39
Jeryn
In the dining hall, plants snaked through the gaping windows. Wedges of melon, plates of snapper filets, and pitchers of water occupied the table. Flames crackled from the seven-foot-tall fireplace because, despite the heat, we needed the light.
Poet and Briar sat across from us, their presence surreal. They’d set out for Summer under the cover of night, while the Autumn Court slept. Only Queen Avalea, that minstrel friend named Eliot, and Briar’s three ladies had known the reason, though they hadn’t been privy to the rainforest’s location. The jester, princess, and First Knight had kept that secret between them, intending to quest here first, to confirm Flare’s wellbeing and make certain I hadn’t chained her like an animal.
Witness accounts had spread across the Seasons. The Prince of Winter had chased a prisoner of the Fools Tower into a turbulent sea. As predicted, Winter and Summer had been searching ever since. Naturally after receiving Flare’s message, Poet and Briar had worried about what I’d do to her.
The group still regarded me with apprehension. They respected Flare’s choice, but that did not mean they agreed with it. In opposition to the merciful ethos of Autumn, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wished for me to remain exiled. This clan had no love for a ruler known to experiment on his captives.
In any event, the Autumn clan had protested the trio venturing here without backup, yet they’d remained behind for vital reasons. Her Majesty had a nation to lead, the others would tamp down any speculation about where the jester and princess had gone, and everyone needed to look after Poet and Briar’s son, Nicu. As a born soul, the child required a great deal of care. For that, his parents only trusted their allies, who’d become well-versed in the boy’s condition.
Aire had basic training in sea navigation. But the soldier’s connection to the elements had been the true advantage. Coupled with the butterfly who’d led them across the sea and Flare’s coded instructions, the group had managed to find us. While the butterfly had somehow known to fly to these ruins, Aire’s sensory perception—whatever the hell that meant—had done the rest.
A fanciful explanation. At least, to the latter. That I accepted Aire’s uncanny abilities rather than seek logical details suggested my intellect was lagging. Considering the explosion of heat that had blown the roof off my skull while fucking Flare, I wasn’t thinking straight.
Instead of joining us, Aire and Aspen stood guard near the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Poet lounged in his chair with exaggerated elegance. He draped an arm across the back of Briar’s seat, his glossy black fingernails toying with the end of her braid.
Flare and I had led our group on a tour from the vestibule, across verandas and colonnades, and up to the cupola roof. Along the way, we’d guided them through the medical chamber, the fountain room, the sleeping quarters, the textile cellar, the armory crypt, and the grotto with its caves.
Alongside Poet’s dubious frown, Briar scrutinized my countenance. Like a proper princess and a devoted friend, her composure teetered between decorum and destruction.
Their expressions make it clear. If you hurt her, your ass is ours.
I inclined my head. She would get to me first.
Seeing as I’d rip to pieces anyone who touched Flare, I appreciated the threat. However, they should not underestimate her own skills.
The couple read my expression, my declaration satisfying them. At which point, I realized they’d been testing me.
Having abandoned footwear, the stone floor cooled everyone’s bare feet. My little beast rested sideways in her chair and propped her legs atop my thighs. Possessively, I clamped one palm high over her limb, my blood heating from the gooseflesh that sprinted up her skin. A few more inches, and my fingers would reach her sweet cunt. But although my fingers twitched, I forced myself to behave.
We’d changed into appropriate attire. I had donned a shirt and Flare a short dress with fringes trailing across the hem, and she’d piled her dark waves loosely at the crown of her head. To be frank, I wanted to ruin her efforts, undo that hairstyle, shred those garments. If no one else were here, she would have been sprawled across the table by now, and I would have been scissoring those thighs apart while ripping more sounds from the back of her throat.
Seated opposite me, Poet’s features reflected dark amusement. Skilled in the art of debauchery, this scoundrel had gauged my thoughts.
Whatever. As if he wasn’t itching to get Briar alone, to take advantage of the sweltering atmosphere and do damage to the princess’s genteel sensibilities. With how often they fondled one another, those two wouldn’t last more than five minutes after this roundtable convened. And that calculation was me being ambitious.
Enjoying my annoyance, Poet got more comfortable and carded his fingers deeper into Briar’s plaited hair. “This humidity looks good on you,” he murmured to her, then jutted his chin toward Flare. “And you.”
