Page 86 of Raven's Dawn

“I understand,” Laila said.

“You don’t!” Speaking through gritted teeth, through the tears that streamed down her cheeks, she waved a finger in Laila’s face. “You don’t know. You don’t know what this world has been. You don’t know what we’ve gone through. You don’t know what we have seen.”

“I don’t,” she agreed.

“You don’t get to come here and act like it didn’t happen.” Spit flew from her lips with each word. “You don’t get to show up in my queendom and judge me. You don’t get to come here and tell me what to do.”

“I don’t,” she said again.

“We needed you!” Caeda slammed her fists on the table. “We needed you, and you vanished!”

“I did.”

“You all did!” She looked at Jeremy, and then back at Laila. A weep left her. “You disappeared, and we didn’t matter. You didn’t care. You don’t care now.”

“Everything else you said is true,” Laila said. “But we care.”

“Horse shite,” she snapped. “If you cared, you would’ve been here. You would have been here sooner. You would’ve been here the moment it began.”

“I was dead,” Laila said. “The archangels killed me.”

“Do you expect my sympathy?!” She scoffed, only inches from Laila’s face now. “That’s your fault too. You should’ve killed all of them when you had the chance. You should have burned them to the ground, destroyed their world the same way they destroyed ours—like you fucking said you would. You shouldn’t have listened to him.” Caeda pointed savagely at Jeremy. “You should’ve done as you believed.”

“We all would’ve been dead if she had,” Jeremy said.

“You would’ve been.” Her daggers turned on him. “The vermin you called a people would’ve been. But we would’ve lived.”

“And who would’ve put up of the spells?” Jeremy asked, genuine confusion in his eyes. “How would she have gotten the maalaichte cnihme off of Morduaine? How would she have kept us from a genocide?”

This conversation was deep in our Fae history.

Véa married Lux to save the Fae world. We were under attack by the maalaichte cnihme. Lux had a way to get them off of our world, and all he wanted in exchange was Véa’s hand in marriage. She accepted to save our people.

She accepted, and it destroyed her.

Caeda’s argument was nonsensical. It wouldn’t have worked. Yes, when Véa married into the Angel world, she said many times that she would love to burn it to the ground and rebuild it. But that would’ve been war. The Angels would’ve come, and they would’ve killed us all in retaliation.

It simply wouldn’t have worked, and that was why she hadn’t done it. Anyone who’d read the books and had a decent head on their shoulders could understand that.

Caeda was only angry. Justifiably, but there wasn’t substance to it.

“What about when it was over?” She stared deeply into Jeremy’s eyes. “When you could’ve killed him. You chose not to, and why is that? Was it not because she told you to? Because she wanted to see him suffer?”

Also true. When Nix and Véa had taken Lux’s throne, Lux beat her to a pulp. Nix nearly killed him, and Véa told him not to. She said that the best punishment a man like Lux could receive was taking his pride. And she did.

“If you think his sons are any better, you know nothing,” Jeremy said. “They started this war. Not him.”

Caeda laughed. “And that makes it better? Does that justify all, Nix? You truly feel comfortable standing before me, defending that man?”

“Nothing can justify what’s happened,” Jeremy said. “And no one hates my brother more than I do. More than anyone, I wish I’d killed him. But we never were what people have made us out to be.”

“And what is that?” Ailas asked, narrowed eyes on Jeremy. “What have we made you out to be?”

“Gods,” Laila said. “You all created that word. We never claimed it. We don’t claim it now.”

“We were people,” Jeremy snapped. “Fucked up, pieces of shit, trash people. Just like you are. Just like everyone is. We’re not perfect, and we never claimed to be. But we try. And we’re trying now. So decide. Do you want our power, our help, to end this? Or do we have to continue on our own?”

“We will,” Laila said. “If you refuse to help us, we will do it on our own. But I’m sure you’d rather take the credit than give it to Iliantha.”