Chapter 20 Bylur
Istormed up to the table, drowning the meeting room in my shadows. Everyone froze. Well, their bodies froze. Their heart rates sped up.
While Auria had spent hours snuggled into my fur, I’d planned a way to weed out which of these two-faced nobles was really my enemy.
“As you all know by now, my wife was attacked by Lady Eris this morning.” They all responded with different expressions of sympathy, outrage, and sorrow, but I ignored them. Expressions could lie.
I turned to my best friend. “Dearan, did you send Eris to attack Auria?” A simple question. And I would ask them all.
“No,” he answered, straight-faced and somber. “I did not.” I expected nothing different.
Next to him, his sister’s eyes widened, surprised I would ask him such a question. But I began with him because I knew how he’d answer. I knew how she’d answer too, but I asked anyway. “Brielle, did you send Eris to attack Auria?”
“No, Bylur,” she whispered. “I would never.”
I leaned over the table at the next fae. “Dedalus, did you send Eris to attack Auria?”
He scowled at me. “I would be more justified than most in here. But no. I did not send Eris, nor will I attempt to hurt Auria at any point.” That was a stronger commitment than I’d expected from him. Perhaps this approach would have benefits beyond just identifying my traitor.
His sister was next. “Orla. Did you send Eris to attack Auria?” She was staring slack-jawed at her brother. Did she not know how he would be justified in such an attack?
She whipped her head back to mine. “No. I did not. I have tea with her every day. I like her more than I like most of the people in this room.” She narrowed her eyes.
“I want to find the perpetrator as much as you.” Dedalus spun to face her, his surprise nearly breaking my interrogation.
He did not know very much about his sister’s tea parties.
I moved on to Marcella, Taedo, Sadina, Soraya, and every other person in the room.
Twenty-one of the ruling nobility. And not one of them had sent Eris.
Half of them were offended at the question, and Ephaltes nearly lost his own composure.
But every one of them answered the question. And none of them could lie.
Defeat settled on me like mists in my grotto. I had to be missing something. Glaring around the table at them all, I slid into my chair.
Dedalus leaned forward on his elbows. “Does that mean you trust the people here enough to make a decision on the council?”
I clenched a fist. “I do not—” The next words froze on my tongue. I did not trust anyone. I never had. But—
I could not say the words.
Why weren’t they true?
Perhaps I trusted Dearan to not betray me, but that didn’t really mean I trusted him. No, if it came down to it, I expected him to pursue his interests over mine. We’d just been fortunate in having our interests always align.
This was more.
This was—
Auria.
I trusted her.
Her ill-planned thieving and easy lies and…
and I trusted her to tell me the truth. To protect my interests as much, sometimes even more, than her own.
Maybe she snuck away from guards and stole jewels, but she also confessed to cooks and broke into rooms to weed out traitors.
Just being here made her a target, but she’d taken that in stride and spied on meetings and tried to figure out my politics.
She’d kept her promises. She might be a mess, but she was my mess.
And she had done everything she could to help me since we’d met, even if some of those efforts were less effective than others.
My mind reeled around this revelation. The idea that I trusted the wife who was only meant to break my curse—
“You do not.” Dedalus’s statement drew me back. What was he talking about?
Oh. Me. I’d said that. “I do not trust anyone in this room enough to rule,” I adjusted. “That’s why I want to make the council.” I drummed the table. “I will confess, though, I am distracted tonight.”
Marcella, with a gentle smile that eased into her wrinkles, tapped the table also. “I move to vote on forming a council immediately. All in favor?” She raised her hand, and all but four of the fae at the table raised hands with her.
Of course. There were always three or four.
Ephaltes kept his hands both on the table. “I would like to find out who orchestrated my cousin’s death and remove them from this room before we create a council with a murderer.”
“Are you accusing one of us?” Dedalus growled.
Ephaltes clenched a fist. “Are you confessing?”
And so it began again.
But—
A crisp voice cleared her throat, and everyone turned to Marcella.
“I was hoping,” she said, “that perhaps we could come to a swift decision tonight to honor Eris. But since that is not an option, may I suggest instead that we take a break? Everyone should return to our rooms tonight and prepare for a ball in three nights. We can return to politics after that.”
What? A dozen voices echoed my confusion at the idea out loud.
Marcella’s smile grew. “Most of you are too young to deal with meetings for weeks on end.” She waved at me.
“Even our esteemed leader had to take a break and get married. I still haven’t met the new Lady Auria.
” She glanced at Orla. “She appears to be keeping company with some of our younger nobility, but the rest of us would like to meet her too. Surely we can postpone these meetings for a few days.”
She dipped her head toward Ephaltes. “It would also give House Fundan a chance to mourn Lady Eris.”
Ephaltes folded his arms. “A ball is hardly in harmony with mourning.”
Lady Holly broke her usual silence to comment.
“Nonsense. Fae have celebrated life on the toes of death for millenia. They are two sides of the same coin—life and death, sadness and celebration. I think it is a commendable idea.” She winked at Marcella.
“Some of the youth simply take themselves too seriously.”
A dozen conversations erupted suddenly, everyone discussing the idea with their neighbors. Most of their conversations turned excitedly toward plans very quickly, but I could not approve such an event. Not with my curse. If Auria saw my face—
Dearan knocked against the table, and everyone turned toward him. “I’m convinced, Lady Marcella,” he said with that ridiculous smile of his that made women adore him. “However, I’d like to suggest a masked ball. We haven’t had one of those in years, and I’ve always enjoyed the mystery.”
And there was the solution. I nodded at Dearan. Maybe I should trust him more too.