29. Isla
29
ISLA
I land and molt a second after I’ve dropped Sofiya at Konstantin’s feet.
He simmers with such fury that the air around his body trembles. At first, I’m the recipient of his anger. I’ve no need for a mental connection to figure out why. I heard him growl at me to stay put, but how could I, when our peeping Jane could’ve volatized herself by the time his guards went looking for her?
A small smile scoots itself onto my lips now that the threat—which was, in all honesty, not much of a threat—has been neutralized. “Do you still doubt your king’s affection for me, Sofiya, or was the scene you were privy to full of enough sparks to dispel your doubts?”
“Isla.” Konstantin’s sharp tone extinguishes my delight.
I suspect he’s about to reprimand me for alluding to what we were doing in front of his soldiers. I’m wrong. He’s holding out his hand.
For me.
Once I slot my fingers through his, he moves his stare onto the kneeling woman and snarls, “What were you doing on my roof, spying on my wife?”
There he goes again, calling me his wife . Granted, the Glacin term is slicker on the tongue than the more complex syllables that make up betrothed , but it does give me pause, since Konstantin Korol is a man who selects his words carefully. The male is clearly intent on tying me down.
Even now, aware of his fondness for me, I can’t help but wonder about his intentions. After all, he’s made it clear in the past that a stronger alliance with shifters would help solve his kingdom’s unrest.
Not the time to dwell on this, Isla… I give my head a small shake just as Imogen materializes out of thin air.
“What were you doing?” she queries in Crow.
“None of your business, Immy,” I murmur.
“Hmm.” Her dark eyes trawl over Konstantin’s unkempt appearance, over the smudges of black on the tip of his nose and apex of his jaw.
At least he’s zipped himself up, even though a tell-tale dampness darkens the fabric at his crotch that is—thankfully—partially hidden behind his untucked shirt front.
“Be careful,” is all Imogen adds, after examining my state.
I want to remind her that I’m not a child, that I’m a hundred percent in control of this situation, but I suppose that proving my maturity to a six-century-old woman is futile. In her eyes, like in my family’s, I’ll remain a little girl forever. Besides, her concern comes from a place of love.
“I will,” I end up saying—not only to appease her, but because my heart cannot afford to tangle around a man who isn’t my mate. The knots of such deep affection would weave into an impossible snarl that would be excruciating to snip.
Sofiya palms blood, diluted by tears, off her cheek, revealing a shallow gash. One that will never heal because my talons are made of iron and she’s Fae. It won’t kill her, though.
As Konstantin interrogates the whimpering Faerie, she whines, “Call for a healer. It burns .”
How she’d squealed when I’d snatched her midrun. The guards had drawn their swords, but not in her direction.
In mine.
Which is definitely a point I want to bring up with Konstantin later. Shouldn’t one of them have tried to bar Sofiya’s path? They were patrolling.
Granted, they hadn’t barred me the evening I tumbled down Konstantin’s skylight…
“Not until you answer all my fucking questions,” Konstantin growls.
“I’ll be scarred forever, Kostya. Have mercy.”
“Depending on your explanation, you might not have to fret about scars.” A cruel smile—one I’ve not seen on his handsome face before—warps his expression. “And please, do call me Vizosh. Now, what were you doing on my rooftop?”
She licks her lips. “I wanted to apologize to Isla for my earlier behavior. Since my promenade took me to her window, I went to check if she was still in Glace and perhaps still awake. I was about to knock when—” She grimaces. “When I realized she wasn’t alone.”
Konstantin turns to his soldiers. “Since when do you allow promenades on the roof of the castle?” he thunders.
I miss their murmured replies, because Imogen hisses, “Is that blood?”
I nod, assuming she means on Sofiya’s cheek, but then she’s plucking my arm and twisting it this way and that. It’s only then that I notice that my leather sleeve has been sliced open and that I am, in fact, bleeding.
“She lashed me with a vine,” I murmur in Serpent, preferring Konstantin not hear. Though I strongly dislike Sofiya, I also don’t wish her to be put to death for the sin of jealousy. As long as that’s the true reason she was up there.
