Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tru tails me as I toddle in my uncomfortable shoes down long corridors, my dress trailing behind me. I notice when he grips a pendant hanging at his throat, bearing the king’s crest carved in a light blue stone. It has to be an amulet of some sort.
The fae love gems and minerals as much as they love trees, birds, and dragons. Nothing strange about that. Humans love the same things, but not with such an obsessive devotion. Fae like to take things to extremes.
See the royal guards’ uniforms as an example.
It makes me wonder about Arkin. If he’s a royal guard, where are his wings, and why isn’t he here? And what about Tru? Doesn’t he have any job other than to follow me?
My frustration is still mounting. I need to ask questions. What I need is a pen and paper to express myself, and…
I stop and glance around me, realizing that I’m hopelessly lost. Corridors radiate in several directions, but none look familiar.
“Lady Rae,” Tru says with a small bow, his long pale braid slipping over a broad shoulder to swing against his silver breastplate. “Allow me to show you the way to the banquet hall.”
I nod curtly.
He strides ahead, and I hurry to follow him, tempted to kick off my shoes and throw them out of a window to be swallowed by the sea.
I shouldn’t care about these matters, about Arkin and Tru.
About Jai, either. It goes without saying. He’s the worst because he makes my heart beat too fast, my mind go empty, and my body feel too hot… until he whirls about and eviscerates me with his cold arrogance and cruelty.
How many times do I have to be shocked to realize he will hurt me? It should be enough by now, shouldn’t it?
He saved you in the trial.
Yes, but to what end? We all have our stories and our missions. What’s his?
To hold the king’s cup, more like, I think as I follow Tru down galleries hung with somber portraits, or to cut up his dinner and hand-feed him. It wouldn’t surprise me.
What has the king promised him? What is he after?
A human adopted by the king, isn’t that what Daria said?
“Such a kind gesture, the king adopting a poor human boy from the countryside.”
That’s a huge promise, all right. A huge gift. More than enough to ensure Jai remains the staunchest defender of the fae.
And my enemy.
Remember that , I tell myself as we are joined by more humans dressed in borrowed finery, making our collective way to the banquet. It doesn’t matter one bit if he’s nice to you sometimes. He’s the same person he was when this journey started.
If that stings, then too bad.
The hall Tru leads us into is long and vast, the ceiling so high that the lit chandeliers seem to float in the dimness like great glowing jellyfish.
A seemingly endless table covered in black cloth splits the space, tall-backed chairs framing it. A dais with a black throne stands at its other end, and the fae nobles have already filled most of the seats around it—leaving us humans this end of the table.
Fine, I didn’t really expect us to sit across from the king or anywhere near him, hence my plan to meet him in his apartments.
Still, the distance separating the human winners of the first trial and the king is nothing short of ridiculous.
I hesitate, and Tru places a hand on the small of my back. “Allow me,” he says.
What is he doing?
The other humans stare at him, as do some of the fae, as he guides me to a seat and pulls it back for me. I want to know if Jai told him to act with such chivalry or if this is just how Tru normally acts.
I have so many questions.
Pen and paper it is. I have to get hold of some. A nice plume and good ink, but really, at this point I’d use my own blood to write down my inquiries, whether they be important for my mission or not.
Curiosity is eating at me.
It always has , a voice whispers in my mind, and it doesn’t sound like mine. You’ve always been too curious, and you could get hurt.
I hiss. It’s a memory.
I see myself walking down to the river shore, flaunting my parents’ rules, nearing the fence surrounding the beach to keep the eldritch merfolk out. My feet are bare, toes burying themselves in the fine black sand.
There he is.
The boy. The young man I’ve seen from my balcony a few times. Tall, with broad shoulders, he’s on the cusp of adulthood, like me, with hair pale like silver and eyes gray like the sky.
“Who are you?” I ask, delighted to find someone my age to talk to.
Someone so pretty.
“Hello, princess,” he says, and my face heats at his bright smile.