Then he regarded me. “But not you.” Then swiftly, the prick reconsidered. “Though, it’s refreshing to see you without the pelt of an endangered species draped across your shoulders.”
I gave him an astringent look. “It had been peaceful until you got here.”
“Do I get a coin for every time you commit perjury?”
“Only if I get to stuff each coin down your throat until you lose the ability to converse.”
“You underestimate how much experience I have swallowing.”
Briar dropped her face into her palms. From another corner, Aspen’s snort traveled across the room. Standing at his post, Aire said nothing, but one didn’t need a microscope to see his capillaries were bursting. As for my little beast, she folded her mirthful lips together.
The continent knew of the jester’s unconditional fidelity to his wife. However, The Dark Seasons also knew of Poet’s extensive history prior to meeting Briar. Our lack of clothing aside, this whorish expert deduced what had occurred before Autumn docked ashore.
No. Flare and I had not been peaceful in the slightest.
“Indeed. We were fucking when you arrived,” I confirmed flatly. “End of discussion.”
“Popped your frozen cherry, did she?” Because Spring and Summer’s cultures spoke without censure, the motherfucker regarded Flare. “I hope the sex lasted longer than his replies.”
I would boil him alive someday. “It certainly lasted longer than your train of thought.”
“Be careful what you imply. Twisting words is my job.”
“Last I heard, a jester’s job was to tell a superficial joke.”
“Jokes keep us warm.”
“Furs keep us warmer.”
“Gentlemen,” Briar interrupted, lifting her regal head from her palms. “We didn’t travel all this way to do battle.”
Flare flapped her fingers toward Aire and Aspen, silently implying, Tell that to them.
The four of us twisted toward the knight and stowaway patrolling the area from opposite ends. Aire kept stealing glances Aspen’s way, his profile discomforted but attentive whenever she got too close to something remotely unsafe. An uneven stone. A shadow shaped like an insect. Yet he never cautioned her, likely because she wouldn’t take the chivalry well.
Briar caught onto Flare’s meaning and sighed. “Protective instincts. Guarding people is second nature for Aire, whereas Aspen constantly seeks to validate her independence. It’s admirable, though sometimes I worry they try too hard.” She gave me a concerned look. “In this climate, what else should we be concerned about, other than predators and the elements?”
“I’ll administer something to prevent infection for each of you,” I said. “It’s not a vaccine, but it’s the best I can do. In any case, I do not prognosticate prematurely.”
“Glad to hear it.” Poet’s voice thinned to a razor’s edge. “Though on behalf of many, I’d be happier to believe it.”
Across my lap, Flare’s limbs stiffened. There it was. After learning my family was doing well—I’d interrogated the jester and princess within moments of entering the ruins—and being updated on the current state of each Season, this discourse was overdue.
The beast and I had tackled many things in private, but not yet the subject of my intentions toward born souls. How I would move forward and what I would do. Had we been given more time alone, this would have been our next conversation.
I rubbed Flare’s thigh and spoke to our guests. “You’re expecting a proclamation.”
“We’re expecting a confirmation,” Poet solicited. “For a start, enlighten us. How did this—” he swung a finger between me and Flare, “—phenomenon happen?”
Because this clan had brought supplies, Flare took up a quill and paper, courtesy of the princess. That made it easier for her to communicate.
Offering an abridged version of what had transpired after Flare escaped, we described our time in the rainforest, from the moment we’d crashed here to the instant we spotted their ship. We also clarified how Flare could hear her own voice and that I possessed the same inexplicable skill. As to the reason for this, no one had a solid theory. Though, neither did they dwell for long, especially considering Aire’s unaccountable intuition.
In any case, Flare and I omitted the obvious. No need to inform this lot of how thoroughly and deeply I’d buried my cock inside her minutes prior to their arrival, to the point where I still felt her pussy clutching me.
It took a while for our audience to resurface from the tale, including the discovery that they sat amidst The Phantom Wild. By this point, Aire and Aspen had approached, the knight taking a seat beside Briar and the girl hopping onto the tabletop. The clan had been gazing in fascination at our surroundings, but now they marveled at the forest anew.
“So the legend is true,” Aire mused.
Briar grinned at Flare. “In the dungeon. You were drawing this landscape.”
“An image hidden within verse,” Poet intoned.
