TWENTY-THREE
A fter barely sleeping, I listened to Vane bathe and get ready for the day.
I made it known I was awake by stretching as he headed for the doors. He halted, then asked, “How are you feeling?”
I smacked my lips together. “A little ordinary.”
An understatement.
But he chuckled and gestured to the water he’d placed upon the nightstand while I’d pretended to sleep. “I have a breakfast meeting, but I’ll return before I head out.”
“You’re leaving again?”
I needn’t have asked where he was going. After overhearing his intent to find more fractures in the wards, I knew they’d be scouting the borders for them.
“There’s much to do.” He seemed to hesitate, then promised, “I’ll see you before I leave,” before closing the doors behind him.
I had no desire to see him at all. I also had no desire to lay in his bed and hope for a miracle to save me from him.
The wildflower he’d given me on our picnic peeked out from the pages of the book I hadn’t finished reading. Endless what-ifs seared as I opened it and gently touched the butter-yellow petals.
Then I slammed the book shut and dumped it back onto the nightstand.
I dressed in a gown far too fancy for breakfast. The black chiffon skirts were pleated, the gathered bust putting my cleavage and the globes of my breasts on full display.
As I finished weaving my hair into a loose braid over my shoulder and tying it with one of Vane’s black ribbons, I pondered when he might have wished for me to wear such a gown.
Upon hearing his deep laughter, I lost the thought and all others.
The sound squeezed the heart he’d nearly claimed so tight, it ached. Meadow skipped stairs to the foyer, rubbing against the doors to be let out. I cracked one open, longing to bound after her and away from this castle.
Vane looked just about done with breakfast, as did Cerwin and Daylia, when I entered the throne room and walked barefoot to the same seat I’d taken before. That night seemed a dream now that I’d found myself in another nightmare.
Daylia smiled brightly, her orange hair pinned back in a messy pile of curls and egg yolk staining her cream blouse.
But Vane and Cerwin didn’t cease discussing the merits of depositing one last pytherion egg near Cloud Castle.
“If it’s going to burn, better make sure it can’t grow back until we want it to,” Cerwin said.
I crossed my legs, placed my elbow on the table and my chin in my hand. “I want to come with you,” I said by way of greeting.
Vane finally looked at me and blinked.
I refrained from bristling as his gaze fastened to my breasts for much too long. “No,” he said to them. Then he met my eyes, smirking as if knowing what he’d just done and not caring. “After last night, it’s evident you need more time to recuperate from all you’ve endured.”
Dismay had me straightening in the chair and clenching my hands underneath the table.
He would never vanish me back home. But if he was leaving to do as I’d assumed, then I stood a far better chance of escaping at the borders than here.
Daylia looked at Cerwin, who sipped his water and shrugged.
Then she looked at me. “What happened?” She glared at the king. “You told me all went well.”
“It did,” I said for him, tracing a gnarled curl in the wooden table. “But I’ve discovered that wine and heartbreak don’t mix very well.”
Daylia gave me a sympathetic look.
She knew. Surely, Vane’s steward knew exactly what they’d done. Yet she sat there, appearing to care when she hadn’t cared to keep my father from being assassinated.
“You’re right about the egg,” Vane said to Cerwin, vigorously chewing a strip of pork. “But right now, we need to stick with the plan and search for gaps.”
“Gaps?” I questioned.
“In the wards,” Daylia said, excitement sparkling in her eyes.
I blinked at Vane, my mouth falling open.
He stared as if seeing right through my feigned shock. As if he saw through me to the rage that steadied my flayed heart.
Of course, he couldn’t. He assumed I was a crushed fool torn between two royal evils.
And he believed it so easily because I was.
“You didn’t tell me that.” I licked my teeth and lowered my gaze, my eyes beginning to burn.
This king had almost succeeded in breaking his curse. He’d really had me believing that not only might it be safe to fall as he’d needed me to, but that he might fall too.
But of course Vane wouldn’t love me. There was no point when he only needed me to love him.
“I’d intended to, Princess, but the night took a turn,” he said, not unkindly.
Only when I was certain my eyes were clear of his betrayal did I look up at him. After a moment of holding his softening gaze, I nodded once. I pretended to understand.
Then, mere minutes later, I followed him out into the hall.
Cerwin and Daylia walked ahead, the latter giggling as the king’s right hand pulled her to his side and whispered something to her temple.
Vane took my hand, stopping me beside the stairs. “This journey will be brief. I hope to return with the new dawn.”
I stepped into him and smoothed my hands over the thick black tunic covering his chest. “Are you sure you don’t want company?” I smiled down at his bulky boots. “I might be miserable, but I can still be useful.”
He tipped up my chin, smirking. Then he lowered his head to skim his lips over mine. “Show me just how useful you are when I get back, and I’ll consider taking you next time.”
Inwardly, I bristled.
Exhaling a breathy laugh, I pressed my mouth to his, then my teeth into his lip until I drew blood.
He snarled, but I drew back before I could taste his essence, smiling in a way that suggested he’d be sorry for leaving me behind. Smiling in a way that felt all too real when our eyes met, and anger melded with heartache.
For although there were plenty of monsters who seemed far worse, none were as monstrous as Vane Ashbone.
The castle was quietest in the afternoon, which made my search efforts loud.
As pointless as my searching could be, I couldn’t sit idle when every part of me itched to claw free of this cell I’d accidentally vanished into.
Cerwin must have accompanied Vane, as I hadn’t seen him since interrupting their breakfast meeting. Which left Daylia, floating members of staff, and Meadow to contend with.
But it wasn’t out of character for me to roam the halls. It certainly wasn’t out of character for me to hunt for new reading material. After digging through drawers and shelving in various sitting and guest rooms, I’d eaten a few mouthfuls of soup-soaked bread for lunch before moving on to the library.
