Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
THE EYE OF THE HIGH LORD
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.
—Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2
A unt Nora is waiting for me when I return to the house.
I sneak through the back entrance—not the kitchen, someone is always in the kitchen—to avoid my relatives, especially the drunk and crying ones.
She’s avoided me avoiding her by standing, still and silent as a statue, right in front of my office door where I head to store the threat in an iron safe until I decide what to do with it.
Burn it, most likely. It's not as if I want to put it in a scrapbook.
Though maybe I should have it sent for handwriting analysis. Every bit of knowledge helps.
I mean for you to be mine .
My hands shake, so I shove them in my pockets. I’ll need to hunt down Juliette for my chill pills soon.
There are few ways to interpret that sentence.
It’s not like High Fae don’t fuck what they also want to kill.
My mother died before I could pick her brains about the sexual politics of her specific caste, and there is no one left in Everenne like her and Renaud, but I can piece together the generics.
I’ve braced for hints of how he will punish Faronne. There are few ways he can go about doing it if he's serious about the ceasefire.
Leashing me to his bed is diabolically clever in its simplicity. He can claim in all truth, in front of the entire city, that he honors me with such attentions and the entire time my House will be impotent with fury. I'll be a hostage, my gilded captivity a backhanded slap in their face.
But it will also appear to be penitence for my mother’s death; he elevates her daughter, providing her the ultimate protection, after all.
Plausible deniability is the knife baked inside the pretty cake. If I weren't the fly caught his gossamer trap, I'd admire its construction.
The wild creature stirs; the male will discover we’re no pet. He’ll learn what lurks beneath a halfling’s facade.
Darkan is strangely silent.
I stop at the top of the steps. “Aunt?—”
“I wish to read the note.”
“What note” is on the tip of my tongue, but I'm not in the mood to insult either of us. I would, however, like to know how she knows the things she does. If I ask once again, she won't answer and I may be stubborn, but I also don't believe in wasting energy.
“Inside.”
Handing her the offending document, I walk to my desk and shove aside a stack of folders to make myself room.
One of the folders, the latest demand for reparations from Labornne, falls off the edge right into a waste basket.
Oops. So sad.
She skims the. . .note. “You are right not to show them this. The general response would have been both hasty, and unfortunate.”
I'm so rarely given verbal validation. I take the letter and store it in the safe, wondering why I don’t burn it now.
Nora’s tone is grave, her intent gaze framed by strands of her wispy white blonde hair. “Your mother should have warned you about happens when you catch the eye of a High Lord. Of this High Lord, but she said you were too young to discuss such things. Muri was always optimistic.”
This feels like victim blaming, but I let it go. The entitlement of a High Lord won't be fixed but I can control, more or less, whether I'm in the presence of one.
“I didn't do it on purpose.” I hop onto my desk.
She flicks her fingers. “Of course not. The ones who interest them rarely do.”
There's a lot to unpack in that statement. “He likes the hunt.”
“He is a Temthrennes High Lord.”
“A High Lord is a High Lord. I know about High Lords. Does his family line matter?”
Her says nothing, which says plenty .
I pick up a few darts and idly aim for the Prince on the wall. The tip of his nose.
Bullseye.
If only.
The second dart misses and I set them down, sliding my hands back into my pockets. They haven't stopped shaking, and I can't blame post battle adrenaline or another half-hearted attempt at sobriety.
I'm cold. I've never been cold with fear before. “An assignation with this kind of power differential won't be pretty. For me.”
“No, it likely won't be, but you can mitigate the risk. We don’t yet know what his full intention is, so we will consider all scenarios.” She wanders the room, her gaze distant.
“Nora, focus.” If I let her travel down the path of wherever her thoughts are leading, I'll lose her for the next couple of days.
“My mind will remain with you a while yet. I will not sleep. Experience is usually the best teacher, but short of that, the experience of others often suffices.”
Nora approaches, cupping my face between her cold hands. “Lovely. The fire of humanity combined with the ethereal grace of the Fae. A hint of Other. We underestimated your allure, Aerinne. Or rather, we underestimated the speed at which. . .” She notes my hesitation. “What is it?”