Flare beamed. After the women exchanged smiles, the princess folded her hands atop the table. “Flare has vouched for you. So educate us, Winter. What is your position these days?”
I switched my attention to Flare’s expectant face. “It does not align with Winter’s regarding born souls.” Then I transferred my gaze to the group. “That said, it’s complicated.”
“What is it with Royals and the word ‘complicated’?” Aspen huffed. “If there’s a job to do, then do it.”
“Leadership does not work that way,” Aire defended. “Navigating politics and society requires delicacy.”
“Politics, society, and delicacy can kiss my ass.”
The puritan knight grimaced. “Someone should chop off your vulgar tongue.”
The girl produced her axe and flipped it between her digits. “And what appendage do I get to take from you?”
As if he’d never spent time in Poet’s raunchy company, the soldier went crimson.
Briar shook her head. “We don’t have the luxury of disregarding certain structures and traditions just yet. However biased, disdainful, and ignorant some of those mindsets have become over history, avoiding carnage is paramount.”
To stress the point, I splayed my free fingers on the table. “It’s complicated because Autumn is the only court that doesn’t view any of its citizens as abnormal.”
“Because if they weren’t normal, they wouldn’t exist,” Poet bit out.
“An oversimplification, sadly.”
“Nay, a fact. You get off on facts, do you not? Allow me to provide you with more. Confinement nor brutality have helped. Science has not educated on this front. Nothing you’ve done has aided those whom you call ‘fools.’ Nature doesn’t make mistakes; however, humans do so with aplomb. For bigotry and violence come in many guises, as do goodness and innocence. Nature distinguishes us all, not merely some of us. Thus, our job is not to exclude ignorantly.”
“It’s to unite sagely,” Briar finished.
I leaned back in my chair. “If I’d been given a chance to finish, you might have heard me agree with you.”
The table fell quiet. This clan stood divided between those who looked at the matter viscerally. Flare, Poet, Aspen. Whereas the rest of us viewed this conflict through a pragmatic lens. Me, Briar, Aire.
Or perhaps the knight straddled that line. As did the princess, who exchanged meaningful looks with the jester. It did not take a mind reader to know they were thinking of their son—Nicu—who lived and breathed at the center of their consciousness. That accounted for Poet’s impassioned outburst. He was a skillful player, but for all his manipulative cunning and talent for deception, the man was also a father.
I clarified, “By oversimplification, I’m not referring to myself. I’m illustrating how others will view the matter. Your campaign benefits from prudence as well as spirit. But to sway Winter, one methodology is more viable than the other.”
A sheet of parchment slid in my periphery. My head veered toward Flare’s handwriting across the paper. If you could return today, would you?
Everyone craned their heads to read her question, then awaited my response.
I kept my face neutral. Because I knew Flare better than anyone here, I did not like where this line of questioning would lead.
Before I could formulate a response, Flare withdrew her limbs from my lap and straightened. You should leave , she wrote.
Indeed. I had seen that coming. Just as I saw her features struggling to remain intact, which wasn’t like her. Flare did not conceal her emotions. On the contrary, she flung them at the world.
Yet the only facet giving her away were those golden eyes, which shimmered with pain. The sight churned my stomach. I knew what she meant. With Autumn’s ship docked here, I had a chance to return, to incite widespread change.
And she was right. But for one problem.
I twisted in my chair to face her. The word dropped from my mouth like a stone. “No.”
Thunderstruck expressions surrounded us. They had not expected that from me. Regardless of my stance on the matter, an opportunity to go home had crashed onto my lap, yet I wasn’t taking it.
Flare’s tattooed throat bobbed. Her quill scribbled across the parchment. We talked about this.
“We did not talk about this,” I spat.
“If you stay, there will still be labs and dungeons and towers,” she rattled off, dismissing the paper entirely. “Innocent people will still be traded, locked in chains, marked with collars. If you go back to Winter, would you do something to stop that?”
Goddamn her. Since the shark attack, I had been questioning the treatment of born souls.
Had my court made the most of learning? Or had my people restricted it? What constituted madness? Some exhibited it more than others, but were the Seasons handling those complexities competently? Doing all they could to comprehend and classify them?
No, I had not expected to stay here indefinitely. Yes, I had been deliberating how to act on this subject.