Konstantin must have the same idea, for he’s having one of his guards sprinkle Sofiya’s tongue with salt. “What were you really doing on my rooftop, Sofiya Patchenkov?”
Tears are dribbling down her face now, pinkening when they trip over the gash.
“I wanted to—” Her throat clenches. “Apo—” She lowers her eyes to the boot tread blunting the snow next to her knees. “Apo—lo—” She grits her teeth.
“The word you’re seeking is evidently not apologize,” Konstantin says.
Her lashes, caked with mascara, close over tear-glossed green. “Father asked me to check if she was gone.”
“Why?” Konstantin snaps.
“I don’t know why. I don’t question my father. He just told me to make myself useful while he chatted with Salom.”
A frown descends upon Konstantin’s brow.
“He’s in your War Room,” she says.
“I’m aware, the same way I’m aware of the reason he’s there. Unlike you, Miss Patchenkov, I question people.”
“Can I see a healer, now? I’ve told you everything.”
“You told me under the influence of salt.” Konstantin nods to his guards. “Bring her inside and keep her isolated until her wound has healed.”
She gasps. “Kost—” At his frigid stare, she swaps his name for his title. “Without special poultices, it won’t heal.”
He squeezes my hand. “Accompany me to the War Room?”
Sofiya crawls forward. “Please. Please let me see a healer. I swear I will never spy or do anything for my father ever again. Please.” She reaches for Konstantin’s boot, but he backs up, and her hand tumbles into the snow. “I’ll become your spy!”
“Could be convenient,” Imogen says in Crow.
He stares down at the pitiful, groveling Faerie. Is he considering it?
“You could ask her for a bargain to call upon at a later date,” I muse.
His silence endures for so long that I think he won’t take my advice. I wouldn’t even fault him for it. He might like me, but that doesn’t mean he trusts me or desires my input. Lo and behold, the King of Glace heeds my counsel.
Once her bargain slips beneath his skin, he whirls.
“A blood sigil could heal her,” I murmur, still in Crow.
“She doesn’t deserve to be healed,” he mutters.
“Except she’ll only use the scar to further discredit shifters. Considering her circle, and reach within it, it could help us in the long run.”
His lips squeeze. When he glances over my shoulder at Imogen, I think he’s about to ask her to weigh in, but I’m wrong. “Why are you smiling?”
I twist around to find that Imogen is, in fact, smiling, but it’s a murky curve of lips.
“Because I can’t wait to hear Isla suggest painting a blood sigil on the Faerie’s cheek.” My Crow guard shrugs. “I suppose that if Miss Patchenkov does accept, there might be hope yet that she’ll stop regarding us as winged demons.”
Konstantin’s head bobs twice before he says, “Your call, Yegmenka .”
“Is Vance around?” I ask.
“He is… around .” The way Imogen says ‘around’ causes Konstantin to sling his gaze over the infinite whiteness that no black-eyed shifter is blunting. “He’s listening to the…conversations.”
Konstantin startles this time. “Salom’s requested?—”
Before he can finish his question, Imogen says, “No. Aodhan has.”
The news sharpens Konstantin’s jaw. Does Aodhan not trust Salom, or are they working as a tag team?
I offer healing to Sofiya. The absolute horror that reshapes her features has Imogen snickering. Unlike my sentry, it not only irks me that this vainglorious woman would choose disfigurement over the aid from her enemy, but it also dispirits me. For what does that say about Glacins warming up to our kind?
“Can I not see a true healer, Vizosh?”
“Blood-therapy is true healing,” I say.
“And shifters are true people,” Sofiya says with an eyeroll that levels out brusquely. She smacks a palm in front of her mouth.
“I’m always amazed at the effect of salt,” Imogen says. “May I ask her a question, Vizosh?”
He nods.
Imogen crouches in front of Sofiya, who recoils so fast, she ass-plants. “Do you think Alyona Korol’s killing was fair?”
“Of course it was! Vladimir was my brother-in-law. He made my sister happy.” Sofiya glances at Konstantin as though to check whether her answer has softened him.
It hasn’t.
“So, you hated Alyona?” Imogen asks.
