By some pull, Pen began reading the Diary. Its words were written by someone present but detached from the events. She knew the names within, their stories as told by others. She always came back to the concordant, asking the young navigator if he could plot them. He said yes, but in no direct route.

"...You know I can only send four with you, outside of the navigator." Nuada said, snuggled with her in the window seat. "And we now know how he knew to ask for your court."

"Yes, that small of a party will be enough according to the diary." She said. "...all that matters we are there to move them from the hunt's notice for a little while."

"...You will have to keep Crevan away from Avallac'h, your physicists say that their meeting would nuke half the Continent."

"Yes, I have taken that into account." She said. "And Crevan has asked me to find a thread for him...I know where to look."

"Thus the Crab apple cider..." He teased. "...I didn't know you could make this..."

"Yes, whatever apples are available." She said.

He held her. "Are you going to keep sharing your bed with him through this?"

It was an honest question since a lot of things still needed to be straightened out to delineate between when she was the queen and when she was Lady Thorn. Both males were possessive, almost unnervingly so.

"I do not know if I should." She said. "I care for him, and he is a skilled lover...but I need you to be level headed too..."

"I could arrange a sandwich..." He said.

She laughed. "...I don't think he's your type."

Nuada laughed. "...I do not think he'd mind as long as you are the filling."

She snuggled into him.

"...I should get the preparations done." She said. "But I still..."

"Don't trust what you cannot verify." He sighed. "First rule of being a good leader..."

She leaned close, resting her head against him. There was so much to do.

#

Crevan sat in the solar, Lara's necklace in his hand. He had pondered the same question as Pen, was it wise to let her keep sharing his bed. The nightmares had awakened him since the discovery, he didn't want her to see him that way. He had agreed they should sleep alone until all was resolved. He feared to lose her, as he had lost Lara. That was a fool's thought, one that kept ringing in his head. He played with the setting, wishing for a simple answer.

It felt so much like after Ciri died, the nightmares, the cravings for the poison that had destroyed so much of his life. He had not known what it was until he'd gone begging to the unicorns. His soul was rotting, had been since Lara. His obsession with her blood had started it, he was more intense than the other sages. For the little while he'd had Ciri, his children it had stopped.

"...It is never an easy choice." Nuada said as he came to sit at the table. "To accept when the cure is placed in front of you yet cannot see it."

He turned to look at his King, from the single golden amber eye to the lines that none so young of his race should have.

"...The healers said you had this condition as well."

"Yes. I know what it is doing to you...what it did."

He set the necklace down and rubbed his arm, where a patch of skin he'd peeled away was now whole and branches twined with bramble.

"My obsession with destroying humans started it. It took my defeat at the hands of a red demon and my sister's death to trigger its onset. I near starved myself," He looked at his hands. "Smashed every object around me, it did not help that my enemy had me blinded and tucked away in Jareth's kingdom. Fate brought Pen back into my life...the road was rocky to say the least."

"Back into your life?" Crevan asked. "She wasn't always..."

Nuada shook his head, they had been pushed together and pulled apart for near twenty years.

"...I traveled, from fey enclave to Fey enclave...I could not stand the city where my father's court was." He said. "I was a fool and went up against poachers with guns...I was granted a year in an enclave that had humans as well...The Muinn...I did not know that it had been planned, not being shot, but my meeting of a dark-haired, green-eyed girl." He rubbed a spot on his chest, beneath his heart. "I had met her before, in the market...she ran into me, literately."

It was intriguing to hear the king speak of Pen, of the woman fate, said they had to share.

"She was young..."

"Yes, Twelve summers when I met her in the market. She ran into me hard enough to bruise. She cut her cheek on my armor..." He smiled. "She was near eighteen and a handsbreadth beneath my heart when I saw her again. How ironic that seems almost two decades on." He said. "...We conceived our first child in that enclave, in a barren field on Sovan."

Crevan laughed softly, remembering where he and Ciri had conceived their son. He thought the squirrel leader was going to have a fit over finding them naked in the storage shed.

"It took a very long road, war and a mad queen..." he said. "She broke her voice and life...Fought for me, near died to teach me a lesson. After so much pain, I let her go to live her life, then decided she would be my queen."

"Knowing how much she avoids being prim and proper that must have went over well..."

"Like a cockatrice in a mirror..." Nuada said. "...The twins were born and we reached a compromise, and I found the value of walking among my people now and again."

"Then I came," Crevan said. "I know well how well my being her lover goes over with you..."

Nuada knew the sage would bring that up, not understanding that he'd encouraged Pen to make that step.

"...You've talked to Aethen." He said. "Yes, If it had not been explained to me I would have gutted him, I still could have." He looked at Crevan. "But you ask of the Soul rot, such intimacy is one cure...the other I will not let her do. As I said, she broke her life and her voice."

Crevan sighed. "...I do not want her to see me like I was, a twitching mess..."

"She is a healer mostly now." He said. "She's seen worse..."

"It is still a good idea that my bed remains empty until this is resolved." he said.

Nuada rose, "...Dinner is soon, and the lord of the court should be with his lady..." He smiled. "Because tonight the queen will be with her king..."

Crevan smiled. "I'll be there..."

Nuada left him to think over what he said.

#

Pen was looking over the diary to see what she needed to bring. Crevan appeared and closed the tome. He wanted an answer, one only she could give. He appeared angry, something she expected on some level.

"...What is the other way to heal the Soul Rot." He asked.

She frowned, Nuada would have mentioned it but not in full. He most likely did not want Crevan to ask of it. She would say as much as needed.

"...I would sing, channel my power through my voice." She said. "...I would not be able to talk for some time..."

He frowned, "...I see."

"No. When I did it last, I was near voiceless for over a month..." She said. "I broke my voice, it has never been the same..." She stood. "...He would not let me do that, and I agree, it was too high a price.

He set his hands down on the desk, as if to steady himself.

"...Has this all been a lie."

There it was, the actual question he wanted answering. Did she love him, was it worth to give what of his heart he had left.

"No." She moved around the desk and behind him. "I do care for you, and have enjoyed you."

She wrapped her arms around him, laying her head on his back. He straightened in her grasp.

"...I want..."

She held him tighter, he'd hesitated to say the words, give her the endearment she'd heard so often in her dreams.

"Say it..." She said. "Say what I am to you..."

She felt him tense, he could not say it even if the soul had so many times.

"I can not...As queen you will need your head clear, as Lady thorn you will need to keep whatever secrets from me in the days to come."

"...Crevan." She said softly. "My fox..."

He pulled away from her embrace, turning to face her.

"...I should go before I do something foolish."

He stepped past her and out the door.