60
Aspen
Six months later.
At parties, something always broke. Whether a pricey glass or a fancy vase, the casualty inevitably went down, spilling glass or ceramic shards across the floor. But other things could shatter too. Things people couldn’t see, because they didn’t look closely enough.
My fingers clutched the gate bars. Between the intricate ironwork, I peeked into the maple pasture, where our band hosted a farewell revel.
Eliot played his lute, his eyes gleaming at a nobleman with dark skin and gray hair, who stared back with a smitten expression. After a slow burn courtship, the pair had been going hot and heavy ever since.
Meanwhile, the ladies threw back their heads and laughed.
Queen Avalea and Nicu ignited a lantern, letting it soar into the clouds.
In the shadows, Poet whispered dirty talk against Briar’s mouth, something pornographic based on how she curled into him.
Jeryn pinned Flare against a tree while she playfully dodged his kisses, making the king work for his snack.
Beneath an arbor, courtiers flocked around a knight, each of them wishing him well on the confidential Autumn mission to which he’d been assigned. At one point, the soldier grinned politely at something a lady said, his gesture staining her cheeks a fresh ballerina pink, the exchange containing enough sweetness to rot a person’s teeth. Such a perfect damsel, with a perfect hourglass figure and perfectly manicured fingers. Just like the rest of them.
It wasn’t the first time he’d attracted a fan club. Neither would it be the last. All of them would still be here when he returned from his crusade.
Poet had said it could take months. He’d also said it could be years.
My eyes stung, but I sucked it up. Like the Winter King had once guessed, tears hurt when they struck my flesh.
At that moment, Aire’s head lifted. For an entire thirty seconds, his eyes—the blue of a midnight sky—searched the pasture.
I clenched the bars, the husk inside my chest throbbing. I pretended that gaze sought a girl who wore a hood, that he could see through any barrier and find her, that she occupied a tiny corner of his mind.
Wishful thinking. Pipe dreams.
His gaze flickered in concern, failed to locate me, and returned to his audience.
My chest splintered like wood chips. Again, something always broke at these shindigs, but it wasn’t always the stuff others noticed.
Smoothing out the secondhand gown I’d saved up for, I released the bars. I’d been invited, had gotten dressed up for the occasion, but honesty? Because sure, I could be honest sometimes, I didn’t feel like tossing back shots of hard cider and getting shitfaced tonight. I’d only embarrass myself in front of him, and if my sloppy tongue went rogue, I might admit something I shouldn’t.
Below my sleeves, I glimpsed the wood grain and leaf pattern disfiguring my hands. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I arranged the cloak and shielded my features. Through the lower town and past The Wandering Fields, I trekked into the beech forest. In that amount of time, I broke a record and managed not to cry. Yay for me.
My mangled heart was another matter. At this rate, I’d need a hammer and a few nails to repair the damage.
Not three seconds into the woods, a voice cut through the night. “Do they suspect anything?”
I halted on the leaf-strewn avenue and ground my teeth. The asshole had arrived earlier than expected.
At his question, guilt and fury punctured my chest. I couldn’t do this anymore.
“Go fuck yourself, Majesty,” I grunted, moving to leave but yelping in pain when King Rhys seized my bicep and crushed it in his fist.
Wraithlike, the man popped from the shadows, his long-ass mustache blending like soot with his black robe. “Mutation,” he sneered. “You forget yourself. I’m a king, your superior, and I know where you live. I know where your mother sleeps, should you fail to cooperate. So let’s try this again. Do they suspect anything?”
I bit my tongue hard, leashing the words. But when I thought of Mother resting defenselessly at home, my voice forced its way through. “They don’t know about him.”
Him. That was all I’d gotten out of this dickhead, which was a lot more than I’d wagered. Why King Rhys kept an illegitimate heir a secret couldn’t be the spoils of a one-night stand. In Autumn, that would be a scandal. But in every other nation, this douchebag could denounce a bastard son.
So yep. Whomever Rhys had messed around with behind his wife’s back, the consequences had a sharper edge. Something shady as hell.
