Chapter 22 #2
“Kallen?” I felt far too pleased by the thought, though I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve it. “Where is he tonight?”
“Spying on a musicale Rowena is hosting.” She pulled her shiny black braid over her shoulder, toying with the end of it. “What do you think about Kallen?”
I had no idea how to even begin answering that question. “I respect him,” I said, hoping she couldn’t tell how flustered I was by this line of inquiry. “He’s been…”
What had he been? Terrifying, at first. Controlling, violent, occasionally cruel. But those layers had gradually peeled away, and now I was left looking at someone I didn’t quite know how to explain.
Una was still waiting for my answer, so I fumbled for words that might start to define the edges of whatever moved between Kallen and me. “He’s honest with me when he doesn’t need to be. He’s killed to protect me. And…and I would kill for him, too.”
How else to explain all of it? The uneasy fascination that drew me to him, the way he could hold my hand so gently while promising to destroy my enemies…
And the sadness in him, that called to me, too.
There was a loneliness in his eyes that felt familiar, though I suspected his was of a magnitude far greater than my own.
So, yes, I would kill for Kallen. Even if I didn’t understand him yet. Even if sometimes I worried about what it would mean if I did.
Una angled her head slightly. “Do you fear him?”
“No.” Privately, though, I acknowledged that wasn’t quite true. Because something about him frightened me, but it wasn’t what she was asking about. Una wanted to know how I felt about the notoriously violent King’s Vengeance, and I was no longer afraid of that constructed monster.
When had that happened? While we were dancing, maybe. Or possibly even before that. It had been a gradual slip into a new way of thinking about him.
“Maybe that’s why,” Una said, tone contemplative.
“Why what?”
“Tell me what you want to do with Blood House,” she said, switching the subject.
“I—”
“Your ethos. How you intend to move forward.”
Una was testing me with this conversation; that much was clear. She felt protective of Hector and Void House’s secrets, and she was trying to find out if I was worthy of them.
Would it be more clever to lie or dance around the issue? Maybe. But Kallen seemed to like my honesty, so maybe Una would, too. “Blood House will be a shelter,” I told her. “A place where the survivors make our own rules and where we come from doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t care about preserving the magic? Breeding for strength the way the other houses do?”
My laugh sounded wild. “I’m the only one with Blood magic.
What am I going to do, repopulate the entire house myself?
” That wasn’t a role I’d been sure about wanting even before coming to Mistei, and though I could imagine having a child in some hazy, distant future, I couldn’t imagine having one in Mistei as it was today—much less turning into a broodmare for the sake of preserving my new magic.
The Fae thought and acted on extremely long timelines, though.
I could conceivably have a few children with another Noble Fae, and without Osric to banish them as changelings, they could grow up safe in my house before finding partners and having more children.
As the centuries passed, there would be more and more faeries who had inherited at least a fraction of Blood’s power.
I could have more than a few children now that I was no longer human, I realized with an unpleasant shock. Fae births were rarer than human births, but I could still have dozens of children if I wanted them and lived long enough. Hundreds of them. An army, sprung entirely from my flesh.
The idea was viscerally disturbing. Surely that wasn’t what the Shards had intended when they’d told me to restore the balance? If so, they were going to be disappointed.
I shook my head. “There’s no point trying to be like the other houses. So we’re going to be something else. Something better.”
Una had been hard to read throughout this conversation—there was definitely an echo of Kallen in both her abrupt questions and the reserve she wore so well.
To my surprise, though, she smiled after my last words.
“I think I understand now.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder and stood, smoothing her palms over her black skirt. “Enjoy your evening, Princess Kenna.”
I sat in silence for a few minutes after she left, watching the movements of faeries through the crowd.
Void faeries speaking with Earth faeries, Una whispering something in Lara’s ear, Hector guiding Rhiannon towards an empty corner of the room.
A party was never just a party, like a dance was never just a dance.
Something gold caught in my peripheral vision.
I turned to see what it was, thinking Drustan had finally arrived in gleaming raiment, but the doorway was empty.
Candlelight reflected off a framed mirror, though, and I saw the room doubled in it.
Twice the scheming, and it would only intensify once he did arrive.
I rubbed my temples, suddenly exhausted. If Kallen were here, we could lurk in a corner debating philosophy, but he wasn’t, and that wasn’t what a princess should do, anyway. I should be making connections.
I was so tired, though.
Lara was visible in the mirror, a splash of red in the largely dark room. She caught my eyes in the reflection and beckoned. I sighed and stood up.
Princesses weren’t allowed to be tired. And Mistei’s schemes didn’t stop for anyone.