Chapter 57
I’ve never seen so many servants around. I didn’t even know Ash kept so many employed. But apparently there is a lot of clean up to do. When the missing footman finally returns from watching the celebration, I recognize him as Milton Andrews, the man who promised service to Ash in exchange for the rescue of his daughter from Listhra. He works harder than the rest, righting overturned furniture and scrubbing blood off the floor.
I’m propped up against the hallway doorframe amid the flurry of movement while Dottie draws a fresh bath for me. Ash left with Listhra’s body. I don’t know where he’s taking it, only that when the door opens and his broad shoulder and bowed head come into view, I’m greatly relieved.
He comes straight to me. Kneels before me, carefully cups my face.
“Are you alright?” we ask at the same time.
“Your shoulder?” I ask. Two dots of blood mar his beautiful tunic.
“It’s fine; it’ll heal quickly. You’re less gray,” he says. “That’s a good sign. Is your strength returning at all?”
By way of answer, I grab my skirts and tug them up enough to reveal one bare foot. I splay my toes for him. “I can do this.”
His serious expression cracks on the edges, his mouth twitching in a faint mimicry of a smile. “Impressive.”
“I’d show you my other foot, but the shoe is still on it. This one must have fallen off at some—”
He catches my face and claims my mouth in a bruising kiss. Servants bustle quietly behind his back, but it feels like I am in a cocoon of his desperate affection, shielded from all who wish me harm.
It takes every last ounce of my strength, but I lift my arm, thread my fingers through his hair at his temple. Telling him without words that I love him, that I am so grateful for how he protects me.
The water shuts off in the washroom. I open my eyes at the same time Ash does. The look he gives me—it takes me back to another world, another night, when he lifted my veil after our wedding and our gazes met for the first time. I smile.
“I love you,” Ash breathes, his voice giving out halfway through the sentence.
“My lady? Are you ready for your bath? Oh!” Dottie stops in her tracks when she sees Ash bent over me, and how close we are.
“She’s ready,” Ash replies easily, and the emotion choking his voice only a second ago is gone. “Would it help if I carried her?”
“Oh! Well, I . . . yes, yes, my lord. It would be of great help.”
Ash scoops me up as though I don’t weigh twice what I normally do in this gown. He takes me into the washroom with its tangled overgrowth along the walls, ceiling, and even floors. As soon as he crosses the threshold, he frowns, glancing around as if trying to decide where to put me.
“You should put me in the bath,” I say from where my head rests against the column of his neck. The bath is so sudsy and inviting, with steam coming off the top of the water. At this moment, it looks so relaxing I think I could drown in it and still be happy.
“Fully clothed? In your gown?” Ash tsks his tongue and kicks out a stool, dragging it with his foot toward us. He gently sets me on it, holding me up with his hands on my shoulders so I don’t pitch forward.
“Couldn’t you have given me poison that makes me extra strong?” I whine, hating how my limbs refuse to obey me, no matter how many mental commands I give them.
“I should have, shouldn’t I?” he replies, another hint of a smile in his voice. Then, letting me lean forward on one arm, he sets to undoing the tiny buttons down my back with one hand. My eyes widen in surprise. A hot flush climbs up my neck. I didn’t even think I could muster one while poisoned. Well, here we are!
Dottie enters and shuts the door, mumbling her thanks under her breath. She kneels in front of me, confiscates my last shoe, and then sets to taking down my elaborate updo. All while Ash steadily makes his way down the buttons lining my spine.
I’m not sure whether to be more grateful or embarrassed to have two people helping me undress. I think I would rather have it be two maids . . . or just Ash. Not this mix of Dottie and Ash. Because with each moment, I’m so aware of all the lines Ash and I haven’t crossed, lines that—if I’m honest—I long to. I want to discover what it is to be fully and completely his wife. Part of me is afraid I never will.
Ash reaches the last button, undoes it with a slip of his fingers. Then, to my shock, while Dottie is turned away setting hairpins on the counter, he runs his knuckles in a scalding line down my exposed spine. My breath snags. The heat in my cheeks redoubles.
Then she is back, and I try to not look like a naughty child caught stealing a forbidden cookie.
Behind me, I can almost feel the beginning of Ash’s smirk. I suppose if my tomato red face cheers him up, I can put up with feeling a little dizzy in addition to having no strength in my body.
She removes my gloves, and the moment she turns away to set them down, Ash leans forward and nibbles my ear. I barely restrain my gasp.
