Chapter 47
Morning comes far too early. My eyelids are heavy and my head foggy when I find Edvear’s unwelcome face leaning over me, his fingers tapping lightly on my shoulder.
Stella is fast asleep in my arms, one strap of her nightgown falling down her shoulder. Edvear is the only reason I quickly slide it into its proper place and drag my eyes away from the fan of her lashes, and cascade of her light hair.
“The Neverseen King is in your living room,”Edvear mouths to me.
“What?”I reply, more out of surprise.
“The Neverseen King. Living room.”
This is one way to start the day. I assumed he’d come after dawn, at least. Edvear slips back out of our room. Slowly, as gently as I can, I extricate myself from my sleeping wife. As much as I’d rather stay here, curled up with her soft form, not even the High King would ignore the Neverseen King.
And I invited him anyway.
Stella stirs when I stand, but I quickly lean over, smooth her hair away from her face and press a kiss to her cheek.
“Keep sleeping,” I tell her in a whisper. “I’ll be right back.”
She doesn’t even open her eyes, and her breathing evens and slows. I barely look away from her as I dress and rake a comb through my hair.
This could work.
The sleepy haze over my brain quickly dissipates.
This could really work.
I shut the door as quietly as I can, and my heart picks up its pace with every step down the hallway.
I turn the corner, and there he is.
The Neverseen King sits on one of the settees, his knees spread wide, one arm hanging off the armrest, his chin propped up on the fist of the other. He doesn’t wear his usual shadows, and when piercing, cerulean eyes shoot to mine, I realize just how long it has been since I’ve seen his face.
I smile at him—and it’s not the smile I give Stella. “Hello, Neverseen King. It’s been too long, my dear cousin.”
His brow darkens. “I’m not here for pleasantries. You’ve sent conflicting messages. I understand you wish to redeem your favor. So tell me if I am to take your wife away from here or if there is something else you want. But be quick about it. I don’t like being away from the Bridge.”
“I am aware,” I reply with another cool grin as I move to pour cups of tea from the tray Edvear left for us. The Neverseen King doesn’t touch his, only stares at me with that piercing gaze. “How is your wife? It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure of her company.”
“Get to the point, Prince Trenian.”
I chuckle, taking a sip of my tea as I make myself comfortable on the opposite couch. “’Tis a shame. We used to be such friends when we were boys. But you’re right. We should get down to business. I do not want you taking my wife. I have something else in mind for your favor.”
“Out with it.”
I set down my teacup. “Stage a coup for the High King’s throne.”
The Neverseen King is quiet for a whole minute. Then, in a low growl: “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Indeed, I am not,” I reply, taking another sip of my tea. “I’m not asking you to actually try to take over the High King’s throne. Nor am I asking you to kill him.”
“Then what are you asking me to do?” he demands, barely contained anger coloring his tone. “If it puts my throne or my queen at risk, the answer is no.”
I say nothing, letting his words echo in the quiet room between us. He may say such things, but we both know the truth. He is indebted to me, and the terms of our bargain dictate he fulfills any favor of my choice when I request it. He doesn’t have the right to refuse.
“I may be bound to honor the bargain,” he says, as though reading my mind. “But if you make an enemy out of me, you know I will make you pay. You have the upper hand of this bargain, but I have the Bridge. It wouldn’t be difficult for me to take your wife from you, as you once tried to take mine.”
If I didn’t have so much practice holding my composure with Faradir, I would have cracked the teacup in my hand. My smile is made of teeth and sharp edges. “I am glad we understand one another. Hear my demand, then, Neverseen King. I, Trenian Ashrift Solavirth, do thus claim your favor: that you stage a false coup against the High King according to the timeline and specifications I will give you. I do not ask you to commit treason against the crown and—”
“Only to pretend I’m committing treason,” he replies darkly. And yet, the fist under his chin has loosened slightly—as though he is secretly relieved I did not ask for more.
I could have asked him to kill the High King and forfeit his throne, and likely his life and queen in the process.
But I don’t want him as my mortal enemy. And neither do I want the Bridge without a king. That disaster would be even worse than what I’m facing here.
“I also bid you wait on my order to destroy the human lands with Crenfyre,” I say.
The Neverseen King shoots to his feet. “You are out of your mind!”
“I vow that I will not order such a thing. I merely need this as part of our bargain so my bargain with Faradir does not collapse. We may bargain again to ensure it so you know this is no trickery of mine.”