“Yes.”
“And you love Konstantin?”
“Yes.”
Her affirmation shouldn’t bother me, but it does. “Is this truly necessary?”
“List all the things you love about him,” Imogen continues.
“His crown. His looks.”
Even though I wasn’t looking forward to the question, I wait with bated breath for Sofiya to bolster her superficial list with another trait, like his intelligence, his shrewdness, his…
“You don’t like my sense of humor?” Konstantin asks.
Sofiya says nothing. Either the salt has worn off or she doesn’t actually have an opinion on the matter.
Imogen looks over her shoulder at Konstantin. “You have one?”
Konstantin’s answering smile is as wicked as my own.
“His wit isn’t for everyone,” I say. “Much like your humor, Immy.”
Her brown eyes sparkle. “Vance enjoys my humor.”
“Ah…the beauty of mating bonds,” I muse. “Being endeared to your partner’s inherent flaws.”
Konstantin raises my hand to his mouth and brushes a kiss over my knuckles. “Is that why you find me so appealing, Miss Ríhbiadh?”
My cheeks warm, because we both know a mating bond has nothing to do with how appealing we find each other. Not to mention that I didn’t always find him appealing. Or did I? My stomach swoops as I realize that, even though he’s frustrated me often, I was still undeniably attracted to him.
“Last question before we let you go rest in your cell…” Imogen holds the moment in suspense.
“A cell?” Sofiya’s strident pitch carries Konstantin’s probing stare off mine.
“Actually, Imogen, I’ve changed my mind about keeping her in a cell.” He lets go of me and approaches Sofiya as Imogen backs up. “Stand.”
She totters to her feet like a toddler who’s just learned to walk.
“Before you go…” His neck bends, and he murmurs something to Sofiya that has her clumped lashes reeling. And then he swivels on his heel and traps my hand once again.
“I spoke with Aodhan a few minutes ago. He’s on his way home from Voshna,” Imogen says.
“Tell him to come find me the minute he lands.” And then Konstantin’s leading me down the stairs to his Throne Room, which is empty of tables tonight, but full of ornate pew benches upholstered in the same shade of azure as the spill of fabric behind the throne.
“What did you tell Sofiya that had her looking so frightened?” I ask him as we circumvent the fabric backdrop of the dais and trek toward a set of double-doors.
“I’ve magically tasked her to report—directly to me—all she sees or hears that concerns my family.”
“So, she’ll spy in spite of herself,” I murmur.
“Exactly.”
Brilliant.
He shoves open the doors with a burst of magic, revealing a grand room that reminds me of my father’s War Room in the Sky Kingdom, only paler and glitzier. Instead of ebony and stone-gray, this room is all flaxen wood, glass, and ice-blue velour with a vault-like door at the rear.
Funny that I’ve explored every inch of the capital and most of Voshna, but so little of the castle. Well, not funny per se. I haven’t mapped out the castle, because it felt wrong to poke around Konstantin’s domain. Also, I couldn’t imagine Svyato and Mestyla hiding within the palace walls.
“Kostya?” Salom startles from his king’s irruption but recovers fast and rises from his seat at the slab of glass that rests on a pedestal fashioned from giant silver snowflakes. “I was just about to come find you.”
Konstantin peers around the room, his gaze steadying on the vault door. Sure enough, a heartbeat sounds from that direction.
After a protracted beat of silence, the Ice King redirects his stare on the Faerie governor. “Sofiya’s waiting for you upstairs, Dimitri. She’s very impatient to depart for Voshna.”
I expect him to tack on a question about his reasons for sending her to spy, but he doesn’t. I suppose he’ll find out soon enough, seeing as she must report back to him. Or perhaps he doesn’t enquire because he already knows?
The instant the governor exits and the double doors seal behind him, Salom says, “Ksenia has been splitting her nights between her grandparents’ home and Zaslofsky’s. No sign of Mestyla in either, though. Dimitri even swore—under salt oath—that he’s never even heard the girl’s name mentioned.” Salom’s amber gaze sweeps to my hand, cradled in Konstantin’s. “All the governors have been informed to spread the news of our bounty to their High Fae comrades and goad them to share it amongst the servants.”
