Chapter Thirty-Two
I don’t know why I seek out Kathras. It feels as though I’m bringing danger to him, as if every eye in the palace is upon me. For the first time, though, I am not the object of fascination. Everyone is on edge, picturing their own heads with gaping, toothless mouths.
What do I mean to say to Kathras? What can I say? That he’s angered his father? He knows that already, even if his father hasn’t yet deduced who is responsible for the cephalopire’s death. Am I going to shame him for killing the creature? I wanted it dead.
And yet, by killing it, Kathras has only increased the danger I’m in. Arcus is unpredictable at the best of times. Now, I can become a convenient outlet for his rage. It’s a thing I could have endured before, when it felt like I was working toward a purpose. Now, the king’s cruelty can break me.
I find a door and go through it, trusting that the palace will bring me to the place I intend to go. The place where I will find Kathras.
The Court of Pleasure and Torment boasts an impressive library. The subjects of the books, I am told, are mostly prurient tales and instructions on interesting things to get up to with one or more partners. And that knowledge has filled a hall so long and so tall, I cannot see to the end of it, nor can I see all the way to the top of the shelves. The ceiling vanishes into darkness high above the towering windows, which light only the first few floors.
Marble statues of faeries and other creatures in erotic repose are arranged in a single line down the center of the library. As I pass two human women engaged in frozen congress, one stone hand lazily reaches for me. I gasp and jump back, and the statue, looking disappointed, returns to its original position.
“You can join them,” Kathras says from somewhere nearby. “Any of them at all. There’s a centaur further down who particularly enjoys—”
“No, thank you, Your Highness,” I say, turning around to find him.
He’s reclined on a chaise that’s floating near the second level, a book in his hand.
“Are we alone?” I ask, wondering if that’s the meaning for his cold reception and demeanor. The Kathras I was with in the faery baths would not have spoken so crudely to me. It must be a facade.
The chaise slowly lowers, and he puts his book down with a sigh of annoyance. “We are never alone. But no, there is no one in this room.”
I assume he’s cautioning me about how I use my words now. I need just one. “Why?”
“I told you. I keep my promises,” he says with a shrug. “Is that all?”
It is, but I’m wounded at this change in him. While I know we can’t be as open with each other as we were in the privacy of the baths, and while I know what passed between us can never be again, his quick dismissal wounds me.
“How can you be so callous?” I ask, forgetting to mind my tongue. “After last night? And now this? How can you treat me as if I’m a nuisance?”
He rises and advances on me, backing me into the stone arms of a statue, which hold me fast. I cannot fight stone, so I don’t try. I also don’t wish to give Kathras the satisfaction of my fear. He should have had his fill of it in the maze.
“You forget yourself, human. You’re speaking to a prince.” He stands too close, looms his incredible height over me to stare into my eyes. “I will forgive this slight once.”
“And then what, Your Highness?” I ask and curse my temper. I’m trying to seduce his father and his brother to steal the throne that rightfully belongs to Kathras. I know that his death is a part of Luthian’s plan, and yet I didn’t say a word of it to him. I could now, and still I do not, bound to my agreement and what I am beginning to view as my only true purpose.
My only true purpose involves Kathras’s death.
And I have the gall to demand, what? Affection?
“I have more than proven my loyalty to you,” he snarls. “And my feelings.”
“Feelings that you now deny.” It isn’t as if he can declare love for me openly. He might not even feel it. Kindness in a time of sorrow doesn’t require romantic passion.
Slaying a monster does.
“You know I must deny them,” he says, but he leans closer to me, his gaze falling to my mouth. “A word of advice, Cenere. It’s easier to not have those feelings if they can’t be acted upon.”
I laugh in bitter derision. “It must be nice to have such control over yourself. Such mastery of your feelings that you can so easily let your guard down for a vulnerable woman in a precarious moment!”
“Are you accusing me of taking advantage of you?” I note the way Kathras’s demeanor changes from dismissal to rising anger. “If you hate it here so much, why not leave? You said yourself that your only purpose was your revenge, and now it’s been taken from you. There’s nothing left for you here. So, go.”
“I…”
He wants me to leave. But I remember the look on his face when he found me in the cave. Though he may claim to have purged his feelings, what I had with him in the faery baths is not something so easily put out of mind. Not even for a faery. Not even for a son of Arcus.
“I made a bargain,” I admit.
“Any bargain you’ve made with my father will only be to his benefit. Break it now and flee.” He flicks his gaze toward the library doors nervously, then back to me. “I can have you far from here by nightfall.”
“It isn’t a bargain with your father,” I say softly. “It was a bargain with Luthian.”
In the cavern, I described Luthian as a kindly guardian who agreed to train me, with no mention of the deal I struck. I can’t reveal it now, either; how can I tell Kathras that I’m a willing participant in a plan that will lead to his death?
A death which I cannot allow. Not anymore. But if I leave court, as Kathras suggests, I won’t be here to stop Luthian.
“A bargain. With Luthian.” Kathras repeats, his tone cold enough to frost the windows if he willed it.
“My mother raised me well and taught me the faery ways. Nothing without a price. I agreed to Luthian’s price.” The moment the words leave me, I realize I may have made a mistake. Kathras killed the cephalopire to keep his promise to me. Would he take Luthian’s life to free me from my bargain?
He considers my words, his expression unreadable. “You made a bargain to become my father’s queen.”
“I didn’t!” I made a bargain to become your younger brother’s queen .
