His Human Queen

The cottage in the woods

Maeve:

My rage was a living thing inside me, a fire that burned away the cold and the fear. I stood there for a long moment, just breathing, letting the clean, pine-scented air fill my lungs.

I was alone.

Caspian had cast me out. But I was alive, and I was free from the world over the Eupines... this is what I wanted, wasn’t it?

I turned from the Eupines and started walking. I didn't know where I was going, only that it was away. Away from his fortress, away from his ultimatum, away from the suffocating protection that felt more like a prison. Every step I took felt like a declaration.

I would not be caged.

I would not be a choice to be made.

I would be the one who makes the choice.

The forest was familiar, yet changed. The trees were the same, the path I vaguely remembered was still there, but the air felt different.

The silence was heavier, broken only by the crunch of my own boots on the frosty ground.

I must have walked for miles, the fire in my gut fueling my exhausted body, when I saw it. A single light flickering through the trees. A candle in a window. My cottage. Home.

The sight of it hit me like a physical blow. All the fight, all the fury, drained out of me in a rush, leaving a hollow ache. I stumbled toward it, my legs suddenly heavy as lead. As I got closer, I saw the small, well-tended garden, the stack of firewood by the door, the sturdy stone walls that had once been my entire world.

I was just a dozen feet away when the door flew open. My mother stood silhouetted in the warm light, her face pale with terror, a fire poker clutched in her hand like a sword. Her eyes scanned the darkness, and when they landed on me, they widened in disbelief.

"Maeve?" she whispered, the name a prayer on her lips.

Then a larger figure pushed past her. My big brother.

He was thinner than I remembered, his face pale, but his eyes were the same deep brown I knew. He was staring at me, his mouth slightly agape. He’d been mute since the accident, since the day our father died, his voice stolen by shock and grief. He hadn't spoken a word in years.

My mother dropped the poker with a clatter and ran, her arms wrapping around me so tightly I could barely breathe. She was sobbing, her body shaking against mine, murmuring my name over and over. I held her back, my own tears finally breaking free, hot and silent tracks down my cold cheeks.

I pulled away just enough to look at my brother, who was still standing frozen in the doorway. I reached out a hand to him, my fingers trembling. He flinched, but he didn't pull away. He took a hesitant step forward, then another, until he was standing right in front of me. He looked down into my face, his eyes searching, seeing the bruises, the exhaustion, the raw pain I couldn't hide.

And then he opened his mouth.

"Ma-eve."

The word was broken, raspy, a ghost of a sound, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. It was a stone dropped into a still pond, the ripples spreading through the sudden, absolute silence. My mother’s sobs hitched and stopped. My own heart forgot to beat.

"Jacob?" I breathed, my voice cracking.

He swallowed hard, his throat working, and said it again, clearer this time. "Maeve. You came back."

Tears streamed down his face, silent and unstoppable. He threw his arms around my waist, burying his face in my leathers, and just held on. My mother was there a second later, her arms around both of us, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I felt safe. I felt like I was home.

They ushered me inside, the warmth of the hearth a welcome balm against my chilled skin. My mother fussed over me, pulling off my muddy boots, wrapping me in a thick wool blanket, and pressing a warm mug of tea into my hands. Jacob sat on the stool at my feet, his hand resting on my knee, as if afraid I might vanish if he let go.

They didn't ask where I'd been. They didn't ask about the blood that had been on my clothes or the wild look in my eyes. They just saw me, their lost daughter, their little sister, and they held on.

But as I sat there, sipping the tea and feeling the warmth seep back into my body, a cold certainty settled in my heart. This was a reprieve. A beautiful, fragile moment of peace. But it wasn't my ending. I looked at my mother's tired face, at the hope shining in my brother's eyes, and I knew I couldn't stay. Dante's words about war, about the creatures coming, echoed in my mind. Caspian's command echoed, too. He had sent me away to protect me, but he had only sent me back into the path of the danger he feared.

I was going back over the Eupines. I had to.

But not as his prisoner. Not as his choice. I was going back alone. And this time, I would be the one to issue the ultimatum.