A Court Bright and Broken (Age of Fae #1)

39. The Real Question

Chapter 39

The Real Question

P haris—half an hour earlier

Stellon might have been convinced his little human friend wasn’t a threat, but I knew she hadn’t been honest with him.

It had only taken me moments to realize Raewyn and Lady Wyn were one and the same person. Which meant the suspected assassin was still with us.

But she’d had unlimited access to my brother for weeks, and he was still alive. Did that mean she wasn’t the person who’d brought the poison into our midst?

Was she just biding her time? Or had she, like every other woman in the palace, fallen in love with the “charming Crown Prince” and now found it impossible to take his life?

I wasn’t sure what was going on… but I intended to find out.

Immediately after leaving my brother’s chambers, I paid a visit to the dungeon. The jailer bolted to his feet when he saw me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Your Highness.”

I gave him a brief nod. “I want to see the older woman taken into custody the night of the ball. The human.”

His eyes darted off to one side, and he kept them averted as he lied to me. “I’m not sure who you mean, Your Highness.”

“Yes you are. Why are you lying to me? That’s a hanging offense, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” he blurted. “I don’t mean to lie. I just… I’m not sure what to say.”

He was a large man and fortunately not a very smart one.

“Someone told you to lie about her?” I guessed. “To conceal her location? Someone of great importance and authority, I’m guessing.”

He kept his eyes directed at the floor as he nodded wordlessly.

Stellon . It had to have been my brother. And if he’d gone to the trouble of hiding the old woman, she must be important somehow.

“I’ll tell you what… I won’t report you for the crime of lying to a royal,” I said to the dullard in front of me. “And you won’t have to break your vow— if you simply point the way toward her cell.”

After a long moment, the man raised his right arm straight out to the side, pointing down a row of solitary confinement chambers. I grabbed a ring of keys from a nail on the wall behind him and held it out to him.

“Which one?”

He took the ring and sorted through it, selecting a key and handing it to me.

“Good man,” I said, and then I left him to find the “secret” prisoner—and hopefully some answers to all my burning questions about Wyn/Raewyn.

Walking down the dark corridor he’d indicated, I reached the section where the doors began. Each was nearly ceiling height, solid steel except for a sliding panel through which food—or conversation—could pass.

The openings were high on the door, but at six-foot-six, I had no trouble seeing through them.

All of them were open, all the cells visible through the small openings empty. Except one.

This was it. I stood outside, nerves cramping my stomach, wondering how to begin unraveling the mystery of the human woman who’d troubled my thoughts from the moment I’d first laid eyes on her standing outside the ballroom doors.

“Who’s there?” a voice called from inside the cell.

Either the old woman had remarkable hearing or she had some other senses that alerted her to my presence. I doubted she could see through solid steel.

I turned the bolt and slid open the small rectangular window. A white-haired woman glared at me from inside.

“You,” she snarled. “You’re supposed to be dead by now.”

I quirked an eyebrow at her. “According to whose timetable? Mine has me living for another three thousand years or so.”

“Are you the sole survivor in your family?” she asked.

What a strange question.

“They are all alive and well… which seems to disappoint you,” I said. “Why is it that you were so certain one or more of us had perished?”

“There was an assassin inside the castle walls, was there not?” she asked, obviously knowing the answer full well.

“A failed one,” she added in an acid tone.

“Apparently. And what do you know about that?”

She gave me a snaggle-toothed smile. “I know vials of poison were found—poison of the sort that’s particularly deadly to Elves.”

“And how would you have come by that information?”

“Good news travels,” she said. “Even down here to the dungeon.”

I was growing weary of her cryptic answers. “It sounds a lot like you were involved. Likely you’re the assassin herself. Tell me why I shouldn’t order your execution right now.”

“If you do, you’ll never know what really happened that night,” she said. “You’ll never know the answer to the real question you came down here to ask me.”

“Oh, and what’s that?”

“Whether a certain pretty little human was involved.”

I flattened my hands against the cold steel, leaning closer to the door.

“Was she?”

The woman let out a titter. “It’s hard to think with my belly growling so. The daily rations have been somewhat… diminished recently.”

“Guard,” I yelled.

The man poked his head around the corner.

“Food for the prisoner.”

He nodded and disappeared again.

“And I haven’t breathed fresh air in so long, it’s made my brain foggy. The details grow faint.”

She fanned herself dramatically.

“Oh no. You’re not getting out of here until you give me something,” I said. “You could be bluffing for all I know.”

The woman rose from her sleeping pad and strolled ever so slowly toward the door. Her tone was a dreamy sing-song.

“Hair the color of cocoa-dusted caramels,” she crooned. “Eyes like flame-warmed brandy, lips as full and pink as wild strawberries… sound familiar?”

