33. The Caenim in the Throne Room #2
“Okay,” I mumbled. I flipped my hand beneath his so I could wrap my fingers around him and squeeze, signifying that I understood the parts he couldn’t say in front of our guest. Then I turned back to watch the fire dance.
The High King continued fielding questions from the High Lady of the Court of Wind, which I felt she was more than justified to ask, given that she’d only just discovered he’d been keeping an enormous, universe-altering secret from her for the High Mother knew how long, and it had ultimately cost her the lives of many good men when she visited the House.
I was thinking about all of that, and the method that he believed he was applying to his madness, when I shut my eyes to ease the sting of staring at a source of light for too long. And when I opened them again—
“ Aura! ”
Lucais pushed me to the ground, landing directly on top of me with one of his hands around the back of my head to soften the impact.
He stared down at me with an expression of unbridled panic and horror manipulating his face.
We were both gasping for breath, and I felt his heart slamming into my sternum as if it was trying to merge with my own.
Blinking rapidly, I felt around for my tongue, parting my mouth to let the question fly free.
“What—” I started to say, but then I felt it.
Pain.
Lifting my hand from the floor, my eyes slowly moved from Lucais’s stricken face to the red, swollen burn on my fingers and the palm of my hand.
Tiny little blisters and bumps had already formed, the skin a combination of pallid white and dusky pink.
My eyes drifted to Lucais, who was staring at me as if he couldn’t comprehend my reaction, and then to my hand.
“It’s already healing,” I commented. My voice sounded foreign and far away, and I knew it was the most bizarre thing for me to say given the circumstances, but it was like I had lost control.
“Bookworm, what were you doing ?” he demanded.
“I…” I shook my head, and Lucais gently removed his hand from underneath it.
I relaxed against the plush carpet while he stroked a finger down my cheekbone, leaning into the touch ever so slightly.
“I was just looking at the shadows…” I made to turn my head towards the fireplace again, but the High King seized my chin and forced my head back into place, locking my gaze with his.
“No,” he said firmly. “Aura, you put your bare hand inside the fire. Your bare, human hand. It’s healing—and I’ll be damned if I even fully understand why —but if it had been a chopping block, or a pot of acid…
” Lucais shook his head, a few blond locks falling across his face. “This is what I was afraid of.”
“Forgive my ignorance,” Enyd called from where she stood behind the High King, peering over his shoulder on the tips of her toes. “I seem to be missing something rather critical again.”
Lucais squeezed his eyes shut, groaning softly.
He rested his forehead against mine for a moment before he pulled back and rose to his feet, helping me to follow with my uninjured hand.
He looked Enyd square in the eye and threw an atomic bomb to the wind as he said, “Aura is the heir to the Court of Darkness.”
Enyd’s eyes went round, her voice filled with surprise and a tinge of borderline supercilious admiration as she murmured, “Is she?”
“Oh, no,” I cut in, shaking my head and waving my uninjured hand in the air. “No, no. I’m not going to accept it, even if I am.” I laughed nervously when they all turned to look at me as if I were insane. “I’m not…interested…in that. Uh.” I swallowed audibly. “Sorry, I guess?”
Lucais pinned me to the spot with a dour look.
“You don’t get a choice,” he informed me seriously.
“This is just the start. The magic will force you into it, Aura. It recognises you. It knows who you are now better than ever before, and if you don’t accept the title…
” He trailed off, the outlines of torture taking shape on his breathtakingly handsome and gut-wrenchingly forlorn face.
“What?” I questioned, flicking my eyes between all of them.
“I’ll say the words,” I avowed. “I’ll formally reject it, or whatever it is that I need to because I don’t want it.
” None of them looked affected by my words.
“I’m serious,” I insisted, sounding a little more hysterical with every passing second.
I took a step back from the High King, letting his hand drop. “I don’t want it. I reject it!”
“Aura.” Lucais stepped forward, seizing me by the shoulders. “It’s not a mating bond. It doesn’t work like that. The Court of Darkness will only be able to seek out a replacement for you when someone with stronger dark power than you is born—”
“No,” I gasped. “No! There has to be a loophole. Lucais, tell me there’s a loophole.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled despairingly. “They’ll look for the second most powerful dark faerie once you die.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, the liquid in the back of my throat thickening. “What are you saying?”
“It’s going to do one of two things to you, bookworm. It’s going to convince you to come back to it”—his throat bobbed—“and if you don’t, it’s going to pursue you to your death.”
No. NO.
I couldn’t go back. I could never go back. I wouldn’t survive it again. I barely survived the first time.
My vision went blurry, drifting over Lucais’s shoulder. When my eyes refocussed, they landed on Tommy.
The handsome, sharp-eyed Spectre stood with his brows raised and arms folded across his chest, leaning against the doorframe.
Tommy didn’t look smug, but his expression wasn’t comforting, either.
When his dark gaze met mine, he tipped his nonexistent hat to me, and I felt myself beginning to free-fall.
Tommy parted his lips and mouthed the words, “I told you so.”