Chapter 11 #2
“Because to do otherwise is dangerous.” Torin might gaze at Rowena with adoration, but when he looked at me his eyes seemed flat, as if there were no life behind them.
“One human should not speak with the voice of an entire faerie house. One human is also vulnerable, should she not use that voice for the correct cause.”
It was an overt threat. Pulse hammering in my throat and stomach buzzing with nerves, I raised my hand so the silver chain sparkled between us. “What good fortune that your queen has declared an Accord, then. And that I’m not human anymore.”
Torin smiled, but it still didn’t reach those cold eyes. “Strange things can happen in the dark.”
A chill went over me.
Rowena looked at me sympathetically, leaning her head against Torin’s arm. “They don’t have to, though,” she said in that girlish voice. “There’s still time.”
My breath was coming too fast. “You’re threatening me at a dinner announcing peace?”
“It’s not a threat,” Rowena said, nuzzling her nose against Torin’s sleeve. She didn’t say what else it might be, though.
“Excuse me,” a new voice interjected. “I believe this dance is mine.”
A strong hand entered my line of sight, adorned with a familiar golden ring. Torn between opposing urges—the strongest of which was to run away from everyone and everything—I looked up at Drustan. The Fire prince looked unusually solemn as he waited for me to accept the offer.
Who did I want to be near least? Right now, it was an easy answer. I was too slow giving it, though, because Drustan leaned down to murmur in my ear. “People are watching, Kenna.”
Of course they were. This was my life now—to be gawked at and speculated about. I nodded, then slipped my hand into his before turning to face Torin and Rowena. “Enjoy your evening.”
“May your nights be peaceful, Princess of Blood,” Torin replied.
Everything inside me felt tense as Drustan guided me to the floor.
This was a different sort of trial than the one I’d just escaped, but I didn’t want to endure it, either.
Dancing with Drustan at a ball…I’d dreamed of this.
I’d occasionally dreamed of him coming to my rescue, too, the way he just had.
As always, his touch felt too hot. Too much . The thick gold ring circling his index finger was warm, the metal having absorbed the radiating heat of all that barely contained magic.
I wondered how cold my skin felt to him, and if he’d ever minded. No one burned as hot as Drustan in Mistei; we must all seem chilled as corpses in comparison.
The dance was slow and simple, which was good in some ways and awful in others. I was too flustered for complicated patterns, but it also forced me to look up at his face rather than seizing the excuse to stare at my feet. I’d been near him at dinner, but this was different. More intimate.
His mouth wasn’t tense, but he wasn’t smiling, either. A neutral look. “That didn’t seem pleasant. What did they say to you?”
“Veiled threats.”
“Revolving around…?”
“Supporting Imogen or facing unknown terrors in the dark.”
“I’ll double the patrols around Blood House.”
Don’t , I wanted to say. Did I really need more Fire soldiers—which meant Fire informants—around the house? I shouldn’t be refusing any defenses right now, though. “It’s probably just bluster.”
“It would make me happy to know you’re safe.”
My breath hitched. “Stop.”
He looked like he wanted to ask what he should stop—but also like he knew the answer.
We separated and circled each other for a few wary turns, hands pressed together, gazes assessing.
“Did you get my letter?” he asked.
I nodded.
He clearly expected me to say more, but my tongue felt clumsy, and I didn’t want to heap him with praise for making promises he might not keep.
The silence stretched between us. He guided me a quarter turn to the right, one hand firm at my waist. I was excruciatingly aware of the eyes following our movements.
“Will you truly not speak with me?” he asked quietly. “You used to have so much to say.”
My brows shot up. Was he going to bring this up now? “You don’t understand why I wouldn’t want to speak with you?”
“I do, but…” He bit his lip, then released it. “I miss what we had.”
No, he didn’t. He couldn’t, or he would have fought harder to keep it. “You were using me to get to Earth House.”
“Kenna. You know it wasn’t just that.”
“Do I?”
He frowned. “You have a very poor opinion of me.”
“Yes,” I said bluntly. “But you’ve earned my poor opinion.”
“Because I told Osric about you? I was trying to save your life—and Lara’s. He needed a reason to find you harmless.”
Apparently we were going to discuss this. I could think of better places than a dance floor to do it, but perhaps he knew I would have done my best to avoid being alone with him. The music at least covered our words, and everyone else seemed too drunk to listen, anyway.
I looked at his handsome face, remembering how blank it had seemed as he’d watched me being dragged past him. He’d caused that, even if he hadn’t meant to. Osric had craved death that night, and the king had needed the flimsiest of reasons to deliver it.
That wasn’t the real issue, though. As bitter as I was that Drustan had revealed our cheating, I could also understand that it had perhaps been well intentioned. The lesser of two evils, as he’d probably seen it. Better for Lara and me to be labeled cheaters than traitors to the throne.
“Do you remember what came before that?” I asked. “Do you remember why Osric took a sudden interest in us?”
His jaw tensed, and he looked away. Oh, yes, he remembered.
“Because we were mourning Selwyn,” I continued. “Because you killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him. Osric did.”
A ragged noise tore out of me. “Yes, you did. He broke neutrality for you and gave you soldiers, and in exchange, you told Osric he was the true traitor. You might as well have shoved him into the magic yourself.”
Drustan glared down at me, but he was still guiding me through the steps smoothly, his lead so confident it was impossible to falter. I hated him a little for how good he was at this, too. “You know why I did it, Kenna. Don’t lie and pretend otherwise.”
I bit my lip hard. “That doesn’t mean it was right.”
