Fergus

“I will fucking kill you,” she snarled. 

Fergus would have laughed if he could. Laughed at his mate, her fingers curling at her sides as she squeezed the air from his lungs. Laughed at the unbridled hate that burned in her electric blue eyes. Laughed at the fates for choosing this feral witch to be his. They had a sense of humour, he had to admit. And he would have laughed at how little she knew. That she believed she could kill him, even after the threads of their lives and deaths had been woven together. 

Inextricable. 

He would have laughed, but it was hard to laugh when your mate was constricting your airway from across the room. But even as his vision began to blur, he watched with no small amount of amusement as her eyes suddenly bulged, and she doubled over with wheezing, dragging breaths. 

He would have laughed, but there was nothing funny about it.

“What the fuck,” Siofra gasped, reaching for the old crone beside her. 

“Mates can’t kill each other,” the ancient witch said with a sympathetic grimace. “Your lives are tied to one another. You can’t kill him, and he can’t kill you.” 

Those cobalt eyes slid back to Fergus again. “He’s not my mate,” she spat in a low growl, rubbing at the column of her throat. “He’s a fucking shadow fae for fuck’s sake.” 

She wasn’t wrong. It still bothered him, all these years later, how he could be mated to a witch, of all things. Mates were a uniquely fae phenomenon. Even after countless sleepless nights of gruelling research over the years, he still hadn’t found any record of a fae mated to a witch. But the prophecy had been clear, and the seer was adamant that he find her - so he did. 

He’d spent months tracking her down across Saol, only for her to slip through his fingers like smoke every time. He had to hand it to her - his mate was an expert at disappearing without a trace. But it was never long before he found her again. 

In the beginning, he kept to the shadows, watching her careful movements from the back alleys and rooftops of one festering shithole after another. But over time, the bond kicked in, and that pull to be near her grew too strong to resist. He had to be careful, of course. The mere sight of him would send every mortal in the realm into a panic. But he couldn’t help it. Fight it as he did, he needed to be as close to her as he could. 

It was fucking devastating to finally accept that his fate was tied to this witch. To realise that resistance was futile. The first time he’d laid eyes on her, understanding hit him in the chest and knocked the very breath from him. The seer hadn’t misread the prophecy, and any hope he’d harboured that this had all been one huge misunderstanding died. 

She was his mate. He knew it in his bones as well as he knew his own name. 

And there was not a single fucking thing that he or anyone else could do about it. 

“Be that as it may, the prophecy was clear. You are mated to each other, love, whether you like it or not,” the druid said gently. She ignored him, and he tried and failed to hide the hurt that flashed across his features. Weak fucking prick.

“Get out,” she said, her furious eyes still locked on his. Her hands were balled into fists at her side, shaking slightly. The milky skin below her ear pulsed rapidly. Her breaths were fast and shallow, her knees bent almost imperceptibly. 

His cock twitched. Oh, she wanted to kill him - there was no doubt about that. Was he a sick fuck for wanting to fuck the rage right off her pretty face? Maybe. But that sure as shit wouldn’t go down well. Not yet, anyway. 

Fergus shrugged. Let her rage. Let her merry band of babysitters fuss over her. He had work to do. 

Siofra

Síofra watched the shadow fae leave, her blood boiling. Lightning cracked outside the stained-glass window pane. She would kill him. Mates or not, she would find a way. Ollan placed a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched. 

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled, jerking away from him.

“Love, I know this is a lot to take in,” he began. His voice was full of pity, but it just fuelled the rage that threatened to overcome her. “Please, let me explain.”

Síofra sighed, suddenly weary. “You have two minutes,” she said, as she slumped back into the armchair across from Aisling. Ollan nodded. 

“Years ago, I spent some time with a female shadow fae, Riona, after paths crossed in the wider woods one night. She was injured and needed a healer, but we were too far from the Mirkwood for her to make it back there in time.” 

He turned to face the window and the grey, stormy sky beyond it. “She refused to let me take her to the keep. She was afraid of how the others would react to a shadow fae wandering beyond their territory. They have very strict rules about it, you know. And their punishments for breaking those rules are severe.” He glanced toward Siofra then, and his expression was pained. 

“We made camp in the forest, and I did my best to heal her injuries. It was about a week before she was well enough to return home.” Liath sighed heavily where she stood, leaning against the nearby armoire. 

Ollan shot the General a withering scowl before he went on. “Riona was a seer.” Síofra narrowed her eyes at this, but he caught the movement. “No, she wasn’t some scam artist charging good coin for make-believe prophecies. She had the gift of sight. And on our third night together, she had a vision.”

“Speed this up, old man,” Liath yawned, irritation shining in her sunset eyes. “I have places to be.” 

Ollan inhaled, swallowing his ire. “She saw a vision of a blue-haired witch, the last living descendant of the High Witch. The witch was no more than a babe. And she was swaddled in my arms.” Despite how angry she was and how uninterested she had been in hearing any explanation that he might offer, Síofra couldn’t stop her heart from racing at the words. She kept her eyes trained on the pewter clouds that roiled outside. 

“She saw that babe grow into a powerful witch, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in centuries. She saw her break the curse, kill the queens, return the Four Sisters to their rightful place, and restore peace to the continent and its people.” He turned from the window to face Siofra then. “And she saw her do all of this with a shadow fae prince by her side.”

Aisling reached forward from where she sat opposite Síofra and placed a soft, creased hand over hers, squeezing it gently. “Fergus is that prince.” 

