Darkest Mercy

Chapter 27

Aislinn looked from her advisor to her king. The seriousness in Tavish’s expression was not unfamiliar, but Keenan’s strangely bemused smile worried her. “Tavish? Keenan?”

Her advisor bowed his head. “I will be with the Summer Girls,” he said, and then he left her there in the humid conservatory with Keenan.

Once it was just them, Keenan walked toward her slowly. “I need you to do something, Aislinn.”

“Okaaay. . . .” She reached out and stroked her fingers along a vat of soil. Under her hand, plants began to sprout. She wasn’t sure yet what they were, but she was unable to resist touching the soil. “What’s up?”

He took her hand in his. “Walk with me?”

The nervousness Aislinn felt grew as they left the conservatory. The Summer Court’s space, where we are strong. She squeezed his hand. “Talk to me. Please?”

The Summer King released her hand and stepped away from her. He looked only at her and asked, “Do you trust me?”

“Keenan—”

“Aislinn, please,” he interrupted. “Do you trust me?”

“I do,” she assured him. All around them, the park was empty. The Summer Girls, the rowan, all of the faeries of the court were out of sight.

As they stood face-to-face in the park where they’d once danced, where they’d kissed, where they’d argued, and where they’d both led their court in revels—together and separately—Keenan said, “I’ve misled you.”

She bent and trailed her fingertips over the dark soil, letting heat into the earth, refusing to look at him for a moment. “I know.”

“I’ve manipulated you,” he continued.

She paused and looked up at him. “Not really helping, Keenan.”

“Do you trust me?” he asked again.

Aislinn straightened and faced him. “I do.”

“Do you want to be near me?” He didn’t approach her. Unlike his aggressiveness since he’d returned—and when she’d first met him—he was almost reserved now.

Still, she had to pause for several breaths before she could answer: “I do.”

“Why?”

“You’re my king. Something inside of me insists that I reach out. I can’t even stay mad at you when I know I should be.” She wiped the soil from her hands onto her jeans and paced farther away. “Never mind. . . . I want to know what you learned while you were out. Now is not the time for this.”

“Actually, it is.” Keenan watched her with an intensity that made her want to run. “The time for waiting has ended.”

“You can’t mean . . .” She shook her head. “You just got back.”

Keenan stayed out of her reach as he spoke. “Will you let yourself love me, Aislinn?”

“You’re my king, but . . . I love Seth.”

“I need to belong to one person, who belongs only to me. I have done as I must for centuries, but there is a part of me that is not as fickle as Summer can be,” Keenan said. “I need all or nothing. Either we are truly together, or we are truly apart.”

She shook her head. “You’re really asking me to choose now?”

“I am.” He reached out, but didn’t touch her. His hand was in the air next to her face, but he didn’t close the distance. “I need you to decide. Now. The court needs to be as strong as possible.”

“Whatever you learned . . . Talk to me,” she pleaded. “Maybe there’s another way, maybe . . .”

“Aislinn,” he said evenly. “I need you to decide. Do we go away together or do I go alone?”

She felt warm tears trickle down her cheeks. “Yesterday, you told me I had a week. You told me yesterday.”

“Would your answer change if we waited?”

Aislinn hated the understanding in his voice as much as she had hated it when Seth offered it to her. They were both wonderful, both good, both people any girl would be lucky to know—but she only loved one of them. If she could save her court and keep Seth in her life, that’s what she would do. If Keenan wasn’t near her, she wouldn’t feel the pull to be with him. She hadn’t felt it—much—these past six months, not like she had when Seth was away.

“Would you want it to change?” she asked.

“I want to be loved; I want to be consumed by it.” Keenan traced her jaw with the barest touch of his fingertips. “I’ve loved Donia for decades, but I’ve lived for my court for centuries. I need more than an ‘I think’ this time, Aislinn. Do you want me enough to be mine? Do you care enough to try to love me? Do we become truly together for our court? Claim me as your king, or set me free to try to be with the faery I love.”

“I do want you,” Aislinn admitted. “Not just because of the court. You’re my friend and . . . I do care for you. I can’t imagine never seeing you again.”

The Summer King stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Can you offer me your fidelity? Your heart and your body and your companionship for eternity? Do you want my fidelity? Either love me or kiss me good-bye, my Summer Queen.”

She felt tears slip down her cheeks. He’d looked for her for almost a millennium, but she couldn’t give him what he needed. She’d returned strength to their court, but the love she felt for the Summer Court wasn’t the sort of love he wanted from her. She leaned into his caress. “Why do I think that what happens next is going to be . . .”

“To be?” he prompted softly.

