Chapter 9
THE NIGHT AFTER my presentation, the king appears in my room without a sound. One minute I’m humming while I brush my hair, then I look up and he’s there like some prince of darkness, arms crossed, leaning against the door frame.
I almost fall out of my chair. The hairbrush thuds to the floor. “Bloody hells. Where did you come from?”
He raises one shoulder, and his expression doesn’t change, but I swear he’s amused. “Around. You looked so focused, I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
I fight the urge to glance toward the gilded mirror hanging above the fireplace.
Just as well he didn’t walk in when I was tucking my notebook in the recessed back of the frame.
If he’d walked in half an hour ago, he’d have caught me.
And if he’d walked in ten minutes before that, he’d have found me writing up everything I’ve seen and learned about the Underworld and the unseelie.
Something in there will help me escape. I’m sure of it.
Trying to sound more irritated than worried, I narrow my eyes at him. “You could’ve knocked.”
“I could’ve. Come. You should learn the layout of Rigor Gard.”
I pause in my retrieval of the hairbrush and peer up. “You mean I’m not confined to my room?”
“Do you want to be?”
This room is almost the same size as our entire cottage, so it’s not like my world would become much smaller if I was forced to stay in here. “I assumed I was only allowed out when… required.”
“Like a hunting hound?” He cocks his head, eyes narrowed in this way that makes me intensely uncomfortable. “Do you want to be treated like a hunting hound? I could put a little collar on you, if you like. Others do that with their humans. If it’s what you want…”
“That won’t be necessary.” My knees are stiff as I rise, but I plaster a smile over the pain. “So you’re going to give me the full tour? And then I’ll be allowed to go wherever I want?”
“Within the fortress. And within reason.”
“And the gardens?” I glance out the window, where braziers battle the night.
He holds the door open, mouth twisting like he’s making a decision. “If you’re accompanied. I’ll have some warm clothing brought to you.”
I’ll take it. Cold as it is here, my chest yearns for fresh air. At home, I work in the garden every day I can, as weather and sickness allow.
A pair of the Twylth wait outside and trail us at a distance as we set off.
His suite is near mine. He shows me the doors but doesn’t open them. I suspect it’s considerably larger, but how does a King of Death decorate his space? So far, I’ve been disappointed by the lack of skull decor and taxidermy, so maybe he keeps all that in his rooms.
Technically the fortress is all his, but surely his rooms are his private sanctuary. Somewhere he can be himself rather than His Majesty the King. Then again, that would require him to have a personality, and I’m not sure insufferable counts as one.
He explains that the Vost is the steward, responsible for Rigor Gard’s staff and upkeep.
They do an excellent job, as I don’t see a speck of dust or a curtain pleat out of place as we tour a library, various lounges and an armory that I’m not allowed to enter.
That’s the limit of “within reason.” It’s not like I can wield any of the weapons in there, but the idea I could possibly be a danger is charming.
My favorite, though, is the heated glasshouse where they grow spindly crops and a fountain trickles into a wide pool. Between the more practical plants a few flowers bloom, and I catch the occasional hum of bees drifting among them.
I look up from a marigold whose color is a somewhat ridiculous contrast with the king’s monochrome appearance. “Are these all your crops?”
His expression doesn’t change, but his whole body stiffens. “Aside from the fields of wheat you see outside.” He gestures with an overdramatic flourish then spears me with a look that says I asked a stupid question.
I bite back a retort and give him an ironic smile instead. “Where next?” I’ll come back to the glasshouse when I have better company. Or no company—that would be better than his.
He shows me a grand dining hall that looks large enough to fit all the fae from my presentation.
A single long table stretches along its length.
As I wander between it and the glazed doors leading on to a snowy terrace, I wonder how much the plethora of gilded candelabra are worth, how old they are, who made them.
A close look reveals the slender filigree isn’t just a pleasing but slightly unsettling arrangement of organic abstract shapes, but actually tiny bones—femurs and tibias bundled around spines form the main uprights, pelvises join the arms arching out and each candle is held in an inverted skull.
I’m smirking to myself, thinking this is much more the kind of decor I’d expect from the King of Death when Drystan speaks. “Do you have magic?”
I blink up from the candlesticks, his voice still echoing through the room. “No.”
