Chapter 25
twenty-five
The eating hall was quiet, save for the movement of the help who served the food.
Wheels turning. Footsteps, perfectly precise, hitting the marble floor at the same time. Seven Midnight fae dressed in dark grey and black uniforms moving platters and glasses from their metal carriages and onto the table in front of us like they were in a dance.
Nobody spoke a single word. They set the food down, then retreated toward the doors that didn’t look like doors at all when they closed, just an extension of the dark wall, half hidden by shadows where the light of the caged candles and the crystals full of fae light didn’t reach.
It was a long room, the eating hall, and it was safe, Rune said.
We needed to eat—and I agreed, as much as I wanted to just hide away with him somewhere and make sure he was okay.
Because I needed to think first, and I always thought better when I rested and when I had a full stomach, so here we were.
Sitting at a long black dining table, polished to a sheen and surrounded by dark walls and paintings of shadows, flowers I’d never seen before with deep purple petals that turned black close to the edges.
They were just as beautiful as those winter roses in the Frozen Court, though these smelled very different.
Rune sat at the head of the table, the crown no longer on his head. He must have left it somewhere I didn’t see on our way up here. I sat on his right, and Raja sat across from me on the other side together with Jasewine. Maera and her two pack mates were right next to me.
“Please, help yourselves,” Rune said to Maera and the wolves, while he took my plate and began to fill it with food. I watched him, my heart squeezing, in pain and relieved at the same time.
He looked good. Physically, he was just as perfect as always, and it hurt that I’d forgotten his face almost completely while we’d been apart. The shape of his lips and the colors of his eyes, the feel of his hair between my fingers. I’d almost forgotten.
Now, as he poured water into my glass, I couldn’t help but wonder, how long would it be this time before something tore us apart? Because something always did. How long did we even have?
A new wave of tears pricked the back of my eyes when I said thank you, so I picked up the silverware to eat, just so I had something to look at, and a moment to compose myself.
I didn’t really taste the vegetables and the rice Rune had served me, but I chewed and swallowed in silence, just like everybody else.
Rune didn’t eat. He sat back, his plate empty, his glass full of dark red liquid—wine, if I had to guess.
He drank small sips, his eyes only ever leaving my face once every few minutes, and fuck, he looked miserable.
Like he, too, was thinking about how we might not even have a full day before we had to be apart again.
Or maybe he was just thinking about all that I told him before they brought in the food? Because I was thinking about what he told me, too. The crown and the Midnight Palace that refused to let him leave, until Jasewine took over in his name.
It had shocked me that he’d left the entire kingdom, the crown in her hands, and that’s when I understood the tension at the front doors.
Rune hadn’t said it, not in front of Jasewine here, but I was sure that he’d been terrified there for a minute that his sister would not return the crown.
I wasn’t sure if that was possible, if she could even do that, but Rune had been afraid. He’d suspected it.
And she had known it perfectly well, which was why she’d messed with him the way she had. Even now, I caught her stifling smiles when she stole glances at him, like she was proud of herself for having scared him.
I had no idea whether she was trustworthy or not, but I was thankful for her, anyway. If she hadn’t agreed to help Rune, I didn’t want to think about what would have happened in that forest with Lyall.
He would have attacked me. He wouldn’t have stopped. His soldiers and the sorcerers would have fought—and that wasn’t it, damn it. Lyall couldn’t die, and I didn’t want even more blood on my hands.
“I’m ready to hear the reading of the new seer, if you would be so kind, Nilah.”
This from Raja.
I looked up at her as she wiped the corners of her lips with a silver handkerchief, and she hadn’t changed at all.
Her dress remained black, and her hair smoothed behind her head, the look in her eyes just as cold and calculating as ever.
Hard to imagine that I’d seen her wounded, desperate, had healed her myself at one point.
With Vair.
Stabs at my heart.
“Where the moon’s eye watches and the bridge stands alone, the lost crown awaits in the court with no throne,” said Maera. She must have noticed me opening my mouth and closing it again. The words wouldn’t come.
Silence in the eating hall again. People stared at their plates, lost in thought, and Rune reached out his hand for mine because I wasn’t eating anymore. I’d eaten enough. The rest of me was full of pain, raw and bloody.
His touch helped. Just looking at him and knowing he was in this with me helped.
A king. He was an actual king, and even though I was obviously surprised, it just…fit. It fit perfectly. He was very kingly. Just the vibe and the attitude, the look in his eyes.
Yes, it made sense. Maybe that’s why I was smiling—which seemed to catch him by surprise.
Fuck, I’d even missed the way he looked at my smile.
“It’s fairly obvious, then,” Jasewine said after a while. “If what you say is true, and there is a legitimate heir to the Unseelie throne, he’s there, in the Unseelie Court.”
“How so?” asked Maera.
“Because the reading said court with no throne, didn’t it?”
“But the Frozen Court does not have a throne, either,” said Raja.
It does. I’ve seen it, I thought.
For some reason the words were stuck inside me, and I felt Maera’s eyes on the side of my face. She knew, and luckily, she spoke.
“There is a throne in the Frozen Court,” she said. “From what we know in The Vale, the people who currently rule the Unseelie kingdom do so from outside the throne room. It does not open to them, and they’ve moved on without it.”
Raja and Jasewine flinched, and they looked almost identical as they did it. Easy to see they were family—Raja was the cousin of Jasewine’s mother, once her advisor when she lived here in the palace.
