Chapter 41
Rahk comes to a stop before a door. The private chambers of Princess Listhra. He holds up his hand, halting me from barreling into the chamber. He walks up to the door, silent as a forest dryad, and leans his ear against it. His gaze shoots to me, and he nods once. Five paces, and he’s back at my side.
“She’s in there. Alive,” he says under his breath. “I smell faerie fruit.”
I don’t stop to hear anything else, rushing forward and barely remembering to wipe the panic from my face before I throw open the door.
There’s Stella. Not a dozen paces from me. Wearing a brilliant grin . . . and not much else. It’s something of a long tunic that reaches mid-thigh, but instead of fabric, it’s made of leaves poorly woven together. As though a child was practicing—and mostly failing—to spin ornala petals into cloth. It’s probably glamoured, so she thinks she wears a beautiful gown. She dances, her feet bare, on a pile of glass shards, utterly oblivious to her own blood staining the floor.
Beyond her are four sets of wicked smiles. They all chime, “Prince Trenian.”
My boiling rage slows to a lethal simmer.
“Ash!” Stella gasps. “It’s you! You’re so handsome! Come dance with me!” Her ankle rolls, but she doesn’t stop moving, twirling, dancing. She won’t stop until I pull her out of that cursed dance. Or she dies of exhaustion.
I cross the distance between us, scoop her up into my arms. She breathes hard, blood dripping from her feet. I tighten my grip on her bare knees.
“Princess Listhra. Lady Iluna. Lady Shalar. Princess Brolnyr.” Then I smile. My coldest, deadliest smile. “Don’t tempt me toward vengeance, ladies. You don’t want me as your enemy.”
Three of them turn pale at the threat. The fourth—Listhra—only smiles back. “If I cannot have your love, I’ll settle for your hatred.”
Well, she has it.
Cradling my wife to my chest, I spin on my heel and storm out of the room. She hasn’t stopped gasping, as though she’s been dancing for some time now. I grind my teeth, wanting some outlet for my fury. If I hadn’t left, if I had stayed for even one more minute, I would have slaughtered all those women right there.
Rahk slips to my side but doesn’t glance a single time toward Stella. I’d glamour her if that wouldn’t take time. But I need to get her back to my quarters now.
Before something worse happens to her.
I could have lost her.
She could be dead right now. A couple of bloody feet, exhaustion, and humiliation are so much better than I could have hoped for. I’ll still never forgive myself for letting this happen.
When we reach my quarters, Rahk steps back. “It’s best if I keep my distance. Where I can.”
I give a tight nod. “Thank you, brother.”
He bows and leaves, the sound of his footsteps vanishing as Edvear opens the door. His eyes drop to Stella in my arms. They widen. He begins barking orders, and servants spring into a flurry of activity.
I take Stella to the dining room table and set her atop it. She clings to my tunic, mewling a tiny protest, and I grit my teeth against the saucer-like eyes she turns up at me.
“I need to get the glass out of your feet,” I growl, gently prying her hands off me. “You’re bleeding.”
She tugs at her hand, and I release it. Slowly, she lifts it up toward my face. Touches my cheek. I freeze—and simultaneously a sliver of my rage thaws. Just enough to make me hold still while she traces her finger along the line of my jaw. My chest tightens. She lifts her finger, her eyes staring straight at my mouth as she brings one finger to my bottom lip.
I take her wrist, pull her hand away as something inside me cracks and a burn overtakes my cheeks. “Sit still. Your feet need attention.”
She stares up at me with those huge eyes that will forever and ever be my undoing. Clad in that scandalous garment of leaves. And she’s oblivious to it. Moving on instinct, I pull my cloak off my shoulders and wrap it around her. It’s not much, but it’s more. When I clasp it at her throat, her voice startles me.
“Ash?” she whispers.
“Stella?”
“You broke my heart.”
Every muscle in my body stops. It’s said so softly, so gently, and yet it hits me harder than one of Rahk’s blows.
“I think I’m going to run away,” she continues, almost nonchalantly, as if her words aren’t slicing into my chest, carving up my heart, and serving it on a platter. She turns a bright smile up at me. “I think you will be happier without me.”
Edvear appears just then with a bowl of warm water, another empty bowl, bandages, and a pile of cloths. He glances between Stella and me with thinly veiled shock. Then he sets the supplies down and leaves.
I don’t stop him.
Not knowing what else to do—what in the world can I say to that?—I pull up a chair, place the bowl on it, and carefully set one bloody foot in the water. No longer under Listhra’s compulsion, she hisses in pain, but doesn’t otherwise react as the water turns bright red.