“Would it be best if I held her up so we can get the gown off?” Ash asks her.
“Yes, my lord. That would be easiest.”
A bolt of panic hits me, sharper than I expect. I’m not wearing much beneath this gown, and this isn’t how I want him to see me for the first time. I want him to see me when I feel beautiful, not when I can barely hold my head up and my skin is cast a horrible hue of gray.
“Let’s finish taking her hair down first,” Ash says. He probably feels how stiff I’ve gone against him. Perhaps he knows why, perhaps he doesn’t. But once all my hair is free from its pins and tiara and other decorations, he takes its long locks and arranges so it falls down my back and chest all the way to my hips.
He is discretely covering me so I will not feel so exposed.
My throat thickens.
He presses a kiss to the back of my head, then gently takes me under my armpits and lifts me enough off the stool so Dottie can shimmy the gown down my torso, hips, then legs. He sets me back down, and the stool is cool against the thin fabric of my undergarments. Self-consciously, I wrap my arms across my chest, only to find that my hair is doing a surprisingly good job of keeping me decent.
Dottie gathers the gown up in her arms and carries it out of the washroom.
For a moment, we’re left alone.
Ash’s breath caresses my ear as he leans close to me. “You have nothing to be afraid of, darling wife. I will not do anything against your will.”
“It’s not my will I’m concerned about!” I blurt, without thinking.
“Yes?” he prods, his tone almost painfully gentle.
Footsteps outside make me stiffen, and I barely have time to say: “I don’t want you to see me when I’m all gray!”
Then Dottie is back.
“If you wouldn’t mind lifting her once more, Highness,” she asks.
Ash obliges. I restrain a whimper when she strips off my undergarments and I’m left wearing nothing but my long silver hair. Except the next second, I’m swept up in Ash’s arms and lowered into the steaming bath and its mountains of bubbles.
The heat and privacy are more than enough to make my entire body go liquid with relief. Ash leans me back against the tub but keeps a secure grip under my arms, so I don’t slip beneath the surface and drown.
The silver of my hair leaks out into the water, making it shimmer like stardust. Dottie scrubs me while Ash keeps me upright. His forehead presses to the back of my neck. As though communicating both his affection through his touch and his assurance that he is not looking while my maid works.
It astounds me all over again—the way he loves me. The extent he goes to care for me, my feelings, my worries, my insecurities. It goes against reason that I could feel so safe with a prince of the fae. A man who broke someone’s neck not even an hour ago.
I love him. I really do. And I have a feeling that every day we have together, that love will only deepen. I hope I have the opportunity to look back on this moment one day and know that I love Ash more than I could have dreamed of now.
He and my maid work together to wash my hair until it’s back to its normal color. Ash gently pulls the length of it out of the tub and dries it with his magic while Dottie cleans my face of paint, glitter, and gemstones.
“I should be helping,” I mumble, even as I want to fall asleep with the feeling of Ash’s hands in my hair.
“You had one job tonight, which was to be poisoned and glamour yourself. You succeeded spectacularly.”
“Did you get the answers you were looking for?” I keep my question vague for the sake of the maid’s listening ears.
Ash goes quiet for a minute. Then, at last: “Yes.”
But it wasn’t the information he was hoping for. I can hear that much in the timbres of his voice.
“She’s finished, my lord,” Dottie says with a bow. She fetches a towel while my heart, which had calmed to a comfortable rhythm, skips five beats all in a row.
“I’ll close my eyes,” Ash whispers as she steps away. Then he drops his voice, and his lips curve against my earlobe. “Regretfully.”
I have no time for a retort, but the bath water is suddenly much too warm for my skin. Still too weak to rise on my own, Ash helps me to my feet and lifts me out of the tub. In the mirror I can see that he dutifully keeps his eyes closed while my maid dries me off and helps me into a lavender night dress.
“You are finished, my lady. Can I be of further assistance?” Dottie asks. Somehow, despite the work she has put into my appearance today, not a stitch of her starched apron or a single hair from her tight dark bun is out of place.
Ash opens his eyes, finds mine in the mirror’s reflection. “Thank you. I can take it from here.”
She bows and leaves, shutting the door to the washroom behind her.
In one fluid motion, Ash scoops me onto the counter. I gasp, surprised. At least I can hold my head up now, so I don’t fall forward when Ash leans over me. He plants a hand on the counter behind me so I can lean against his arm as he tilts my chin up.
His bright eyes study my parted lips, drift down to the gray skin of my neck and collarbones.