Nonetheless, most of my time—seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months—I had only been thinking of Flare. Her plans. Her freedom. Everything beyond this woman had become secondary.
Flare gave our visitors an apologetic look and scripted an abbreviated version of her argument. By the time she finished, I recuperated my voice. “I would take the steps, as Autumn has done. But no court can change the world swiftly.”
My little beast compressed her lips and penned another response, for the benefit of everyone in attendance. Then you should start now, while Poet and Briar are here with available transport. You should go where you can make a difference.
“You’re saying I make no difference here,” I accused. “What about your quest? The key to your part in this crusade?”
Briar’s head flew from me to Flare. “What key?”
I’ll find it on my own, she wrote. Like I found this realm.
Hours ago, we’d been making those plans together. Hours ago, she’d gotten me to serve my feelings on a platter. Hours ago, I’d been fucking her like an addict, both of us succumbing to this chemical reaction.
Now she was pushing me away.
Flare held my gaze, her chin trembling. As I opened my mouth to raise hell, she turned to the group and wrote, When I’m ready, may I call on you?
“We’re a clan,” Briar said quietly. “You can always do that.”
Aire inclined his head. “You have my word as well.”
I’ll need transport to Summer’s mainland—
I hissed, “Flare.”
—where I can steal a boat. That is, if I haven’t already built one myself.
She scripted the rest at lightning speed. Her fated quest. The evasive key to fulfilling her role in this campaign, in liberating the born souls of Summer. How the answer resided in these ruins. That once she found it, she would need to leave this realm, to enact her purpose.
With the same expediency, I lost my shit. Internally, I wracked my brain for an alternative. One that didn’t involve me getting on that fucking conveyance. Not yet.
Winter and Summer were hunting for us. If they found Flare and me together, they would arrest her.
With the iron grip I had on Rhys, he would not lift a finger to my beast. Regardless of the mayhem she’d caused, the king would be an idiot to override my authority. And even if he did, the man would fail as he had in numerous other pursuits. Ultimately, I could bend Summer to my will.
But I could not bend Winter.
The court would expect its prince to treat Flare as I’d always treated born souls. To do otherwise would rouse speculation. Provided I found a way around that obstacle, citizens would resent Flare for shipwrecking their future king. They would retaliate, which meant not taking the risk to begin with. Although I would mutilate anyone who came near Flare, consequences be damned, the only way to protect her from my kingdom was to keep her away from it.
Poet and Briar could give Flare sanctuary, if she were willing to leave with them. But she’d made her feelings plain. While I could fling her over my shoulder and dump her on Autumn’s ship, I had stolen enough of her choices. All the Seasons had.
While Flare had more to offer than simply what the rainforest dictated, she needed to figure that out for herself. Finding a purpose in this crusade was her decision, her ambition, her right. I would not take that choice from her. But until the day Flare located that key and set forth on that mission …
“You cannot live here alone,” I seethed, cutting off the questions and answers jumping between all participants.
Flare’s quill scratched across the leaflet at lightning speed. I have my fauna pack. I’ll survive.
“I did not say survive .”
She slapped her palm down, splattering ink across the paper’s surface. Flipping over the page, she wrote, I’ve forgiven you once. But if you sacrifice the fates of more people just to keep me company, I won’t forgive you again!
My fist rammed into the table. “This isn’t about keeping you company! This is about more!”
Oxygen vacated the room. Aspen had leaped off the furnishing. Aire’s palm extended in front of her, as if to block the stowaway from getting caught in the crossfire of shouting. Briar’s compassionate gaze strayed between me and Flare. And Poet …
The jester reclined in his chair, with one arm resting over the princess’s seat. The other hand was draped over his mouth in contemplation. From above his knuckles, the man’s probing eyes absorbed the scene.
Flare’s orbs glistened. My objections wounded her. I could handle anything—except that.
If she asked, I would renounce my crown for this woman. Whatever it took to stay by her side. However many throats I had to slit. Whichever sacrifices I needed to make. But more than that, I would do as she wished.
And she was right. I thought of my family, my kingdom. As a ruler, I would also do this for them.
My insides buckled. Decision made, I leveled my gaze on the clan. “Winter will join your enterprise. I offer my allegiance to your cause.”
Silence. Obviously.
For the second—or perhaps third or fourth—time, these insurgents regarded me as if I’d peeled off my face and revealed someone different underneath.
