Ten
“I can see why you have decided to train here, Emelin,” my cousin remarked as soon as we had settled in the carriage. “Lord Gray is exceptionally handsome.”
Thea barely stifled a laugh next to me while I grimaced and shook my head. Shortly after my failed engagement, I didn’t see Gray as anything more than my mentor. But then why did Luna’s interest in him set me on edge?
“I can assure you, Gray currently is only interested in his career,” Thea said as the coach started moving.
“I’m sure I could make him change his mind,” Luna drawled, her face glued to the carriage window as we took the scenic route through the now-familiar-to-me countryside.
“Charming area,” she added after a few minutes.
“Though I’m not sure I would want to leave the capital and move here if the lord asked for my hand.
” Though Luna’s father—Lord Baylor—presided over the Magraf region, she and my aunt spent very little time there, as they preferred to stay at the royal palace for most of the year.
Thea and I exchanged a glance at her words. Did Luna truly think she had a chance with Gray? I couldn’t wait for her to reinforce the wards and be on her way back to her beloved capital.
“Since we’re out and about, I’d like to see the border,” my cousin said nonchalantly, studying her nails. She was expertly hiding her unease about the precarious state of the wards.
Thea tensed next to me at her request. “We should wait until Gray and Tom can join us. I’m sure they would love to accompany you to the Enwyld Forest.”
Narrowing my eyes at her, I searched her face, surprised by the strange reaction. “We don’t need them to accompany us. Now is as good a time as any. I also want to visit the border,” I said, infusing my voice with authority. I wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t a request, but a demand.
Thea paled slightly at my tone. “Of course, Your Highness. As you wish.”
A shiver curled down my spine when we arrived at our destination. The border looked like it had two weeks ago when I had visited it with my father. Except now I knew the truth. Dragging my gaze away from the window when the carriage jerked to a stop, I turned to Thea.
“Wait here,” I told her before Luna and I climbed out of the cabin.
Thea’s puzzled expression was the last thing I saw as Killian closed the carriage door behind me. When the butler set off toward the tree line with Luna and me, I also asked him to stay behind.
“We won’t be long,” I assured him with a tight-lipped smile.
His wise gray eyes held my gaze for a moment before he nodded in submission.
Turning my back to him and the carriage, I fell in step next to Luna as we made our way to the tree line. I finally noticed tiny cracks in my cousin’s facade as her delicate features tautened the closer we got to the border.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said low. “When your father told me… It all seems like a bad dream. The wards have held strong for a century. Why are they failing now?”
“Shh,” I shushed her as we neared the border guards standing at attention.
Luna and I both inclined our heads to acknowledge them as we walked past. We stopped when we found a short stretch of the border some distance away from prying eyes and ears.
“I don’t know why they are failing now, but we need to keep them intact. Do you know what to do?” I asked Luna as we faced the forest.
“I think so,” she said hesitantly.
“You think so?” I arched a brow.
An exasperated sigh left her. “I should be tending to gardens, not trying to mitigate a threat from a foreign enemy,” she rumbled under her breath as she extended her arms, turning her hands toward the woods before us.
Closing her eyes, she released a long exhale as her power spilled into the air around us.
I also closed my eyes, concentrating on the wards.
The invisible barrier appeared as splashes of watercolors in my mind.
Swaths of purple, blue, yellow, and red ran along the line of the border.
Some areas were muted, almost leached of color, betraying the weaknesses in our defenses.
When my father had reinforced the wards last time, he had breathed new life into them, making the colors burn brighter, as he filled the gaping holes in the intangible wall.
I wasn’t sensing the same effect now with Luna transferring her magic.
“It’s not working,” I told her, opening my eyes.
“I know.” She blew out a breath of frustration and looked at me. “I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.”
“Did my father instruct you what to do?”
“He did, but listening to theory is not the same as applying it in practice.” She was right—I still hadn’t been able to unlock my powers despite having Gray explain to me how our magic worked many times. “And what about you? Maybe we can reinforce the wards together?”
Resisting the urge to cover up my face in shame, I croaked, “My magical abilities are still out of reach. But I know you can do it. Please, try again.”
“Okay,” she conceded with a heavy sigh. When she attempted to feed her magic into the wards again, the transfer worked, but her powers provided only a small patch to hold the invisible wall from crumbling down.
Drained after the magic transfer, Luna insisted that we return to the estate.
Upon our arrival back at the mansion, Thea, who was acting strangely around me because of how I had spoken to her earlier, retreated to her room.
With Gray and Tom still working in the study, and Luna lying down in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, I took the opportunity to spend some time in solitude.
After a brief stop in my room, where I freshened up and jotted down the events of the day in my journal, I made my way downstairs to the library.
The space had become my safe haven, and even though the visit to the border had been more than unsettling, I instantly felt more at peace when I stepped into the homey place.
I checked on Quilliam snoozing away in his cage and pulled a new book off the shelf—the same tome I had seen Gray perusing before.
“The Fae: Myths and Facts,” I read the title aloud after curling up on the sofa by the lit fireplace.
