Chapter 17
Reeve attended many parties at Castle Morana. It was a season of weddings and celebrations of birth and new lives in The Dread Lands. Abraxas ensured that life in their new realm was just as lavish and extraordinary as it was on Earth.
Mal remained across the party, smiling diplomatically at King Kier. The ruler of Heims brought his oldest daughter with him. Her skin was stunning against the bold ivory gown she wore.
“Go,” hissed Abraxas as Reeve moved to the bar. “Do your job.”
He disappeared before Maeve could argue further.
Maeve moved across the hall, straightening her back and tossing her hair behind her shoulders.
“No gorgeous blonde Immortal this evening?” She asked as she arrived at his side.
Reeve’s shoulders pulled up and he took a swig of his drink.
Maeve smiled and chuckled. “Couldn’t find anyone in Aterna that suited your fancy? Or have you just been through them all?”
Reeve’s eyes sparkled behind his glass.
Maeve’s smile dropped. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Maeve looked down at her dress, searching for an imperfection.
“Look at you all frazzled beneath my gaze,” he murmured.
She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “It is far from frazzled that your gaze incites.”
“You haven’t danced at all,” noted Reeve.
“Not really in the mood,” she replied as she took a glass of sparkling water to her lips.
“I sense distance between you and the Dread Prince.”
“Really?” She replied dryly. “Was it the obvious entertainment of Kier’s daughter? Or the even more obvious ignoring of my presence that gave it away?”
“The course of love never did run smooth,”
Maeve scoffed. “True love,” she corrected. “The quote is ‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’”
“You know Shakespeare?” He asked.
Maeve laughed as a smile began blossoming on her face. “ You know Shakespeare?”
“Of course,” said Reeve with a grin. “One of the greats.”
Maeve’s face scrunched in disbelief.
“Is that so hard to fathom?” Asked Reeve.
Maeve stammered.
Reeve continued. “Is it that I enjoy reading or the arts?”
Maeve sighed. “I only meant he’s a playwright from Earth. You’re from a different world.”
Reeve nodded. “A realm with art and poetry and stories from every realm and planet that dates back farther than Earth’s own existence.”
Maeve’s mouth fell open slightly. “Is that true?”
“Aterna has the largest library in the universe, as far as I know. Keepers of time, as they are called, protect its knowledge with their lives.”
“It’s in the city?”
Reeve’s smile faltered, his pupils shrunk, and the spark in his firelight eyes flickered out. He chose his response carefully, and Maeve knew why.
It burned deep in her stomach, the disappointment that crept into his expression, the realization that they played nice, but she was potentially his enemy. And the possibility that he was hers. The High Lord was not going to give her and her Dread Prince any more power than they already possessed.
Maeve’s jaw clenched and she straightened. She pushed him, knowing she had already failed at manipulating the information from him. “Your majesty?”
Reeve loosed a breath. “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue,” he said, quoting what she knew must be more Shakespeare.
Ice shot down Maeve’s spine. Mal was watching them across the hall.
“What’s that from?” She asked.
“Hamlet.”
“I haven’t read that one,” she said with strain.
Their eyes were locked together.
“It’s. . .one of them.”
“A good one?”
Mal’s gaze was not letting up.
“Again,” said Reeve. “It’s one of them.”
She could feel his jealousy crawling across the floor towards them. She looked up at him, but his eyes were on Kier and his daughter.
She refused to acknowledge the implications of Kier introducing them and bringing the beauty all the way from Hiems.
“Who was she?” She asked softly. “Your mate?”
Reeve’s Magic tensed. Maeve looked up at him. His eyes were pained.
“My wife died in the Shadow War.”
“She was a Warrior?”
Reeve shook his head. “She was a healer.”
Maeve looked away from him. “How long were you together before…”
“Twenty years.”
“I’ve read mates can speak mind to mind,” said Maeve. “Of course, they haven’t existed for Magicals in centuries. Earth stifled all that Magic.”
“Am I wrong that you and the Dread Prince are able to communicate silently?’
Maeve shook her head gently. “The walls are down because we make it so. I allow him in my head. There is no force great enough to penetrate the walls of my mind without my permission.”
“I have heard that of Pureblood Witches, and I mean no offense Maeve, but your mother was not of the Sacred.”
The thought had plagued her for months, wondering how the barriers in her mind were so strong despite not being of Pureblood.
“Do you have any thoughts on the matter?” She asked. “With all that Immortal wisdom?” She smirked.
Reeve loosed a laugh.
“Did you know her?” Asked Maeve.
Reeve’s mask truly fell for the first time. Maeve didn’t smile in triumph. She wasn’t pleased with herself.
The corners of her mouth pulled up as sadness swarmed her blue eyes. “You did, didn’t you?”
Reeve’s jaw tightened. His mouth opened and closed in a frustrated groan.
Tears brimmed her eyes with the realization that the lie was deeper than she had yet to realize. She pushed away from the bar before they could fall down her cheeks.