All except Flare. Beside me, I felt the intensity of her gaze.
After a flabbergasted moment, Poet spoke to Briar. “Sweet Thorn, reply on my behalf. I do believe Winter has rendered me speechless.”
I reined in my irritation. “Is that humanly possible for anybody to achieve?”
“What about Winter’s experimentation?” Briar asked. “Your medical testing?”
“In the future, I will devise a plan to extinguish and supersede those practices.”
“It cannot be as elementary as that.”
“It is not.”
The health of this continent relied on Winter’s advancements. No society would sacrifice that benefit so easily, no matter what anyone thought of equality.
“In my court, humane methods of research will be complicated,” I affirmed.
“I know about treatments. I was raised by a healer,” Poet replied. “Humaneness isn’t complicated, Winter.”
I inclined my head. “And yet.”
Because the jester wasn’t naive, he capitulated and packed his own experiences into one word. “Alas.”
Precisely. Humaneness was not complicated. Getting my court to redefine and accept new practices was. To say nothing of redefining humanity, which necessitated both kingdoms’ cooperation.
Winter’s knowledge and Autumn’s empathy.
Winter’s science and Autumn’s sensitivity.
As for when to leave, I would not compromise. “I will go, but only when the opportunity is right. My return must overcome multiple impediments. Chiefly, I must ensure my arrival under no circumstances endangers Flare. And I must preserve the trust of my subjects without inciting suspicions about where my allegiance lies. Royals can’t take a shit without the court knowing the number of minutes we spend squatting. The concept of privacy is nonexistent, and I haven’t begun to reflect on how I’ll convince my queens of this venture. Therefore, planning takes time. Patience.”
“Aye,” Poet murmured. “Success takes even longer.”
“Until then, I have a proposal.”
Sarcasm flickered in those obscenely green oculi. “Should we be worried? The last time we negotiated with you, a knight lost one of his organs.”
“I’ll revise. This is not a deal, it’s a tactic. Autumn has taken the first step. Winter will take the second. In the interim, we must anticipate the opposition.”
Poet’s timbre hardened into granite. “Rhys.”
“But we dealt with him,” Briar contended. “He’s a ruined monarch.”
“More to the point, my wife brought the cocksucker to his knees.”
“Let us keep it that way,” I pressed. “My meeting with him left much to be desired.”
I recapped the conference in Rhys’s throne room. With his role reduced, the monarch had time to kill and ample hours in which to stew, a fact that could backfire once he finished licking his scrotum. Poet had all but mutilated the sovereign, Briar had humiliated him, Giselle had made his crimes public, and the Seasons had rejected him. Strip a person of everything, and all they had left were suicidal tendencies.
Poet tilted his head, unkempt layers of dark hair falling around his face. “The only thing more dangerous than a confident king with everything to lose, is a broken king with nothing to lose.”
“Unstable rulers go down quickly, but they do not stay down forever,” I forecasted. “He will revisit his vendetta.”
“Don’t fucking do that,” the jester growled, noticing the wince in Briar’s features and reading into its meaning. Clasping the side of her face, he urged, “This doesn’t mean you failed. On the contrary, Sweet Thorn. You walked through fire on Reaper’s Fest, inspired your subjects to stop the riot, reunited the nation, changed the fate of born souls, restored the court’s relationship with Spring, got Summer to kneel, and crushed his influence in Autumn like a fucking insect. None of that has changed, least of all your triumph.”
A small grin lifted Briar’s lips. “Our triumph.”
Poet smirked. “I do enjoy getting some credit. It gives me an excuse to brag. In any case, if the shithead doesn’t know how to stay down when it comes to the rest of this continent, we’ll remind him.”
Flare wrote on her leaflet. All of us will.
At which point, the tenacious princess nodded and leveled her chin. “Rhys will need an arsenal to exact retribution.”
“His Majesty may yet acquire such an advantage,” Aire predicted.
“Or someone else on his behalf,” Aspen added. “He’s done it before, but that doesn’t mean he ran out of minions. People like using other people.”
Especially if you get them angry enough, Flare testified.
My palms beaded with perspiration. “Which brings this discussion to what Rhys has on me.”