I wait, breathless, until his eyes lift to mine. His fingers let go of my chin, trail down my shoulder, my arm, until his warm hand comes to rest on my thigh. Still, he holds my gaze.
“I have always found you beautiful,” he says at last. “Always. From the moment I lifted your veil, I found you beautiful. I have no idea what flaw your father saw in you, but he was wrong. I understand why you don’t want me to see you like this—and I honor that. But Stella, nothing could mar your beauty. Not in my eyes. I thought you just as beautiful while you were ill as you were in a ballgown. As for tonight, you drank poison for me. For us. You’ve endured its effects like a warrior. Do not think I would look at you in disgust. Quite the contrary. When I look at you now . . .” His hand slides to my hip, tugs me closer to himself. The other hand on the counter shifts to my back and trails upward in a hot, tingling line. “I am almost afraid of how deeply I long to know and love all of you.”
His handsome face goes blurry in my vision. My lungs squeeze painfully tight, from the sweetness of his words and my frustration with our situation—that we should be married but still not fully each other’s—and my poisoned body for its weakness.
His fingers thread through my hair, tug my head back so my mouth is just below his. “But in moments of struggle, I try to remember that every sacrifice will be worth it in the end. Sometimes I cannot quite believe it, but if I let go of that belief . . .”
“It’ll be worth it. I know it will be,” I say as the tears clogging my vision slip down my cheek and Ash’s face comes back into focus.
He closes the distance between our mouths. Our souls collide with our lips, hungry and satisfied at once; full and empty both. He deepens the kiss as his hands caress my back, my waist, my leg. I close my eyes and let myself fall into him, knowing that at every turn, at every opportunity, he will choose me.
It’s the only true home I’ve ever known, and it is worth more than its weight in precious jewels.
He doesn’t stop kissing me as he picks me up and carries me to our bedroom.
He doesn’t stop when he lays me down, pulls the covers up to my chin. When he starts to withdraw, I find enough strength to push myself up, to wrap my arm around his neck and insist our lips don’t part.
“Oh Stella,” he groans. “You are making me lose my mind. And every shred of my will.”
Carefully, he scoots me toward the middle of the bed, then slips in beside me. The mattress dips from his weight, and then his arms come around me.
“I want you to tell me all of your secrets,” I whisper to him, snuggling closer. I don’t want to say the words aloud, but my gut twists, part of my soul insisting that this might be our last night together. I don’t want to waste a minute of it. “I want to know about the things you hide beneath the surface. The things you haven’t told anyone.”
The things you may never get another chance to tell me.
He is quiet for a few minutes, the tips of four fingers running up and down my back in gentle caresses. “Then I will bargain with you, wife.”
“Bargain?” I push up on my elbow, shooting a glower at his darkness-shrouded face. “I—”
Teeth flash back at me in a grin. “Put away your claws. I wish to bargain with you—a secret for a secret. I tell you one of mine. You tell me one of yours.”
I give a silent huff, then settle back against his chest, tucking my arms between us. “I don’t want a tattoo.”
He laughs. Playfully nuzzles his nose into my face. “We don’t have to make it a magically binding bargain. Shall I start?”
“You may.”
He chuckles again. “Very well. A secret I have told no one . . . hmm . . . Here’s one. Rahk and I became friends when he found me crying as a young child and pitied me.”
“Is he older than you?”
“He is. Though not by much. He cheered me up by standing on his hands and purposefully falling over.”
I giggle. “That’s adorable.”
“He would probably not appreciate me telling you.”
“I’ll be certain to blackmail him with it at the earliest opportunity.”
I yelp when Ash gives me a light pinch. “Behave,” he chides, amusement limning his voice. “Now it’s your turn.”
I give him another huff and a glare. He only smiles in return. “Fine. I was terrified of you when I first heard I was going to marry you.”
“That’s not a secret. Try again.”
I wrack my brain. Memories come back, of my father, my sisters. The way I could barely talk. How small I always felt. I never told Ash what I experienced while I was ill. It hadn’t felt relevant anymore. But perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that.
“One thing my father always thought important for my sisters and I to understand was that we were extensions of the crown. Bound to honor our people, to always seek their interests over our own. To sacrifice ourselves for them. And now, I see how well-meaning that goal was. How noble. Yet the means he used to teach us were . . . harsh.”
“I hate him,” Ash growls. His touch shifts ever so slightly, growing more protective as I speak. I doubt he even realizes it. I notice, however, and it soothes any lasting fear, any lingering pain from those memories.