My temples begin to ache, and I grip my teeth against the oncoming migraine. “He has an avatar.” The pain stops me from saying ‘like mine.’
I breathe through it, and after a long moment of silence it lessens .
“What did you see?” she asks.
“An Other. . .Dragon. I think. On a different plane. Could he have been projecting a threat?”
Nora releases my face, turning away from me. “He doesn’t need tricks to make threats. A Dragon,” she adds in a whisper to herself. “I need to think.”
Shit. She begins to walk to the door and I sigh. “Aunt Nora. I don't think we finished our discussion.”
The Old One halts. “Oh, yes.” She hums, turning back to me. “And the discussion?”
She is my aunt, so I refrain from sarcasm. “We were talking about how my irresistible sexiness is going to cause the destruction of the city.”
Nora gives me an inscrutable look, lavender-grey eyes distant. “You only think you’re making mock. The safest option when he summons you is for our Prince to take you now and sate his desire. It may be harsh, painful even, but quickly over.”
“I doubt it's about desire, Nora. It's political.”
“Hmm. The message sent may be political, and he'll use that to his advantage, but the driving motivation? No, Aerinne. If it were merely political, there are other ways he can achieve his ends.”
My abdomen clenches. I hop off the desk and begin pacing to hide my reaction.
She watches me. “If he does take you to his bed immediately, his interest will wane and you may retreat into obscurity and in a few years go on about your life. Travel, build your businesses here in Everenne.”
“And if he doesn't ask for sex?”
“Then he wants more. Sex is simple and fleeting, sweet child. Becoming a lover or Consort to the Prince is anything but. If that is his intention, I fear you will not be allowed to fade to the background of Everenne's politics. That is, of course, if you survive him.”
The positivity is overwhelming. Really, she needs to bring it down a notch.
“Specifics, please.” I stop pacing and cross my arms over my chest. “Does he kill his lovers when done with them?”
But as I say that, it doesn’t feel right. Why save me three times—four?—if he meant my eventual death? Killing his slain best friend’s daughter after fucking her just. . .doesn’t seem his style.
“What's that one—ah. Chicken or the egg, which comes first? Ending an entanglement with a High Lord is rarely uncomplicated, especially if the ending is not their idea. It is not precisely threat to you that is the concern.”
I begin to jiggle my left thigh. “I’ll tell him no. No to a one-night stand. No to anything more.”
Her lavender-gray eyes are wide and unblinking. “You aren't listening. We are not human, Aerinne. We don't subscribe to human sensibilities.”
“He can’t force me.” I’m a little surprised I was able to say that aloud.
“If your family were strong enough to prevent it, no; we are not. It's not considered force when the fate of a House, or a city, rests on the temper of a High Lord fixated on someone of lower consequence—it is considered prudence, for the Fae of lesser power.”
“Of course. So silly of me.” I might say her unbothered air is goals but. . .destruction of the House and city and all of those little details.
She correctly interprets my expression. “It is no different from human practices. How many human women who were forced into arranged marriages over the course of mortal history either loved or desired their mates?”
There isn't much I can say to dispute her.
“Now let me educate you on what will happen if you exercise your fairytale right to tell him no.” Her expression hardens, as cold as I have ever seen it. “Understand this is not mere conjecture, but what I lived.”
Nora pauses, as if to ensure I am listening rather than arguing, then continues when I remain silent.
“If you tell him no after he has already descended past mere heat into a rut, he will come for you.”
“Rut?” I recoil, almost knocking a pen holder off my desk.
“We must entertain worst case scenarios. Your family loves you, and your House holds you in honor.”
“I saw it once.” Danon had to tell me what was happening to keep me from getting involved when a female in our District came to the House for aid.
He’d been green the entire conversation.
“The rut of a Low Fae male compared to the High caste is as comparing a pretty little candle flicker with a raging forest fire.”
