Chapter 17
Daisy
The cooling water lapped at Daisy’s neck, and her hair hung down the sides of her face. The rest of her body was submerged.
The contraptions from Eldric had shown up in Tarian’s chambers shortly after Daisy and the guys had sat down.
Lennox said Tarian must’ve visited Eldric right after he’d pried Glimrey out of their minds.
Only he could magically send things across the ward to his private quarters.
Daisy had wasted no time working with the apparatuses.
Twenty minutes in—or that was what it felt like; Tarian’s clock was a bunch of symbols she didn’t understand—and Niall had sent for Faelynn. Those contraptions gave no quarter. If she didn’t get it perfectly right, she got a shock or a head slam. Partial learning was not an option.
When she couldn’t take any more, she’d skulked off to the bath to twitch in peace. The shocking system had been slow to dissipate.
As the water cooled further and time trickled by, she thought about getting out. She should go back to training. Everything counted on her mastering the chalice magic. It was the only thing that would keep her alive in this court. She felt it. Hell, just today, she’d been given proof of it.
Before she’d fully decided, the soft light from the magical orbs positioned around the room dimmed as a figure loomed in the doorway. She sucked in a breath when she saw Tarian’s appearance.
Shadows pooled under his eyes, and his face was drawn with weariness.
His wild hair had frizzed, a bit of it matted at the side of his head with blood.
Blood splatter decorated his neck and had dripped down.
His tunic lay open, and the white undershirt was stained crimson all down his front.
It didn’t look like the blood had come from him.
His pants were ripped, and his boots were gone.
He leaned heavily against the doorframe.
“Hello, darling,” she teased. “Busy day at the office?”
His answering smile was slight, and he leaned his head against the frame as well.
“I had a few meetings that didn’t go as planned.
Then I had to track down that nutsack who nearly killed me last night and gruesomely claim my vengeance.
The last required a lot of effort, and I wasn’t really in the mood, but I had to send a message, so… ” He shrugged.
“You got it done?”
He held out his hands, indicating the blood.
“I would’ve rather gruesomely killed someone than what I was up to,” she murmured, then swished the water. “Want in, or do you have another life to expend by narrowly escaping an assassination attempt?”
“Another…life?”
“Yeah, like a cat. Nine lives?” She paused. “Do you have cats here?”
“Oh.” He pushed off the frame. “No, we don’t. We have something like it, but they feed on entrails. They aren’t as moody, but much more violent.” He looked down at himself and then at the water. “I should rinse off before I get in or I’ll get the water all gross.”
“We should drain it and put in more, anyway. It’s gotten cold.”
He shook his head as he ventured closer, his steps unsteady. He grabbed the edge of the copper tub, and slowly it began to heat, then faster. In a handful of moments, she had to hold up a hand and say, “Whoa, okay. That’s getting hot.”
He nodded quietly and began to strip as she called up the various magics in the human world that might be able to do something like that. There were fire elementals, of course. They could heat a body of water like this. Or just set her on fire, if they wanted to. A couple Ares magics could…
She let her thoughts drift as she noticed Tarian staring down at her, his bloodied shirt halfway off.
“What?” she asked.
“You look exhausted, you sound exhausted, yet your mind is forever whirring. How do you do it?”
“Oh. Well.” She dunked her head in the newly warm water. “I have a mind for information. If I wasn’t human, Eldric would recruit me for the scribe order.”
“You’d never pass.” He shrugged out of his pants and left them in a pile on the floor.
“Your humor is too dry. You’d tell sarcastic jokes, and they’d think you were saying facts.
You’d get accused of lying and eventually killed, since you can’t quit once you’re admitted.
In the meantime, the whole place would be in disarray. ”
“The whole place—have you seen Eldric’s mess of a library? There’s shit everywhere. He kept giving me looks when I stepped on discarded scrolls, but the floor was littered with them. It’s madness. I’m not super tidy, but that would drive me insane.”
“Yeah, he’s somewhat chaotic. It works for him, though. He’s one of the best. It’s why he moved into this kingdom.”
“The gods willed it.”
“Yes, they did.”
