Chapter 65
Stella’s tiny hands bang against the glass, her mouth moves—like she’s trying to shout to me, to tell me something. Not a sound escapes the globe.
The High King gives it a little toss. My stomach bottoms out. He catches it. Tosses it again. I swallow hard.
“Prince Rahk, it pains me that my son has brought you into this,” Faradir says. “I would hate for you to become collateral damage.”
Rahk, ever collected, executes a bow and replies, “I have no intention of becoming thus, High King. Thank you for your concern.”
Faradir gives Stella another toss. When he catches her again, her face is the color of murky seawater. She presses a bracing hand against the wall of the globe, the other to her stomach. “Suit yourself. Prince Trenian, I believe we have something to discuss.”
I itch to draw my blade, to send it hurtling through the air into Faradir’s heart. But he would be expecting that, and at any moment, he can smash the globe to the floor and kill Stella.
I must be careful about this.
“I believe we do, my High King,” I say. I do not give the false nonchalance and carelessness I usually wear. Instead, I’m serious, forthright. “What is it that you want from me?”
“Compliance.”
I draw in a breath through my teeth. “Compliance for what?”
“Everything.”
I nod slowly. “You wish to tell me you want something, and for me to say ‘Yes, Father,’ and go do it?”
Teeth glitter back at me. “Exactly.”
I narrow my eyes at him, take one step closer to him. To Stella in the palm of his hand. “Do you want that more or less than you want me dead?”
He thinks for a moment. Gives Stella another toss that sends my gut swooping once more. “Less.”
Rahk is doing his best to not react, but he blinks just a smidge too quickly at that. Many people know Faradir is corrupt. Few people know how deep his hatred truly runs.
Or perhaps . . . how deep his fear runs.
“Easier to start over with a new heir than risk this one turning on you,” I say, and take another step closer.
Pointed incisors gleam at me. “You understand.”
“I understand some,” I correct, tilting my head to one side. “But there are other things I do not understand. For example, why you have trapped my wife in a spell instead of killing her.”
Faradir shifts in his throne, sitting up instead of lounging. “Ah! That. Yes.” He takes the globe, brings it closer to his eye, and gives it a quick shake.
My blood pounds as Stella hits the roof of the globe, then falls back to the bottom . . . and stays there. My hands clench into fists. For a second, my vision goes black with fury. I breathe, count to five, and wait until the darkness clears and there is Faradir once more, sitting on his throne with his crown on his brow.
“I need her for a few things,” says Faradir. “One of which is your wedding. She’s going to be one of the witnesses.”
I blink. “My wedding?” My mind goes back to that bargain we made the day I went to the human lands for a bride. I wrack my brain for the exact wording of the bargain, for what I might have missed—
Great Kings.
Every drop of blood leaches from my face.
Faradir taps his chin. “I do believe the wording of the bargain specified you must be in possession of a wife by Lulythinar. And . . .” He looks up at the ceiling, where there is only the tiniest sliver of sky visible before the moon fills the skylight. “We’re only moments away from the deadline. Last I checked, you might be married, but I have possession of your wife.”
I barely keep my feet rooted to the floor instead of staggering backward.
Rahk’s head whips to the side even before a small door to our right opens, and two women enter.
One I barely even know. It’s Lady Iluna, the one friend of Listhra that Faradir didn’t kill. One of the women who tormented Stella. I may not know her, but I certainly hate her.
The other is the High King’s wife, and she shuffles with bunched shoulders to his throne. She bows and says the only words I’ve ever heard her say: “I brought her as you requested, my lord High King.”
“Let us begin the bonding at once!” declares the High King, standing and gesturing with a broad grin to me and Iluna. “Kneel before the throne, both of you. Trenian, I recommend you comply if you don’t want anything bad to happen to your human.” Then he frowns, glancing at his wife, still bowing at his feet. “Get up, woman. You’re dismissed. Three witnesses are more than enough.”
She does as he says, keeping her head down as she makes toward the door she just came through. Iluna kneels as bidden before the High King. I start to follow, my hands shaking, my mind spinning, my heart reeling. How did I miss that when we made the bargain?
In possession of a wife.
He put that clause in the bargain for this very reason: so he could trump and null my choice if he didn’t approve. And I didn’t—
Wait.
In possession of a wife.
I look up at the ceiling, the hairline crack of the moon counting down the seconds till midnight. Then I look at Stella, who is struggling to pull herself to her feet in Faradir’s globe. She meets my gaze, and her face softens, her brown eyes big and emotive as always. She mouths: “I love you.”
And in that moment, I want for nothing but to be deserving of that love.
