Chapter 9
The next morning, I was eating breakfast in the kitchen and thanking my new Fae physiology for sparing me the negative aftereffects of wine when I felt the subtle vibrations in the house magic that indicated a visitor.
I headed outside to find a Fire sprite in an orange tunic standing with his hands clasped behind his back, peering up at the crow perched in the Blood Tree.
Joy filled my chest. “Aidan!”
A grin split his ash-gray face. “Kenna. It’s good to see you.”
I ran over and hugged him. Though sprites were small compared to the Noble Fae, he stood only a few inches shorter than me. Aidan squeezed me back tightly before making an alarmed noise and jumping away. “Wait, you’re a princess now.” He bowed. “Sorry, my princess, I shouldn’t—”
“Don’t you dare start bowing and saying that my princess nonsense.” We had spent too many events side by side, heads lowered as we waited for the Noble Fae to order us around.
“But you’re—”
“Kenna. Just Kenna.”
“I mean, you’re not just anything anymore.”
I shook my head, then gripped his hands. “How are you? We didn’t get to talk after the throne room.”
He’d been in the midst of everything as Lord Edric’s manservant, but it had been such a whirlwind I didn’t even know if he’d fought. He’d seemed uninjured afterwards, but he’d been obligated to leave with the rest of Fire House, and we hadn’t gotten the chance to speak.
His face grew serious. “I’m well. But we lost some good faeries that night, and the house is still grieving. Everyone is tense, anticipating what comes next.” He squeezed my fingers, then pulled his hands out of mine and clasped them together, looking nervous. “I suppose that’s why I’m here.”
So Aidan hadn’t just come for a visit. My mood dimmed. “Drustan sent you.”
He nodded. “Before I jump into it, are you all right? That night was…bad.”
An understatement. “As well as I can be. I’m glad Osric is dead.”
“Everyone is,” he said emphatically. “You have no idea. Most people hid it well, but every time one of the dinners ended in an execution, I felt this intense collective wish for Osric to die. So many faeries were thinking it I couldn’t identify them individually.”
Sprites could sense secret desires. If Aidan had known how badly Mistei longed for Osric to die, and if he was here on some mission from Fire House…“Did you know Drustan was plotting a revolution?”
He nodded. “Edric has been involved for a while. During the trials, he was trying to convince Talfryn to join us. And my gift was occasionally helpful when it came to identifying possible allies.”
There was no reason to feel betrayed, and yet I did. “You didn’t tell me.”
He shifted, looking uncomfortable. “To be fair, you didn’t tell me, either.”
He was right, and I was a hypocrite. “Edric was really trying to recruit Talfryn?” The other Earth candidate had been unflinchingly loyal to the ruling family of Earth House—I couldn’t imagine him going against Oriana.
“It didn’t work. He wasn’t willing to fight unless house leadership did.”
“Did Edric try to recruit Lara, too?” Or was I the only one Drustan had asked to do that?
“He tried to lead the conversation that way a few times, but she wouldn’t even begin to have a discussion about what needed to change in Mistei.”
Just like when I’d tried to talk to her. Oriana had taught Lara it wasn’t safe to speculate about such things—and considering what had happened to Selwyn, she’d been right.
“Edric risked a lot,” I said, throat thick with regret. Another young idealist, recruited to a war he might not survive.
Aidan’s smile was soft. “He’s always been brave.”
And Aidan was in love with him.
This conversation was making me feel sick. Drustan had apparently been using more than just me to try to get his hooks into Earth House. How many other people would I find out had been his tools? How many others—like me, like Aidan—had been partially motivated by love?
“So, what does Drustan want?” I asked.
Aidan squeezed his hands together. “Well, first I’m supposed to ask if you know who has Selwyn’s key to that passage.”
My heart thumped. “What passage?”
“Between Earth House and the throne room.” Aidan looked apologetic. “It’s not because he wants to attack Earth House or anything. I think he wants to see if it goes anywhere else.”
So Selwyn hadn’t told Drustan the true extent of the catacombs. And since Drustan wasn’t asking about my key, Selwyn must have kept the true number of keys a secret, too.