“That is true,” Rune said. “Part of the palace is inaccessible to them, including the throne room, since the death of the royal family.”
“The slaughter,” Jasewine said, licking her spoon. “They say the royal family was slaughtered. They said they found body pieces all over the palace for days after.”
There it was, that word again, conjuring images in my head.
“The moon’s eye—that’s a settlement in the Unseelie Court,” Raja said.
“It’s a moonstone fountain, a gift for the last king from the Ice Queen.
” Her eyes locked on mine for a second, and my heart didn’t beat.
“It sits in this gorge at the edges of the palace grounds, and only a stone bridge leads to it. They used to hold plays and parties there before. The water in the fountain reflects the moonlight when it is high enough in a perfect circle. That’s where it got its name. ”
Shivers rushed down my spine. “And you think that’s the place the sorceress referred to?” I asked.
“Ah, she can say more than her name!” said Jasewine, then grabbed her fork and touched it to the side of her glass.
“Jasewine,” Rune said, but she waved him off.
“I’m only joking. The mood in this room is depressing. Cheer up, everyone! You’ve got a reading and you know where you’re going—smile a little.”
Nobody smiled, but I did want to. Because she was right—if there is a place like Raja described in the Unseelie Court, that was where we were going. That was where the heir would be.
“Raja, I need all the information on the people who rule the Unseelie Court before we ask them to arrange a visit,” Rune said, and my heart jumped.
“Are you sure that is a good idea? It hasn’t been two full weeks since you’ve been crowned. You need to stay here, sit on your throne,” Raja said.
“Or you can just give me the crown to keep safe while you’re away.” Jasewine winked at him, which pissed Raja off.
“The people are restless,” she said, throwing Jasewine a look before she turned to Rune again. “They’ve been plotting and scheming against you. They need to see you here if they’re going to be kept in their place.”
“Why?” I said, because that didn’t sound right to me. “Why would they be plotting and scheming against Rune?”
“Because he’s a bastard,” Jasewine said.
I looked at Rune, who’d closed his eyes and was breathing deeply. “So what? Doesn’t the throne decide who its the ruler will be?”
“It does,” said Raja. “But they’ve been spreading these conspiracy theories about how Rune tricked the throne when he killed Helem. I’ve heard stories. Some people actually believe them.”
“They’re idiots. They all know how thrones work. They’re just a bunch of idiots,” Jasewine said, her eyes sparkling as she looked at me. “Tell me, what are those pants you have on? Is that how everyone dresses in Nerith? Not going to lie, they look like something made for the poor.”
Oh, hell… “I—”
“Idiots they might be, but if there are enough of them, they can pose a threat to the king,” Raja said before I could answer, her voice echoing in the tall ceiling of the eating hall. “They must be stopped at once, all these ridiculous ideas squashed while they are still new.”
“And they will be,” Rune said. “As soon as we settle this.”
“This isn’t a—” she started, but Rune had heard enough.
He stood up, pushed his chair back, and told her, “The fate of the realm depends on us finding the Unseelie heir and returning them to their throne. People who plot and scheme will make no difference if we can’t do that, will they, Raja?
It won’t matter who sits on the thrones because there will be no more thrones if the werewolves lose control of the gates.
” He turned to Maera. “Please correct me if I’m wrong, Maera. ”
“You’re not,” she said without hesitation. “The ley lines are not stable. Without the gates to keep them in check, there is no telling what they can do to Verenthia, and in a very short amount of time.”
Raja opened her mouth. Looked at both of them. Closed it.
“I never thought I’d see the day. Aunt Raja, speechless.” Jasewine clapped. “What a wonderful occasion. Cheers.” She raised her glass of wine, then drank.
“Maera, you and your friends will be escorted to your chambers to rest. I will call for you once we have word from the Unseelie Court. Please, consider yourselves at home,” Rune said, and the way he spoke just now was different. So different from the man he used to be when we first met.
I liked it. I liked the sound of him, the way he moved. The way he was so very respectful toward Maera. But at the same time, it scared me.
Because he was here now, and he was indeed king, and all the ways I’d once imagined us ending up together and happy and free were now rendered impossible. No matter what choice I made from here on out—impossible.
Then he reached out his hand to me. “If you’re done with your food, we can go rest, too.”
Fuck, yeah, I was done with my food. I couldn’t even speak the words, though. I just took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. Easiest thing in the world to do to follow his lead.
“You’ll be okay, right?” I asked Maera, and the man and woman sitting on her other side.
She’d sent two of them back home, and only two had remained, had changed back to human once we entered the palace.
A soldier had brought them clothes, too, black cloaks to cover them completely, and leather shoes as well.
They hadn’t once spoken to me, but they did look at me now.
At me, and then Rune. Curious. Suspicious.
“We will. Go rest. We all need it,” said Maera with a small smile. It wasn’t forced, but it wasn’t entirely genuine, either.
“If you’ll follow me, Alpha,” Raja said when Rune took me around the table.
“Maera is just fine,” she said, and Raja didn’t smile. As she waited for them to leave the table, she looked at me as Rune led me toward the doors. I could almost see the order she wanted to give me, written in her eyes—don’t let him leave. As if she thought it was a choice.
I said nothing, but when Jasewine waved at me and winked before Rune closed the door behind us, I waved back.