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“Yeah, I get that.” His smile was careful, like perhaps he also sensed we were on the brink of change. “I tend to decide what other people need on their behalf.”
“You don’t say?” I teased lightly, playfully. Not to pick a fight, but rather to reassure him.
“My parents made me promise to never handfast without meaning it.”
My breath caught at the sudden shift in conversation.
He continued, “They believed in the old meaning of it.” He paused as if realizing I didn’t know about the custom.
“I asked Roark about it. He mentioned it was a mating thing.”
He nodded, looking relieved that I already knew. “They were handfasted.”
“Were they…mates?” I recalled what Roark had said about that magic being dead.
“I think so.” Lach’s eyes clouded. “There was no mark, no proof that magic had sealed them as mates. Sometimes I could swear I remember seeing one, but maybe I’m only imagining it. Maybe I just want it to be true.” His brittle smile broke something inside me. “People say that it doesn’t happen anymore, that mating bonds are dead, but a glamour could hide it. Sometimes I think they hid their mating bond but that I did see it.”
I frowned. “Why?” Everyone in that ballroom had seemed overly enthusiastic about the handfasting, save for the people being joined together. “Why would they keep it a secret?”
“I suppose it’s only necessary if you have something to hide, and my parents always had secrets. But I think for them, it was about keeping some small piece of their love to themselves. My father was the heir of the Nether Court and my mother the heir of the Terra Court until they were married. She abdicated her throne.”
“Terra Court?” I searched my brain, trying to remember this. The Nether Court, the Astral Court, the Infernal Court, the Hallow Court. Those were the ones I’d been told about, the ones in attendance tonight. Four courts in total. No one had ever mentioned a fifth.
“It’s gone now. Destroyed in the war.” He fell silent again, ghosts moving in his eyes, and I resisted the urge to ask more questions.
I had time to get my answers. Every night for the rest of my life.
Because standing with him in the moonlight, I knew that I would never break the bargain—even if I had the answer to his riddle.
I didn’t care what Lach wanted as long as it was me.
“Sometimes the war feels like yesterday,” he said after a moment.
I stared at him as what he was saying sank in. Despite the warming magic surrounding us, I clutched my arms tightly around my waist as I processed this. “You fought in the Second World War?”
His eyes lifted, set with grim determination. “Wouldn’t you?”
I knew I didn’t need to answer.
“My parents had moved their court to America long before it started, but when it did… The Terra Court was an earth court—the only one—and it was right in the middle of the fighting.” I reached for his hand as he stared into the night. “We were all at the front, except Shaw. He was a kid. But even though my mother had abdicated, she couldn’t stand by and do nothing, so my parents went to help.”
“Good,” I muttered.
A genuine smile ghosted across his face. “She would have liked you. They summoned Fiona home to stay with Shaw. I was stationed in France. I’d taken a bullet during a skirmish with German forces.”
Another layer peeled back as I realized the scar on his shoulder was a brand not of iniquity but of bravery.
“I was recuperating at what doctors believed was a miraculous rate when the telegram arrived that Warsaw had fallen, along with every member of the Terra Court’s royal bloodline and my father. I was called home to the Nether Court immediately, the throne passing to me in an instant. I never returned to the war.”
“But you’re of the Terra Court’s royal bloodline.”
“That’s complicated.” He grimaced, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “When I arrived at court, there was a letter from my father, cautioning me to be careful if something happened to them, and…” Lach hesitated as if the memory was too painful to bear. I knew there was more to this story. He would share in time, and until then, I wouldn’t push him for details. “The others wasted no time. Aurora wasn’t there. She lost her parents at Terra, too.”
Sirius had told me as much, but I merely nodded.
“No one had been happy about two heirs marrying each other. I guess they thought my parents might try to restore the titles of High King and High Queen and rule over every court. I’d barely read my dad’s letter when Bain and Oberon showed up and demanded I choose a throne—the Nether Court or the Terra Court—and renounce the other bloodline.”
Another impossible choice. No wonder he hated them.