae marks that you wear. I should kill you. You’re one of them.”
It hurt to see the hatred in his eyes, hurt to have the words thrown at me. I was saru, I was human, I had been raised to kill or be killed. I was the Wraithmaker. Oberon had given me the marks for my services. Gifts from the fae prince who had grown tired of waiting to rule. But now was not the time to explain. “Kellee, I’m saving the people here. Help me.”
A thunderous trembling shook Arcon’s windows, and outside, a fae shuttle began its descent, sparking a plume of color through Calicto’s atmosphere.
“I don’t know what’s real around you,” he mumbled, face crumbling.