Chapter 53
I’m ready for the celebration of Lulythinar’s Eve long before Stella is. Dottie is just as particular as Hylath, and insists I am not to see my wife until she is completely ready.
So I sit, staring out at the sun setting over the garden outside. Butterflies dance among the flowers, their wings incandescent and shimmering, catching the rays of the dying sun like fluttering jewels.
They are things of such beauty.
And they are oh so fragile.
My heart has beat an irregular rhythm since the visit from the Nothril Court.
He will retaliate.
He knows how to make me regret this.
One butterfly in particular catches my attention. Its wings are iridescent purple with pink eyes and silver glitter. It goes from flower to flower, then flies into the air and twirls with its friends.
It’s so oblivious to the dangers of the world it lives in. So oblivious to its own vulnerability. And even to its own beauty.
As the room darkens around me, as the sun descends lower on the horizon, I cannot help but voice the fear I’ve been trying to suppress all day. The fear that has plagued me from the moment I first laid eyes on Princess Isabelle Louise.
What if this doesn’t work?
What if I risk it all . . . and lose?
What if I lose her after all?
I want to be fearless, to be the rock and shield she needs. I’m being careful, so careful.
But I’m terrified.
That’s the honest truth. I’ve been trying to hide from it, to convince myself I know exactly what I’m doing. And I do know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t be going through with this if I didn’t believe we had a chance.
This can work.
But the possibility of success doesn’t make this game any less treacherous.
If I could wager my life instead of hers, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I desperately wish it could be my life on the line. But my life has never been at risk, and it won’t be until I have a wife who bears me a son.
It’s every other life in Valehaven, in all of Faerie, that is at risk.
It sits wrong in my bones that the one person who has no life at stake must be the one making the moves for everyone who does. That I must wager my wife’s. I cannot even spare her from the game, despite that she is the reason I make my moves.
Darkness overtakes the garden as the sun dips below the trees.
Can I live with myself if I fail?
Can I live . . . if she dies?
Is it selfish to be as afraid of losing her as I am of the darkness that would follow it? To be condemned to a long life after losing my purpose?
It’s a question that terrifies me. A question I don’t want to answer.
But I need to know the answer.
My ears prick as the washroom door opens. Immediately, I stand.
“Close your eyes!” Stella calls from down the hallway. “If you’re to get the full effect, you can’t see me trying to fit through this hallway in all these skirts!”
My lungs tighten. I close my eyes and croak back: “Alright, then.”
“Are they closed? You better not be using fae trickery on me!”
My mouth twitches. “They’re closed.”
“Do you promise not to open them until I say? No games where they’re closed this second, but open the next?”
I cannot help but smile. “I promise not to open them until you tell me.”
“Don’t make me bargain with you. A tattoo would completely ruin my outfit.”
“I won’t look!” I insist, laughing despite myself. “If you don’t hurry, I might lose my balance with my eyes closed for so long and faceplant on the floor.”
“Always dramatic!” she huffs, and the sounds of rustling fabric reach my ears as she struggles to make it through the hallway. “This is the price I pay for marrying a clever fae who likes to outwit me.”
“It’s getting harder by the day,” I say, my eyes creasing upwards.
She lets out an unladylike harrumph! as she turns the corner, and it might be my new favorite sound of hers. “Harder to what?” she demands, sounding breathless as she enters the living quarters.
“To outwit you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying! If you were a fae, you could smell the truth in the air.” She’s quiet for a heartbeat longer than I expect, so I add, “I never said it was hard to outwit you, only that it grows more challenging by the day.”
Something sails through the air next to my face. I lift one eyebrow, keeping my eyes closed still. “Did . . . you just throw something at me? I shall not comment on your aim.”
Instinctively, I duck—just in time to dodge another missile. It hits the ground with a soft thump and rolls.
“Hold still and let me abuse you!” Stella demands, and it sounds like she’s waving her next object threateningly.
A chuckle rumbles through my chest. “I’m going to open my eyes now.”
“Wait, I have to get my face in a prettier expression!”
I draw in a deep breath, let it out in a gusting sigh. I tilt back my head impatiently. “Stella.”
“Fine, you can look!”
I open my eyes.
She stands before me in a color I’ve never seen on her—a dark, deep blue. The gown is lush, billowing, and yet not at all bombastic or pretentious. Frothy white layers peek through the skirt, making the entire dress look like a midnight ocean with rolling waves. It shines and sparkles as though the water’s surface reflects a myriad of stars above it. Her shoulders are bare, but the slightest shimmer on her arms betrays the thin gloves she wears of spider silk.
The most startling transformation of all, however, is the silver hair swept on top of her head in a crown and trailing to her elbows in long waves. A new tiara rests atop the elaborate style and glitters with dark sapphires and diamonds.
Her ears are not covered, as per my instruction, and there’s something about their rounded tips that always fascinates me and draws my attention to them.
But it’s hard to think about her ears when her big eyes are staring at me, lined with silver and tiny precious stones. Her lips are a warm lavender, highlighting her unusual human beauty yet mingling it with something entirely ethereal. It’s like she’s from another world—from beyond the Veil—and yet the smallest things like her downcast gaze and the fan of her lower lashes on her flushed cheeks ground her in enough reality that I know I’m not hallucinating her existence.
She goes blurry until all I see is one blob of midnight and silver.
“Oh, Ash!” she cries, rushing to me at once. “You’re not supposed to cry!”
I cannot deny my own tears without suffering a mouthful of iron, so I only offer a watery smile, catch her chin, and tilt her face up so I may kiss the tip of her nose.
“You’re thinking sad thoughts,” she whispers, her glittering eyes searching mine with that infinite gentleness. “You’re thinking about me dying.”
What’s the use in denying it?
She frowns. “You have the expression of a baleful hound dog hoping for scraps from under the table. It doesn’t suit how dashing you look. Shall I tell you the real reason I didn’t let you open your eyes for so long? I had to let myself admire you first. I couldn’t let you see how red my face had gotten when I walked in and saw you in your own dark blue tunic. Has anyone ever told you that those boots make your calves look so handsome?”
I grab the back of her neck and pull her into a kiss, pouring every one of my sorrows and the depths of my love for her into our kiss. My fingers thread into her hair, tightening as my brow furrows, and I kiss her harder, deeper, savoring every sweet second as if it will be our last.
When the kiss ends, we stay there, our foreheads pressed together and our open mouths only an inch apart.
“Ash,” she breathes.
“Stella,” I murmur in reply.
Then I pull back, try to smooth over any hair of hers I disrupted, and give her glittering cheek a caress with my thumb.
“Are you ready?”
She nods and tries to discretely wipe away a lone tear that threatens to smear her carefully applied paint. “And just like you said, not a shred of glamour. Not until the moment. Is everything ready?”
I pat my breast pocket, where a tiny vial rests against my heart. It seems to thump with my pulse, as though it knows exactly what it’s for. “Are you ready?”
Stella smiles at me, a slow, determined thing that, if he saw it now, would terrify the man she called Father. It gives me the rush of courage I need to take her hand and lead her out of the safety of our quarters.
She squeezes my hand. “Let’s go win a crown.”
I squeeze back, swallowing hard. I close my eyes briefly, and in the quiet of my mind, I remind myself why we’re doing this. Why I’m fighting with everything. It’s all for Stella, for the chance to spend the rest of my life with her. I need this moment. I need the strength it gives me to pull my old mask down over my face and face the world of Faerieland and High King Faradir.
Because tonight, I’m going to poison my wife.