He pushed through the gates as soon as he was able and pulled her into his arms, crushing her to his chest. “Ava,” he breathed.
Her arms came around him without thinking. He might have been her betrothed once. Someone she had hated for so long. An ally and a prejudiced asshole. But never the enemy. She had seen him through his worst. In that way, they would always be united.
“You’ve returned,” he said in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“I knew that you would come to your senses,” Ceis’f said. “That you would get rid of those humans and return to your people. Take your rightful place.”
Avoca pulled back from him and shuddered at the comment. That she had gotten rid of the humans. As if Cyrene and Ahlvie and Orden were so easily replaceable. As if her duty to them was not as strong as to the others. “I have not returned for that.”
Ceis’f’s face darkened. “You still wish to be one of them.”
Avoca straightened. She had endured too much to be chastised for her decisions by Ceis’f. “I must speak to my mother.”
Something crossed his face then. Horror. No…devastation.
“Ava…she’s…”
Her eyes rounded at his inability to find words. He always had a clever comeback. A quip to cut.
“What?”
“She’s sick,” he said softly, painfully. “I returned after Aonia, and she ordered me as regent until your return.”
Avoca mirrored his horrified look. “Where is she?”
“Let me take you to her.”
Ceis’f started for her home built straight into the forest. Trees so large that they had been hollowed out and used for houses. Ladders and bridges connected the homes and common spaces. Everyone lived up in the trees, far removed from the outside world.
“She will be glad to finally see you,” he continued as they approached the royal home. “We can still marry while she lives,” he said as if there were no other possibility. “As we always should have.”
Avoca stopped him before they could enter the queen’s residence. Her words were firm but tender. “I have already married.”
Ceis’f reared back in shock and horror. He had no words. He just stared at her as if he had never met her. As if she had shattered his world. And perhaps she truly had. He had always held out hope that she would change her mind. That their betrothal would go through.
“You married that mongrel?” he demanded, his voice cold. Unforgiving.
She touched his hand. “You are not bound to me just because you are the last prince of Aonia. The last of Aonia. You should have your own life. Your own love. You deserve it.”
He wrenched back. “You are wrong. We are bound, Ava. In blood and suffering. In every way that actually matters.”
Avoca sighed as he strode off. She didn’t have the time to coddle him. War was coming. He would learn the extent of it soon enough. She had always counted him on her side. But, with what he saw as her greatest betrayal—marrying a human—she didn’t know if he could forgive her enough to fight this one with her. She hoped that she was making the right choice. The way forward seemed set in stone, but watching him walk away again hurt more than she cared to admit. Not out of the kind of love he had always wanted from her, but from a deeper love, a familial love. He was her family, and before this was over, she would have to find out how to fix this with him.
But first, her mother.
Avoca strode through the royal chambers until she found her mother. She was lying in her giant bed, looking as if her two thousand years had finally caught up with her. Her body seemed so frail. As if she had shrunk in on herself in the two years since Avoca left. Not the great Queen Shira who had successfully brought them out of the fall of magic, but just a woman.
Avoca had a sense of déjà vu. She had seen this exact moment with Cyrene in their binding ceremony. She’d had to choose Cyrene and their bond above all else…even her family and duty. But Cyrene wasn’t here this time. It was just her staring at her dying mother.
She rushed to her side, sinking to her knees next to her mother. “Mother,” she whispered. “Mother, it’s me, Avoca. I’m home. I’m here.”
Shira turned her face toward her daughter. Her eyes were perfectly clear. As if not a day had gone by. Her body was failing, but her eyes held centuries of intelligence. “Avoca, my daughter.” She put her hand onto Avoca’s cheek.
“Why didn’t you call for me? You’re sick. I would have come.”
Shira smiled. “I know you would have, but this is not your destiny. She is. The prophesied one.”
“I came here for her,” Avoca confessed. “I didn’t know what was happening here. But the world out there is at war. We need allies. We need the troops. But, Mother, I cannot ask it of you.”
“You don’t have to,” Shira said. She reached onto her right hand and removed the signet ring from her finger, a solid sapphire the size of a robin’s egg on a gold band that had been passed down from queen to queen for as long as time.
“No,” Avoca breathed.
Shira took Avoca’s hand without acknowledging her comment and placed the royal ring on her finger. She patted her hand now. “This has always belonged to you. You are the bright light of the Leifs. You will bring them out of this dark age. You have always been our best hope.”
Tears slipped down Avoca’s cheeks. “Mother, please.”
Shira wiped the tears from her face. “You were born for this.” She smiled at her. “I am sorry that I forced the betrothal. It is my one regret. Forgive me?”
She nodded through her tears. “Of course. Of course. You thought you were doing what was best.”
“I see now that it was another,” Shira said as if looking into the future. “But they come from the same place, do they not?”
“They did,” Avoca whispered. Her mother had always had a bit of foresight. Not a considerable amount, but enough to see and interpret. “You saw…Ahlvie.”
Shira smiled then. “Ahlvie. You love him.”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Good. That is all I’ve ever wanted for you,” Shira told her. “I got you one last present. It was meant to be a wedding gift.” She gestured to a table with a package on it, but Avoca couldn’t leave her mother’s side.
“You saw my wedding?” she murmured.
Shira didn’t answer. She rarely spoke of the future or what was now the past. She always said that what she saw was too risky to discuss. This was more than her mother had ever confessed.
“You are queen now,” Shira told her. She closed her hand around Avoca’s. “The troops are yours. Bring us back into the light.”
Then Shira fell into a deep sleep. Avoca could see her chest barely rising and falling. Her pulse was even but faint. She was dying. She would not make it to the new moon. And Avoca could not stay and live out these next moments with her. She could not sacrifice Cyrene and the rest of the world for another week with her ailing mother.
But, Creator, she wanted to.
With a gasp, she clutched at her chest and strode away from the bedside. She found the package her mother had said was a wedding present. She had known all along.