“I want to be strong enough to live in Faerieland, but I think I might just be too human,” continues Stella, her voice oscillating between sad resignation and bright optimism. “I want you to be happy, Ash. More than anything. I think you will be happier with a wife you don’t have to worry about so much.”
False.
“A fae wife would help you overthrow your father more than I can.”
False.
“You’ve been kind to me, Ash, but I think we’re not suited.”
“It doesn’t matter if we’re not suited,” I growl, unable to keep silent. “We’re married. We stay together. We work through things. Together.”
Why am I saying this? I’m the one planning to send her away the first chance I get.
She gives a bright little laugh, which turns into another hiss when I set to work pulling out each tiny piece of glass from her tiny foot. They plink when they land in the empty bowl.
“I know.” She reaches out then, smiling at me as she threads her fingers into my hair. I try to ignore her touch as I work. It proves impossible. “But we’re not even of the same people. You’re fae. I’m human. Even if we stayed together, even if I wasn’t killed, I cannot give you an heir, right? How would you get an heir, Ash? I like you too much to not be jealous if you take a mistress.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my lungs so tight I can hardly breathe. “I’m not taking a mistress.”
There is no one, Stella. No one but you. There was no one before you, and there will be no one after you.
“Then there goes your line of succession!” she chirps, laughing. “It’s a little silly, I think, to fight so hard to overthrow your father without sending everything into war, only to do so a generation later.” She bends down toward me, toward where I kneel, and I look up just in time for her to bop me on the nose. “You need an heir. And it cannot come from me. Which means—”
I snatch her wrist, glaring up at her intoxicated face. How is she so reasonable, even when she’s under the influence of faerie fruit? It’s maddening. “You might be able to give me an heir. I’m not aware of any curse that would prevent a human-fae heir from sitting on the throne.”
She stares at me, blinks, and then flushes bright pink. “Oh.”
I let go and bow my own hot face back over her foot.
She chuckles again, but this time it’s more forced. “And your people would accept such a ruler?”
“They don’t have a choice. Whoever sits on that throne is their ruler, whether they like it or not.” That doesn’t mean they’d be happy about it. I wipe down her foot, and when she flinches, I search for the piece I missed. Plink. I set her other foot in the bowl while I wrap the first in a towel. It’s a very good thing I have something to do with my hands while my mind spins and my heart breaks.
She strokes her fingers through my hair, and for one stolen moment after I finish picking the glass out of her other foot, I pause what I’m doing, close my eyes, and revel in how good it feels.
“I was angry with you at dinner,” she says, her tone still light. “Sometimes you scare me, Ash. I care about you very much. But if I’m not safe with you, I’m not safe with anyone in Faerieland.”
I groan, leaning my head against her knee, my palm cupped around her ankle, my thumb grazing her calf. “Stella.”
“You sound very sad,” she says, combing my hair and tilting my head back so she can look down at me and offer me a smile in an attempt to cheer me up. She’s so very intoxicated. “I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to be so broken after your mother’s death.”
I go rigid.
She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as she keeps threading my hair through her fingers. “I think that’s what I’m afraid of. That you’ll cherish your hatred of your father more than your love for me.”
I’ve stopped moving entirely. Stopped breathing. I stare at her free hand, the one resting on her leg.
“That’s why my heart is broken,” she whispers. “And that’s why I’m going to run away.”
My hands tremble. All of me is trembling. I want nothing but to pull her into my arms, to bare my heart to her, to tell her that she is everything—everything—to me. To beg her to stay with me.
Instead, I dry my hands, get to my feet, and stare down at her. Anger burns in my gut. Anger and fear—so, so much fear. I plant my hands on either side of her, bringing my face to her upturned one until we breathe the same air. Her eyes flutter closed.
“Kiss me, Ash,” she says softly.
“Not tonight,” I whisper, despite how I long to. “Not while you’re intoxicated. I won’t leave you with regrets.”
She tilts her mouth up toward mine, nuzzling her nose against my cheek. “I could never regret kissing my husband.”
I let out a low, breathy chuckle. A strangely warm sound when my body is ice, and everything inside me is breaking. “Says the woman who claims she’s going to run away from me.”
“This might be our last chance. We shouldn’t waste it.”
I stare down into her face, her closed lids, the soft curve of her cheeks, the fan of her lashes, the elegant line of her brow. Am I even strong enough to give her up so I don’t lose her? Lifting one hand, I tangle it into her hair, pulling her toward me until our foreheads touch, our mouths only a fraction of an inch apart.
“It’s not hatred of the High King that is stronger than my love for you, Stella,” I whisper against her lips. “It’s my fear of losing you.”
“If you were afraid of losing me, you’d kiss me.”
“You’re intoxicated.”
