Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The hallways of the sprawling palace I was supposed to call home echoed hollowly as I strode through them.
The stone felt colder than the last time I was here.
The empty space more oppressive. Wrathbane Palace wasn’t a place anyone might describe as homely but it had been the only one I’d ever known.
Now, I felt a sharper rejection in the icy embrace of its passageways than even my Crossborn status had provided me.
Though whether it was aimed at me or came from me was hard to tell.
Fae bowed as I passed. They didn’t mutter anymore, though I supposed they did when I was far from earshot.
What was it they whispered among themselves?
Did they praise me for capturing a Dragon for our kingdom?
Or did they curse me for finding a way into the position they’d always been so desperate to deny me?
They claimed I’d risen from the dead. Just another legend to add to my epitaph. And now I strode through echoing halls, living out the dream I’d worked so hard for, had sought to share so desperately with my sisters, but I found I didn’t want it anymore.
“Who’d have thought I’d gladly exchange this life for just another day of your bickering and sniping?” I mused to nothing and no one, the vial of blood hanging from my neck warming against my skin.
I liked to think they still stalked me in the dark, flanking me as always. Dalia and Moraine, my sisters in arms and all other aspects too. But when I turned, there was no one there. No hint of amusement in dark eyes or the start of a smile on a hardened mouth.
Alone as always.
No, not always.
A flash of steel-grey scales and eyes shot through with silver pressed into my mind and I swallowed against the intrusive thoughts that tried to follow.
There were far worse places a Dragon might find himself than in a tower of Stormfell, I reminded myself. He even had a view of the sky. It was no dank cave at least.
I kept walking, moving through the palace and heading for the ballroom, the clip of my boots on the polished floor echoing loudly until I felt like the sound itself was closing in around me.
Right, left, right, left.
The stairs loomed before me, the swish of my brocade skirt skimming around my thighs and adding a faint rustle to the racket of my steps.
Right, left, right, left.
I could make out the polite chatter and feigned laughter of the courtiers now, all of them prancing and parading, congratulating themselves on their mere existence.
Who would I exchange knowing smiles with in mockery of their bullshit?
Who would I creep away to a corner with so that we might drink too much of their expensive wine and ridicule everything about them from their boots to their hairstyles?
I’d been jealous of those courtiers once.
Deep down, beneath our mockery and sneering, I’d known that was the root of it.
We weren’t them and it rankled to be reminded of it so forcefully.
No matter how fully we proved ourselves in all the ways that should have counted, we were never going to be the same as those people.
Me most of all. But we had been the same as one another.
We’d had that comradery and nothing else had mattered besides it in comparison.
Of course that was when there was a we and not simply an I.
An ‘I’ shared everything with no one and nothing with everyone. And so it seemed I would remain.
The grand doors appeared ahead of me, guards posted on either side, ready to announce me and welcome me in as if I really was one of them, the lies painting themselves on top of one another so thickly that they almost appeared as truth.
At least until the paint cracked and gave sight of my monstrosity beneath.
Then they’d see me as they always had and I would stand alone as I surveyed them in kind…
My breaths came more shallowly. My pulse pounded wildly in my ears and suddenly I wasn’t striding for those doors anymore but turning, vaulting a low window and escaping into the relative silence of the decorative courtyard beyond it.
Relief rushed through me at my escape, the momentary reprieve a treasured thing. Just a moment to hide from the pressure of it all, just a moment to admit to myself that this place was even emptier than my heart which was a desolate and lonely thing indeed.
I pressed my back to the cold stone of the wall and angled my chin towards the heavens above, my fingers coiling around the vial which hung at my throat as I reached for them in every way I could, my heart twisting and splintering with their loss.
The backs of my eyes burned, my throat thickened and every doubt which clung to me grew claws and dug them in so tightly that I could scarcely breathe at all–
“Well, well, if it isn’t my brother’s prize plaything,” a low voice crooned and I stiffened, my moment of solitude shattered as my head snapped around and I found myself looking into the dark eyes of Evard Aquila.
