Chapter 29 Mav
MAV
Iknew something was wrong the second the king started walking toward us. He didn’t amble with the detached air of a monarch surveying his court. No, this was deliberate. A hawk locking onto a hare. And Quinn was the hare in question.
“Um,” Thistle murmured under her breath, leaning into my shoulder. “Is the king walking toward us?”
Branrir’s hand shifted to rest lightly near the hilt of his sword.“Why would he be walking toward us?”
“Did you accidentally Twilight him?” Vesper asked, directing the question to Quinn.
Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow. I could feel the frantic thrum of her pulse through her dress.
“Quinn?” I asked, placing a hand on her lower back. “What is it?”
I knew we needed to ask this pompous jerk for a favor, but I couldn’t figure out why she was suddenly so afraid.
The king stopped a few paces from us. His eyes never left her.
“Quinnève,” he said.
Her name, drawn out and too familiar by leagues.
Every muscle in my body went taut. I wanted to punch that name out of his mouth.
My hand stayed on the small of her back.
I wanted to put myself between her and the king, but I didn’t know if leaping up like a hound off a leash would help or humiliate.
The moment the king removed his mask, recognition flooded Quinn’s face.
“Edric,” she breathed, paling.
Not a question. They’d met before, that much was clear. But when? As much as it pained me to admit it, I hated hearing another man’s name come from her lips with that kind of weight.
Then the king stepped forward and took her hand, as though it had always been his to take. His gloved fingers closed around her smaller ones, and he bent forward, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
It was too long.
Too practiced.
Too mine.
I didn’t want his hands or mouth anywhere near Quinn. I almost growled—actually, physically growled—and had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop it. I wanted to break every one of his royal fingers. My stomach turned.
Thistle stared, wide-eyed and unblinking. Branrir’s brow furrowed above his open mouth. Even Vesper, normally unflappable, stood so still he could have been carved.
Something inside me bristled, territorial, irrational, and contemplating violence.
I didn’t care that he wore a crown. I didn’t care that we were surrounded by witnesses.
I cared that he knew her name before she told him.
And I cared that it had clearly once meant something—because it still meant everything to me.
“I’d appreciate the opportunity to speak to you, Quinnie,” Edric said, his voice syrup-thick and dripping with entitlement.
Quinnie?
My jaw clenched so hard I nearly cracked a tooth. Her name was already a problem. But a nickname? From him? No. Absolutely not.
“Here?” she asked, voice composed but wary.
“I’d prefer privacy,” Edric replied, as if offering a gift instead of issuing a demand.
I’m sure you would.
Even if I weren’t tethered to Quinn, there’s no way I was letting her go anywhere alone with this man. Every muscle in my body locked from the sheer effort it took to stay seated and not vault the table.
I scanned Quinn’s face. Her expression was neutral, but I could feel her unease rippling down the tether and the weight of the history she hadn’t explained.
I rose as she did, not a heartbeat behind her.
Edric turned, scrunching his nose as if smelling something foul. “You’re not needed, Sir…?”
“Not Sir,” I said coolly. “It’s just Mav. And I have to go wherever she goes because of—”
“The tether,” Branrir, Thistle, and Vesper all said in unison, flat as recited scripture.
Edric’s stupidly blue eyes narrowed as his mind caught up. “Ah,” he said, rehearsed smile curving, “you must be Quinnie’s current service project for the century.”
The temperature in my blood dropped ten degrees. I opened my mouth, already knowing whatever came out wouldn’t be diplomatic, but Quinn beat me to it.
“He is not a service project,” she stated—clear, firm, lethal.
I’d never heard that tone from her before. It went beyond assertive; it was unsheathed.
“We are tethered,” she said. “He goes wherever I go. Or…” Her gaze sharpened. “We can have this conversation right here, right now, in full view of every guest and gossiping courtier. The choice is yours.”
I gaped at her.
And fell for her all over again.
Edric’s smile thinned, turning brittle. He clearly wasn’t used to being challenged, especially not in public. The king dipped his chin. “Very well,” he said through his teeth. “This way, please.”
He offered his arm to Quinn. She hesitated, then took it. She glanced over her shoulder at me. It was quick. But it said everything. “I’m sorry. Please do not make this harder.”
I gave her the barest nod in acknowledgment.
Our group exited the ballroom, following guards down another ornate corridor. Edric walked a step ahead, escorting Quinn like she belonged to him. I followed behind, one step off-center, keeping a clean line of sight to his spine—in case I needed to drive something sharp through it.
At last, we reached a set of carved doors. A pair of guards with a ridiculous number of feathers on their helmets ushered us through.
