Chapter 21
Sabine
Aguard knocks on my bedroom door. “Queen Sabine, the prisoner has asked to speak with you again.”
I’m cross-legged on the bed, bent over a stack of smooth gray pebbles on the quilt, trying to levitate them into a stack with fey alone.
At the interruption, they crash down.
I sigh.
“Not today,” I call to the guard, loud enough to hear through the door. “Or any day—be sure to tell Rian I said that.”
The guard hesitates. “Yes, Majesty.”
I pick the pebbles up, weighing them in my palm.
Rian has been locked in the Coffin for a week. Brackish water to drink and a pile of hay to sleep in. Like everyone else, I thought he would have broken by now. We’re talking about Rian Valvere, the privileged lord whose fine ass has rested on velvet pillows his whole life.
But he’s made of tougher stuff than he lets on.
He asks for me daily. Begs for me to speak to him. Basten has gone to the Coffin a few times to press him for information, though I suspect he really just wants to curse him black and blue. And of course, I get reports from Suri on Rian’s aggravating behavior behind bars.
But I can’t bring myself to go.
To be honest, I’m…scared.
Rian was easy to hate when he was a kingdom away. Things couldn’t have been clearer: he sold me out to my father in exchange for a crown. But his words still echo in my ears.
It was best for you to be where you belonged.
I can’t help but wonder, in the secrecy of my own mind, if he understands the world—understands me—better than almost anyone.
But then again, even if it’s true, does it matter? There is no world in which I would admit to Rian Valvere that he was right about anything.
I line up the pebbles and concentrate again, sparking fey to lift one a few inches—and the guard knocks again.
The pebble falls.
“What?” I growl, harsher than I intended.
The door opens, and it isn’t the guard this time.
Basten raises his eyebrows, keeping his distance in the doorway. “I wanted to let you know that Rian agreed to order his forces to surrender. We’re going to give the signal at first light tomorrow.”
I sit straighter, pushing my hair back. “That’s wonderful news.”
Basten keeps his hand on the doorknob. “We’ll have to see how it plays out. Hopefully, the sentinels will turn over their weapons and vacate the city peacefully.”
“But you suspect they won’t?”
“Let’s just say we need to be ready for anything.” His eyes fall to the untouched tray of brown bread and butter at the foot of the bed, and he sighs. “You need to eat, Sabine.”
Eat.
The fae hunger in me licks up with frenzied, sudden need. My eyes go to Basten’s neck as my mouth waters.
Drink drink drink.
I quickly lower my eyes and lift a shoulder. “I’m fine.”
His hand twists on the doorknob, as though he can’t make up his mind between entering or exiting. “You’re weak. Let me help you.”
DRINK DRINK DRINK.
The thirst for his blood—his breath, his life, his everything—roars so violently between my ears that I drop the pebbles, suddenly breathless.
“No,” I practically growl. “Leave me alone.”
I see the sting of rejection in his eyes, but I don’t have the strength to tell him the truth: that I’m afraid the next time I drink from him, I won’t be able to stop.
He’ll insist. It will turn into an argument, until we’re both at each other’s throats.
I sigh. “Sorry—I just…I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Sure, wildcat.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he leaves.
As soon as he’s gone, I slump forward, rubbing my temples. I hate this—the distance between us. All I want is for it to be like it was before, the two of us against any challenge.
“Lady Sabine.”
I jump a mile, hand flying to my chest to keep my lungs from exploding.
Woudix leans on the windowsill, toying with the fae needle in one gloved hand, with Hawk curled at his feet.
“Gods—you surprised me! How did you create a portal so quickly?”
My head whips back around toward the door, worried Basten might come back at any moment. Or that his nose will pick up on the fresh fae scent of iron and myrrh.
“I’ve had millennia to learn how to sew.” He stows the needle in his leather vest. “If you’re worried about privacy, I put up a shield. Like before, this visit remains between the two of us.”
He holds a finger to his lips, and guilt burns through me. I’m keeping secrets from my own husband.
“I’ve been practicing,” I start, motioning to the pebbles, but Woudix barely acknowledges my words.
His face is pinched, distracted.
“I didn’t come for your training. I have news to report from Drahallen Hall. Captain Tatarin was successful in finding Immortal Thracia’s resting place.”
My spine pulls straight in surprise. “You mean, her human body?”
He nods. “Her soul slept within the bloodline of a minor royal family along the northeastern coast. The body of a young, godkissed countess. The captain’s faction brought her to Immortal Vale, who awakened her.”
