Warrior of the Moon

1

The Portal had frozen her tears.

It was the first thing she noted besides the fact that she was in Ambrose's strong arms, held tightly against his chest. The arms he had been gifted back by the grace of her dead great-grandmother, Queen Muiress, after Serena herself had removed his hands and tongue with angry steel while under the curse of her half-sister, Iliss.

It was too much to think about.

And it would likely lead to thoughts about--

She silenced her mind abruptly, and decided right then and there that she would not pine or pity herself. What happened had happened. So for now, she just shoved all the dark thoughts away and turned to Ambrose, who placed her gently on her feet at just one pointed look from her sapphire eyes.

She knew the feeling of pavement beneath her feet, and she was not willing to look at it yet. She yearned for the marble of her castle, for the cobblestone of Azure's streets, for the fields of flowers surrounding its gates. So she rubbed her hands over her face first, both to briefly hide the sight of the human realm from her and to wipe away the lingering, frosted tears.

Then she turned in a circle, trying to glean information about where she might be. For all she knew, Vex could have sent them into Turkey, or dropped them on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. But the cul de sac she was standing in did not seem so unfamiliar as to belong to a foreign country. Or so she hoped. Perhaps Vex had somehow noted the relative location Serena's last Portal into the Realm had come from. For all she knew, that could just mean she was in the correct hemisphere - which was not all that helpful.

She looked at Ambrose again, who let out a long breath as he stared up at the sky. Of course: the waxing moon. He would never have seen a moon that looked anything even close to full. His eyes flicked among the stars, and she almost felt bad pulling his concentration away from the human sky.

"Will," she said softly, not just because of the night that cloaked itself around them, but because she had not spoken to him since that night: that night she had ripped him apart. She was surprised that Tarin had allowed her to go anywhere with him after everything that had happened, after he had been deceived into thinking Ambrose was a traitor. She was not sure if the two of them had ever achieved true reconciliation, but perhaps Tarin's acceptance of this plan had something to do with the vision Muiress showed him privately. He had certainly looked grave while it played through his mind, and if it was powerful enough to convince him to let her go...

Not forever. Not again, a voice snapped in her mind. She shoved it away again before her eyes could begin to burn.

He heard her; she could tell through the stiffening of his shoulders, though he did not look at her yet. She just pressed her lips together and formed coherent words in her mind before allowing them to pass through her lips. She could not offend him again, could not hurt him.

"Will, thank you, for--" she began, but bit her lip when he began to shake his head.

"Majesty, with all due respect, I'm not just doing this for you," the Fae warrior declared, and despite herself, damn her, she blinked in surprise.

"I'm doing it for the city I grew up in, the realm full of people that are bound for the pits of the hells if the Fae armies can't hold out. I'm doing it for the queen that perished at the hands of cowards, sadists, and murderers. You may be claiming a crown when you return, but it won't be impressing anybody. It's skilled warriors like Tarin and Birches, brave Fae like the Curers and my father, kind hearts like Nahla's, that will win this war. Not you."

The words slapped her in the face, but he did not wait to see her reaction. He began stalking off, but not before Serena saw the widening of his eyes that told her he had not really meant to say any of that. His anger must have bested him, then, as he told her how he really felt.