“You were in the cell next to hers that night,” I said. “This tells me nothing. Who is she? Was she involved in the plot?”

“I will tell all that I know, all that there is to know, but you must give me something in return,” the crone said.

A bargain. This I understood.

“I have the power to release you,” I said. “And I will— if you give me something real, something I can use to prove to my brother he’s in danger. Then, and only then, will I free you.”

“It’s bad luck to break faith with an Earthwife,” the woman warned. “As Raewyn will soon learn.”

At the sound of that name on her lips, a flash of irritation heated my skin, and my gut soured. I wasn’t sure why.

I was asking this woman to confirm my worst suspicions about the human girl. She was about to give me exactly what I wanted.

And it was what I wanted—I was almost certain of it.

There was only an infinitesimal part of me that held out hope my brother’s sweetheart hadn’t been involved, that she hadn’t pulled the wool over his eyes and had nothing to do with those poison vials.

Of course my concern was for him. The way he talked about her, I knew it would break his heart to find out she was the assassin.

And if that were to be confirmed, it would really make me question my own thoughts about her—about what the matchmaker’s glamour had revealed to me the night of the ball.

“Talk,” I ordered the woman. “You can start with the part about the love spell.”

She smiled. “Your reputation for being charming was a bit overblown, I find.”

“I have the power to charm your head from your wrinkled neck, should it amuse me to do so. Unless you’re in a hurry to reach the Land Without Stars, I advise you to start talking.”

“No need to resort to threats, young man. I’ll tell you everything,” she promised. “And in return, you will release me from this cell and from the castle.”

I hastily nodded agreement, and the woman told me a tale of magic, and murder, and beauty, and lies.

“As for a love spell, there wasn’t one. Your brother is simply a very poor judge of character. I trust you’re a little wiser?”

If she was trying to get me to talk about my own impression of Raewyn, she was going to be very disappointed. That was no one’s business but mine.

Besides, the very last person I’d confide in was an Earthwife.

“You won’t need to bother killing the girl,” she informed me. “Raewyn also made a bargain with me, and she failed to uphold her end. I’ll deal with her. An Earthwife always exacts her price.”

“No, I’ll deal with her,” I growled then slammed the window shut again, turning to depart.

“Where are you going?” the woman howled.

From the sound of her voice, she was just on the other side of the door now.

“You’re supposed to release me now,” she said.

I laughed. “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to free a witch who plotted to kill me and my family?”

The jailer, who’d returned with the food I’d ordered for her, stopped in place when he saw me striding down the corridor.

“Take it back,” I said. “In fact, don’t bring her anything else to eat. Let her starve in there and turn to dusty old bones—unless you fancy a dark cell of your own.”

The woman clearly overheard me because her vengeful screech followed me out of the dungeon.

“You can’t do this! I’m warning you… an Earthwife always exacts her price.”

I was far less concerned about her threats than the price I might have to pay for telling my brother the woman he loved was a liar.

He wouldn’t like it. He’d be beyond angry with me.

My hope was that someday he’d forgive me and realize I’d done what I had to do to save his life—or at least save him from bonding himself to the wrong woman for him.

To the marrow of my bones, I knew that much about Raewyn.

Stellon had to marry the right person and become King of Avrandar and Lord of the Sixlands. He deserved the crown.

Who I ended up with was far less consequential.

When I reached the third-floor hallway, my shoulders sank in dismay. My brother had stationed no fewer than four guards at his door.

Naturally my next move was to try the secret passageway. The door into his room didn’t budge an inch.

No doubt he’d pushed every piece of furniture in the room up against the painting. Right. I’d have to try to talk my way in.

Returning to his suite’s exterior door in the hallway, I approached the guards and smiled. “Good evening fellows. Just paying a visit to my brother.”

The soldier closest to me darted a nervous glance at the others before responding. “I’m sorry, Prince Pharis. The Crown Prince gave orders he’s not to be disturbed until morning.”

Adrenaline hit my bloodstream and set off a tremor in my midsection. I had a bad feeling about this.

When I’d left the two of them, Stellon and Raewyn had been clinging together. He’d been petting her back, comforting her from the fright of my unexpected house call.

Had I inadvertently pushed them closer together? Sped up the timeline of their relationship by discovering her there?

Had my brother put the extra guards in place and ordered them to keep him from being disturbed because he meant to make Raewyn his bond-mate tonight ?

The nervous energy spread to my limbs, electrifying them.

“That doesn’t apply to me ,” I said to the guards, attempting to bluff them and move past the blockade.

Two of them moved closer together, obscuring Stellon’s door entirely. All four men gripped their sword hilts, which shocked me.

What were they going to do? Strike me down?

