Chapter 14 Khiona #3
“Nobody defied me,” I went on, “but nobody wanted to spend any more time with me than necessary for their own purposes. Winter fae sought my favor, other rulers offered treaties and bargains, but they were all for the same self-serving power game that I just happened to be winning.”
I met Andar’s gaze again. “And I was tired of it. It was cutthroat and meaningless. Who cared that I had conquered the kingdom? Nobody, unless it benefitted them somehow.”
If anyone could understand this, surely it would be this fae who had been subject to the whims of other people’s lusts for power during his imprisonment in the lamp.
Perhaps he would not judge me so harshly.
“I wanted out of the power struggle, but I could not escape it. Not as queen. But one day I found a human man roaming our woods. I thought he would not be so bound to the struggle for power and, in his freedom, he might grow to be my first true friend. I offered him everything. Anything he could ask for. In exchange, I wanted his public support and company during court events. He agreed, and I gave him a suite in the castle.”
Andar’s brows pinched. “Are you saying he chose to go with you willingly? With no coercion or deception?”
I shifted my attention to the wall behind the headboard. An amateur painting of a frozen lake hung above the bed. I studied the ice as I answered. “There may have been the smallest degree of deception.”
He chuckled. “Oh, Your Majesty. Don’t hold back now. What did you do?”
I folded my arms over the pillow and glared at him.
“He was upset about a grandparent’s death and originally went to the forest to try to relax.
He stumbled into our lands through a portal that he lost track of.
I offered him the use of my crystal magic—I can block troublesome emotions so they do not distress you—and he accepted it.
After that, it was only natural that he’d return to the palace with me to enjoy a life of luxury and satisfaction. ”
Andar folded his arms to match mine. “Your crystal magic only blocks troublesome emotions?”
I huffed. “All emotions are troublesome.”
He raised a brow. “All?”
I narrowed my eyes. “It might allow useful ones like anger and vengeance.”
“That’s what I thought.” He smirked and waved a hand at me. “Please continue.”
“Well, he was not interested in a relationship with me, but he was pleasant company, and I enjoyed having him around. At least… until his friend came.”
Andar lifted his head in a look that silently said, Ah, I see where this is going.
I explained anyway. “I’d blocked his emotions, so while he remembered that he’d been making plans to propose marriage to her, he couldn’t think of any reason why he’d go through with that.
Even when the young woman stormed into my court and demanded I free him, he wasn’t convinced.
I proposed a puzzle. If she could solve it, they’d both be free to go.
If not, she’d die and he’d be bound to my court forever.
It was a complicated bargain with several potential outcomes, so I tied my magic to the puzzle to make the bargain’s effects binding and immediate.
She agreed to my terms, and I knew I would win.
It was not a puzzle designed for a human to solve alone, and her friend was not interested in helping.
I was sure she would die. She’d already started to freeze when—”
My voice caught. I had been so sure she would die. I shook my head. “Sometimes people surprise us.”
Andar leaned across the bed with his hand extended again.
Surprised by his willingness to touch me after telling him all my weaknesses and cruelties, I set my hand in his. A heat ran from his fingers to my chest. Perhaps I hadn’t been so cruel. Anyone might have made a similar choice.
He squeezed my fingers, and I finished. “Something broke through my crystal magic’s block on his emotions.
Feelings overcame him, he rushed to help his lady love, and they solved my puzzle.
In completing a puzzle that I’d tied to my magic, they broke my hold on my own magic.
It backfired, shot me into the depths of the Kahunamon Mountains, and trapped me in that cavern until you came.
It was my own magic, and I couldn’t even get past it. ”
Andar nodded. “And now you intend to get revenge on the two humans for your confinement.”
“Yes.” I let go of his hand and straightened up. “I know I only have your help for that, but I should have plenty of time to deal with Prince Bylur after them.”
He shifted backward, sliding off the bed and standing on the ground. “Then our destination tomorrow is still the Summer Chasm?”
I resisted the urge to bite my lip. “I… guess so?”
He froze. “What do you mean by that?”
“I—” I had not been very honest, and it was time. He’d find out eventually, and better now than tomorrow. “Civa Exima is the farthest south I’ve ever been.”
