Chapter 19 #2
I threaded my way through the room to the food once more.
I needed to get my plate and get to the unclaimed recruit’s table—or maybe just out of this chaos—without proving him right.
The chaos felt joyful; shifters called to each other exuberantly, and laughed with bantered.
But it was chaos where I felt small and out of place.
As I walked through the crowd, people eyed me. Fieran’s attention had turned me from mortal servant to mortal spectacle.
But now that everyone was so keenly aware of me, no one bumped into me.
I got a fresh plate of food, then looked back at the expanse to the new recruits’ side. I didn’t really want to brave that trip again, or a table full of people already eating and conversing while I had to decide where to sit.
I slipped through the crowd—easy to do when everyone towered above me—and hid in another alcove.
The curtains had been pinned back on one side, leaving me with a view of the room beyond as I shoveled food into my mouth hastily.
It was really good. I paused to shove a cookie into my pocket, thinking of how often I’d woken up hungry at night.
Fieran hadn’t even made it back to his own table; he stood in the center of a crowd that seemed to orbit him like he was some celestial body. His laughter rippled through the air, melting tension.
He moved like he knew every eye was on him, but not because he craved their attention.
He commanded it. He said something that drew another laugh from the group, and for a moment, I almost forgot what he was capable of.
That same mouth that smiled so easily had just ordered a man to crawl before us.
His dark hair caught the lamplight, reflecting glints of bronze, the shadows carving sharp lines across his cheekbones. All the shifters were beautiful, but there was something uniquely magnetic about the force of his attention, his easy grace, that disarming grin.
A female shifter put her hand on his arm, smiling up at him as she made some joke, and he stilled.
The laughter around him died as if snuffed out by an unseen wind.
He said something in a low, dangerous tone I couldn’t hear over the din, but the others looked chastened on her behalf, heads bowing slightly.
I wasn’t sure they realized how they half-bowed to him, but they did, as if he were lord of them all.
I pressed my back against the stone, pulse stuttering. I didn’t understand him. Fieran was sunlight and shadow, merriment and menace by turn.
He reminded me of the stories of the trickster, ever-changing Fae. How had I kissed him—desired him—pressed myself to him as if he were my protector and not a predator? The foolishness of the danger I’d placed myself in as I flirted with him made my muscles stiffen, my hunger fading.
Trickster Fae were notoriously fickle. And what frightened me most was how easily I could be pulled into his gravity, even knowing what he was.
He held my brother’s life and mine in the same casual way he lazily gripped his knife’s hilt as he stood talking, and here I was, gawking at him from the shadows.
I was barely wiser than Lidi, who’d been taken in by his charms. Disgust—at myself and at him—washed over me.
Maura stalked past me, high color in her cheeks. She didn’t see me, perhaps because her eyes were dark with anger, tightly focused. She was nearly out of sight when Nixi rushed past in a flounce of golden skirts. It was strange to see them both dressed up and looking glamorous.
Then Nixi was out of sight, but I heard her hiss Maura’s name.
“What?” Maura demanded.
There was a long pause.
“If you have nothing to say, Nix, I’m going—”
“Don’t let Fieran come between us again!”
“He didn’t come between us.”
“Don’t be like this. I miss you, Maura.” Nixi’s voice was tight, the words like launched arrows; it didn’t sound like the right tone for affectionate words. She cleared her throat as if she realized it too. “Why can’t we talk for two minutes without arguing?”
“I believe you started it, Nix.”
“Then I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. “Can we try again?”
“Fine.”
This second pause was longer and more awkward.
“I was afraid when I saw you get hurt in Stonehaven.” Nixi’s voice was soft. “I’ve been thinking since then about how I could’ve lost you, while everything is fractured between us.”
“I don’t like it either,” Maura admitted. “I’ve missed you too.”
There was another pause.
I hadn’t realized the Fae were quite so emotionally constipated.
“Maybe we could spend time together without talking about Ander or Fieran or the clans.”
“Or how your dragon hates me?” Maura’s voice was tinged with amusement.
“My dragon hates everyone.” There was a smile in Nixi’s voice. “She’s the perfect fit for me. You can’t take it personally.”
“Misanthrope,” Maura accused, but now it sounded teasing.
“Well, it does seem to flow through our bloodline.”
“Maybe we can have dinner together tomorrow night if you’re free,” Maura said. “I’ve got to train that mortal girl tomorrow, but I’m free afterward.”
That mortal girl? Fieran was handing my training over to Maura?
Well, that was terrifying.
“How is she doing?”
“I don’t want to talk about the mortal girl. It’s dangerously close to talking about Fieran.”
“I don’t hate him, you know. Just because Ander does.” Nixi’s voice had an unexpectedly wistful note. “If I’d ended up in his clan…I guess I’d be enamored with him too.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m enamored.” Maura’s voice was amused. “I’m keenly aware of his flaws, and he knows it.”
“Right. But he fought for you. Do you know what he plans with the mortal?”
“No.”
Nixi laughed, an unguarded, bubbly laugh, and I felt myself relax slightly—charmed despite myself. Then she said, “Putting her in the path of those wyrms was a thousand times kinder than putting her in the path of the queen.”
My pulse jumped. I leaned closer, my cheek brushing the stone wall. How was I in the path of the queen? And how had he put me in the path of the wyrms—he had saved me from their attacks, hadn’t he?
“He protected her from the wyrms,” Maura said. “They would’ve been drawn to her anyway, once she’d been marked.”
The spit. I’d been covered in wyrm spit when he pulled me into his arms with that heartstopping smile. “Any other wyrms in the area should be here soon.”
He’d known they’d be drawn to me. He’d used me as bait.
My cheek stung, and I pressed my fingers to it, probing the wound. I’d scraped myself against the stone wall trying to listen more closely.
“Can he protect her from the queen?” Nixi asked pointedly. Then, “No, don’t look at me that way. Let’s go get some sparkling wine and desserts and pretend for a while we aren’t on opposite sides of warring clans.”
Their footsteps faded. I stayed frozen, every word they’d said still echoing in my head, as if I might become one with the wall.
Fieran had been scheming. Every kindness, every touch of concern, every kiss we’d shared might have been just strategy. He knew how to manipulate my stupid mortal mind.
But why?
I pressed my palm to my chest, feeling the frantic beat of my heart.
Tay’s pale face flashed through my mind.
And then, after it, the way he’d once been.
Easygoing, laughing, ruddy cheeked. He was one of the shortest boys in the village, and girls had always flocked to him anyway because he was so funny and kind and real. Now he was fading.
If Fieran’s games bought my brother back his life, did it even matter if I was the pawn?
I just needed to understand the game.
If I must be a pawn, I would twist the rules to stay on the board.