“They’ve all left?” Konstantin asks.
“Yes.” When Salom nods to the vault door, I presume he’s about to mention Vance, but instead, he says, “They boarded the train about a half hour ago. Ilya accompanied them.”
There’s a train inside the vault?
“Did Yuri have any interesting things to say about the Volkovs?”
The Volkovs… “Tiana doesn’t like them,” I volunteer.
“No one likes them,” Salom mutters brusquely.
“Save for Bohdan Zaslofsky,” I point out.
“They’re cousins,” he explains, even though I’m already aware of the family ties.
“The wardens allowed Sofiya to wander over the castle’s roof and peep through Isla’s bedchamber window.” Konstantin’s news widens his general’s stare. “Please deal with the necessary demotions, Salom.”
“Immediately.” He rises from his chair. “Should I deal with Sofiya as well?”
“I’ve already seen to that, but you might have to pacify your dear friend Patchenkov.” The tilt of Salom’s eyebrows has Konstantin adding, “She’s alive.”
Salom treads toward the door, short plait lying flat against his broad back. When he exits without mentioning Vance, it’s my eyebrows that slope.
Could he truly not have spotted the Serpent in the room? Sure, he’s invisible, but full-blooded Faeries have exceptional hearing. How did he miss the shifter’s presence? Have Salom’s senses dimmed with age? Then again, Bisnonno is decades older, and he doesn’t miss a thing.
As the door snicks shut, and the Fae’s footsteps peter out, I find myself wondering if Aodhan sent Vance to offer assistance to the general should one of the governors try something. Even though I cannot figure out what it is they could try… They may not like shifters, or Konstantin’s new laws, but they aren’t the ones behind the terror attacks.
Unless they’re abetting the insurgents?
Konstantin flicks his stare in the direction of the round door. “Care to explain why Aodhan would send you to spy on my general, Vance?”
Spy…
“Your brother-in-law is merely dotting all his ‘ i ’s.” Vance’s voice sounds a second before he appears.
“Salom’s like a father to me.” What of his earlier doubts?
“And Vladimir was a father to Alyona,” Vance points out.
“My sister betrayed our father!” My fiancé’s fury blazes through the air, catching on the leftover fumes of Patchenkov’s pungent cologne.
Vance folds his lips tight to rein back a retort. “Then you’ll be happy to learn that your general isn’t plotting your downfall.”
“Of course he’s not plotting my downfall!” Konstantin rages, ripping his hand from mine to toss it in the air in exasperation. “He hates my enemies with a vengeance that surpasses even mine.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep quiet on the matter. Even though I have no reason to doubt Salom, I can’t help but think of Costa Regio. He was loyal to the Crows…until he wasn’t.
“Please get out of here,” Konstantin growls, pulling out a chair and dropping onto it. “And make sure my general never finds out that Aodhan sent you to spy.”
Vance nods. As he makes his way toward the door, he paints the sigil for invisibility on his forehead and melts back into oblivion, and then he paints another sigil to slip through the door.
Konstantin sits and reaches for me, easing me onto his lap.
He winds his arms around my middle and nestles his face in the crook of my neck. “Stay with me until Aodhan arrives?”
I twist my fingers through his hair. “Of course.”
He inhales deeply, and then his head is rearing back. “What the fuck happened to your arm?”
“Nothing.”
“I smell blood.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
He gently props my arm up and parts my leather sleeve with two fingers. “Who fucking scratched you?”
“I’ll heal in no time.”
“That’s not what I asked!” Clouds of rage gather in his expression. “If this is Sofiya’s doing, I will?—”
“You’ll do nothing. You’ll preserve her as a mole.” I pull my arm out of his grip, then palm his ticking cheek and press a kiss to his rigid lips. And I don’t pull away until his mouth has softened and other parts of him have hardened.
After a stretch of tranquility, he disconnects our mouths. “I know you want to go home, but could you stay in Glace a while longer?”
“When does winter commence?”
“True winter? In two months’ time.”
“Then I’ll stay for a few more tomorrows.”