“When we were each around seven or eight years old, he would take us down to the dungeon and lock us in a cell overnight. Then he’d leave us alone. To teach us how much we were required to sacrifice for our people.”
“He did that to you?” Ash growls a vicious curse, his hand in my hair clenching into a fist. “He locked you in a dungeon? I will gladly accept any opportunity to kill that man.”
For some reason, I was afraid saying the words out loud would make my heart race, my blood pound, my lungs constrict. Instead, I feel nothing. Nothing but a calm acceptance. It is part of my story. A difficult part, but one I have come to terms with. One I have overcome.
“I have another secret to tell you,” I say, instead of responding to Ash’s death threats. “When I was sick, I heard you.”
His fist in my hair unclenches slightly. “Heard me?”
“You sang to me. A lullaby your mother sang to you. I didn’t know it was you at first, but when I did, it gave me the strength to keep going.”
“You heard me singing to you?” Ash props himself up, and even though it’s too dark to see, I can almost feel the way his brow furrows.
“You have a beautiful voice,” I say with a smile.
“Oh, well . . .” He scratches his neck, as though embarrassed. “Thank you. I . . . Stella, I was so terrified I was going to lose you.” He tilts my chin up, kisses my mouth. “I was so afraid you weren’t going to wake up.”
I kiss him back. “It’s your turn now.”
He lets out a gust of a sigh that stirs my hair. Contemplates. Then, in a voice as thick as the shadows around us, he whispers: “I didn’t always hate my father. And he didn’t always hate me.”
I stay still, listening.
“I wouldn’t describe us as a happy family. That isn’t how things are among us fae usually. But we were together. Father, my mother, me. He didn’t love my mother, and he didn’t love me. Still, he thought my mother was beautiful, and he was proud when I defied her, or when I smart-mouthed members of his court as a child. In case you haven’t gathered, I was not well-behaved. I was, to put it frankly, a terror. But I loved my mother, no matter how difficult I made life for her. And I loved my father—held him in deep reverence.”
“Did it change when he . . . when he killed your mother?”
“The change happened long before that, actually. We have this board game called Fool’s Circle—I should teach you to play some time—and while you can learn the rules in a matter of minutes, it can take thousands of years to perfect strategy. Faradir taught me how to play when I was very young and took tremendous pleasure in regularly beating me in front of his court. He would pat me on the head and say, ‘Maybe next time, my boy.’ I was mostly happy to have his attention, even if he made sport of me. At some point, however, I decided I wanted to win for once. So, for an entire year, I searched high and low for clever opponents in the game, and played with them in secret. When Faradir called me to play him, I would lose on purpose, so he wouldn’t suspect anything until I was ready.
“Then, one day, I suddenly knew it was time. I waited until he called me. I played my usual role of the witless, enthusiastic son.” He lets out a long exhale, one made of sorrow. “I believed he would be so proud of me. But, as you can imagine, with so many subjects watching, Faradir did not want to lose. When I began winning, his demeanor changed. I remember looking at the way his brows pinched together and the sudden dread that filled me. I had messed up. He played with me because he enjoyed winning, and I realized I would rather still be able to play with him than win the game. So quickly, I pulled back. I maneuvered the game back in his favor. He won. But he still looked upset—even angry. He patted me on the head like always, said, ‘Maybe next time,’ and left.”
“Was there another time?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not once. Things changed between us after that. He never wanted to see me anymore, and when he did, it was always to criticize me. The more publicly he could humiliate me, the better.”
“You stopped being his son,” I say softly. “You became a threat. Someone who could outwit and outsmart him.”
Faradir never loved Ash. Ash was the prince, the tool, the heir to be molded into what served Faradir’s agenda the most. And when he stopped serving that agenda, he became a liability.
Ash shrugs, as if he doesn’t care, even though we both know the truth. “Your turn.”
I know what my next secret is, but the thought of it brings a flush of something like shame to my cheeks. I don’t want to admit to having lied to my husband, but things were different between us, and I was trying to survive in a world of people who wanted me dead. The shame vanishes like dew.
“I can smell lies,” I say without preamble. “I didn’t tell you before because—well, at first, I didn’t even know, and it caught me so off-guard I wasn’t sure what to do. Especially since it was you who lied to me. At the time, I decided not to tell you because I wasn’t sure if I could trust you.”
“I thought you could! I simply convinced myself I was making things up. You had that coughing fit, and I was nearly so excited—”
“Excited?” I demand, gaping at him. “Why would you be excited? You had just lied to me!”