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” the most senior of the guards said. “But we’ve sworn not to allow anyone entry, on orders of Prince Stellon.”

“Especially you,” he added, sounding regretful and a bit scared.

A shocked laugh escaped me.

“Especially me?” I repeated, disbelieving.

Now I was even more worried. Stellon knew I knew she was in there with him. And he knew there was only one thing he could do to prevent anyone from taking her away from him.

He was desperately in love. Desperate people did desperate things.

I had to get into that room. Now .

Tilting my head to the side, I held out my hands. “Come on, fellas. What are we doing here? It’s me. I’m his brother. I’m his best friend.”

When that got no reaction, I started moving toward the door, prepared to push them out of the way.

“I’m afraid I have to insist,” I said.

The guards shot frightened glances at each other and drew their swords.

Shaded stars. This was a bad situation—for all of us. I didn’t want to hurt them, and I certainly didn’t want to meet the business end of one of those blades.

But I couldn’t let them stop me. I had to get in there and save my brother from himself.

Raising both my hands up to the sides, I dropped my head. “Fine. You win. I’ll come back in the morning.”

As soon as they re-sheathed their weapons and their postures relaxed, I made my move.

Whirling around, I raised a leg, and my boot heel connected with the jaw of one of the guards, sending him to the carpet.

The resulting split second of shock afforded me the opportunity to knock down another of the soldiers with a fist to the nose.

Unfortunately he was only down—not out. He grabbed my left ankle with both hands and pulled it under him, rolling his considerable weight on top of my leg and twisting it at a painful angle.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” he sputtered as he continued applying his body weight to my stressed joint. “Stop struggling and we’ll fetch a healer right away.”

The guard I’d kicked scrambled back to his feet and drew his weapon. Its brutally sharp point joined the swords of the other two guards, all of them hovering just above my neck.

I was in trouble. I couldn’t fight them all. And at this very moment Stellon could be making the biggest mistake of his life—one he’d never be able to undo.

My mind raced until it reached a point where I felt rational thought recede and instinct take over.

Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion…

Spotting the tell-tale shadow pooling around the feet of the oldest guard.

Feeling my own glamour burst out of its cage and rush toward him.

Snatching his shadow and expanding it.

Throwing the inky cloud over him and his fellow soldiers.

Confused, they began shouting, trying to locate me and each other. One of them cried out as another, apparently thinking he was stabbing me, jabbed his weapon into the man next to him.

There was a thud as he fell to the floor.

“Get him,” someone shouted from inside the dark cloud. “Don’t let him into the prince’s rooms.”

Another voice yelled, “I can’t see the door. Pull back your glamour, Druven.”

“I’ve tried,” he said. “I can’t control it. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“We’ve got to do something.”

“I know what to do,” the shadow-wielder said.

There was a sickening squelch, and then jets of blood spurted from the cloak of shadow. Druven crumpled to the floor, his head protruding from the edge of the dark cloud as he fell.

He’d stabbed himself in the neck in a futile attempt to suppress his suddenly out-of-control glamour. Though he was clearly dead, the shadow didn’t recede or change in any way.

The last remaining guard took off running, shooting out from the other side of the dark cloud and fleeing down the hall away from me and his fallen companions.

I watched him go, then recalled the shadow into myself, marveling as it shrank and passed over the still form of its former owner on its way to me.

Reaching down, I lifted Stellon’s room key from the man’s belt as a sick feeling swamped me. I hadn’t intended for anyone to die. The guard had only been doing his duty.

There was no time for guilt though. I was doing the same—my duty was to my family, and my brother was in danger.

Unlocking the door, I ran through the suite’s sitting room without stopping and threw my shoulder up against his bedroom door. The door frame splintered, and I went crashing through, landing on the floor, thanks to the momentum.

When I looked up, the tip of Stellon’s sword was mere inches from my nose.

He was shirtless and barefoot, his hair in disarray. Raewyn was in a similar state, clutching her shift over the front of her bare body as she stared at me wide-eyed.

Apparently I’d arrived just in time.

“What is the meaning of this?” Stellon demanded at the top of his lungs. “You have no right to barge in here like this. I should run you through, brother, for this insult to my lady.”

I rolled onto my back, holding my hands up in surrender.

“I found the assassin.”

Our eyes held intense contact for a long moment before Stellon moved the sword, dropping it to his side.

“Where? Who is it?” he asked, still furious but at least interested in what I had to say.

My gaze moved to Raewyn, whose expression of shock had morphed into one of fear. I was a bit afraid myself. The look in Stellon’s eyes was wild.

Still, I had come here for a reason, and it appeared the situation was more dire than ever.

I pointed at Raewyn, who cringed away from the gesture as if it was palpable.

“Her.”