24. Isla
24
ISLA
I select a black dress, not a blue one.
One sewn in Luce, not in Glace.
I don’t feel like acting like Konstantin’s doll tonight. His earlier condescension about my apparently paltry manners has my talons lengthening and stabbing through the silky fabric.
“ Focá ,” I mutter, before deciding to work the holes to my advantage by carving a slit that goes from hipbone to hem. Though I wear tights beneath, they’re just sheer enough to reveal the edge of my underwear.
Perfect.
I smile like a raging loon as I picture Konstantin’s stern face and the horror that’s sure to cut across it. I take my unclassy appearance a step further by slapping on stripes that resemble a cheap masquerade mask. And then I fluff my hair with my fingers, not bothering to run a brush through it. I look positively frightening—demonic, even.
After one final twirl in front of my mirror, I return to my bedchamber. Reflexively, I peer up at the skylight to glean the time of day—manifestly pointless.
Mórrígan, how I miss home. More than ever tonight. I massage my breastbone as snowflake after snowflake nudges itself onto my domed window, obscuring the too-bright sky beyond.
I’m not his captive…I’m no one’s captive.
Resolve blights my glumness. I will leave Glace after supper. By dawn, I’ll be in Luce, breakfasting with my parents and Shoshair. Or I can hitch a ride on Naeva’s Shabbin-bound galleon and journey the rest of the way home with her and Lachlano. I’m so buoyed by my decision that when Konstantin knocks on my door a moment later, it’s with renewed enthusiasm that I join him.
As always, his hair has been gathered in an effortless knot.
As always, his suit is woven from such fine wool that the fabric appears pearlescent.
As always, the fur cloak that grips his shoulders is white, like his land and his coloring.
His mouth pinches as he takes in my getup. I wait for him to ask me to change, but the directive never comes.
Glaring at the wall behind my bed, he mutters, “You’ll want a cloak. It’s particularly brisk out tonight.”
I return to my walk-in closet to grab a black one, then meet him in the hallway. As we start down the long runner, I sidle close so that my murmur bangs into his ear but no one else’s.
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t give a single fuck if my appearance isn’t to your liking, or if it rubs your governors the wrong way. I will always harbor my heritage with pride, so don’t bother asking me to flounce around in pastels or wash my face, or Cauldron forbid, mask my feather. Not if you care for my enduring cooperation.”
He peers down at me. Yes, down. I should’ve worn stilts.
“I’m not sure what gave me the pleasure of being on the receiving end of that diatribe, but I’ve no qualms with your makeup or feather, yegma .”
Does he truly need to call me witch ? “Just with my dress then, fay ?”
“I would’ve preferred for you to be clad in my kingdom’s colors, but it is your body.”
“Funny that you wouldn’t care what I put on the outside of my body but care what goes inside.”
Loaded silence coils around us.
“After careful consideration, I’ve realized that I have no right to tell you what to do.” He clicks his fingers and calls out to Borat. “Please see that a bowl of birdseed and a pitcher of blood are brought to the Lodge.”
The sprite’s mouth rounds. “B-blood?”
“Do you have a preference for the source, Miss Ríhbiadh?” Konstantin’s expression is stone. “Faerie? Swine? Human?”
I don’t dignify his ridiculous query with an answer.
“Bring her a sampling of all three, as well as a thimble of sprite blood.”
Borat balks, then shudders, then blinks, brown skin glossed with perspiration.
“Best head to the kitchen immediately, Borat, so it arrives in time with our food.”
The look Borat flashes me before flitting away burns with disgust.
“I thought you were trying to get your people to like Crows?” I murmur, barely shifting my lips.
Konstantin says nothing, merely redirects his gaze to the path we’re walking.
My vindictiveness grows tenfold…a hundred-fold. Perhaps I will chug down that blood tonight. Might even spill some down my chin while doing it.
By the time we penetrate the Great Hall, I’m so fucking wound-up that I snap, “I’ll be leaving after dinner to visit my parents.”
The Ice King’s lids spasm. So does his jawbone.
“Would you prefer I head out now and spare you the embarrassment of my vulgarity?”
“Lucky for you, I give zero fucks what people think.”
“Yet you warn me to be on my best behavior?”
He stops walking and turns fully toward me. “Why are you angling for a fight?”
“Asks the man who just ordered me pitchers of blood,” I growl, just as Ilya’s voice rings against the stone.
“I almost demoted Salom to foot soldier earlier.”
Konstantin tugs his eyes off mine in slow motion, as though to make sure I absorbed every last ounce of his spite. “May I learn the reason for his narrowly-avoided demotion?”
“He interrupted a very pleasant rubdown to carp at me that I was late for a state dinner.”
After murdering Konstantin’s face with my striped glower a beat longer, I turn toward the affable brother, whose eyes crinkle at the sight of me, mostly with warmth but also with a touch of amusement.