Kathras’s mouth becomes a hard, humorless line. “You weren’t just here to find a powerful benefactor to help in your revenge. Luthian brought you here for a crown.”
“When I entered into the bargain, I did not flatter myself to think that I, a lowly human, could ever become the favorite of a faery king.” I thought I would become the favorite of a faery prince. In truth, I wish it would have happened that way. Cassan is less likely to feed me to something for his own amusement.
Kathras’s eyes narrow. “I see through you. I see through Luthian. If I were you, if I were him, I would find a nice cottage in The Baneful Wood and never set foot in this palace again. Let the court forget about you and your pathetic scheming.”
“I will not break my promise to Luthian.” I hope Kathras feels my deliberate use of his words. “I was here for revenge. Now, I cannot have it. But Luthian still wishes to be among his own kind—”
“His own kind.” Kathras makes a noise of disgust. “Then he is in the wrong place. I’m sure there’s a Court of Treachery and Murder somewhere. If not in Fablemere, then Faeryland.”
“And me? You’d have me live in that cottage in The Baneful Wood all alone?” I scoff, though I’m not sure it’s impossible. Humans have hewn a rough existence there, and I am human. Perhaps he’s right.
“No. I want you to be safe, somewhere far away from my father, from Luthian, from anyone who would use you for their own gain,” Kathras growls. A few strands of his blonde hair fall over his forehead. His anger has made him a wild, disheveled thing. “I want you to keep your head! They have a tendency to come off when Luthian is involved.”
Something swims vaguely up through my memory. Luthian said something, the night we made our bargain. Something about the queen losing her head for an indiscretion similar to his.
I assumed at the time that the incidents were unrelated. Did Luthian mean that his banishment had something to do with the queen’s death?
When Kathras’s expression softens, I know my confusion is clear on my face. He takes a step back. “You don’t know.”
“I’ve only been here a few days. I’ve hardly had time to take in a history class.” I sniff derisively, but I don’t think it’s enough to fool Kathras. One slip of my face, and I’ve exposed how little I truly know Luthian.
Kathras nods to the statue and it releases me. I step away from it, just in case, but try not to appear too unnerved.
“It will work, you know,” he says, his tone far calmer now.
“What will?” My heart pounds. Can he read my thoughts? See Luthian’s plan written across my mind as easily as the words across the pages of his book?
“Luthian’s desperate grab for power. He brought you here to whore you to my father and brother to secure his place.” Kathras grimaces in disgust. “Before your engagement to my father, Luthian made a wager with my brother. If Luthian lost, he would hand you over to Cassan as a prize.”
“I know.” I lift my chin, defiant. “I didn’t object.”
Kathras utters a laugh of pure disdain. “You’re a more fitting mate for Luthian than for my father.”
The words seek out and mock my tender feelings for Luthian, the love he doesn’t return. Kathras can’t possibly know how he’s stung me, but I want to slap him, anyway. I know better than to strike a prince. I glower at him, instead. Kathras is intelligent. Too intelligent. I fear that if he thinks hard enough about my actions, he’ll see through to the whole plan. He’ll know that Luthian intends to kill him, and Arcus.
The easiest way to stop anyone from thinking is to make them angry. Kathras didn’t kill the cephalopire because I fucked him. He didn’t fuck me because I was convenient. He wants me, and I can use that to wound him.
“I see,” I say with a cruel laugh. “You’re jealous. You’re furious that I haven’t pursued you, that I’ve settled for your brother and your father. You don’t care about my safety. You’re trying to get me to leave court altogether, so you don’t have to face daily something that you can never have. And here, I thought your brother was the vain, oblivious one.”
I bite my own tongue to stop myself speaking. What will happen if he repeats those words to Cassan?
Kathras advances on me again. This time, the statue remains, wisely, uninvolved, but I do back painfully into it.
“Something I can never have? I’ve had you.” He takes a step. “You gave yourself to me.” Another step. He towers over me, but he does not touch me. It’s almost worst than being grabbed and roughly handled. “You know, as well as I, that you will never again lie with someone without remembering me inside you.”
My throat sticks shut, and I desperately need to swallow, but I don’t want to show him that his words have had an effect on me. I hold his gaze calmly. “But will you be able to lie with someone without remembering me ?”
All of his anger drains from his face, leaving nothing behind but a blank, cold mask. He steps back. “Enjoy your time at court. For however long it lasts.”
His head turns sharply, toward something I don’t sense. Perhaps the whisper of clothing, the click of a footfall too soft for my own ears. But something has alerted him to danger. I glance in the direction of his furrowed gaze.
Utrax, the same piebald minotaur who fucked me in the king’s chambers stands only a few feet away from us. How much has he overheard? Does it matter, when Kathras and I stand so close? Our very proximity indicates guilt.
Kathras’s eyes meet mine. He waves a hand over my face.
I blink, and suddenly I’m somewhere very familiar.
I’m in my bedroom in Luthian’s house, and I’m holding a book. The book that Kathras was reading when I interrupted him.
I open it, expecting to find an erotic novel or a manual of devious pleasures. To my surprise, it’s a journal, the slanting cursive written with a quick hand. I scan the page, intrigued. Descriptions of a ball. I flip to another page and find a list of ladies to invite to a tea party. Why would Kathras have this or wish to read it?
I slam the book shut. Gilt embossing on the leather cover catches my eye. The room spins about me, the floor almost comes out from beneath my feet as I stare at the simple name stamped there:
H.R.M. Queen Parphia.