“To help you.”
“It seems so.”
She grunted. She had some things to say about that help, those gods, and this whole shitshow, but it was nothing new, and she was tired. There was no point in the anger.
“That’s about where I’m at, too,” he said at the basin in the corner. He filled it with water and started washing away the evidence of his day. “Just stay alive, get it done, and walk away.”
“Walk away? I thought you were going to offer your life for the betterment of the realm.”
“Yes. But walk away sounds much nicer.”
She had to agree there. Maybe she’d adopt the lingo.
He had a few gashes across his back and what looked like a stitched-up wound. A couple of those fights looked like they’d gotten too serious for comfort.
“The underbelly of this court doesn’t fight fair.” Red water ran down his toned muscles and taut skin. “They like to bring all their friends and attack in numbers. I’m wise to their antics, though.” He gave her a low-energy thumbs-up.
“Are you constantly battling when you’re here?” she asked as he finished up, leaving water all over the floor. She frowned at it, but it wasn’t her bathroom, so she didn’t say anything.
“It’ll dry,” he said, answering her anyway. “I couldn’t be bothered to sop it up. Lean forward. I’ll get in behind you.”
A wave of heat and butterflies rolled through her body, but the feeling subsided as her body twitched with a dart of lightning.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he slid his long legs on either side of her in the large bathtub. “Fuck, this is hot.”
She didn’t bother answering with words, but instead mentally replayed her afternoon and into the early evening.
“Hmm.” He sighed and leaned back, pulling her in tighter against him. “Seems like it hurts.”
“Yes, thank you. It does. Nice choice in contraptions to train me.”
“You’ll get it. The learning curve is only steep if you’re a dum-dum, and Eldric doesn’t think you are. High praise coming from someone who thinks humans spend most of their time drooling because they forget to shut their mouths.”
She shook with silent laughter. He laughed as well.
“No, I don’t spend all my time here fighting.
Usually, it is more politics and an occasional assassination.
And hiding from Princess Elamorna. This time is different.
The king is trying to settle things in preparation for going over the fringe, and I’m having to pry information out of certain individuals who won’t be missed.
I need to know what the king is planning without his knowing that I know.
He will try to use me and then destroy me, I’ve learned, which I’ve always suspected.
I need to do the opposite. Things are progressing quickly, and I’m running out of time.
Hence the long, blood-soaked days. Not to mention this court is badly twisted.
Worse, even, than when I left. I’ve never seen a group of fae so badly off.
It’s dangerous to all of Faerie. The Celestials have a lot to answer for. ”
“I thought it was the gods.”
He pulled her hair from around her neck and bent forward to kiss her jaw.
“My brother didn’t have the power to kill me on his own.
He made a deal with King Valanor—the king of this court—that the Celestials would turn a blind eye to what was going on here if the king helped set a trap for me.
The king went for it, and my brother delivered the deadly strike.
If not for the gods, I would’ve died. The rest, you know. ”
“Then the king was cool with your just taking up residence in his court even though he helped trap and nearly kill you?”
“Why wouldn’t he? He has the Ancestral Sevens Celestial at his beck and call.
He has a Celestial trapped in his court and forced to use his style of magic.
He knows how much that rankles one of my kind.
We represent the balance. The turning points of light and dark.
To be forced to use, solely, his shadowy power… ”
She was glad he couldn’t see her crooked grin. The Celestials had their fair share of arrogance, she’d say that much.
“Maybe try harder on that mind-shield device,” he said grumpily.
She laughed as he leaned back again, his head thunking against the edge of the tub.
“Regardless,” Tarian went on, “a god offered me to him. You don’t turn down a god’s favor.”
“That god is fucking him over, though.”
“Only if I can get my shit together, and let’s be honest, the verdict is still out on that.”
She traced her fingers over his knees. “What’s the ancestral magic of sevens?”
He rested his hands on her tummy, stroking softly, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The result of bad decision-making and a troubled past.”
“Sounds like what I’m doing with you.”
He leaned forward to kiss her bare shoulder. “My father is a seventh son. I am his seventh son.”
“What’s the significance of that?”