He’s been drawing patterns in the black sand, but now he stops and looks up at my approach. He’s dressed in peasant garb—a brown tunic and leggings, low boots on his feet—and his pale hair is uncombed and curling at his neck.
“I’ve never seen you around here before,” I say.
“I’m new. The Dariens have taken me in. Their estate is that way.” He points.
“Taken you in?”
“Yes. They… found me.” He frowns.
“Where, in a field?”
“Believe it or not.”
My turn to frown, but he looks so forlorn I don’t want to push. “I’m here. If you ever want to talk about it.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you more. I’m trying to remember,” he says softly, squinting down at his artwork on the sand.
“Remember what?”
“The past.”
I walk around to study his drawings. Spirals, stars, curlicues, circles. “What does this mean?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s all I can recall,” he whispers, “and it makes no sense at all…”
“Will you be seated?” a male voice booms in my ear, shattering the memory. I blink and find Tru standing beside me, an exasperated look on his handsome face. “Rae, can you hear me?”
I blink, and I’m back in the long hall, the long black-clad table and chairs, the still empty dais at its over end. Everyone is staring at me.
Great.
Hastily, I sit down, gathering my long skirts around me as Tru pushes the chair from behind, the legs screeching on the bare floor. The bodice is digging into my ribs and stomach, pinching my hips. I’m as uncomfortable as I can possibly be without being mortally wounded.
It feels like a close second.
Around me are vaguely familiar faces, drawn with lingering fear and unease, or perhaps even pain. The Sleeping Gods know my arm is still a steady ache, my bitten leg a constant throb, and that’s without the routine aches in my legs and the cut-up soles of my feet.
“Don’t I know you?” the woman on my left asks, and I recognize her as the one who tried to shove me out of the dragon’s mouth.
Lovely.
Recognition flares in her gaze a moment later, and she gives me a flat look. “You’re the girl who’s friends with that prick, Athdara.”
I shake my head, glaring at her.
“Sure, deny it all you want.” She leans back in her seat, a satisfied gleam in her eyes. “He joined the games the moment you did. And then spent his time saving you over and over.”
Just twice. But who’s counting?
The man on my other side seems more interested in his goblet filled with wine, but I think I recognize him, too. He’s the man who knelt beside me in that building on the temple island, praying for Athdara to help us.
“Nothing to say?” she hisses.
I go back to glaring at her, flattening my mouth and lifting my chin.
“She’s mute,” a pretty, dark-skinned woman I think I know says from across the table, barely visible between the white-and-gold flower arrangements. Her pale eyes are hooded. “Didn’t you know?”
“Oh, fantastic,” the woman beside me mutters, “I’m stuck with the mute girl.”
“Drop it, Mera,” the man says, taking another deep draught from his goblet.
“ You drop it, Axwick. This is our only chance to find out what the next trial will be about.”
“Then ask the others. Leave her be.”
“Want to save her, Ax?” Mera mocks him. “Like Athdara did? Men, honestly… Always taken in by a pretty face.”
Grabbing the folded white napkin sitting by my plate, I prepare to launch it at her face.
“She’s one of us,” Axwick says.
“No, she isn’t,” Mera retorts, “she isn’t like us, and if you haven’t figured it out yet…”
I’m frozen, my hand clutching the napkin, scrunching it up. What does she know? How?
“How do you mean?” he asks slowly. “She was with us in the trial, she?—”
“She’s on their side,” Mera hisses.
Oh. That’s what she meant. I put the napkin down.
“No, she isn’t,” the woman sitting across from us says. “They wouldn’t let one of their own enter the Death Games.”
“They let Athdara join!” Mera snaps.
“She saved my life.” The woman nods at me. “In the arena. She’s on our side. I’m certain of it.”
I recognize her now. It’s the lady I saved from the tritons.
But Mera has a point there, I have to admit. It turns out the laws of the games allow any human who volunteers to enter, as long as they don’t possess water magic because… that would ensure they win.