The receiving room was a shrine to one man’s delusions of grandeur. It was smaller than I expected, oppressive despite its opulence. The ceiling arched low. Heavy curtains shrouded narrow windows. Candles crowded every surface. The scent of melting wax clung to the back of my throat.
Everywhere I looked, I saw him.
Half a dozen statues lined the walls, each a variation of pompous.
Edric immortalized in marble or bronze. And then there were the portraits.
One showed him in battle armor, standing atop a fallen beast. Another captured him gazing into the distance as though he’d solved mortality.
And, of course, the centerpiece: Edric in his coronation robes, framed by such blinding light it looked as though he’d been born from the sun.
A massive mirror dominated one wall, in the off chance this asshole forgot what he looked like. Near the center stood an impractically large desk, the chair behind it a smaller version of his throne.
Vesper landed lightly atop what I swear to the Saints must be bust number 233 of Edric-as-a-warrior and muttered, “How many versions of your face does one room need?”
No one laughed.
Well, I did—
But I managed to keep it mostly to myself.
Edric gestured toward a pair of velvet settees. “Please. Sit.”
We all sat awkwardly, unsure of what to expect. Quinn stood tall, chin high, her gaze sharp and steady, but I saw the strain in her stillness. This wasn’t a conversation; it was a stage, and the king had already set the scene for what I was sure was going to be quite a performance.
“I suppose proper introductions are in order,” Edric said. “Of course, you all already know who I am.”
My eye twitched. I couldn’t help myself. “Yes, King Pee-dric, right?”
“It’s Edric,” he corrected.
“Ah, of course. Well, I’m Mav, this is Thistle, Branrir, and Vesper,” I said, pointing to each of them in turn. “It seems you already know—”
“Yes, my Quinnie.”
Hearing the word ‘my’ from his mouth in connection to Quinn filled my head with a fresh batch of assassination fantasies.
Edric turned to Quinn, posture softening as if we’d stepped into a casual parlor rather than a temple to his vanity. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “A long overdue one.”
My jaw tightened.
Quinn didn’t answer.
He rambled on. “When the spell was cast, I was young and kept deliberately uninformed. My parents didn’t tell me their plans, and by the time I’d learned the truth, it was already done.
” Edric rebalanced the enormous crown on his head.
“No one would tell me where they’d hidden you.
I sent scouts countless times, but could never find you.
” He looked at her, searching for sympathy, or worse, forgiveness.
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “You sent scouts?”
His cleft chin quivered. “I did, but you were well hidden. I searched for decades. Well…I sent scouts for decades.”
My eyes rolled.
What a heroic effort. Several decades are nothing in the span of three centuries. And not even attending the search party yourself?
Pathetic.
Edric reached forward, taking her hands in his. “I thought of you often, Quinnie,” he said, silk woven through every syllable. “More often than you’d believe. I had no way to undo what had been done. But had I known where to find you—even the faintest whisper—I would have come. I swear it.”
Then came the smile. Practiced. Polished. The kind of smile made for mirrors, not people. It didn’t reach his eyes.
My fists curled at my sides.
Let go of her hands.
“I’d like to make amends,” Edric said, finally glancing at the rest of us, as though remembering we were still here. “You must stay at the castle while you’re in Aurillion.”
Quinn shook her head. “We could not—”
“No!” Edric snapped, making the group flinch and me reach for my sword. He smoothed his tone before adding, “I insist.”
He released Quinn’s hands and clapped twice.
A servant appeared so quickly that Vesper hissed and arched his back in surprise.
“Our guests are staying at the…” King Edric let the silence stretch expectantly.
Branrir supplied flatly, “The Moonwake Inn.”
“Have their belongings moved to the guest tower,” Edric ordered. “Prepare four suites immediately.”
The servant left with a bow. Edric turned back to Quinn and took her hands again.
Saints, can this man not touch her for one damn minute?
“Although I’m quite thrilled to see you, my dear Quinnie, what brings you here after all this time?” he asked.
Quinn lifted her chin. “I am hoping you can break the spell.”
Her words landed like a thrown gauntlet.
Edric faltered. His expression stayed composed. His body betrayed him: the tightening of his fingers around hers, the flicker of something dark behind his eyes, the sudden set of his shoulders. And then, just as quickly, the mask reset.
“Of course,” he said in a tone entirely too casual for the level of request Quinn had made. “We’ll discuss it more thoroughly at breakfast. This evening has already stretched long, and you must be tired.” He dipped forward in a final flourish and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
Again.
I wanted to rip him away from her. My nails cut half-moons into my palms. I didn’t believe a single word he’d said. Not the regret. Not the remorse. Certainly not the concern. Nothing about this man was sincere.
Every instinct I had screamed the same truth:
Quinn was in danger.