“Something I’m not ready for,” she finished.

Her earlier fears of ruling the court without him crashed around her. He’d been their king for centuries, and she had only been fey for a bit more than a year. How do we rule from separate areas? Split the court? Can we even do that? She bit her lip.

“How is this going to strengthen the court? I’m not sure—”

“Ash,” he interrupted. Without looking away from her face, he reached out with his other hand and entwined her fingers with his. “Tell me you’re truly mine, or tell me good-bye.”

“You’re really leaving for good if I say no?”

Mutely, he nodded.

“I can’t be only yours. You’ll always—”

The rest of her words were swallowed as the Summer King leaned forward and sealed his lips to hers. Sunlight filled her mouth. It covered her skin and trickled over her like a million tiny hands. Her eyes were open. The blinding brightness of the Summer King as he pressed against her was too beautiful to look away from.

He pulled away briefly, and she realized that they weren’t touching the ground anymore. The air burned, crackling with heat lightning.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I am.” She hadn’t asked to be fey, hadn’t wanted the future she had, but she cherished it now. She was happy—to be a faery, to be the Summer Queen—but she wasn’t Keenan’s beloved. “We would be making a mistake. I am never going to be that faery for you . . . or you for me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Me too.”

And then he kissed her again.

The sunlight pulsing into her body made it impossible to keep her eyes open any longer. She felt like an eternity of languid bliss were seeping into her every pore, and as on the night that Keenan had healed her, she felt too consumed by it to object. His arms were the only things that kept her from tumbling to the ground, which was now far below them.

Aislinn wasn’t sure how long they hovered above the park kissing. She only knew that her king was kissing her good-bye.

Finally, Keenan pulled away. “Think of the soil, Ash.”

“The soil?” she echoed.

“The earth. Think of sunlight falling—” They plummeted, and Keenan said, “Gently. Falling gently, Ash.”

She nodded, and they slowed. “I’m doing this.”

“You are,” he confirmed. “Sunlight isn’t bound to the earth. Neither is the Summer Queen.”

Her feet touched the soil, and Keenan released her. She would’ve fallen to her knees, but he steadied her. Carefully, he helped her sit on the ground.

As her hand touched the soil, vines shot out and wove together into an elaborate flowering throne. It lifted her from the ground, and she looked toward him. “Keenan?”

He backed away from her. “It’ll be okay, Ash. Tavish will tell you what you need to know. You can do this. Remember that.”

She blinked and looked past him to the park. The trees were a riot of blossoms. The hedges had grown as tall as trees, creating a formidable barrier. It was not yet full spring, but the area outside of the Summer Court’s park was in bloom. All through the park, her faeries now stood waiting. She felt connected to each one of them more intensely than ever before.

Except Keenan.

Her gaze went to him. Her Summer King was . . . not Summer. She held out a hand to him. “Keenan?”

He took her hand and knelt. The sunlight that usually pulsed back when they touched, that had all but drowned her in pleasure barely a moment ago, was absent.

He lifted his head to look up at her. “I would hope to be welcome in your court, but this is not where I belong now.”

Aislinn was speechless. The faery who had remade her, who had been the other half of the embodiment of summer, was no longer sunlit. In their good-bye kiss, he had somehow given her the sunlight that had been his own.

I am the only Summer regent.

“I would’ve given up the faery I love, devoted eternity to you, to them”—Keenan glanced to her left, where Tavish now stood, and then looked back at her—“but I need the love and passion you do not offer me. So do you. The lack of passion, of love, of happiness weakened my . . . your court. The court is now stronger than it’s been during my life.”

“But . . .” Aislinn tried to stand, but found her legs still too weakened to support her. Tears slid down her cheek, and she saw rainbows arc across the sky, matching the trail of her tears. “If you could walk away . . . I don’t understand. Why couldn’t I? This is what you always were.”

Keenan pleaded for understanding with his expression. “I was born of two courts, Aislinn. There was a choice for me. One I couldn’t make before, but now the Summer Court is in capable hands.”

“And you are what?” She tugged on his hand, trying to pull him to his feet, but he shook his head.

“Dismiss me,” he requested. “As the only Summer Court regent, give me your first command.”

Tears clouded her vision, and rainbows flared all over the sky. “Keenan . . . you are ever welcome in my court should you need solace or a home. You remain a friend of my court . . . under our protection should you need it.” Then, in a shaky voice, she added, “You are dismissed.”

He stood and silently left the park. As he passed, the rowan knelt. The Summer Girls curtsied as one; their vines became like solid ink on their skin as they stood, no longer depending on their king-no-more. The curse that had bound them to him was ended.

They’re free.