Fae Champion (Royals of Embermere #2)

24. A Wild Horse Who’s Glimpsed the Inside of a Cage

24. A WILD HORSE WHO’S GLIMPSED THE INSIDE OF A CAGE

Chests heaving as if we’d been the ones starved of breath, Rush and I stared at each other across Azariah’s prone body until aides sprinted out onto the field, cloud cover scattering in their wake. We stepped back to make room for the full-sized fairies when they slid to a stop next to the unisus and began examining him from head to hoof, pretending they had no idea what had caused him to go down, that they hadn’t noticed their queen was so very willing to put her petulant wishes above the survival of her subjects.

It was all I could think about.

I’d never be safe in Embermere—hell, maybe not in the whole mirror world, even in the remote Wilds—not so long as the queen ruled. Whatever her reasons for hating me so, for wanting to see me dead, I couldn’t assume they’d pass, that I’d somehow keep surviving.

One of these days, I wouldn’t .

She’d continue her wicked reign, and my life—and death—would have made no difference.

Rush’s eyes were glassy, spooked as a wild horse who’d glimpsed the inside of a cage. He kept scanning my face, my body, seemingly reassuring himself that, though he’d sliced my throat, he hadn’t seriously wounded me. The queen had taken control of him, but he hadn’t followed through with her kill order.

Only, I knew he would have if Azariah hadn’t interrupted—and then paid the price for his intervention, and steeply.

His features arranged into a brooding tempest, Rush sauntered over to the dagger he’d discarded when he’d shaken off the queen’s will, and retrieved it, sliding it back into its sheath with the kind of speed that suggested he still worried she might again steal his will, that despite his insistence that he meant to defend me, he might end up attacking.

His eyes, those mesmerizing eyes that always drew me to them, were muted. They churned, dense clouds concealing the light of the moon behind them.

When he returned, he came to my side and stood as close as lovers would. Without thinking, I stepped beyond his reach, and those eyes churned more, those beautiful lips curving downward in bitter disappointment.

“El,” he started, a faint whisper. “I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, definitely didn’t want to. I never … I never want to hurt you. It’s…” He ran a hand across his hair, frowning. “It wasn’t me. ”

“I know.” And I did. But that didn’t change how a part of me felt betrayed.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I brushed the still falling fluffy confetti from my hands. The glow of my flesh was fainter now, nearly gone.

“What’s happening to me?” I asked, not meeting his waiting stare. My skin was soft, dewy, golden, as if it were drenched in a thick coating of the brightest honey.

Rush took half a step toward me, retreated when I flinched, then, “I don’t know exactly, El. Your power’s awakening, I’m sure that’s a big part of it. But … whatever it is, it’s amazing. Beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

I wanted nothing more than to turn toward him to gaze into his eyes, ignoring the fact that the unisus was still recovering at our feet, that the arena was packed with fae of all kinds, observing our every move, and that the queen was about to insist on celebratory festivities I was in no mood for. But I looked away instead, skirting curious stares until I landed on the streaming wall of rainbow—safe.

“I need to get out of here,” I mumbled to myself, not to him. Had he and I ever been a team? If we had, it had only been for a heartbeat, and we certainly weren’t anymore. Even if he wanted to be trustworthy, he couldn’t be, not so long as the queen held his leash.

“You can’t go yet,” he said from behind me, soft, regretful. “She won’t let us. The winners will be part of her afterparty. The dancers will start when the music does, and the orchestra looks like it’s almost ready.”

“Hmmm,” was all I said. The heat of my body had settled into a simmer, still present, but possible to ignore. The tangle of my emotions, however, pressed against my chest as if my heart weren’t large enough to contain them all.

I so very much wanted to trust Rush … but couldn’t.

I wanted to spend an entire week locked up in my chambers, wrapped up in him, letting him distract me from all the wrong. But I’d be stupid to do it, to give him more of myself than I already had.

How many times did he have to tell me not to trust him for me to get it?

In the end, it didn’t matter whether or not his heart wanted to defend me. The queen’s reach was a stranglehold. She wouldn’t stop until she destroyed everything that might grow to mean anything to me.

She wouldn’t be satisfied until she destroyed me.

“What are you doing?” Rush asked me as I wove my way through the handful of circling attendants. I ignored him and crouched next to Azariah. I owed no explanations to my enemy—or my enemy’s favorite agent.

“Azariah,” I said gently.

The unisus lay on his side, one of his lovely translucent wings flattened beneath his considerable bulk, and when he opened his eyes they were groggy, tired. Wisps of mist drifted around him, emphasizing how magical he was despite his exhaustion.

I smiled at him. “How are you feeling?”

He cleared his throat, a field of dry reeds crackling in a sharp gust of wind. “Like I almost kissed my immortality goodbye and died for good,” he croaked.

Darkly, I chortled. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

I scanned him, the way his chest still rose and fell exaggeratedly, as if his every breath were as big as he could make it just to prove to himself he could. “You think you’ll be okay now?”

“I do.” His eyes cleared some. “Thanks to you.”

Awkwardly, I grimaced. “I’m not sure what I did to help, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it if you hadn’t saved me first.”

His eyelids closed; he dragged them back open, even that small action requiring too much effort. Foam coated his mouth and lined his nostrils from his earlier struggle.

“Truly, thank you, for saving my life,” I said.

He slid his head back and forth across the ground, just a couple of inches. “We’re even, then. No debts between us.”

“No, I guess not.”

“No debts is good. You don’t want to owe anyone anything, or they’ll make you pay up when you least want to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do.” He allowed his eyelids to drift shut, and I was left staring at how his long eyelashes—a dark umber—contrasted against the pure white of his coat.

