—Arianna Spero
Fire is everywhere. Filling my sight, lapping at my skin like hungry demons, burning my nostrils. Smoke clouds my vision, and I trip over a body. I'm scared to look down, because I know what I will see. What I always see.
Daison. He is stuck under the burning logs. He is dying. I pull and tug, but I can't save him. I can never save him.
His face morphs and now he is Ace, his chest caving in from talon scratches, his skin pale from blood loss, his body charred. I rip open my wrist and dribble blood into his mouth, but he does not awaken.
As I stare down in horror, his features change, and I am holding Fen. Fen, who is dying. Who is burned. I cut open my other wrist. I bleed and bleed but I can never save him.
I can never save any of them, no matter how much blood I give.
***
My heart hammers in my chest, and I wake with a start, gasping in the cool, clean night air. I check my wrists. They are not slashed open. One is still bandaged, but it is healing. I am not dying.
But Daison is dead.
Ace might die.
And Fen.
Fen must live.
The wind shifts in my room, and I notice a silhouette in my window. A person. I slip out of bed and reach for Spero, holding my sword tightly in my hand as I walk over to the figure lurking in the dark.
"Metsi." I recognize her from the presenting, though I haven't seen her since. Her dark skins glows under the moonlight, and her serpent coils around her right wrist, placated for now. "Have you come to kill me in my sleep?"
"My brother, Oren, told me what you did, summoning the Midnight Star." Her voice is lilting, soft, Irish-sounding in its cadence, carrying on the wind.
My heart leaps. Does she know if Yami is okay?
"It is not too late," she says. "You can still side with your people. Fight with us, Princess. Fight with us and help us save the Fae."
I feel the pull of her plea, but I see in my mind what it would mean. I see Daison dead. Ace dying. I see Fen… bloody. "No," I say. "I cannot. I will not."
Her face hardens, and her serpent raises its head and hisses at me. Rain begins to fall outside. Lightning flashes. "Then you will fight for the demons? You will cause the annihilation of your people?"
"No," I say again. "Fighting isn't the answer. As long as both sides continue to seek blood for past sins, they will destroy each other. It will never end."
She cocks her bald head, her tribal tattoos catching the moonlight. "Right now, it is the only choice we have. You must choose, Princess Arianna. You must choose who you are. Are you the Midnight Star, sent to save your people? Or are you a pawn of the demons, aiding them in killing and enslaving our kind? Who will you be?"
Her words fade and her body turns to mist, disappearing into the night.
I walk back to my bed and sit on the edge, shaking from nerves, fear. I don't know what the right path is, but I'm sure all the ones that have been presented to me thus far are wrong.
The rain dies down. The lightning and thunder stop. I try to go back to sleep, but it will not come. I can't settle my mind or rest my body. I keep glancing at my window waiting for another visit, another attack.
So I pull on my robe and creep out of my room and down the hall to Fen's quarters. I knock, but he doesn't answer. When I open the door, the room is empty. Disappointed, I enter anyway and crawl into his bed. It smells like him, and for now, that will have to be enough.
***
I don't realize I fell asleep until his arms wrap around me.
I turn over to face him, placing my hands on his face. "Fen."
"Are you okay?" he asks. He pulls me closer to his chest, his arm wrapped around me, his large hand splayed against my back.
I love his eyes, love gazing deeply into them, getting lost in the piercing cobalt blue. "Is there anything you fear so much it keeps you awake at night?"
He closes his eyes, then opens them slowly. "Losing those I love." His arm flexes, tightening around me in a protective embrace.
My breathing turns shallow. "Fen… I… there's so much I want to tell you, but I can't."
He brings his thumb to my lips, caressing them. "I know. Asher told me. I know you were forced into another contract. I know my father is alive and behind all this."
But does he know about the Midnight Star? Does he know the plans they have for me? I can't ask him. But I'm glad this secret isn't a wall between us anymore.
"When I came to hell," I say, "I didn't expect it to be this… beautiful. Magical. I didn't think I would find friends. Family. Love." I hold my breath on that last word, waiting, but he just nods, encouraging me to continue.
"I feel torn between two worlds. And neither of them, bizarrely enough, are the world I was born in. But there's one thing I'm not torn about. Not anymore."
"What's that?" he asks softly, his breath caressing my face.
"My feelings for you."
"Ari…"
"No, let me finish. There's a lot I can't say, but I can say this. Fen, I don't know what our future holds. I don't know how this war will end, or who will become king, or even who should be king. I don't know what will happen with… " My throat constricts as I almost cross a line in talking about the Fae. I don't think we need to ruin another moment with one of us vomiting blood again. "With other things that shall not be named."
His lips twitch.
"But I know that even an immortal life is too short to ignore the heart. I know that I can't get you out of my head, and that the thought of anything happening to you nearly kills me. I know that I would give anything to keep you from going to war tomorrow, and not just because I'm worried about… things." I take a deep breath, but before I can finish my speech, Fen closes those few inches between us and kisses me. It's a gentle kiss. Soft. Warm. Tender.