“Because it meant you had magic! And I want you to know when people are lying to you. Even if it’s me—which, please forgive me for that lie. I only wanted to ease your fears, though I should not have lied to do so. But Great Kings, does this mean you can smell our lies but yours have no stench, no taste of their own?”
I nod.
“That is going to be an immense asset when you’re quee—” He cuts off abruptly. Swallows. I feel the sudden vulnerable flash of his gaze on me.
Queen.
He doesn’t have to say what we’re both thinking:
If we survive tomorrow.
If we win Ash’s throne tomorrow.
“I suppose . . . if we’re sharing secrets . . .” Ash trails off at first. He takes two knuckles, touches my ear, then traces a line down my neck to my shoulder, across my arm to my fingers. I close my eyes, leaning into his touch, listening to his voice as he speaks again. “I’m haunted by the fear of losing you. It has dogged my steps from the beginning, and in some ways, it is worse now—even with a plan. Even with the pieces carefully placed. What if we survive but fail to dethrone Faradir, and I am bound by blood to destroy the human lands? How could our relationship continue with that between us? How could you ever forgive me? And possibly the greater question: how could I forgive myself?
“But what if something goes wrong and I lose you? What if I cannot protect you from all who wish you harm? What then? In either case, how do we—or I—keep on living?” His voice breaks. He holds me to his chest, as though he can keep me here forever. Tucked away in his little corner of this dark world. “You are my life. So how could I live without you?”
I close my eyes, let the weight of his question—a question that clearly has plagued him for some time—fall over me like a blanket. Part of me wants to bask in the sweetness of what he is implying, or to reassure him that everything will go as planned tomorrow.
But I cannot do either. Because his question is one for the ages.
How can you go on living after tragedy?
I think carefully before I open my mouth. “Living with my family was very stressful. Marrying you was terrifying. It would have been easier, in that moment, to not have married you. I would have chosen that, if I’d had a choice. But marrying you was the best thing I’ve ever done. I discovered what it was to be loved. Even if this ends horribly, I will have no regrets. I would always choose to have weeks as your bride instead of decades as the wife of someone like Prince Brochfael.”
“You don’t mean that,” he murmurs against my hair, and the cheek he presses to my forehead is wet.
“I think you need to stop believing that I would have been better off if you’d never entered my life,” I reply firmly. “Because it’s not true. Do you remember who I was when you first met me? Do you remember how I could barely talk—much less about my own thoughts and ideas? Do you remember how I struggled to look you in the eye? When you showed up at my father’s doorstep, I was living a miserable life. Isabelle Louise never could have done the things I did today and yesterday. She was too afraid. I am better for having known you, Ash. Can you believe that? For me?”
He presses a teary kiss to my brow. The sound of his heavy breathing fills the silence between us. I lean into him, letting him feel my closeness, the honesty of my words. With my fingers, I trace his face, his long hair, his sensitive ears—making him shiver.
Then I whisper to him: “I think sometimes life takes us through dark times to get to the good times—the better times. And the goodness is so much sweeter for the hardship we endure.”
Ash lets out a short, low groan. One that is almost frustrated. “It doesn’t make me any less afraid of the darkness.”
I close my eyes against the rising tears, but I force my lips to part, my tongue to loosen, and my throat to open. I force myself to speak, no matter how difficult it is to say the words. “No, and when we’re in the depths of it, it’s hard to believe we will come out of it. But I tell you this so that if the darkness comes, part of you can remember . . . and believe. Because I know, Ash, I believe with all my soul, that there is always, always happiness on the other side of heartbreak.”
“If darkness comes,” Ash growls, and moonlight catches on his silent tears, making them glitter like stars, “then I will remember, and I will curse this memory, this moment, even as I treasure it. But if I ever did find happiness again, then maybe I will find my faith once more, and I will know that you were right. As you always are.”
His reply hits me like a salty wave against my ankles, insistent but gentle, stubborn and soft at once. Perhaps only some fears are meant to be overcome, while others are meant to be borne with dignity.
I tilt my face up to his, breathe out his name like a secret and a promise. “Trenian Ashrift Solavirth, I love you.”
“Isabelle Louise Stella Ashrift Solavirth,” he replies, taking my jaw in one of his large hands and guiding my lips to his, “you will forever enchant me.”
And so we trade secrets, kisses, fears, and hopes until the rays of Lulythinar’s dawn stream through the windows.