“Is anybody listening to us?” he eventually mumbled.

“Give us a minute?” I asked the closest two attendants, who immediately looked up to the viewing balcony and the queen within it … who’d instantly want to know why I wanted a private word with Azariah. “Never mind,” I muttered to the aides. “Just keep doing what you were doing.”

One with bouncy dark curls knelt across from me, next to the back of the unisus’ head. “Azariah,” she said, “I want to give you something for the pain, but it’ll make you sleepier than you already are, and fast. Do you think you can walk?”

“I’m … not sure,” he said while I asked, “He’s in pain?”

“Quite a bit, I’m afraid,” said Bouncy Curls. “His lungs incurred a lot of damage.”

“Can’t you just carry him off the field like you did with all the fallen fighters?”

“We can. Azariah, would you rather us do that?”

“Hmmm,” he answered.

“Then here’s the pain relief now.” She uncorked a vial like the many Braque carried in his satchel and waved it beneath the unisus’ wide nostrils. A smoke-like substance the color of darkening twilight bifurcated into two tendrils and wafted up into them. Hundreds of stars as minute as sand grains glittered throughout the smoky magic as Azariah breathed it in. His eyes fluttered beneath his closed eyelids.

Bouncy Curls met my gaze. “We can give you thirty seconds. Any more, and things won’t go well for any of us. ”

Neither of us flicked a glance at the balcony though we both were surely thinking about its main occupant.

I nodded. She and the rest of the attendants ambled away, pretending to confer with each other, glancing back at Azariah often, as if discussing how they’d get him out of here.

“What is it, Azariah?” I asked tenderly of the large beast I barely knew but who’d stood up to the queen for me.

His eyelids slid open, but only halfway. “The bond between you and Rush Vega … she can’t find out.”

“What bond?”

“The mate bond. If she…”—his eyes fluttered closed—“finds out…”

“Azariah?” I prompted, when he seemed half asleep.

“She’ll kill you both, and she won’t … bother making a show of it.”

“Wait—what? Why?”

But his breathing had grown heavy, deep, and steady, erasing all his previous struggle, at least while he slept.

Bouncy Curls was behind me. “You won’t get anything more out of him for a while now.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Um…”

I rose and faced her; we were the same height. “What is it?”

Her cheeks colored a pretty pink. “I know I wasn’t supposed to listen, but… ”

I frowned. “But…?”

“But he’s right, you know,” she said in a whispered sprint, as if speed would keep anyone from overhearing us. “If you have a mate bond with the drake, the fewer fae who know, the safer you’ll both be.”

“I don’t even know what he’s talking about. Azariah, that is.”

Her brown eyes, rich like freshly churned dirt, were earnest. “If anyone would know, he would. And he’s never wrong, no matter what he tried to say before.”

“Okay, well, um, thanks?”

She smiled. “And don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll be rooting for you. Someone’s gotta win in this place…” She faded off, muttering, turning toward the other handful of fae who were waiting for her to lead Azariah off the field.

The very moment the healers had the unisus hovering between them, his mane and tail hanging off his body, his wings dragging limply, before they even walked him off the field the queen’s voice cut through the now fervent chatter of the spectators.

“Have you enjoyed all the surprises I arranged for you?”

Her subsequent laughter made my lip curl in distaste before I remembered to hide my reactions. Until I could figure out how to get out of here with my head still attached to my body, I had to play her game, at least to some extent.

No matter what I’d told Rush before, I had to escape. To remain would secure my death, one way or another.

When her audience didn’t react as she wanted, she pressed, “ Have you enjoyed my surprises? ”

Tinged with their evident nervousness, the crowd broke out into applause that was too loud, too insistent.

But some of the tension in her shoulders eased, though my father’s behind her were hiked up so far they’d soon touch his ears.

“I’m sure you’ll all be relieved to know our dear announcer Azariah will recover fully,” she said—almost fucking chipper—“though he won’t be needed for the Nuptialis Probatio as that stage of the trials is more … personal. However, we’ll keep you all informed as our contestants advance.

“Unexpectedly, the Gladius Probatio has given us … two winners. The Drake Rush Vega will enter the Nuptialis Probatio to begin selecting the female who will eventually become his wife and crown princess, and the viscountess … Elowyn”—she paused to pucker her lips as if my name were sour—“will enter the pool of female competitors, to be chosen”—she tilted her head meaningfully, setting the rubies dangling from her crown to swaying—“or passed over.”

I risked a glance at Rush, whose nostrils had flared and jaw tightened. What, had he actually expected Her Mighty Bitchiness to be fair all of a sudden?

“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” the queen continued on a trill of grating laughter. “The Nuptialis Probatio is three days away. Now, it’s time to celebrate our winner. Oh, our winner s .” She laughed again, as if she’d been so silly as to make that blunder.

“As you know, I aim to please my subjects, and I’ve delivered a spectacle like no other for this opening stage of our Fae Heir Trials. The grand finale of the Gladius Probatio will be the most impressive performance yet. So please—how is it that Azariah says it?—give it up for our dancers and musicians!”

This time, the crowd didn’t wait for her to instruct them to applaud. They clapped as if she’d told them every one of their essences were guaranteed safe passage to the Etherlands. On and on it went, until the orchestra struck with a strong bass beat and a fast tempo of strings layered over it. The dancers slid into their moves as if their bodies had been designed to complement this exact musical piece.

Once more brushing fluffy flakes from my face and shoulders, I began walking, intending to sneak off the field before the queen could order me to remain.

Rush immediately prowled after me.

And behind him, the five guards who were there to protect me—just not when it mattered most—scurried after us.

With these sorts of defenders, I was far better off alone.