The wards might be ruined enough for me to flee through the gaps, but to do that, I needed to know where they were. I needed to find a way to them, and any useful borders of this kingdom were hundreds of miles from this damned castle.
I needed the featherbone. If it brought me here, then surely Vane had been lying and it could take me back. Though where I’d go…
I couldn’t think of that. One risky decision at a time.
I continued hunting, plucking books forward from shelves and peering behind them. If I were a lying and murderous king, where would I hide something important?
It could be anywhere. It could even be kept on his person.
I looked regardless. All the while, my mind raced in circles. I worried about Bernie and if she believed Ethermore was responsible for our father’s death. I pondered how I might warn her in a letter without giving myself away and if I could sneak said letter to an owl without Vane knowing.
Then I froze.
My chest caught aflame. The burn spread when I realized I would miss the funerals. My father’s funeral. Bernie’s coronation. The birth of her babe.
A slight mewl alerted me to Daylia’s presence in the doorway.
Her tail swished, feline curiosity aglow in her lime green eyes even as she morphed into her faerie form. “I could sense your anxiety from down the hall.”
“My father is dead. The wards on this kingdom are falling.” Looking back at the shelves, I pretended to search for something to read. “Any day now, war will ravage this continent again.” I glared at her over my shoulder. “How are you not anxious?”
She leaned against the large table, looping one of her curls around her finger. “Because we’ve been eagerly awaiting this moment for too long.”
I turned my glare to the shelves, hoping she’d leave, yet knowing she’d found me for a reason. One that had little to do with how I felt. “So you’re excited, then.”
Her laughter was brief and tight. “I suppose. But right now, I’m mostly wondering how your visit to Lord Stone’s hovel went?”
“You already know.”
“Apparently not all of it,” she said, referring to what had been divulged at breakfast.
I slid my finger down the spine of a worn, leather-bound book of poetry. “What exactly would you like to know, Daylia?”
“You don’t wish to speak of it.”
Facing her, I leaned against the shelves to better steel myself. “It’s just rather…” I scratched at my cheek, then ducked my head for good measure. “Mortifying.”
After a long moment of silence, I met her studious gaze. She nodded. “Well, if you would like someone to talk to, I know misery quite well.”
I didn’t doubt that. I also didn’t doubt her offer was genuine, although she’d evidently found me to pry.
Not about me, it seemed.
“What is the Seelie lord like in his home realm?”
Taken aback, I shrugged. “I’ve only ever seen Stone at events. He always seemed charming but arrogant, just as he is here.” Relief pooled warmly in my stomach at the change of subject, but it grew cold when I suspected why she’d asked. “Why do you wish to know?”
Her lips pursed before she sighed. “I didn’t trust him. Not at first. He earned the king’s favor after being captured a few years ago. He spent all of a month in one of our camps before weaseling his way out and into a meeting with the general and then the king.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “How was he captured?”
“His manor resides near the northern border, and it was destroyed during the warding of our realm.”
“That’s when his wife died,” I surmised.
Daylia nodded. “He’s kept very quiet about her death, but he told us it was the Seelie king’s doing. That he’d defied him by refusing to offer his land to their warriors and your father’s soldiers.”
It hung there—her disbelief of what happened at the lord’s estate. Perhaps she’d heard differently about who’d ruined his home and murdered his wife.
Perhaps their own forces were responsible. I didn’t dare seek confirmation. Not when I recalled what Stone had done for me and what he could still do.
He was nobility. He could vanish, and now that the wards were damaged, he could do so without Vane.
He could be my only guaranteed way of escape.
So I said, “Losing love changes people.”
Daylia agreed with a sad smile. “It alters values, and sometimes, who we are entirely. For who are we without our inner compass to guide us?” Her head shook. “Powerful, love. Perhaps the most powerful magic of all.”
This is war, and I intend to win.
Casting aside my fury, I forced my shoulders to slump. “I didn’t notice anything unusual at the hideout if that’s what you’re asking.” Attempting to sway her more could arouse suspicion, so I went on. “But I’ve never really known Stone.” My laughter was surprisingly genuine as I admitted, “There are very few creatures I know well, including myself.”
“I disagree with that last one.” She straightened from the table, amusement ashine in her eyes. “You’re a survivor, Mildred Nephryn. A wolf too accustomed to hunting alone to trust in any pack.”
Then she left me gazing at puddles of sunlight beneath the windows.
Daylia’s words lingered as I trekked through the brush along the drive in search of Meadow.
It grew dark, and I wanted her near in case Lord Stone appeared and agreed to vanish me home to Nephryn. To Bernie. I refused to leave the felynx behind, lest she be used to lure me back for another attempt to make me fall in love with a king who’d eradicated his chances.
I wouldn’t return, and she would likely be killed.
My skirts snagged on a thorn. I paused to free them and scented blood. I trailed it deeper into the brush to a dead hare. Fresh, I determined, nudging it with the toe of my boot.
Then I caught a whiff of a different scent.
A smoldering, oaky sweetness that shouldn’t exist. Not here.
I was imagining it. Just like I’d imagined that crooned voice the previous night. Perhaps I was sleeping, and he’d invaded another dream.
But the wards had fractured. And if Vane and his most trusted were already seeking more of the gaps, then…
I whirled to the dancing willow tree behind me.
He stood beyond reach of the scythe moon, leaning against the thick trunk.
Cold warmth turned my bones to stone. “Atakan.”
His teeth flashed bright in the falling night. “Hello, dread.”
Meadow dangled from his fingers, hissing at the prince who held her by the scruff of her neck. His features were void of emotion. Iced apathy dripped from each word as he said without care for his volume, “Time to go.”