I never should have shoved her away. Never should have let my fear get the better of me. I should have fought harder for her.
I will fight now.
Shoving to my feet, I break into a sprint, rip a small knife out of my belt, and throw it as hard as I can.
It thumps into the open door the High King’s queen is about to slip through, slamming it shut. I’m there a second later, grabbing the poor woman and yanking her back to the throne. She lets out a tiny, pitiful scream.
“Release her!” the High King bellows, marching down the steps to his throne. “Release her!”
“I don’t believe you specified whose wife I had to be in possession of at Lulythinar,” I growl.
Faradir reacts faster than I expect. One second, I hold his wife, the next I realize he intends to kill her in the last seconds before Lulythinar. But I lose my footing to either block the knife or throw Faradir’s wife out of the way.
A cry of pain splits the room.
It’s not a woman’s.
My shock stuns me for a second, and I do not realize what has just happened. Not until Iluna cries, “Prince Rahk!”
That’s when I see the knife in his shoulder, the tightness of his body at the pain.
I almost lose my grip on the queen, whose name no one knows. Rahk.
He threw himself in front of the blade. Not to spare the queen.
To spare me.
“Rahk!” I croak, shoving the queen behind me while I keep my grip tight on her arm. “Rahk!”
“I’m fine,” he grunts, breathing hard, lifting his iron cold eyes to where Faradir stands at the foot of his throne, an open-mouthed Stella clutched tightly in his hand.
At once, a slight burning bands around my wrist. I look down just in time to watch the broken crown tattoo disappear.
Then I look up to the ceiling, where the moon perfectly fills the skylight.
The bargain is fulfilled.
Faradir clenches his jaw, closes his eyes. Then he opens them in a flash, and for a second, deep voids of black stare back at me before they return to jewel blue. He swivels his attention from me to Rahk as he gets to his feet, his bloody hand pressed beneath the knife still in his shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Faradir says softly. “Your parents will never forgive me for what I’m now forced to do.”
I shove the queen away from me. “Get out of here,” I hiss at her. “And summon the Court.”
I don’t wait to make sure she’s going to be safe as she turns and runs as fast as she can, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. My hand finds my hilt.
Rahk lets go of his wound, backing up as he draws one of his swords. The High King shakes his head, as though mournfully. He yanks an axe from the array of golden weapons behind his throne.
“You have been so loyal, young prince,” Faradir says, his tone smooth as honey before it turns hard as rock. “Kneel before me and take your punishment like a man. Do not prove yourself a coward.”
“I do not see how protecting your queen constitutes disloyalty,” Rahk replies, blood dripping down his arm. His voice has only the barest quaver from the pain. He continues backing up slowly, making the High King follow him. “If you tell me what crime I have committed, I will submit to my punishment.”
“You have defied me,” Faradir hisses. “You and—”
He lets out a bloodcurdling scream as bright blue blood gushes onto the polished marble floor. My arcing sword clatters to the ground. I am already in motion, diving to catch the falling globe—and the hand still holding it—before it shatters.
I barely catch it, wrench Faradir’s severed hand from around it, and clutch the blood-smeared globe to my heart. “I’ve got you,” I whisper, hardly able to draw a full breath. This close, I can see the purple bruises ringing her tiny neck, marring her beautiful face. But her eyes are open, blinking at me—in horror, shock, perhaps—and her hands are braced against the edges of the globe. She mouths my name. “Forgive me for leaving you,” I tell her quickly, then shove her in my pocket and throw myself behind one of the pillars ringing the throne to dodge Faradir’s flying axe.
“You are the bane of my existence!” he roars at me. A blast of pure magic hurtles from his one remaining hand and hits the pillar, toppling it in seconds. I scramble out of the way of the blackened rubble, struggling to get my footing as blast after blast rains down on me. “I have never hated anyone so much as I hate you!”
The words ring true, and I am too busy trying not to die to be hurt by them. Rahk’s words echo my ear, telling me not to kill the High King. No matter how much I want to hurl my own magic right back at him.
Instead, I get up and run.
“Don’t run from me!” Faradir bellows as I sprint for the double doors. Rahk is already there, holding one open for me. “Don’t you dare run like a coward! Face me, you spineless spawn of mine!”
I keep running.
The doors to the throne room blast open from a shockwave that leaves them broken and smoking. Rahk ducks into another hallway while I take refuge behind the massive winged statue overgrown with greenery.
I cup the glass globe through the fabric of my tunic, say a prayer, and then the head is blasted off my statue.
My feet are in motion again. I long for my sword, but it’s gone, back in the throne room. Over the sound of my own loud breathing and the crashes from Faradir’s magic bolts, I can hear him chasing me.