She peels back just enough to glare at me with those doe-like eyes. “That’s not my fault. It’s not my fault that you’re handsome, and that I like you even though you were cruel to me tonight. It’s not my fault that we’re married and married people are supposed to kiss. So why do you punish me as though it’s my fault?”
Perhaps I am more than a little intoxicated myself, because I cannot find the flaw in this logic. Not when she’s so close, her silky hair in my fingers, her willing mouth hovering just below mine.
“If I kiss you,” I say, breathless, hating myself for my own weakness, “then you cannot be angry with me tomorrow.”
She smiles, and my gaze snags on her curving lips as she twines her arms around my neck. My heart rages in my chest, thundering like a wild beast. I can’t keep balancing on this precarious edge—I need to fall. Either into a stolen kiss, or into the distance I need to create.
“Deal,” she whispers.
My control snaps.
I claim her mouth, dragging her against me as our lips move together. My fist tightens around her hair, our souls twining with each kiss. I can’t get close enough to her. Hooking my hand behind her knee and pulling her until she’s flush against me still isn’t enough. It’s just as well, isn’t it? She’ll never belong to me. Though she’s my wife, we cannot have a future together. Even these moments are stolen, bargained for with the entire human world and the life of my only love. She wouldn’t even be kissing me if not for the fruit.
I’m the one who starts weeping first, trails of salty tears landing on her cheeks. I can’t stop kissing her. The world can burn, burn, burn, and I’ll stay here, Stella’s lips the only song I want to sing. I want her—nothing but her.
Have I wanted too much by wanting her? Have I taken too much by kissing her now? It doesn’t matter; nothing can tear me away now that I’ve started. Now that she clings to me, now that her own tears mingle with mine. Neither of us letting go, both of us knowing we should. Why do we fight this ill-fated battle?
I break away, gasping. “We should stop.”
She turns tear-streaked eyes up to me, and they burn with ferocity. “You can’t make me.”
And then she has me by the neck again, dragging me down into another kiss. My gasp shifts into a groan, and I pull back on her hair, exposing her neck to my lips.
She’s going to hate me tomorrow.
I let out another groan, a very different groan. I stop, closing my eyes, breathing in the smell of her. The sound of her quick inhales, the thump of her heartbeat against my mouth. With a sigh, I press one last kiss just beneath her ear, and pull back. She tries to reach for me, but I step several paces away. I run a hand through my hair, breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and my voice sounds ragged even to my own ears. “I can’t keep kissing you. I won’t take advantage of you.”
Her eyes well up with fresh tears, her hair tangled as she pulls my cloak around herself. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Ash.”
I can’t keep listening to her, looking at her. It’s killing me. Stumbling back a few steps, I swipe angrily at a fresh stream of tears down my face. I don’t know what she means by this running away business, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to get her out of here, anyway.
My hope, my little butterfly.
I’ll make myself let her fly away.
I turn my back on her and march to my study, nearly tripping over an end table because my vision is so blurry. When I reach the doorway, I clear my throat and call out, “Edvear! Attend to Lady Stella, please.”
With that, I slam the door.
Collapse against it. Slide until I hit the ground.
Bury my face in my hands.
I throw a quick spell around me. And then I let the sobs pour free.
They’re ugly, loud. Broken.
It must be hours later when they finally subside. I rake a hand through my hair, thinking of nothing but the feel of air filling my lungs. The crust of salt on my cheeks.
That’s when I remember Oleria’s note.
Slipping it out of my sleeve, I unfold the tiny piece of paper until it’s half the size of my hand and the writing revealed.
If your wife orders a white dress from the tailor, she’s asking for help escaping. There’s an underground network, run by one called the Ivy Mask, who smuggles humans out of Faerie. Let her escape if she tries. It’s her only chance at survival. If you need a royal wife by Lulythinar, you can have me. We can annul when it’s safe, and you will be under no vow to sire an heir. Listhra is trying to help the High King so he’ll choose her for your wife. And if you’re suspicious of my motives, know that I want nothing from you except relief from the High King’s reign. I am sick of the fear he wields like a scepter.
I fold the note back up and toss it into the fire. It turns to ash. Then I stare at the lumiral globe on my desk.
She risked her life to pen those words. I’m inclined to trust her honesty. Perhaps this is my only option to not lose the throne and Stella’s life. It doesn’t mean I would possess either, but neither would be gone forever.
What this solution doesn’t fix is how to get the High King offthe throne before Lulythinar is over. Because if I don’t solve that problem, then I will be bound to decimate the human lands and all but exterminate their race.
Four days.
Everything is on the line now.
But just maybe, just maybe, I can remove Stella’s life from that line.