12. Of feasts and unexpected kisses #2
“Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Miss Wynn…” Gallan said with ample caution as he offered his arm to me in the hall.
I paused before taking hold of his elbow. “Fire away.”
“You look resplendent when you aren’t jailed with your head in a bucket.” He tossed me a wry look, and I sighed, again.
It was only a matter of time before the comment came—I’d known that the minute I’d opened my door and Gallan’s eyes went wide.
Of course I cleaned up well; I came by my half-decent looks honestly.
My father was an especially handsome man—or so the women at court loved to prattle—and my mother held the sort of fair, ethereal beauty all high fae seers did.
At least, I thought she did, if decades-old memories were trustworthy.
“I wish the same could be said about seeing you in the daylight, Gallan,” I chirped back.
A bald-faced lie, of course.
I’d yet to glimpse any dark fae denizen—of the Umbrites and shifters, at least—that weren’t concerningly attractive, and that troubling concept aside, there was no way Gallan wasn’t aware.
Still, he stared at me.
“Well, well,” Gallan huffed. “You are going to give Maksym a run for his coin, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” I said, “but if your king thought he was getting a passive spouse, he was sorely mistaken.”
“Oh no. No, no,” Gallan chuckled. “I’m certain he wasn’t under that impression at all. Now, come. The throne hall is a bit of a walk, and we’re already late.”
“We are already late?” I said incredulously. “I’m nothing of the sort, seeing as I had no idea where I was supposed to be or when.”
Gallan rolled his silver-black eyes but said nothing else.
We hustled to the main level of the Keep and through a set of double doors tucked beneath the grand staircase. A steady build in echoing activity came from down the lengthy corridor that stretched ahead of us.
“So this feast…” I drawled, casting an expectant glance up at Gallan.
“It's just that. A feast,” he said, a little too quickly.
“You know, I thought I liked you.”
Gallan’s shoulders sagged, and he pulled me to a stop halfway down the hall, casting an exasperated look at me.
“It would be better if you just experienced it,” he said.
“But if you insist on knowing, there will be a speech from Maksym to rally some excitement around the tournament and to introduce you, I assume. After that, the Elixia who have not participated in recent years will draw for stones to see who among them will partake in the initiation and the events with the prospective members. Then, we will probably eat and drink until sunrise, and the Elixia who are taking part will drag their drunk arses onto their steeds and ride into Embervale to put out a call for willing participants.”
While I appreciated Gallan making some attempt at being candid with me, I’d gleaned all that already.
“Will you be drawing to take part?” I asked, and Gallan shook his head.
“Afraid not.” He flashed me an apologetic smile. “I participated in the last go-around, so I’ll be helping to oversee this time.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.” I glanced at the far end of the hall, where the cacophony of muffled noise originated from behind another set of doors. I glanced back up at Gallan and asked, “How many Elixia are there?”
He let out a slow, thoughtful breath and followed my gaze.
“There’s about forty of us, I think,” he said. “Only ten or so usually take part, depending on how the king is feeling. Our ranks haven’t diminished much recently, so I imagine he’ll stack the tournament with more Elixia and fewer prospects.”
All logical, I supposed. Not that I really understood why everything in Grimmoria was done on such a whim.
In Odessa, we held an abundance of structure with our forces, elite or not.
No single citizen could nominate themselves to join the highest ranks of our forces and see themselves accepted purely based on a series of trials.
Every active service member started at the ground level.
We went through years of academic lessons and field training before we graduated to our assessments, and those were staunch.
You were given one opportunity to retry a single assessment, and if you failed again, you were sent back a year in your ranks.
Clearly, they did things differently here.
“I realize you’re probably eager to learn, and I can appreciate that, but what better way than through experience?” Gallan’s tone was pleading as he gestured back down the hall.
Begrudgingly, I continued. Not that we made it very far.
At the double doors, where the loud rumble of undeniably masculine interaction was all I could hear, Gallan hooked my arm and steered me through a small side door into a narrow straight-shot hallway.
When I cast him a scrutinizing glance, he simply said, “The last thing we need right now is the scene you’d cause going through those doors with how deep they already are in their cups. ”
Marvelous.
Why wouldn’t I end up being another king’s dirty little secret?
