Chapter 51
When Rahk excuses himself from the banquet early, a line between his brows, I know what he is going to do. That doesn’t stop me from hurrying to my desk the moment Stella and I return from the banquet ourselves.
My word will only bolster Rahk’s and emphasize the severity of the situation at hand. I dip my quill in its inkwell and begin writing.
Dear Lord and Lady Nothril,
I write to you of an urgent matter. Princess Pelarusa is at risk of becoming a victim of the High King’s wrath due to her association with Princess Listhra—whom the High King has reason to believe has betrayed him. Prince Rahk is also in danger. I believe the situation to be worth your alarm. Neither Princess Pelarusa nor Prince Rahk have done anything meriting the High King’s punishment.
Prince Trenian
I seal the note and give it to Edvear with the urge to have it be delivered to the Nothril Court this very night.
Then suddenly, I’m alone in my study. Alone with my thoughts, with the glowing orb of the lumiral globe.
My beating heart slows as I realize that there is nothing else I need to do tonight. My eyes, which have grown glazed, focus on the pages on my desk, the books on my shelves against the four walls, the books on the floor—
There are no books on the floor.
There is a neat little stack beside one of the shelves, which must contain less than half the books that once decorated the ground.
Edvear might have done it.
But it wasn’t Edvear, was it? It was Stella. She must have done it when I was gone earlier.
I stare at that stack of books, at each spine and smoothed page, the neatness of that stack—as if it is my very life that she has come in and rearranged.
I love you,I finally told her at the banquet.
I don’t want her to leave. If my plan works, she won’t have to. But there is one aspect of my plan that makes me uncomfortable. I already risked Stella’s life by having her impersonate Listhra. This plan, however, would make that stunt look like child’s play.
I don’t doubt that Stella can do it.
I doubt my own ability to let her do it.
She is not an expendable piece on a board. She is my wife, my entire soul, and to lose her would be to lose everything that ever mattered.
That aside, it might not even practically work. I have one test to run tomorrow on the extent of Stella’s magic. It’s a test I’m loath to do, but if it works, I might be able to bring this to an end even before Lulythinar even begins.
My hope feels like such a tentative, fragile thing in my chest, like a flickering candle ready to be blown out by a breath.
But I will hold the tiny flame of my hope like it is a torch ready to set a forest ablaze.
I stand, march over to the stack of books, and find a note on the topmost cover. My frown turns up in a smile as I read.
I couldn’t find where these belonged on your shelves. I made what I think are highly educated guesses for the rest. If you find your books out of place, blame it on yourself for treating them so horribly in the first place. I cannot believe I call you husband. -S
I’m grinning by the end of it. I stare at her pretty hand, the careful elegance of each letter, hear her voice in my head saying the words. Then I roll up the note until it’s smaller than my pinky finger and hide it in my drawer of poisons for safe keeping.
My blood pounds as I leave my study. It’s late, and by the darkness under the door of the bedroom, I can tell that Stella already went to sleep—likely exhausted after the toll these last several days have taken on her.
I open the door silently, then shut it behind me. My feet make no noise as I approach the bed.
There, just as I’d hoped, lies my wife on what has become her side of the bed. I’ve wanted to believe the days of her sleeping in her own room were long gone, and now I can only smile as I slip under the covers beside her.
“Finally,” she mumbles.
My eyebrows lift. I scoot closer until I can wrap one arm around her and pull her so she rests against my chest. Her eyes open, and they’re not at all fogged with sleep. She was awake, waiting for me.
That thought does a lot of things to my already pounding heartbeat.
“You’d better be Ash, because it’s so dark I couldn’t tell otherwise,” she says.
It’s a reminder that while she may have glamour magic, her eyes are still limited by human nature. She cannot make out the features of my face like I can hers. Part of me likes it, likes that I can read every twist of her sweet mouth, every emotion that shines in her beautiful eyes, likes that I can admire the color in her cheeks, the line of her jaw, the sweep of her nose, her delicate brow. Still, with a twist of my fingers, I use my magic to open the skylight so moonlight bathes us.
“You’re getting sassier by the day,” I reply, breathing in her scent deeply. “At this rate, I only have a few months before all the sweet turns to sass.”
“Oh, certainly not so long.”
I chuckle, cup the side of her face, and claim her lips in a long, lingering kiss. “I’m sorry for making you wait.”
“Me, too.”
This time, I laugh out loud. Then I tighten my grip on her, tangle our legs together, and wonder how I’m supposed to spend the night with her and not cross boundaries that aren’t safe for us to cross while Faradir is on the throne.
“What do your tattoos mean?” Stella asks against my chest, tracing one finger along my biceps where there is a Small City acorn cap wheel.
I welcome the distraction as I caress her waist through the sothsril silk nightgown she wears. “They’re bargains. Or, rather, they represent the bargains I’ve made.”
She surveys my arm, all the many markings I’ve gained over the years. She has me roll up my sleeve to my shoulder to get a clearer glimpse of each tattoo in the moonlight.
“You’ve made a lot of bargains,” she says after a thorough study.
“Living in Faerie usually does that.”
“If I make bargains, will I get tattoos too?”
“You will.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think they would look good on me.”
“They do disappear when they’ve been fulfilled,” I say. “Many of mine have already half disappeared, either because I have completed my end of the bargain, or because they have completed theirs. Or they disappear once it’s no longer possible to fulfill the bargain.”
“What’s this big crown on your wrist for?” She traces each spire of the crown, and I find my eyelids drooping closed. I might be just as tired as she is.
“It’s the bargain I made with Faradir, that he would allow me my choice of a bride from any of the courts so long as I had a wife by Lulythinar.”
“Both broken halves are still there.”
“Both will disappear after Lulythinar. If you stay with me, if I have you as my wife on Lulythinar, then I will have honored my part of the bargain, and Faradir will have honored his by letting me choose. If I do not have a wife by midnight on Lulythinar, then I will be bound to marry Faradir’s choice. His half of the bargain will disappear, and mine will disappear when I have sired an heir.”
I try to say the words as emotionlessly as possible. I doubt it works. Stella props herself up on one elbow, leaning over me, over my face, as though trying to make her human eyes see me as clearly as I see the furrow of her forehead.
Then she tilts her face, and my sleepy mind almost doesn’t have time to prepare itself for the sudden flood of tingling pleasure down my spine when she begins whispering in my sensitive ear.
“I’m staying with you, Ash.”
I go still. Inside, my mind erupts with sudden protests, with urges that she’s safest the farther away she is from me.
But then she adds, “Because I love you,” and then I cannot contain the overwhelming joy that has me sitting upright, pulling her to me, and smothering her in forceful, passionate kisses. The kisses I wanted to give her at the banquet tonight. The kisses I’ve always wanted to give her.
When I feel my self-control fracture, Stella—as aware as I am of the boundaries we cannot cross—asks about a different tattoo, and then another, and another, until we fall asleep tangled in each other’s arms.