The Northeastern coast? It rings a bell, but I press on.
“And her Gloaming?” My hands shake against my corset strings, remembering when I went through the same agonizing process.
“Samaur is helping her through it, as I helped you. She is adjusting rapidly.”
Something twists in my stomach. Jealousy. That the transition is so much easier for the rest of the fae.
Woudix folds his arms tighter, the line between his brows deepening. His voice falls low. “Thracia woke from her slumber with a taste for war. She’s trying to convince your father and the rest of the court to dismiss the plan for a peaceful welcome to Astagnon. To invade instead.”
“What?” I climb off the bed and grip the bedpost for support. My heart slams in my chest. A dozen questions and protests fill my mouth, and I struggle to settle on one. “We had an agreement!
“Your father doubts your ability to bend public sentiment in time by the Blood Moon, and he grows impatient.”
“We’re making progress! The public has already embraced me. Look—” I snatch up the clay bird from the breakfast tray. “See? They give me offerings out of devotion, not fear.”
Woudix walks slowly to the map table, dragging his fingers over the carved countryside in relief, along the raised border wall.
“It is not me you must convince. This possibility deeply troubles me—hence why I am here. That much death all at once goes against the world’s balance.”
I sputter, “He can’t attack. Tell him…tell him the full fae court isn’t awake yet! There’s still Alyssantha. And Popelin. And Meric.”
Woudix’s fingers walk their way, feeling over the dips and rises, to the tiny model of Hekkelveld Castle.
“Alyssantha and Popelin are not among the more powerful fae. Their affinities are love and pleasure; hardly necessary for war. Meric is powerful,” he concedes, “but has always kept to himself. Traditionally, his resting place is the last found. It could take years more, and Vale grows impatient.”
I press my fingertips to my temples, where the fey pounds beneath my skin.
“Look.” I grab his wrist, squeezing tight. “This city is already in chaos. We have a plan to make the Golden Sentinels surrender, but even if we succeed, the people will be ravished, war-torn. They can’t take more violence.”
“Then what do you propose?” he says.
I release him, flexing my hand from where his fey chilled my own.
Then, I grab the kitchen maid’s clay bird.
“Give my father this,” I say urgently, pressing it into Woudix’s hands.
“Tell him that the maid who gave me this must have spent her last coin on the clay. That even tired and during a siege, she woke early to make it for me in the dark morning hours, by her last precious candlelight. That’s the power of true devotion.
Remind my father how much more sacrifice he’ll get from mortals when they offer it freely. ”
“And if he still doubts you?”
I harden my jaw. “You can assure him that I’ll have the public ready to eat out of his hand by the Blood Moon.
Acolytes lined up around the block. Banners rolled out just for him.
Events in their honor—games, theatrics, recreations of legends.
” I pause, seized by a crazy idea, and grab a handful of dirt out of a potted lily on the windowsill.
“I’ll strike a fae bargain swearing it so.”
Woudix’s eyes flash in warning. “Sabine…”
But I’m already speaking the words. “A pinch of earth to close the deal. What’s given now, the ground will seal.” I let the dirt fall between my fingers.
He taps his fingers on the table’s edge, one by one, with excruciating patience. “That may just be enough to sway your father.”
Then, he slips the clay bird into the inside of his coat and takes out a book instead.
“For your training.” He holds it out to me. “You are ready for the next level.”
I take the book. It feels old but is in good condition, wrapped in smooth calf leather—it feels practically alive in my hand.
He takes out the fae needle and moves his long fingers in the air, feeling for something unseen, and then stabs the needle into the fabric of space.
A beam of moonlight spills out—night has already fallen in the far north.
He pauses to look back at me. “I have my reasons for avoiding war—but I admit I am curious about your own. You’re Goddess of Nature. You care that much about the humans here?”
“Of course.” My throat tightens. “My husband is human. It’s only natural that I care about his kingdom.”
The silence stretches.
“His kingdom,” Woudix points out. “Not yours.”
My chest shrinks inward, suddenly starved for air. I force a few breaths, keeping my head high as Woudix finishes unstitching a portal, passes through, and seals it up.
Only then do I collapse against the table, slide to the floor, and hug the book to my chest to keep my hands from shaking.
I swore a fae bargain.
Which means I can’t fail—and I only know one person with a mind devious enough to come up with a bombproof plan to make the public adore a court of fae who could snuff them out with a snap of their fingers.
It’s time to pay Rian Valvere a midnight visit.
A secret one.