Gasping, Flare abandoned the quill and set her hand on my arm. At her touch, waves of heat rolled through my bloodstream. Until now, I had confessed this only to her. The gamble was extreme, but it had to be done.
Poet furrowed his brows, accurately recalling our talk in Autumn when he’d asked that precarious question. What does Summer have on you?
My hesitation motivated Briar. “Whatever secrets you keep, we can’t guard them without knowing what they are.”
I pinned my gaze on Flare, who nodded in encouragement. The confession sat on my tongue, then took a nosedive off the edge. “I am a born soul.”
All semblance of noise fled the room. No one spoke. No one breathed. While focusing on Flare, it came out in fragments, from the virus that stole my parent’s health, to the siren shark, to my condition.
Fear. Panic. Irrationality.
Terrified fits that sent me to the floor. Hunching over and venting to myself.
By the end of it, Briar’s hand covered her mouth. Poet’s lips had parted, shock numbing his tongue. Aire gaped, and Aspen peeked beneath her hood.
Flames from the hearth tossed an orange glow through the room. The meal sat untouched.
The princess swerved her gaze from me to the woman at my side. “Flare?”
In that tentative voice, the meaning was clear. I was a born soul, but what about Flare? Despite Summer branding her with a so-called “feral madness,” I’d long since dismissed that notion. Yet I also hadn’t perceived her actual condition, and based on Poet and Briar’s demeanors, they had trouble defining it as well.
Then again, having such a condition wasn’t the same as wearing a bandage. Unless the person displayed their behavior openly, as the jester and princess’s son did, everything was otherwise locked inside, where people couldn’t see it.
Pain, torment, and guilt flashed through Flare’s eyes. I had witnessed this happen on numerous occasions, starting with the day I’d cut into her arm, and we spoke about her past. There was more to the tale, details that plagued her, and I fucking hated seeing her deal with that. I wanted Flare to open up, but she hadn’t yet. Even now, she was not ready.
That much was evident when she swallowed and turned away. Briar and Poet watched Flare, seeming to draw the same conclusion. They cared, but they would not pry.
Instead, the princess offered Flare an understanding smile, then redirected her attention to me. “Your Highness. You have our support.”
“And our silence,” Poet assured me.
I frowned. So easily?
Their expressions spoke for themselves. They would not discount the horrors I had committed, but they would grant me leave to atone for them. Of all people, this group knew firsthand the gravity of such knowledge.
Poet and Briar, as parents of a born soul. Aire and Aspen, who appeared to harbor their own unspoken connections to the subject.
Their response disarmed me, anxiety draining from my veins. Grateful. Humbled. At length, I cleared my throat. “If Rhys learns of this, he’ll use it to harm my family, discredit the monarchy, and dismantle Winter. With my court in disarray, he could then seize the opportunity to go after Autumn.”
“There was a time when we believed he wouldn’t incite a war.” Aire’s gaze strayed to the abutting rainforest. “But if Winter suffered a breakdown in leadership, if civil unrest the likes of Reaper’s Fest were to occur there, and if Summer became unhinged with little left to risk, carnage across the continent would be likelier.”
Poet nodded grimly. “And bloodier.”
Flare needed time to find her key, assuming it existed here. I needed time to plot my return to Winter, including all contingencies. This clan needed time to establish a Seasonal alliance without causing an uproar. We also needed time to find out what Rhys would do next, to predict his moves and set up countermoves. The king needed time to either find out my secret or go on a delusional rampage once learning of Winter’s reformation and Autumn’s evident influence.
Who succeeded first remained to be seen. Thus, my idea. During the meeting with Rhys, he’d made a defensive comment that had stuck with me.
I have no other spawn.
Not that anyone would give a shit if Rhys was concealing illegitimate heirs. Certainly not enough for me to quote him. Although Summer’s queen didn’t deserve an adulterous husband, she barely tolerated the man, and technically infidelity wasn’t a ruinous crime in the eyes of their subjects.
Yet the thought prompted me to consider what else the king kept secret. This notion, I brought up to the group, which inspired a debate. A man with a penchant for spying was a man who believed every leader was like him. Dishonest. Traitorous. In his mind, all sovereigns had skeletons to bury. Hence, whatever he was hiding could be an effective weapon.
Flare took up the pen, knowing what I would suggest. He spied on everyone else once.
Briar’s features alighted. “So we spy on him back.”