The relief that washes over him is so potent, it seems to drain him of anger. “Thank you.” He kisses my throat, then murmurs another hoarse, “Thank you.”
I skim his ear, making him shudder. “You have a train behind the vault door?”
“Are you trying to seduce state secrets out of me, Miss Ríhbiadh?”
“Absolutely.” I smile.
With a devilish grin of his own, he stands and sets me on my feet, and then he tugs me around the glass table, spinning the metal wheel with a flare of magic. The vault’s locking pins disengage with a series of soft metal clanks. Another bolt of air makes the heavy door groan on its thick hinges.
As we step over the raised threshold, Konstantin gestures to the dusky tracks that gleam like twin blades against the dark earth beneath, and the long chrome tube sitting beside them on another row of tracks.
“My grandfather built this escape hatch during his reign and filled it with sleighs on wheels. That’s where my father first got the idea for trains. I used to fight him on the construction of the tunnel system because of the toll it took on the human workers, but I’m the first to admit that it was visionary.”
“Where does this tunnel lead?”
“To a top-secret hub inside one of our mountains.”
“Mustn’t be so top-secret if your governors know where it is.”
“They don’t. Upon entering the wagon, they’re temporarily put to sleep with a haze of slumbering gas, then awakened once they reach the main hub inside the White Fang.”
“A sleeping haze? Is it very toxic?”
“Only in high doses, and only to humans.”
He must grasp me thinking of Tiana, because he says, “There’s no lasting hallucinogenic effect on half-bloods. It’s been extensively tested.”
I don’t ask on who, reticent to learn that they’ve trialed the toxin on animals or humans, even though it’s probably the case.
“Want a peek inside?”
“Of course.”
He squeezes my hand and tows me toward the gleaming wagon that’s as sleek as the bullets which have cropped into existence in recent months. A press of his finger against a large glowing button unseals a sliding metal door. Where the outside is sleek, the inside is lavish—blue-carpeted cabins glistening with lacquered wainscotting and mirrored ceilings.
“It’s only the royal trolley that’s this decadent. The rest of the rolling stock is plain, made up of wood floors and benches, or sleeper pods for those who travel cross-kingdom.”
I run my fingers along the timber framework of the walls, marveling at its mirror-smoothness and the level of details the carpenter has managed to carve into these panels.
He tugs me through a wagon set with three varnished tables. “The dining car for the long hauls.”
And then we’re passing by a galley kitchen and into what must be the train’s sitting room, for it’s long and filled with blue two-seaters and glass accent tables on metal pedestals.
“Is this train equipped with a sleeping haze as well?”
“Yes. My two trains are. The lever to activate the haze is at the entrance, inside the coat closet. I’ll show you on our way out. But first, I want to show you the master bedroom.”
We walk back the way we’ve come, bypass the entryway, then stride single file down a long, narrow corridor toward a door that Konstantin pops open with a flick of his wrist this time.
The bedchamber steals the air from my lungs.
“My father loved the play of light on mirrors and the color of our summer skies,” Konstantin explains as I spin on myself to take in the mural depicting said-summer skies and the panels of reflective metal and glass that give the illusion of infinite space.
“I see that,” I murmur, wishing this was the beginning of a journey across his land. “Once Mestyla is found and…neutralized, can we take a trip through Glace? Sans sleeping haze, of course.”
He bands his arms around my middle from behind and tucks me in close. “I would like nothing more.”
I meet his incandescent stare in the mirror. “Goddess, I’m short compared to you.”
A small smile touches his lips as he perches his smooth chin on top of my head as though to drive our height difference in further. I hug his arms, then crane my neck and twist my head for a kiss, which he leans over to deliver.
For long minutes, I get lost in the sensation of his lips and arms, in the calmness and plushness of our surroundings, in the dream of him and me. But then a knock on the open cabin door slings me back to reality.
Aodhan clears his throat. “Glad you’re not naked. I don’t think I could’ve recovered.”
“You wouldn’t have lived long enough to recover,” Konstantin replies.
Aodhan taps his feather tattoo. “Me. Immortal male. Remember?”
“I’m sure Lore would’ve had much to say about you seeing his daughter naked.”