In any case, I was being only half-honest, since I couldn’t guarantee the clan didn’t know anything about the chink in Rhys’s armor. Poet might have already guessed. Briar too. They were the hardest to trick. Except Jeryn was the smartest, Flare the most imaginative, and Aire … he was the most intuitive.
Any of them could find out. At any time.
Whereas His Royal Dipshit had only pulled this skeleton from his closet because he didn’t think anyone would believe me if I publicized the news. And with my mother’s life in his grip, I wasn’t about to try.
Turned out, my axe stunt on Reaper’s Fest hadn’t been forgotten, when my weapon had pinned Rhys to the pyre. If I hadn’t possessed the skills he’d needed, this man would have committed his ten-thousandth war crime and already had me decapitated for humiliating him.
His eyes squinted like the pits of a spoiled fruit. “What else?”
Shit. Under his scrutiny, betrayal tasted like piss in my mouth. “They know about the Seasonal army.”
The king grated, “Then steer them in a different direction.”
I hate you. And I hate this. And I never asked for this. And I want out. I won’t let you hurt them. So help me, I’ll hack off your nuts with my axe first.
True. I was a first-rate liar. Even I bought that empty threat, at least for a second.
It hadn’t started out this way. I’d teamed up with the clan, then Rhys had cornered me six months ago by angling a blade at my mother’s heart while she’d been sleeping. Proving how easily he could get into our home without me realizing it, he’d dropped an ultimatum at my feet.
The problem was, deceiving the cleverest band of revolutionaries on the continent for much longer was going to be impossible. The only reason I had managed thus far was because I’d gotten lucky.
But luck eventually ran out. It always did.
Rhys cocked his inflated head. “Is there a problem?” And when I refused to answer, enlightenment glossed his pupils like slime. “Ah. The knight in shining armor.”
I made the mistake of stiffening. To which, he sneered. “You care about those filthy rebels, but him in particular. Foolish girl. He’s a grown man, a decade past your age, and a soldier of noble birth with a court full of admirers. In short, he’s out of your league. And what are you?” Rhys spat, chiding me for having the audacity to fantasize. “A penniless peasant with a heathen mother who should be in chains and a deformity too grotesque to show the world.”
My chin wobbled. Someday, I would be older. But as for the rest, Rhys’s snub burrowed in like the markings covering me from head to toe.
Yet if he wanted to rub salt into the wound, he could waste his precious time. Although that gash had widened into a crater over the years, I refused to be easy pickings.
Eyes watering, I raised my head beneath the hood.
Rhys tsked. “Pathetic little pauper. He will never look at you in any other way. The only thing you’re good for, is what I say you’re good for. Liar. Cheater. Killer. That’s what you are.”
Correction. That’s who the Masters groomed me to be. What’s more, this lazy-ass tyrant was now taking the credit, capitalizing on the fruits of dead people’s labor.
Pitting Rhys with my best eat-shit-and-die glare, I taunted, “Must be one hell of a scary prince you’ve created, for you to be this spooked about his existence. One would think he’s got power over you.”
Something unprecedented flashed in the king’s eyes. Something like fear … and shame.
Recovering from the sucker punch, Rhys gripped me hard enough to bruise. I gnashed my lips, repressing a cry as he leaned in. “However long it takes,” he threatened, his charbroiled breath hitting my ear. “Get it done.”
Then he slithered into the bushes, where his cult waited with a set of horses. Mist choked the trees, their golden leaves trembling.
That dickhead may have me temporarily under his thumb, but it wouldn’t last. It might take years, but I’d find a way to outsmart him one day. I’d beat this wanker of a king at his own game. Whatever I had to do, I’d protect my mother and the clan. Even if it meant keeping my enemy close, duping the people I cared about, and losing their trust.
I thought of my friends, who had embraced me, who’d been nice to me, who welcomed me into their circle. Like a masochist, I pictured their disgust if they ever found out. The expression on Aire’s face if he learned the truth.
Liar. Cheater. Killer.
Rhys hadn’t been wrong. But with all the names I had ever carried on my shoulders, he’d forgotten one.
Traitor.
***
Thank you for reading Jeryn & Flare’s spicy journey!
Aire and Aspen’s scorching story is coming in “LIE” (FOOLISH KINGDOMS #5)