He nods once with a soft sound of acknowledgment. The casualness of the gesture is belied by his eyes narrowing as they stay on me for several beats before he turns to the door. “Come.”
I hurry to catch up. “Now you’ve asked me a question, do I get to ask you one?”
“You just have.”
“A real one. It sounds like this kind of exchange is how your world works.” I resist the urge to add “right?” at the end of the sentence—no doubt he’d count that as a question too. “Can you tell me exactly what was stated in the bargain our parents made?”
He gives me a sidelong look. “Searching for a loophole? Trust me, I’ve tried.”
Fine, so I wasn’t subtle about it. “I’d still like to know.”
“They agreed I would take you away to become my bride. I keep bargains made in my name, however inconvenient.”
“I thought unseelie were meant to be polite,” I mutter.
He pretends not to hear, but his nostrils twitch. We go on in silence for several minutes as I turn over the phrasing in my mind.
I’m summoned from my thoughts by a low, skeptical hum coming from his throat. “Did your parents really keep you locked in that house without ever telling you about the bargain?” His frown tells me how unlikely it seems.
I can’t blame him for thinking it. Staying within an iron-bound wall because I was trying not to become known to the fae would make perfect sense. But if I didn’t know they were after me—well, why the hells would I stay at home?
“Mm.” I shrug, conscious of his attention and the need to keep my secret. “I wasn’t locked in. I just don’t go out much.”
His gaze sticks to me even as I look away and I search for a way to change the subject. We pass the corridor leading to the great hall, the sounds of revelry drifting down it, carried on rippling shadows.
Pausing, I seize the opportunity. “So I noticed the shadows here seem different from back home. They aren’t just an absence of light, they… It’s like they have minds of their own, but they’re not logical,” I add as shadows tumble into each other, spilling across the floor. “It’s all instinct.”
He stands at my side, arms folded as he joins me watching the dark shapes swarm and spread before dissipating under the wall sconces’ light. “You’re observant. Sometimes they whisper, too.”
That makes me swallow. What might they whisper in his ear? Things they’ve seen? Hundreds… thousands of little spies for the unseelie king. Is this place making me paranoid? Am I right to be?
“Some think they’re mine to control, but they’ve always been here and they certainly aren’t mine. Not at all.” The cadence of his voice slows and I wonder if he realizes he’s thinking out loud. “The original inhabitants of this place, perhaps… or all that’s left of the dead who linger too long.”
I frown as a pool of darkness reaches us having somehow dodged all the light to get here.
It spills from his feet to mine as if sampling us.
After a few seconds, it splits, both parts gathering closer as though drawn to the living flesh contained within our shoes.
I back away, afraid it’s going to crawl into my slippers.
Still, I can’t help feeling sorry for the shadows, if they are what he says, and I find myself murmuring, “Shades of what they were, whipped into frenzies by feeling.”
“Such a poetic way to think of something so sad.”
“There’s usually some other way to look at even the saddest things. When you live your life locked in your home, pitied as someone else’s ‘sad thing,’ you learn to use a different lens—to see differently. The life in the rot. The beauty in death.”
Now I’m the one who realizes I’m thinking out loud. And the way the king looks at me, all thoughtful and curious, I instantly regret it. I’ve strayed too close to the truth.
Swallowing, I motion ahead. “Shall we continue?”
In silence, he leads the way and a short while later he gestures down a corridor. “The kitchens are down there.”
“Is that where they make the biscuits?” My steps lag.
One side of his mouth quirks as he pauses, studying me. “It is. You enjoyed those, didn’t you?”
“You tried them too—you can’t deny how good they are.”
He exhales what’s almost a laugh and bows his head. “I cannot. Perhaps you’ll also enjoy this.” With that, he turns and leads the way along a corridor we haven’t taken yet.
So many corridors. How do people live in such a massive building?
Annem and Pa’s bedroom goes straight off the living room at home, and there’s only a small landing at the top of the staircase with my room and Lowen’s leading off.
It’s unfathomable to me that people keep track of all these doors and hallways.
But Drystan never hesitates as he leads me through them until we reach a spiral staircase. My thighs groan in anticipation, but I give him a bright smile when he glances back and dismisses the guards before starting his ascent.