Aodhan rolls his eyes. “Have you never stopped by the Baths in the Sky Kingdom? Everyone walks around naked. Even the Princess of Luce.”
Konstantin’s arms tighten.
“That was back in your day, Aodhan. Since the advent of Phoeppa’s bathing wear, most of us no longer prance around in the nude. Only the exhibitionists.” I glance up at Konstantin. “Which I’m not.”
My promise diminishes the tension in his forearms.
I press a kiss to his jaw. “I’m going to bed. Leave you two to talk.”
“You can stay,” Konstantin says.
I don’t think he realizes what his invitation—what his trust—means to me. I don’t even care that I earned it through physical attraction. “I appreciate that, but I’m knackered. I’ll see you both in the morning. Or sooner?”
A blush touches the king’s jaw.
One that mustn’t go unnoticed by Aodhan, who is grinning. “Here I was beginning to doubt you two were mates.”
I swallow.
“Suffering from trust issues, are we?” Konstantin says this with such aplomb that I suspect he has a talent for lying despite his reactive complexion.
Right before I leave them to their chat, I ask, “You haven’t found Mestyla, have you?”
That wipes my fellow shifter’s pleasant humor. “No, but I found out Ksenia has rekindled her romance with Lev. I suppose it’s not much of a surprise, considering she has a penchant for Kostya’s enemies. Are you sure you don’t want me to airlift her back to the castle and keep her in a cell until Mestyla reveals herself?”
Konstantin’s lips pinch. “We wait until my niece makes contact.”
“You think she will?” I ask. “You think she knows Ksenia?”
“Ivan knew Ksenia. Svyato, as well. Odds are, my sister learned we had a niece before any of us did.” When he turns toward Aodhan and asks, “Mind telling me why you made Vance spy on Salom?”
On that note, I take my leave.
I do catch Aodhan’s hushed reply, though. “Because you won’t, and I want to keep you safe so that I may irritate you for many centuries longer.”
To think the Crow was one of my father’s least favorite people… I don’t know if it’s entirely Izolda’s influence that has made him so agreeable, but I definitely like him. I once again think how reassuring it is that he’ll be here, at Konstantin’s side, when I travel home.
I suddenly don’t want to leave anymore, but then I think of my bedridden, pregnant mother and how much I want to hug her. When the prophecy happens, the sky is as dark as an ink spill. Since Konstantin mentioned true winter was still months’ away, I’ve got time.
In the Throne Room, I halt beside the dais and stare at the silver throne. The fire orbs, clustered along the vaulted ceiling, make the sculpted seat glow as though it were infused with magic…like the talisman.
If only there was a way to seal the latter to his skin…
I shift into my Crow, tucking my wings in, so as not to disturb the rows of benches. Dádhi?
His answer is immediate. Yes, Isla.
Could you ask Mimi about Konstantin’s necklace and if anything can be done to keep it anchored to his neck?
Why?
I’m worried someone might snatch it from him.
Why?
Because that’d probably lead to his neck being snatched from him as well. I realize that what my father is truly after is the source of my motivation. He’s a good monarch. One who deserves to keep his head.
My father grunts, which makes me roll my eyes just in time to find Salom descending the stairs. He flinches when he sees me in my beast form, but then his expression smooths.
It pushes another question through the bond: Is Salom trustworthy, Dádhi?
Do you know how I decide who’s trustworthy?
You evaluate what they have to gain?
Yes. There’s that. But more importantly, I evaluate the odds the person has of getting away with the betrayal. How strong is their magic? How extensive is their reach? How close can they get to their target?
Salom ticks two out of three: influence and proximity.
After telling my father about my plan to journey home in the coming days and asking him to give Shoshair and Mádhi a great big hug from me, I melt back into skin and track Salom’s path toward the War Room with my gaze.
And then I take Aodhan’s concern to the next level and ferret out the general’s private quarters from Lachlano—who informs me that all is calm aboard the Shabbe-bound galleon and that he’s turned tail.
Under the glamour of invisibility, I baste one of Salom’s walls with blood before lifting an object he hopefully won’t miss.