His jaw fell a fraction of an inch before he snapped it back into place. “You said you wanted to travel to the autumn kingdoms to find the humans.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t have any idea where they are?”
I stood up, on the opposite side of the bed from him, and rose to my full height. “I’ve seen them on a map.”
An incredulous lilt tipped one side of his mouth. “So you’re looking for two humans who you suspect might be in one of the three autumn kingdoms—a realm you’ve never even been to before?”
I opened my mouth to form some kind of retort but closed it.
He was right. I was fighting blind. But I’d beaten insurmountable odds before.
“I know we need to go south to the Summer Chasm, cross it, and then head west until we hit the autumn courts. Since you’re from a summer kingdom, I figured you wouldn’t mind leading the way. ”
“I see.” He rubbed his forehead with one hand and waved at the bed with the other. “We’ll have a long day tomorrow. You should get some sleep.”
Sleep.
Two of us.
In one bed.
I hadn’t thought of this when I’d asked him to pretend to be my husband so I could get information about Prince Bylur. Or when we ate supper. Now it was all I could think of. Did he expect—
The magic around us dissipated, and he whispered, “The sound barrier is gone. I can’t monitor it while I sleep.”
I nodded dumbly. So he did expect to sleep—
He gathered up the armful of blankets and pillows he’d been leaning on and carried them across the room. I stared, jaw-dropped, as he dumped them on the floor on the far side of the table and arranged them into a make-shift bed.
My heart pounded. Did that mean he was giving me the bed? By myself? What would motivate him to do that?
Unspoken questions charged the air until he looked up from where he knelt on the blankets. “Sleep. You’ll want to be rested in the morning.”
I couldn’t call across the room because our guards would hear, but I could not take an offering like this. It would put me irreparably in his debt. I crossed the room and sank to my knees next to him on the blankets. “I cannot take the bed while I know you are sleeping on the floor.”
He fluffed a pillow. “You can.”
My heart pounded. Nobody had ever offered me a comfort at their own expense before. Not unless they expected to get something greater out of the arrangement. “I can’t. The debt would be too great.”
He didn’t even look up from the pillow he was arranging. “There would be no debt. You’re fine. Go to bed.”
“There would be!” My words came out in a strangled whisper. “If—”
“You and your fire-blasted debts!” He gripped a fistful of pillow and turned his fiery blue eyes on me. “There. Is. No. Debt. There is no room for deception in those words. We both need a place to sleep. I will be here. Do not waste the bed’s comfort.”
While my mind struggled to wrap itself around the enormity of his words, he made a shooing gesture at my knees. I retreated off his blankets and back to the bed.
There is no debt.
There is no room for deception in those words. He was right. Four words, as clear and absolute as possible. But…
Why?
I kept my clothes on in case anything happened and we needed to leave quickly, but as I slipped into bed, I threw my mind into every corner of any motivation I’d ever encountered. I couldn’t think of a good reason for Andar to give me the bed without demanding a payment. A debt. Anything.
It made no sense. My parents had taught me two lessons: Never allow yourself to be indebted to another. And enough power will get you anything you want. Those lessons had always served me well, but neither applied to Andar.
He didn’t care about my power. And he denied my debt.
A strange prick shook the walls around my emotions and stung my chest. Was it gratitude? Trying to break out and make me thankful for a kind gesture? Or guilt for the hard bed he slept on? Trying to squeeze out my effectiveness and limit my future ability to make decisions?
What did people usually do if they felt grateful? Or guilty? At least, people who hadn’t blocked their emotions with a magic layered around their heart like a crystal lattice?
Guilt probably pushed them to change their situations, but Andar wasn’t going to take the bed, no matter what I did.
And gratitude? I’d seen people express gratitude many times. Perhaps I could do that.
“Thank you,” I whispered into the darkness, testing the foreign words on my hesitant tongue.
A soft, “You’re welcome,” answered back, and the sting in my chest…
The sting faded, replaced by a pleasant warmth that spread across my heart and into my arms and hands.
A completely unexpected sensation—like a warm blanket. I didn’t need it—the cold had never bothered me—but I liked how it felt.
And I wanted to feel it again.