“You are going to be the death of me,” he says, sinking back into the chair and running a hand through his hair. “Tell me what these specifications are, then, before I lose every fragment of my patience.”
And so I oblige him.
I still haven’t broken my fast before I knock on a door I have always avoided.
A human servant answers almost immediately. She’s young and pretty, with bangles down her arms and her ankles, but her cheeks are sunken, and the eyes that meet mine are those of a frightened animal’s.
She makes me think of that man who chased me down in the Small Cities to save his daughter from this very plight.
“Tell your mistress that Prince Trenian is here,” I tell her.
She shows me into the reception room without a word and disappears. The room is so blue it makes me think of drowning in a vast ocean. Tightening my jaw, I distract myself by picking up a trinket on the table beside me: a beautiful, glass-blown peacock.
“Prince Trenian,” comes a low, melodic voice full of false sweetness.
“Princess Listhra,” I reply, as she appears through a waterfall of blue sothsril silk, wearing a sunset-orange dressing gown with a slit from floor to hip that matches her golden eyes. She swishes into my space and settles on the seat next to me.
“Don’t tell me you’re visiting me because you’re lonely,” she coos. “I cannot imagine that human is particularly . . . satisfying.” She says this with a pointed once-over of me, while I wait for her to get her insults out of her system before we proceed.
Except she should know better than to insult my wife by now.
“My wife pleases me greatly,” I say, curling my lip in a threatening smirk. “Unlike some. Now, would you care to hear why I have come?”
She flutters her wings lightly. “Of course. Do not keep me in suspense any longer, darling.”
“Very well. Going back to our little conversation that we had the other night—the one after you’d thought to make sport of Princess Stella—I did find out, when I asked her later about the particulars of her time with you . . . she mentioned an interesting tidbit of information.”
Listhra’s luminous skin pales a split second before she catches herself and reasserts her glamours. She laughs daintily. “Whatever she told you, she must have been lying. Humans don’t remember what happens while they’re under the influence of faerie fruit. You must find it so curious to watch her lie without consequence.”
“That is only the case sometimes,” I tell her, enjoying the way she swallows and struggles to maintain her composure. Because she knows. She knows what I’m about to say. “I’m sure you can clarify for me any misinformation I received about that night. As I heard, your friends wanted to kill Stella. But you—you decided not to. Why?”
She strokes a long, slender finger down the slit of her gown. An attempt to cover her discomfort that pairs well with the snakelike smile she gives me. “It would hardly do to make the future High King of Faerieland a mortal enemy.”
“But that wasn’t what you said that night, was it?”
“I didn’t claim to only have one reason for my actions.”
“No, you didn’t. But I wonder what the High King would think if he knew his favorite little accomplice, the one he’d promised to reward with a queenship if she could succeed, neglected to kill the prince’s human wife when she had the chance.”
The reward was a suspicion on my part, but Listhra’s lifted chin only confirms it. “It was as I said then. If we killed her, you would only go find another one.”
“You think the High King would agree with you?”
She goes silent, her gaze falling to the glass peacock I rub my thumb along.
“It does make me wonder,” I say, never taking my eyes off her face, “what the High King would do if he found out you were more concerned with not making me want to kill you than you were about his interests?”
She stands up, paces across a swirling blue rug to the crystal mantle. She places one delicate elbow on the mantle and rolls her eyes. Still trying to maintain the illusion that I don’t have complete control over her now. “You must want something.”
My grin widens. “Indeed, I do.”
For once, her veneer fades, her glamours loosening so her straight, white teeth become fangs. “Then tell me what it is.”
I set down the peacock, steeple my fingers, and answer her. “The Neverseen King is planning a coup. You will help me stop him—or else he may end up as the High King, and he already has a queen.”
Her eyes, now slits like a cat’s, blink slowly. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to tell Prince Rahk and Princess Pelarusa about the Neverseen King’s coup. It is too risky for me to interact with them right now with Faradir’s spies everywhere, so you will be my messenger. You will meet with the two of them individually, and then you will call your friends together from the other night like normal. You will invite them here, and you will stay in your room until the banquet tonight. And if you deviate in any way from my command, I’ll report your duplicity to the High King.”
I can almost hear her turning over my words in her head, searching for the trick. But she knows if Faradir catches her playing both sides, or acting out of her own self-interest rather than being his loyal dog, he will have every right to publicly execute her. No matter what court she is from or who her parents are.
She knows as well as I that she made a mistake, and now she must pay for it.
Slowly, hesitantly, she nods. Then she bares her fangs and snarls, “Now get out.”