As he kisses me on both cheeks, he murmurs, “Had a nice rubdown of your own I see?”
The eyebrow-waggle he shoots his brother leaves no doubt that he’s imputing my ragtag appearance to a torrid make-out session.
The tension that rigidifies Konstantin makes me grip his bicep and breathe out a tickled, “It’s hard to keep our hands off one another.”
The apple in Konstantin’s throat judders in time with the muscle beneath his sleeve. The one I’m currently digging my nails into extra-hard.
He doesn’t echo my sentiment, but he does unclasp his fingers from behind his back. “Let’s go.” As we climb the stairs behind Ilya, the Glacin monarch leans down to murmur, “I’d forgotten how mature twenty-four-year-olds could be.” His lips curve into a smile that is crisper than the air diving into the glass hub of the castle.
“You chose me, Vizosh.” My nails crease the fine wool of his suit. “I never chose you.”
My reminder kills his glee quicker than my father murders his enemies.
As we sled up the mountain, Konstantin keeps his stare locked on his land. He doesn’t even look at Ilya, who regales us with stories from his trip abroad—amatory escapades and all. I find myself laughing at many of his misadventures, while my fake husband-to-be sulks.
The Lodge, as well as the Serpent standing in wait, comes into view in no time. I sweep my face toward the bright sky, imagining his mate must be soaring above the woolen latticework of snow. How I wish Dádhi would’ve sent a funner pair to guard me, for Vance and Imogen are sterner than my fiancé. Which is undoubtedly the reason he picked them…
Ilya hops off the sleigh first, then holds out his hand to help me off. The instant my heels kiss the ground, he pulls away, then backs up to allow his sibling to climb down. Before I can take a step forward on my own, Konstantin’s palm claims the small of my back and guides me into the balmy lodge where attendants divest us of our cloaks.
I’m surprised to find Sofiya at the gathering—until I learn she accompanied her father, the Voshnan governor, because her mother has taken ill. Taken ill at the prospect of dining with me? Or a convenient excuse to push Sofiya into Konstantin’s arms?
Though Dimitri greets me with a kiss to the knuckles and a little bow of his head, I don’t miss the grimace straining his mouth. Because I’m a Crow? Because of tonight’s getup? Because he feels like I stole the crown from his daughter? And I don’t mean Milana…
“Are you acclimating to Glace well, Miss Ríhbiadh?” His conviviality feels forced.
I start to answer when I catch Sofiya kissing Konstantin on the cheek. I’m aware they’re family by marriage, but if anyone kissed my father—save for blood relatives—my mother would have an absolute fit.
I almost say something. A mate would. Except the Ice King’s not my mate. Also, Glacins aren’t familiar with our brand of possessiveness, so I bear it with a grin. The other females settle on curtsies and the lone male spouse sketches a bow, just like Konstantin’s governors.
Never one to lie, I finally reply to Dimitri’s query of my acclimation with the truth: “It’s been challenging.” Vague but accurate.
Konstantin shoots me a sideways glance as sharp as a sword’s point.
“Evening, Dadulya ,” Ilya says.
Dimitri’s face splits into a wide smile as he takes his grandson in his arms. “You’ve grown again. I swear it.”
Ilya laughs. “Or you’ve condensed.”
Dimitri lifts his pointy chin upholstered in days’ old growth. Though his hair is the same fiery red as Sofiya’s, it’s threaded through with so much white that it appears strawberry-blond.
“Condensed, you say?” He shakes his head but his green eyes glimmer with mirth.
“There goes your inheritance,” Sofiya quips.
Ilya juts his head toward his brother. “Good thing I’m Crown Prince.”
“Not to burst your bubble, but there are two Crown Princesses ahead of you,” Sofiya remarks while I observe their family dynamic.
“Neither wants the job nor the Crown. Something about their heads being too small for all that gold and all those diamonds, and my head being just the right size.” He adds a wink that makes several governors titter.
“Careful my ambitious boy doesn’t steal it off your head, Kostya.” Dimitri’s teasing comment gives me pause.
I’ve never doubted Ilya’s fraternal love, but love doesn’t preclude ambition. How far would he be willing to go to become king? Would he finance terrorism to unsettle his brother’s regime? Would he charm antimorphs with the promise never to marry a shifter? Would he collude with Lev to move weapons around the empire?
What of Alyona and Svyato’s daughter, though? What role does she play in his coup?
A thought slams into me with the force of a three-ton boulder. Mestyla wore her hair down in the prophecy. What if she did so in order to resemble her mother and make Konstantin believe Alyona resurrected? What if her ear points are only decoys to sell her disguise?
If Konstantin had had no prior knowledge of the girl’s existence, seeing an enemy risen from the dead would’ve bowled his world off its axis. Mestyla must be the ace that the enemy plans to use. Which would explain how she’s managed to stay hidden.
Because someone is hiding her.
Could it be Ilya?