I quickly got lost in the world of our mysterious enemy jumping at me from the pages.
We knew very little about the Fae since Emeraldia had been cut off from Aubrielle for a century.
We didn’t even know what they looked like, except for vague mentions of their cold, unnatural beauty and pointed ears.
A notion existed that faeries could not lie and did not tolerate iron.
Their powers were believed to be stronger than ours, allowing them to warp from place to place.
Even though magic had been around me all my life, some things I still found hard to believe.
Like that the Stars selected a soulmate for each faerie.
They didn’t know who their mate was and some spent their whole life not finding their second half.
However, if they found them and accepted the mating bond, it was a lifelong connection that ran on an existential level.
Without meaning to, I conjured up an image of Gideon in my mind.
Was he the equivalent of my mate? I quickly dismissed the idea, refusing to believe that he was my one true love.
For if he was, how could he have betrayed me like that?
I flipped several pages until I reached the ‘myths’ section.
Many believed that the Fae were immortal, but that wasn’t true.
They lived for a very long time and did not age at the same rate as humans.
The Fae King Oberon was believed to have been three hundred years old when my great-grandfather King Elias had defeated him.
“Why am I not surprised to find you in the library?” Luna sighed as she walked in. “Reading is so boring.”
I lifted my eyes from the book. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” She plonked on the sofa next to me, grabbed the book from my hands, and looked at the cover. “Why are you reading this?”
“Curiosity.” I went to take the book back, but she put it on the end table behind her, out of my reach.
“You know what I’m curious about?” She turned back to me. “Adrian Gray. Tell me everything you know.” When a blank stare was my only reply, she made a noise of impatience. “Come on, Emelin. Tell me more about the lord.”
“I don’t know him that well.” I cast my gaze to my lap and pretended to pick lint off my skirt.
Despite having spent nearly every morning with Gray over the past two weeks, I didn’t know that much about him.
He was closed off and had shared only a few personal details about himself.
As a guarded person myself, I didn’t want to pry.
I hoped that, with time, we would naturally learn more about each other.
“I swear, Emelin, if you’re withholding information from me because you want the lord for yourself…” Luna carried on.
Color infused my cheeks. Did I want the lord for myself? I had recently ended a two-year relationship. I wasn’t ready for anything new, was I?
My conflicting emotions must have been written on my face because Luna let out a mischievous chortle. “You can have your fun with him while you’re staying here. Just make sure to use protection.”
Protection?
“Luna!” I gasped, my already flushed cheeks burning like they were on fire.
I often forgot that my cousin was much more outspoken about sex than I was.
Granted, I had extremely limited experience.
As devastating as it was to admit, I had not only let Gideon steal two years of my life; I had also let him take my virtue.
Trusting him with the most intimate part of me was a mistake that could never be undone, and that made his betrayal unbearable.
My chest constricted, and my eyes pricked with tears as I once again found myself wishing that I could change the past.
“Do you at least know who broke the lord’s heart?” Luna asked, momentarily distracting me from my despondent thoughts.
That caught me by surprise. It was no secret that Gray was single, but I hadn’t known there was a heartbreak in his past. “What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t know about that? See, that’s why you need to be more outgoing. You hear things when you socialize.”
“Gossip, you hear gossip,” I pointed out. Still, I was curious about what she knew. Luna arched one perfectly trimmed brow at me. I sighed and gave in. “Just tell me what you’ve heard.”
“It really isn’t much,” she admitted with disappointment. “Only that his heart was broken right before he got the title, and that’s why he’s single.” She paused and brought the back of her hand to her forehead before looking up at the ceiling. “It’s like he doesn’t believe in love anymore.”
I chuckled and shook my head at her dramatics.
Since Gray had been a lord for only a couple of months, if what Luna had said was true, his heartbreak was as recent as mine.
Curious about what had happened in his past, I considered asking him but immediately dismissed the idea.
Discussing matters of the heart felt too personal.
If I wanted him to open up to me, I would have to offer a piece of my past in return, and I wasn’t prepared to do that.
A soft knock on the door pulled me out of my contemplation and drew my gaze to the library entrance as Thea walked in. “I’m sorry to interrupt.” She looked between Luna and me. “Emelin, Gray asked if you could meet him in his study.”
My brows pinched at the request. Why hadn’t the lord come to collect me himself? Was he avoiding Luna? A smile tugged at my lips at the thought as I rose from the sofa.
“I will see you at dinner,” I told my cousin before I followed Thea out of the library.
As the two of us set off toward Gray’s study, I asked, “Are we okay?” A part of me wanted to apologize to her for my stern tone earlier, but that would send the wrong message.
Thea had become a friend during my stay at the manor, but I was still a royal.
My wishes could not be questioned or disregarded—some lines I couldn’t allow to be crossed.
“Of course.” She gave a warm smile that instantly put me at ease.
The feeling didn’t last long. Anxiety washed over me when I stepped into Gray’s study.
Thea remained in the foyer, closing the door behind me after I had walked in.
My gaze stretched to the far end of the room.
The lord stood facing away from me, looking out the large window at the gardens outside. He and I were alone.