“Correct,” I said. “With a notable player.”
Poet’s trickster gaze sharpened. And as the only Summer citizen present, Flare’s pupils blazed.
“Giselle,” they said in unison.
Yes. The queen would comply. Her spouse had done enough damage to their nation, and she would not tolerate another downfall purely because Rhys didn’t know when to quit. And although her stance on born souls remained the same, Giselle would hardly sanction a needless war.
We strategized. Poet and Briar had experience in court manipulation. They would appeal to Giselle, petitioning for Her Majesty to monitor her husband as a precaution, for stability’s sake. In fact, quite possibly the woman was already doing that.
In which case, the jester and princess would request to be informed. With the Reaper’s Fest riot still fresh in everyone’s consciousness, the queen would honor this obligation. All the while, Poet and Briar would leave me and Flare out of the equation. No one outside of these ruins could know our whereabouts.
The clever pair had already scheduled a conference with Giselle, on the pretense of maintaining civil relations. In case they were spotted at sea by Summer’s armada while enroute to the rainforest, they’d needed an excuse.
On the way back to Autumn, they would meet with the queen and set our plan into motion. Meanwhile, Flare beseeched Aire to check on her tower mates. Despite everyone’s protests, Aspen volunteered to sleuth among the guards. Apparently, the stowaway had a gruesome history of getting around troops. One that had involved the forced assassination and beheading of a knight, at the behest of Autumn’s Masters Guild.
Needless to say, a feud began in which Aire threatened to string Aspen by her ankles if it meant keeping her out of harm’s way. And although they valued her skills, Poet and Briar concurred due to the girl’s age and lack of formal training. To which, Aspen stormed to the opposite end of the chamber and resumed her patrol.
Hours passed. Shadows shifted across the walls, indicating somewhere close to midnight. When Briar yawned, Poet slid an arm around her shoulders.
I experienced a prickle of envy over their union. Choosing a mate of an unmatched rank or Season was prohibited. Only this couple had ever challenged that edict. None could impugn Poet’s magnetism and Briar’s tenacity. The jester declared himself without censure, while the princess exemplified a supreme force of will. As a Royal, she negotiated that fine line of being a radical and a ruler. They complemented one another, doing so freely, because fuck the naysayers.
My eyes clicked over to Flare, who peeked back from between her dark lashes. It had been too long since I feasted on the sight of her. Pinpricks of light flickered in her pupils, every look a blow to the chest. Her gaze shoved me back to the ocean, to the memory of her naked legs around me, my cock fucking the tight cleft of her body, and her moans firing into the sky.
Holding her. Pleasuring her.
Rarely did I venture that near to the tide. Yet at that moment, I hadn’t once thought of the siren shark.
Silhouettes shifted in our periphery. We glanced toward Poet and Briar, who watched us. Once not long ago, these two had found themselves at odds, their relationship all kinds of forbidden. They had experienced forced proximity, in addition to forced separation. Their affair had once been a secret, so they understood the emotional endurance it required.
Except their marriage was permanent. What Flare and I had was fleeting. This roundtable had reminded us of that.
Winter. Summer.
Eventually, we would leave this wild. Me, back to my court. Her, on a mission in this kingdom. We might be allied with the same clan, but we weren’t headed in the same direction.
Her gaze met mine—and she rose. The sudden movement scraped the chair legs across the floor. All heads swiveled her way as she quit the hall, muttering something about preparing rooms for everyone. Though from that angle, they wouldn’t have been able to read her lips.
Her absence dug a hole in my chest. I launched from my seat, intent on charging after her.
“Stay,” Briar intervened, peeling herself from Poet’s arms. “I will go.”
After gliding her palm across the jester’s shoulders, she gathered the writing instruments from the table and rushed after Flare. At once, Aspen wavered from her spot, then trotted in the princess’s wake.
The makings of another hiss cleaved up my throat. I did not like this arrangement. Flare’s torn expression had cut to the quick, and I wanted to be the one going after her.
Locking my jaw, I stalked to the windows overlooking the tropic forest. Bracing one hand on my hip, I glared at the tangle of trees. The other hand pressed hard into the adjoining wall, the only thing keeping me from launching after Flare. It did not matter where she went; every molecule in my body felt her presence in these ruins.