“I assume Oriana has it,” I said, keeping my expression blank. Whichever Earth rebel had been using the key, they’d either volunteered or been forced to return it to her—or she’d taken it from their corpse.
Aidan made a face. “Then Drustan’s never getting it back.”
It was never Drustan’s to begin with , I wanted to retort. Then again, the key under my skin hadn’t been mine to begin with, either. We all felt entitled to whatever we could seize.
He fished in his tunic, then pulled out a scroll. “I’m also supposed to give you this.”
I took it reluctantly. “I wonder what promises he intends to make and then break this time.”
Aidan winced. He was familiar with my history with Drustan. “You should give him a chance, Kenna. He has a vision. Good intentions. And…I know it ended badly, but I think he was trying to save you when he told the king what happened during the trials.”
I wondered if Aidan judged me for helping Lara cheat. He wasn’t acting like it, but it had to sting knowing Edric had passed the trials all on his own while Lara had had help the entire time. Knowing I’d lied about it, too.
But we’d both lied to each other. We’d both omitted. When our secrets were deadly, what other choice had we had?
“Maybe,” I said. Almost certainly. Drustan had only said that when it had seemed like Lara and I might be branded revolutionaries. Better for the king to think us cheating, incompetent fools. “That doesn’t mean I forgive him.”
I slid my nail under the glimmering orange wax seal, then unrolled the letter.
Kenna,
I’m sorry to hear about the attempt against your life. I should have known you would try to change Oriana’s mind. You were lucky this time, but for your own sake, I ask that you not be so reckless again.
The chiding tone to his concern rankled. Had going to Earth House been reckless? Maybe. But that recklessness was the reason I was in this position to begin with, and I wasn’t going to become docile for his convenience.
You asked me to prove my right to the throne by speaking of its people.
To that end, I enclose below a list of every human whose duties bring them to Fire House.
I plan to invite them within house walls for safety, where they will become paid servants for as long as they wish to stay.
If they do not wish to stay, I will make arrangements for their release after we know the direction of this initial conflict.
Some of my anger faded. It was a good start.
The humans had always been property of the crown, not belonging to any house, and the crown had never paid them for their labors.
I liked that he was immediately addressing that portion of the injustice, even if I didn’t like the idea that they would need to wait for release.
The humans would have to accept that offer, of course.
If they didn’t trust me, they were unlikely to trust him, either.
I also plan to abolish any restrictions against cross-house romances, and the changeling practice will end immediately. You know how important this is to me.
I did. Interbreeding between houses was forbidden, and the children of those unions had been shunned before Osric’s time and exiled after it.
For the past eight hundred years, those babies had been traded for human infants.
The changelings grew old and eventually died in the human world, separated from the magic that could give them eternal life, while the humans grew up enslaved.
Drustan had lost someone because of that monstrous policy. Mildritha, a lady he’d loved as both a friend and something more. She’d had a child with Lara’s older brother, Leo, and now both of them were dead and the baby lost.
I will also endeavor to reintegrate the communities of outcast Fae.
“Who are the outcast Fae?” I asked Aidan.
“Faeries who were excommunicated from their houses. Usually for crimes like thievery or spying—if the faerie they committed the crime against was important enough—but also for failing the immortality trials.”
That would have happened to Lara if I hadn’t taken her in. “Where do they go?”
“There are a few enclaves lower down, nearly at the level of the Nasties. They’re forbidden from going anywhere near court.”
An idea began to simmer at the back of my mind. Blood House needed to grow. We needed our own soldiers, our own patrols. If these outcasts didn’t have a house…might some of them want to join mine?
It was worth investigating. I looked back at the letter, reading the few sentences that were left.
There is far more to ruling than these small decisions, and I will share more detailed policies with you soon, but they are a start. I have been preparing for this role for a long time. You believed in me once, Kenna—try to believe in me again.
Drustan
I traced my finger over my name and then his, written in his elegant script. “Do you believe in him?” I asked Aidan. “Do you think he would be a worthy king?”
Aidan nodded without hesitation. “I do.”
“I suppose you have to as a member of Fire House.”
“That is part of it, but not all of it. He’s been good to the people he governs.” His face grew serious. “I will not go against my prince or my house, Kenna. In the end, I will always choose that loyalty over any other. No matter what happens.”