Gallan’s plan failed monumentally when we slipped into the throne room through a small side door, and sudden silence suffocated the sprawling space. A pin drop would have been damned thunderous.
“Shit,” Gallan whispered beside me.
Shit, indeed.
Sprawled out before us in the vaulted throne room was far more than the forty Elixia I had expected. Nearly that number of bodies alone surrounded the dais, allowing a glimpse of only the sweeping and sharp spire tips of the throne on it.
There were easily a hundred more bodies filling the room—soldiers, keep staff, even creatures who were certainly not any fae I was familiar with. They filled long, wooden tables topped with platters of food, steins of ale, and more wine bottles than I could count.
Not at all the feast I expected.
Through the throng of curious faces all turned toward Gallan and me, I was more relieved than I should’ve been to see Maksym weave his way through. Shockingly, there was no shadow-drenched mage at his side, and the king was not masking his exasperation well.
Nor his inebriation.
There was a slight but painfully obvious sway to Maksym’s usually graceful steps as he wove through the pile of men, who all looked like lightning had struck them or they’d fixed their eyes on delicious prey.
“Oh, thank Mina,” Maksym breathed when he was a few steps away.
From beside me, Gallan huffed, “Mina has nothing to do with this.”
I didn’t voice my full agreement as Maksym came to a stop, his attention focused on me, and hitched at the waist. My palms dampened at the shocked murmur that rippled across the cavernous space.
As Maksym rose, his eyes flickered to Gallan, then back towards the Elixia mobbed around the throne.
Gallan moved without a word of instruction needed, ushering the gaping and gawking service numbers from the dais.
With Maksym right in front of me, clad in a fine but wrinkled and unbuttoned jacket, I could only glean a partial view, just enough to glimpse the side of a throne that embodied the same dark stone and sharp angles as the Keep, a much smaller, bronze-backed chair beside it.
When I glanced back up at the king, he flashed me a tight, apologetic smile and offered his bargain-marked hand. As I took it, he leaned in and whispered, “Not our usual turnout, I assure you. A bit of word may have spread despite my best efforts. I promise, the formalities will not take long.”
It was as if the king had conveniently forgotten I had spent my entire life on the fringe of a court far more formal than his, having my every move judged as the king’s sole indiscretion in his otherwise perfect life.
Maybe the unmistakable warmth and spice of spirits that lingered on Maksym’s breath had something to do with the sudden lapse in his memory.
“I’d appreciate it if you worried a little more about how liberally you make your promises to me,” I said with a smile that betrayed my acidic tone. “Shall we?”
Maksym’s dark brows narrowed over his stark, amber-black eyes, only further supporting my assumption that the king was more than a little intoxicated. But he nodded and curled his fingers around mine before guiding me toward the dais.
As we walked, he splayed his other hand across my back—a move that was clearly with his own uneasy steps in mind, but it sent another ripple of murmurs across the room.
It sent the strangest ripple of warmth up my spine, too, but I shoved that thought aside with frightening ease as we came to a stop in front of Maksym’s throne, turning our backs to it and the diminutive seat placed beside it for me.
The finely crafted jacket Maksym wore shifted over his shoulders as he took a deep breath and looked across the packed room. Silence fell immediately, and, when Maksym spoke, there wasn’t an ounce of liquor to be found anywhere in his voice.
“As most may already be aware, our feast this evening has two important purposes. First, the season of the Agōn Ferr is about to begin!” A series of cheers and shouts rang out as fists were pumped and mugs clacked together, but they all came to a stop the moment Maksym lifted a hand.
“Tomorrow evening, the initium will take place deep beneath the Keep, as it has since time immemorial. But this means it is time for us to call upon fifteen of our brethren Elixia to spread the word in Embervale and beyond, to see who of our countrymen thinks themselves worthy of the mantle.”
As Maksym spoke, I found it hard to look away from him—even with the room full of unfamiliar faces I should have been paying attention to.
But it was his use of words like we and our so casually, never him or me or you.
It was always the collective we. He sounded like my father, and I wasn’t sure how to handle that.
“And I realize we are all eager to determine who will take part in the events this year and start the festivities, but I have one other important announcement to make.”