Poet materialized to my left, a single lazy shoulder propping against the dilapidated casing. Aire flanked the opposite side, setting his foot atop a stone bench, firelight sketching his bird-of-prey tattoos.
For a while, we watched The Phantom Wild.
At length, I brooded. “Out with it.”
As anticipated, Poet had more shit to say. His perceptive tone lowered. “So how much time do you really need?”
Fuck him. Fuck this jester and his shrewdness.
As for the knight who possessed his own ludicrous abilities, the man’s blue irises drew a similar conclusion.
I had claimed that planning a return to Winter would take time. I just hadn’t been truthful about the amount.
To make matters worse, a question chewed through my restraint. The last thing I wanted was advice from this man. Yet Winter understood the value of credibility, an advantage of which Poet had in spades.
Clearing my throat, I spoke around the rubble in my mouth. “When did you know?” At the jester’s confounded look, I flitted my eyes toward the door through which the princess had disappeared.
He arched an eyebrow. “Are you asking when I fell in love with Briar?”
An aggravated noise skidded from my chest. “Give me concrete facts. Not a maudlin verse.”
Instead of relishing this moment, Poet stared. There had been a time when he would have skewered me for getting near Flare. To say nothing of what his dagger would have done if I’d stood within a ten-mile radius of Briar.
This bastard excelled in peeling back one’s secrets, having mastered the intricacies of deception. He grasped when someone was in earnest and when they wore a disguise.
If I wasn’t being genuine, this jester would know. Somehow, the soldier to my right would as well.
Poet made his choice. Facing the vista, his eyes flashed with memories. “She enticed me the moment I spied on her during a welcome feast in Spring, as she stood amid public displays of fuckery with her head aloft, despite the fear she tried to conceal. She ruined me in a hall of mirrors when we sparred, her tongue as sharp as my own. She claimed me when she met my son. She seduced me in a garden maze where she danced, then in her Royal suite when I sank to my knees for her, and then in a library where we fantasized together. She broke me in a bell tower, after a shitstorm roundtable. She owned me when we committed treason, rescued my son, and got thrown in jail. She destroyed me on Lark’s Night, when we fucked until dawn, and she got me to shout until my lungs gave out.”
His words turned to silk. “I didn’t fall in love with Briar in a single moment. I fell hard over a thousand moments.”
He had one job. Facts without prose.
Then again, Flare was a romantic. She would admire his speech.
I wavered, feeling incompetent and hating to show it. “I was looking for a definitive moment of epiphany.”
Poet’s lips twitched. “I know.”
Aire scrubbed the back of his mottled neck. Noble. Straitlaced. I could guess which explicit part of Poet’s recitation had affected the knight’s complexion.
The amused jester knew this too. “Never fear. Your turn will come.”
Aire grunted. “If it does, I shall not be vocal about the effects.”
Poet swung his gaze toward me and mouthed, Liar.
Despite myself, my lips ticked sideways. Like Poet, this much I had learned. No one knew a damn thing until it happened to them.
Avians cawed, and mammals roared. Even at this late hour, a sauna would have been more comfortable.
The mood blackened as my thoughts returned to Poet’s earlier point. I spoke through my teeth. “I will not leave her.”
Not yet. I just … would not.
Conflicted, Aire observed me with a mixture of reproach and respect. “Few rulers choose devotion over duty. You are among them.”
I sliced my head toward him. “I gather you have some practice with that.”
“It is a simple truth, not based on firsthand experience. I’m not a monarch. And I have no devotions that surpass duty.”
“None despite your unearthly intuitions?” the jester countered.
The knight’s attention flickered toward the door where the women had exited, then he directed his gaze back to the forest. “My senses provide a service to others. Not to myself.”
My frown deepened. Regardless of what I believed about premonitions, he looked as if a bad omen weighed down his thoughts. But although the man had more to say, he remained quiet.
Poet contemplated his friend with a perceptive expression, then let the matter drop. Instead, he leaned deeper into the casing. “Heed this, Winter. Don’t think any of us will stop watching you. If you fuck up with Flare, I’ll shear the flesh from your bones. That is, after she and Briar are done with you.”
“Warning noted,” I stated. “And accepted.”
His probing features slanted my way. “You’ve changed, sweeting.”
“Is that a compliment?” I wondered.
“Nay.” His mouth quirked. “’Tis an alliance.”