“Likely not,” he acknowledged. “But it wasn’t wrong, either. I made the choice that would preserve the largest number of lives.”
“You made the choice that preserved your life.”
“Two things can be true.” The air around him wavered, and a small flame licked at one of the braids holding his hair back. “But you need to admit why you’re really angry with me. It’s not just because of what I did to Selwyn. It’s because, according to your logic, you helped kill him, too.”
The words hit me like a slap. I stopped moving, and his momentum carried him into my space, so close our bodies were nearly touching. He didn’t back away.
“Damn you,” I said softly, feeling the prickle of tears. Because he was right.
“I’m already damned, Kenna. However humans tally such things, I’m sure my sins have passed the point of forgiveness.” He shook his head. “But this is Mistei, not the poor little village you came from, and it’s not as simple as that. Nothing is.”
Dancing couples swirled around us. We were an island in the midst of a sea, frozen in the push and pull of this shared torment. Choices taken and love discarded, his lust for power and my shattered illusions. We had both walked over bodies to get here.
I couldn’t forgive him…because I couldn’t forgive myself.
“You can’t belong to two worlds at once,” he said, lifting his hand to cup my cheek. “If you keep holding on to both, the strain will tear you apart.”
I briefly closed my eyes. How sick that this should be how he finally touched me in public as equals. On the surface, it was like a story my mother would have told me—the human who became a faerie princess, who went to the ball and danced in the arms of her prince.
The stories hadn’t been honest about how many people needed to die for that to happen.
“And if I never forgive you?” I asked past the ache in my throat.
He shrugged, looking tired. “Then don’t forgive me. But make your decisions for better reasons than to spite me.”
The words stuck a thorn into my heart.
“We need to find a way to work together,” he continued. “Even if you hate me. Even if it’s painful for both of us. A princess does not have the luxury of making choices based on personal sentiment.”
The strings played an aching lament overhead. The Noble Fae turned in graceful circles in one another’s arms. My lover looked down at me, the memory of a Beltane fire flickering in his eyes.
He was both right and wrong about me. Right in his wrongness, maybe, or wrong in his rightness. Maybe that was the point he was trying to make—that there were no easy answers. Humans had the luxury of black-and-white thinking, but the Fae existed in the gray.
His hand slid from my cheek to my shoulder, resting there like he didn’t want to stop touching me yet.
I shrugged off his hand. “I will work with you in this alliance,” I told him. “But I can’t promise we’re going to agree on everything, and I will not guarantee my support. I do, however, promise that I won’t make any decisions based on our…personal history.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.”
The drums were coming in again, sending the dance into livelier territory. He stepped back, and the air cooled. For a moment I missed that magical heat.
Drustan bowed. “Always a pleasure.” He turned away, and soon he was dancing with a new partner, laughing before he leaned to whisper in the lady’s ear.
I went to get wine, careful not to hold the glass too tightly this time.
Then I watched from a spot at the edge of the cavern, wondering what alliances were being woven tonight and what promises were being made under the cover of music.
Drustan was dancing with a Light lady while Hector was dancing with one from Earth.
Kallen was nowhere to be seen, probably doing something secret in the shadows.
Imogen was surrounded by a cluster of faeries from Light, Illusion, and Earth House, while Torin and Rowena were sending frequent looks in both Gweneira’s direction and mine.
Gweneira was speaking with Lara, and the cynical part of me wondered at her agenda in getting closer to the only other Blood faerie.
The music, the laughter, the glitter—all of it floated on the surface, as insubstantial as foam on a pond. Beneath it, in the quiet dark and the subtle spaces between words, changes were being set into motion.
I felt the increasing anxiety of an opportunity passing me by. What was I doing drinking alone in a corner? What moves was I making for the game ahead? I had so much less power than the other house heads—which meant I needed to be so much bolder to make up for it.
Swallowing the last of the wine, I set the glass on the tray of a passing servant, then hurried towards the dais before I could talk myself out of it. As I mounted the steps, the faeries twirling nearby slowed their movements, turning their heads to watch.
I stood on the platform in front of all of Mistei, pulse racing and skin dampening with nervous sweat. “Blood House has been resurrected,” I announced. My voice couldn’t come close to filling the cavern, but Mistei’s rumor mill would do the rest. “We’re seeking new members.”
Shocked murmurs went through the crowd. Most of the dancers stopped entirely, and even the fiddle music broke off.
Imogen watched me with narrowed eyes. I met that look and raised my chin, imagining a crown on my own brow. Not Osric’s, heavy and cruel, but something that would make me hold my head higher to earn the honor of wearing it.
“Too many of you have been suffering under the rule of tyrants,” I continued, staring Imogen down.
“Blood House will be different. If you don’t feel safe where you currently are, come join us.
If you hate your masters, come join us. If you crave freedom, an escape, or a new start, come join us.
Regardless of house affiliation, species, or magic—if you want a new home, you may have it. ”
That was as much of a speech as I felt capable of. I was no Drustan, with charm in abundance and all the right words to win people over. So before I could ruin the words I had managed to get out, I gripped my skirts, raising them out of the way as I descended the steps.
For a moment everything was silent and still. Then the music started up again, the Fae resumed their dancing, and the laughter and glitter swept back in, covering everything in layers of pretty deceit.
Nothing had changed on the surface. But faeries were watching me now out of the corners of their eyes—and the ones looking most closely were the servants.
I smiled, feeling the heady rush of triumph.
It was too early to know what changes would be wrought as a result of that speech, but at least they all knew the truth now.
Blood House had entered the game—and I was going to play by my rules.