Chapter 13 #2
Roderick reached over and tapped the gold bracelet on my wrist. “It tells me where you are.” He frowned in contemplation. “I discovered it also tells me how you feel. When I felt your panic, I transported to that lake, but you were gone. It took me a little longer to trace you to the trolls’ camp.”
“Oh,” was all I could say. If he hadn’t decided to take action, I would have suffered a horrible fate.
After long moments of silence, I tentatively met his steady gaze from over the rim of my mug. “So if you felt how I feel, why didn’t you show up for the past month?”
“I assumed your ongoing distress was normal for what the king has been putting you through.” His eyes avoided mine, fixing at a point behind me. “I also didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“You would have been a far more welcome sight than the prince,” I admitted, sinking back in my chair.
His brows rose. “Why’s that?”
Irritation itched behind my ribs, sharpening my voice. “He was just so passive. He didn’t try to help me in any way, let alone stand up to his father. He just ignored me.”
He scoffed. “Men like him make a stand only against those deemed beneath them.”
“Herr Spitzohren,” I recalled. “Did he and his friends bother you?”
“His friends, mainly. He just didn’t stand up to them.”
“Is that part of the reason you wanted our firstborn as a hostage?”
He shook his head ruefully. “I may be a faerie, but I’m not petty. You know the purpose of our deal.”
I swallowed my mouthful of coffee, before I slowly said, “And what are you going to do now? Drop me back on their doorstep?”
He shook his head. “It’s starting to look like Wilhelm never intended to let you—or rather Gertrude—marry his son.”
“But that would have gone against his deal with King Ludwig and the alliance with Avongart.”
He waved that off with a disdainful flick of his hand. “I think old Wil has proven how easy it is for greed to cloud his senses, and how ready he was to go to war with your kingdom over it. Which is why I’m now debating what my next move should be.”
“Can you undo all of the gold I made him?” I wondered, hopeful.
“Not without exhausting myself to the point of irreversible collapse.”
I slumped in my seat, disappointed, the aches of my traumatic escape sinking deeper within me. “What else is there that can threaten him into giving us both what we want?”
Roderick leaned in, elbow on the table, chin in his palm. “What do we both want?”
It was at that moment that I realized both our initial plans and the parameters of our deal no longer applied.
I still spelled them out. “You getting citizenship rights for all faeries. And me getting the life Gertrude was promised.”
“You did get that life, and you hated it so much you threw yourself to the trolls,” he reminded me.
I flapped my hand around in a vague gesture. “I meant the life she would have had under a sane king.”
“That would have been possible if Heinrich was already king.”
“It’s a shame we can’t force him into abdicating,” I said with a dejected sigh.
Roderick remained quiet, eyes rolling up to the right in deep thought.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
He returned his gaze to mine. “I may not have a high opinion of Heinrich, but he would be far easier to deal with if he were king. He would do as I asked just to avoid any conflict with me, or with the fey who live here. The question is, what threat do I use on Wilhelm?”
I sat forward, heartbeat speeding up in rising hope.“Does it have to be a real threat? Can’t you convince him that you’d make all his gold, all his wealth even, disappear with your faerie magic?”
He hummed in consideration. “I could cast an illusion that makes it invisible. That would be much less taxing. But what happens when he, once again, threatens war against Avongart?”
“It depends. Are we approaching him with the same goal?”
“Why wouldn’t we pose a united front now that our goals are aligned?” Roderick looked me over, brows pulled together, before he exhaled. “You still don’t trust me.”
Logically, I knew I shouldn’t, not where realizing his goal was concerned. And I could argue that he’d helped me over and over because he needed me. But against everything caution was telling me, between the first time he’d saved me and now, I did trust him.
But I couldn’t tell him that.
So instead I said, “Can you blame me?”
He looked down into his mug. “No, I guess not.”
I almost blurted out something, anything that would wipe this look of disappointment from his face.
I bit my tongue, and mumbled, “So, we threaten to take away his gold in exchange for him abdicating. I marry Heinrich and convince him to sign an act for faerie rights into law, under the claim that our firstborn would be in danger, and everyone gets what they want.”
His lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Sounds like we have a plan.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What will happen to me then?”
Roderick set his hand over mine and my heart jumped, with a thrill I’d never felt from anyone else. Something I’d hoped to have felt for Heinrich, my alleged betrothed and would-be husband.
Looking deep into my eyes, he swore, “No matter how our plan turns out, I won’t let any harm come to you, never again.”
In that moment, I believed him. In that moment, I trusted him. With my future. With my life.