Fergus was a prince? A prince of the shadow fae? Síofra shook her head and blinked. It didn’t make sense. Fergus had been helping Queen Ciara in her plan to take the entire continent for herself. The banshee and the olc had told her as much. He was the one responsible for the shadow sites, the mortal villages along the southern border that had been reduced to rubble and ash. He was the one tearing holes in the wards. It was his fault that the fortress had been attacked. It was his fault that Donall was dead. 

She let her gaze slide to Ollan then, taking in the tension in his shoulders, the deep furrow of his bushy white eyebrows, and found that though his pain was sincere, she was without sympathy for the old man who had raised her as his own. 

Her entire life, he’d known about this prophecy. Her entire life, he’d kept it from her. All those years, those agonising years she’d spent grappling with her choice between the coven and the curse. All those years, she’d kept Donall at arm's reach for fear of the pain she’d cause him. All those years, he’d known the truth, her truth, and kept it from her. Bile rose in her throat, burning away the confusion that muddled her thoughts, leaving nothing but the acute sting of betrayal in its wake.

“Get out,” Siofra spat. 

“Síofra, please,” he started, but the General cut him off. 

In a flash, Liath was on her feet with a hand on the old man’s shoulder. Her grip did not look gentle. “You heard her. Out.” The command in her voice would have surprised Síofra if she’d had enough energy to care. She may be the General of the Queen’s Coven, but nobody barked orders at a druid. Ollan gaped at her before turning to Aisling with pleading eyes. But the old witch just sighed the heavy sigh of a woman who had lived a thousand years, and shook her head. Ollan’s chin dropped, and he let Liath guide him to the door, casting one last forlorn look at Síofra before it slammed shut behind him. 

“Thank the Goddesses that’s over with,” Liath grumbled as she strode back to Síofra and Aisling. “Now, when are you coming home?” Síofra eyed her as if she had three heads. Home? Did she even have a home anymore? Liath must have read the question in her eyes. 

“The fortress,” she said. “You weren’t planning on staying here, were you?” A high-pitched cry sounded from somewhere outside, and Síofra wondered if it came from the eagle that had been circling the skies for days. Her eagle. The eagle she had ignored ever since, since…

“Of course, Sean and Connor can come with you,” Ailsing said, interrupting her thoughts. Sean and Connor. Goddesses, she hadn’t even thought of them. She doubted very much that they’d want to return to the fortress. Surely they’d be eager to get back to the keep. A heaviness pressed down on her chest at the thought of the keep without Donall. 

“I hadn’t thought about it,” she eventually said, her voice suddenly small. Ailsing smiled at her and patted her hand. 

“That’s alright, deary. You’ve had a shock, there’s no doubting it. Lots to process. We’ll go back when you’re good and ready.” 

“Do I have to go back?” 

Liath snorted, amusement twinkling in her eyes. “You’re the goddess-damned High Witch. You don’t have to do anything ever again.”

Liath

The General of the Queen’s Coven let the door click softly behind her before she followed Ailsing a few steps down the hallway, where the old druid was waiting. She barely managed to suppress her scowl at the sight of the old rat.

“Well?” He asked as they approached. “How is she?” 

“She’s discovered she’s mated to a brute, bears the entire future of the continent on her shoulders, and the only person she thought she could trust in this world has been lying to her face for her entire life. How do you think she’s doing?” Liath hissed. Aisling sighed beside her, but she didn’t care. She’d play nice in front of Síofra if she had to, but she wouldn’t pander to him otherwise. 

“That isn’t helpful, Liath,” Aisling said, casting her eyes over the silver-clad sentries posted on either side of Síofra’s door. Liath huffed a laugh. She was right. It wasn’t helpful. 

Helpful would have been telling Síofra who she was before the last fucking moment, so that she could prepare for the monumental task that had been assigned to her by the fates. Helpful would have been introducing her to the fae prince properly, so that she didn’t feel like she was being forced into an eternity with a male she hated. Helpful would have been having her join the coven years ago, so that she could hone her powers and lean on the support of her people - the people who lived and breathed to serve her. 

There weren’t enough hours in the day to list all of the possible things that would have been helpful to this categorical shitshow. But here they were, all because they had pandered to the desperate pleas of a weak man. 

When Aisling had first told her of the prophecy, they had fought for the first time in five hundred years. She had raged that her High Witch was being raised as a mortal. Raged that the truth of her power was being withheld from her. She had wanted to drown the entire continent in that rage, and it had taken every ounce of her self-control to stop herself from crossing directly to the keep and bringing the babe home to be raised with her true family. 

After a few years had passed, and the child had grown into a woman, she found the tether on her control beginning to fray. None of the coven members had questioned her sudden interest in this one specific defector as she followed her High Witch from city to city, drawn to the impossible magnitude of power that slumbered deep inside her. Even her second in command had known not to ask questions, though she was sure she had swallowed them back a thousand times over the years. 

But Liath had sworn to keep the secret, to wait until the time was right. She would give the High Witch the choice to take up the mantle and step into her destiny, or reject it and them, forever. And whatever that choice may be, she would accept it. 

“You’re right,” she sneered. “I’m the one who’s being unhelpful. It's my fault that my High Witch is sitting in her room, brokenhearted and betrayed.” The druid opened his mouth to argue, but before the sound could escape his mouth, twin vines ripped through the plush crimson carpet at their feet and slapped across his lips, muffling outraged cries and curses. “Do not speak to me, rat,” she seethed as his fingers clawed at the vines. The sentries behind her whimpered. Fuck. There were fucking men everywhere she looked in this cursed place. She needed to get out of there before she really lost control and drowned every last one of them just for a moment of peace. She turned to an exasperated Aisling and snapped, “I’m returning to make preparations,” before she clicked her fingers and disappeared.