I run into the first door I find, fling it open, and throw myself inside.
Everything is blue.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growl under my breath as my eyes land on a perfectly formed glass peacock lying in two pieces on the floor. The waterfall of blue silk partitions what was once Listhra’s reception room from her personal rooms. I haven’t even made it to that partition before the door is blasted down behind me.
I turn, panting.
The High King storms into the room through the smoking, blackened rubble of the door. His single fist glows with brilliant light, ready to decimate me.
“Do you enjoy being trapped like a dog?” Faradir snarls at me, striding toward me.
I stand on the threshold of that blue silk, my foot ready to take one step back. Waiting. Deliberating with myself.
I will not say his title. No matter how much my instinct screams for me to obey the law.
Not yet.
“You do not know how many times I have cursed that geas on the throne that prevents me from siring more than one heir,” says Faradir, slowly approaching with his one hand raised. Ready to end me.
“I know you hate me,” I pant. “I hate you too.”
Keep him distracted. Don’t say his title. Let him forget the law.
“It appears we’re even on that front, at least.” His stump of a wrist drips blue blood on the floor. It matches the aesthetic of the room.
I dare not let my hand stray to where Stella rests in my pocket. My heel inches back. My mind wars with itself, remembering Rahk’s demand. I clench my jaw. If I must make this sacrifice, then I swear by the Great Kings, it will be my last. “I didn’t always. I remember a time when I loved you.”
His teeth flash in an ugly, maniacal grin. “Well, I hated you the first moment I smelled you. You reeked of your mother.”
The lie fills my nostrils with iron. Neither of us flinches, but the truth remains exposed.
Faradir takes three aggressive steps toward me. Blood smears his face, stains his teeth as he speaks. “Tell me you are sorry for the misery you’ve wrought in my life, and perhaps I won’t kill you now.”
I hold my ground. Keep him distracted. “I know why you hate me.”
“Because you are a rebel to your core! You tried me as a child, and you have never once stopped to aid me, to strengthen our throne. All you have done is seek to weaken me. To weaken us.”
We’re only a foot apart now. I’m unarmed, and my magic alone cannot stand against his great well of power as High King. He holds a ball of magic in his one good fist, ready to annihilate me. His only heir. His key to a strong and peaceful reign.
“That’s just it, Father.” Now that we’re so close, so near destroying each other, I don’t have to shout. I can speak quietly, and he will hear. But the words don’t matter so much as the distraction. “You hate me because I am too much like you. Because I am a threat to you. You never wanted a son you could be proud of. You wanted a son you could control.”
Faradir’s good hand darts out. Searing heat grips my throat. I choke. Panic surges in my blood. I nearly retaliate, nearly react and summon my own magic.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Prince Trenian,” Faradir hisses just as I lift my heel. “But if you’re so determined to steal my throne, then I will steal yours.”
It’s only a split second. A split second for him to shove me aside as he throws himself across the threshold into the next room. A split second to realize that he intends to trick me exactly like I am trying to trick him. My mouth opens in sudden hope, the title bursting from my mouth in one last effort to save my throne: “High King!”
But it’s already too late. He’s already in the next room.
Immediately, I feel a well brimming with latent magic inside me—a well I wasn’t even aware of—wash away completely. I didn’t realize I would sense the loss so keenly. But I do. There’s no question now.
I broke a law of Valehaven. I did not address the High King upon entering a new room.
And now, I can never be High King.
I stagger to regain my balance, pulling myself into a defensive position. Except, it’s not necessary.
Faradir is on his hand and knees, eyes wide and bulging in their sockets, his usually silken hair wild and tangled. He feels it too. Blood stains his golden robes. Slowly, he lifts his face to me. “What did you do?”
A smile twists my lips as I reach into my pocket, and pull out the forgotten globe where Stella is busy kicking the glass to break it. “It seems you forgot I wasn’t the only person in the room. You failed to address my wife by her title. Congratulations: you are no longer the High King of Faerieland.”
I counter the blast of magic that comes flying my way, and the bolts collide in a blinding explosion between us. Stella doubles over, covering her eyes from the brightness. I hold her close to my breast, about to slip her back into my pocket so I can end Faradir once and for all.
But when the light clears, Faradir is gone. I’ll bet on my mother’s grave he’s going back to the throne room. That scene is going to be hideous.
First, I pull the globe out. I cover it with my other hand, growl a string of spells, and the glass vanishes like a puff of smoke. Light bursts from the tiny Stella, almost as blinding as the magic blast from a few seconds ago. Then she’s on her knees before me, back to her normal size, coughing and heaving.