And winning is apparently exactly the opposite of what the fae king wants. We are sacrifices to the gods and the Pillar. We aren’t supposed to escape the arena. Every one of us who escapes death’s maw is only pampered and readied to try and die again.
The humans are whispering among themselves about the horrors they experienced in the arena and the coral forest, about the snakes, the birds, and the white wyrm that carried us in her mouth to the finishing line.
They are subdued—no doubt still wallowing in shock after having escaped death when others didn’t, but also due to the stares and sneers of the fae sitting further up the long table.
Axwick, however, probably with the aid of the wine, isn’t deterred.
“Did you know,” he says, not even bothering to keep his voice down, “that originally the Death Games were conducted on solid ground, and humans were released in the woods, the fae coming after us with full license to kill us? Sometimes even the games expanded to include the extermination of entire towns and villages, prizes given to those with the most trophies.”
“Ax…” Mera glances at him, now ignoring me completely, a frown on her face. “Shut your mouth. This isn’t the place or the time.”
“And then King Rouen ascended the throne,” Axwick goes on despite her warnings, “and decided to relegate the killing to his archnemesis, the finnfolk, to strain relations between the sea and land…”
A guard is moving down the side of the long table, his wooden wings rustling and creaking. The conical hat on his head is decorated with a silver feather.
“Uh-oh,” Mera says, leaning back.
Axwick chuckles, finishing his wine and smacking his lips. “The truth always hurts the wrongdoers, doesn’t it?”
“And sometimes the innocents, too,” she mutters. “So shut up.”
My throat is dry as I watch the guard continue his stroll toward us, his spear thumping on the floor with every other step, those wings looking ominous instead of silly on his large frame. The tall hat and the somber uniform make him look like a malevolent spirit.
But before he reaches us, commotion up at the dais arrests his steps and his attention.
We all turn as one to look.
“The king is coming,” someone whispers.
Finally. My heart is thumping so hard. I’ve waited for this moment for so long. At times, in the arena, it didn’t seem feasible, didn’t seem possible that I’d be sitting here, ready to face him.
A forest of spears shakes behind the dais, then the guards climb on it, escorting a tall, crowned fae at their center. They part to let him climb up to the throne, and a hush falls over the congregation.
Great horns sound, reminding me of the sea and the tritons’ conches, and then the herald cries, “His Exalted Majesty, Anax Rouen Finnvara Jeridwen Ridan the Magnificent!”
I strain to see, along with everybody else. He’s so far I only have an impression of long, pale blond hair and—horns? Or branches? No, it has to be the crown. A crown, pale hair, and long golden robes, and that’s all I can make out before he sits on the throne.
I see more wings moving behind him. His guards fan out on either side of him to form a line—of defense? Against us?—their wood-and-metal wings creaking.
The creaking battalion.
The fae revere the air as much as they revere the earth and the life it gives forth, and worshipping winged beings is, I realize, their way to grasp what they don’t have. They can’t fly. I’ve heard legends about how in their past they were smaller and winged. About how now they ink such wings on their backs and look up to the sky.
But I don’t believe it. They are too arrogant to have sprung from a race that small and humble.
While servants enter the hall, carrying huge platters covered in steaming dishes, one thing strikes me: Jai isn’t here.
I’d fully expected to find him by the king’s side, but he’s nowhere to be seen. A scan of the hall doesn’t show his tall form anywhere along the walls. I can’t sense him nearby.
He may be already seated , my rational mind provides, that’s why you can’t see him. And what’s that? You can’t sense him? What nonsense. That’s not the kind of magic you wield.
And if he isn’t here, all the better. He distracts you. You need to have your wits about you.
Clenching my teeth, I return my full attention to the king, where it belongs. The man who destroyed my world, and even worse, sent his men to take away the boy I loved.
I’m facing him for the first time, and I promise him that he will pay.