They both jump but hide the movement well. We slowly creep toward the back of the pub unseen, most eyes in the room focused on what’s going on outside. I wrap my magic around them, then look at Silene, who nods. She aersteps us directly into our rooms, and we all collapse into chairs, exhausted.

“What the fuck just happened?” a familiar cold and furious voice demands from the corner.

Laurel

Sidhe cats who make themselves the companion of a Thayarian royal are extremely in tune with the emotions of their chosen fae. Many Thayarian monarchs have credited their companion feline for supporting them through their hardest moments.

A Brief History of Modern Thayaria

When I get to my room, bone-weary and full of fury, I barely register the last hour.

When Carex had pounded on my door, telling me there was an attack on the merchant district, all reason and logic left me. I became my fury, let it wash over me in a mad rage. I rushed there and aerstepped as many people as I could to safety. I wanted to obliterate the rebels attacking my city. Attacking my people. Every bit of self-control I’ve tried to hone over three centuries, every ounce of shame I’ve internalized about the nature of my magic—it all left me the instant I realized the scale of the rebel attack. I would have performed unlimited amounts of magic to stop the attack, and who knows what the result might have been. In my wrath-induced madness, I could have completely unraveled the magic of Thayaria by channeling too much aether.

But Admon had interfered, reminding me that the rebels are also Thayarians and many of them are just worried for their families. As always, his wise counsel gently guided me down the right path and back to logic. I backed off, letting the Royal Guard and army reserves handle the attackers. Thankfully, under Carex’s leadership, they’d addressed the assault on the city quickly and saved hundreds of lives.

Then I got the message that the thayar processing tower was being robbed, and my ire returned in full force. When I blasted away the doors to that storage room and saw the same fae I was responsible for releasing, believing him to be nothing more than a farmer, I once again evolved into something more than myself, a being made of nothing but wrath. It took more control than I want to admit pretending not to see him, not to obliterate him where he stood. And Prince Hawthorne—how could he have gone along with this attack and not stopped this? In the room, I understood his silent plea to go along with the plan. But it doesn’t mean he should’ve agreed to it in the first place.