If only I was in an emotional position to appreciate the poetic visuals she evokes. “I can order the House to stand down.”
Her snort is too delicate to be a scoff, but it’s close. “They'll fight knowing that they will be crushed—though you young ones haven’t the memories I do. But they will fight. And they will die.”
I stare at her.
“Their deaths won't be pleasant. If you think the rage of a High Lord is frightening, then experience when they go cold. After Ran—Renaud kills your family for daring to keep you from him, you will either flee or fight back. If you fight back, he might be so far gone he perceives even you, the female he wants, as a threat. You could die, as horribly as your family.”
“The male on the battlefield was a master of himself, Nora. Every lash, inflection, or sigh.”
“The only way a Temthrennes male avoids a triggered rut is through death. Not his.”
Her clinical tone sets me on edge, as if she’s reciting text from a biology book. “You’re focused on the rut, but I think the Prince who killed my mother has decided amends are to be made by claiming her daughter—warped Fae male psychology, with a dash of Old One psychopathy to add flair.”
“Both explanations can be true. Aerinne—do not underestimate the danger of the rut. You can politick a High Lord, you cannot politick a beast.”
Her gaze wanders the room as she meanders and picks up books or small objects, playing with each before setting them aside. The tactile contact must keep her focused.
Turning my head, I stare at his picture, sliding off the desk to approach the wall as she talks.
“Instead of fighting him, you might run. Let me crush that delusion now, in case you think you have somehow come up with a solution no one in this situation before you considered.”
And the family says I’m sarcastic .
“He would hunt, and he would destroy everything in his path. Again, once he caught you, in his anger there might not be much left for him to claim.”
His ragged face stares at me in black ink, the eyes dead. As unemotional as his eyes can be, they are never empty.
“This is all counterproductive. I don't understand the biological strategy behind creatures who kill potential reproductive partners in fits of possessive rage. How do you spawn?” Tiny dart holes make the paper rough under my fingers as I trace the bridge of his nose.
“I am gratified you're able to maintain your sense of humor?—”
“You’re the only one who says I have one, Aunt Nora.” Trace his lips, pause, lift my gaze to those inked eyes again. What they will look like when his lips touch mine. Dark and heated, or hungry and possessive.
“—but only because you've never seen the bodies of your friends and family splattered on the walls as a male High Lord ripped through them to get to the person he wanted.”
This reminds me that even people as old as Nora—if I need the reminder—still operate from their unresolved trauma.
I still, my hand freezing.
“I saw it, Aerinne. The High one is never punished because we are all taught to remain out of the eye of a Lord if we don't wish to bear the consequences. This situation is unfortunate for you. You weren't taught to handle a male of his power in a sexual heat.”
I rip the picture down from the wall and begin shredding it into pieces. How could I wonder about the taste of Renaud’s lips ?
Cold, I turn and step on the paper scraps as I walk back to my desk and lean a hip on it. “What did I do wrong? How did I catch his attention? There are others ways to make amends besides claiming me.”
Nora sits on my battered brown leather couch, crossing her ankles as she considers my question. “That is why I believe it is the rut. He loves Muriel—he could have taken you as a daughter, a ward, even a protege, and he’s never been one for casual sexual liaisons.”
Heavy silence descends. I pick up a folder—letters of payment arrears from the palace—and throw it across the room. It hits the wall and papers spew out, fluttering to the floor.
“You're telling me I can't fight. I can't run. What can I do?”
“Navigate his instincts. When he is certain of you, his grip on your neck will loosen. You must be canny, Aerinne. When he approaches you, bow. When he touches you, submit. If he asks, is this against your will, tell him his will is yours. Do as I say, and survive.”
She rises and walks to the door, opening it. “Don't trigger his instincts to hunt. Redirect them to protect.”
Nora pokes her head back into the office, her eyes unfocused. “Aerinne. . .once in warning, twice in punishment, thrice is death.”
I sit there after she leaves again. She must mean the Vow, and a good old-fashioned American three strikes and you're out.
A Realms damned ball.
I need a drink.