Dragor’s youngest brother had always been the one of his siblings I was most wary of. Evard was cunning, prone to knowing secrets he had no business in discovering and often finding ways to win the king’s favour despite commanding the smallest of the four siblings’ armies.
He looked a lot like his brother, all three of the male heirs sharing that pale hair and those light blue eyes – though where Dragor was striking in his beauty, Evard had a roughness to his appearance, his jaw stronger, stubble clinging to it always, his eyes full of dark schemes which could only spell trouble for me.
My hand fell from the vial of blood I wore at my throat in a move I fought to make seem casual while the ghosts of my failures retreated into the shadows at my back where they so often lingered.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, my prince,” I said swiftly, finding the well-practiced court manners I only employed for royalty. My voice scraped roughly over the grief in my throat but Evard didn’t know me well enough to notice it.
I quickly nodded my head into a bow before making to turn away. But of course it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Evard caught my wrist and I stiffened as I turned to face him once more, his muscular body looming over mine in that way so many men enjoyed, like his bulk gave him some kind of power over me.
This was a dance I knew the steps to all too well, though kicking a prince in his manhood might just get me hanged so I couldn’t play it in the way I most preferred.
Instead, I turned to my more natural talents.
I smiled sweetly, like a preening courtier flattered by his attention and he snorted in amusement.
“I’ve watched you play this game before,” he said, releasing his hold on me. “Pretty smiles and dangerous eyes. If I’m not mistaken, you’re very much enjoying a little fantasy about my death while wearing that seductive look for me.”
“I spend all of my free time fantasising about death,” I assured him, my voice dripping with allure. “So don’t take it personally.”
Evard chuckled, moving closer instead of backing away. He was either very brave or very stupid. Or likely the arrogance born with his birthright made both the answer.
“Batting her eyelashes doesn’t work so she switches to threats.
Let me think, what would follow on next?
” He ran his fingers over his chin as if pondering then snapped them in my face and pointed at me.
“Got it. This has two different plays. If I was pretty much anyone else you’d switch to insults and likely draw a weapon, maybe embarrass me in front of my peers or challenge me to a brawl to scare me off. ”
My lips twitched at his assessment. “But as you’re not anyone else?
” I purred, reaching out to taste his desires and finding them difficult to discern.
He wanted something from me but this wasn’t lust or violence.
There was ambition to it but that was no surprise within the royal family.
All of the Aquila heirs were locked in a never ending fight for supremacy until their father declared an heir to his crown outright.
Evard smirked at me. “As I’m too important to kill and one of the only Fae here who you have no choice but to accept as your superior, you’ll fall into the perfect play of the ideal courtier.
You’ll say all the right things, bow your head low, smile and simper but all with that blazing look in your eyes which says your deference and respect isn’t something you’re truly giving.
That’s why Laurena hates you so much, you know?
She can see your contempt blazing in your eyes but our big brother shields you from reproach so she can’t do shit about it. ”
“Princess Laurena is a–”
“Bitch,” he cut in before I could spew some bullshit line about how devoted I was to the entire royal family.
I had to force my lips not to twitch into any semblance of a smile.
Even agreeing with him on that could see me whipped.
But disagreeing would mean challenging the word of a prince which could result in the same, so my only winning move was silence.
Prince Evard sighed when I failed to rise to the bait. I wouldn’t agree and wouldn’t contradict him either. He was right. I knew the rules to this game inside out and we could play it all evening if he insisted.
“What did my brother do to earn such unending loyalty from you?” he asked curiously.
A burning knot formed in my stomach at his words, a sense of guilt tying around my insides which I struggled to place before realising that the cause of it was that his accusation wasn’t true anymore. My loyalty to Prince Dragor wasn’t the thing it had once been. But I would never voice that aloud.