Another nail in the wall of secrets, this one signed with her father’s name too.
Reeve was casually on her tail, matching her quick stride effortlessly thanks to his long legs.
“I can’t explain,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. “What?” She asked, not looking over at him.
“Maeve,” he said in a frustrated growl.
She whipped towards him, putting space between them. “What?” She snapped unapologetically.
Reeve’s chest rose and fell. His jaw clenched tightly as a glimmer of pain shot across his face. “Listen to my words.”
She frowned up at him, her brows softening as she considered his tense muscles.
“I cannot explain,” he said once more with a slight grimace.
His body relaxed. His eyes scanned the room behind her.
“There is Magic holding your tongue,” she said softly, realizing the meaning of his calculated words.
Reeve looked back down at her. She shook her head.
“More secrets. More masks. More questions with no answers.”
“If it would unburden you, I would speak them all,” he said slowly.
Maeve took another step back from him. “I have a feeling your truths would be, by far, the most burdenous part of you.”
“Imagine how I feel,” said Reeve.
“I do try to see your perspective, it is just difficult to see anything with one’s head that far up one’s ass.”
Reeve nodded in approval, his smirk growing. “That was good. You’ve been taking lessons on wit from your cousin.”
Maeve couldn’t endure his company any longer. His endless arrogance and his ability to laugh everything off. . .There was little worth laughing about with Reeve as far as she was concerned.
He created more questions than answers.
As she turned from him, she didn’t know what bothered her more: the idea that Reeve knew her mother, or that her father chose to tell him. And not her.
Maeve found it difficult to keep pressing Reeve as he accepted her every invite to Castle Morana. Even for the simplest of gatherings for cigars with Abraxas, he held his secrets close. If he couldn’t talk about her mother, she doubted he’d ever spill the secrets of his Inheritor.
Maeve was not suited for diplomacy or the mind games Mal and Abraxas insisted were necessary to establish their place in the world.
Alphard had returned to Castle Morana from his latest visit to Aterna, with less information than Maeve even.
“What about the university there?” Asked Abraxas. “They have quite a large college of literature and law.”
“It’s nothing like Vaukore,” said Alphard. “There was little information there outside of the arts.”
“What about Aterna’s library?” Said Maeve.
Alphard looked over at her. “What do you mean? They have nothing to search.”
Maeve shook her head. “That’s not true. Reeve told me Aterna boasts the largest known library.”
Alphard looked to Mal.
“When did he tell you this?” Abraxas asked with a slight look of confusion.
Maeve shrugged. “I don’t remember. Not that long ago.”
“When?” Said Mal.
Maeve looked at him and opened her mouth. Then closed it. She looked down at the table, realizing her mistake. “At the banquet for Emerie and Roswyn’s daughter. It slipped my mind.”
Mal shifted in his seat, swapping his crossed legs and didn’t look at her. “Strange. I thought memories were your speciality.”
Maeve looked at him sharply, despite his resolve not to meet her gaze.
Abraxas spoke. “You’re certain you didn’t misunderstand him?”
Maeve opened her mouth to reply once more, but Mal spoke over her. “I’m certain Maeve listens to Reeve with such intensity it would rival your own, Abraxas.”
Abraxas’ eyes slipped to Mal, his lips curling together.
Maeve didn’t look at either of them.
Mal stood, sliding his chair back. Everyone stood at once. Maeve was slow to her feet.
“Return, Alphard,” he said as he walked behind her and towards the door. “Find the secret library my Second suddenly decided to remember.”
Maeve looked across the table at Abraxas. His brows lifted quickly, and he looked rather satisfied. “Close your mouth, cousin. You look like a trout.”
Maeve entered Mal’s study without an invitation, flinging the doors open with a flick of her hand.
“Have I offended you?”
The door slammed close behind her, but it was not her Magic that moved them.
Mal didn’t look up from his work.
She waited a moment and then spoke. “Mal,” she said softly.
His eyes lifted to hers. “My court addresses me as their Prince.”
Maeve shook her head in disbelief, tearing her eyes away from his.
The walls of his study were lined with many of her father’s things. Books, essays, ancient and rare Magical artifacts.
Magical wills were a marvel. The things Ambrose wanted to leave to Mal were now Magically there. Just as much of Maeve’s London Townhouse had been filled with the things he left her. And how her chambers in Castle Morana now were.
She crossed the study, her low heels clicking across the floor as a framed picture caught her eye. Next to a stack of leather-bound books, was a picture of her.
A picture that once occupied her father’s mantel piece.
“He gave me that before he died,” said Mal calmly. Maeve looked back at him. “I was too distracted by it to pay attention, he said.”
Maeve looked back at the framed photo taken on the balcony at Sinclair Estates.
“That was his birthday party,” she said quietly, remembering the evening perfectly, knowing she’d never celebrate a birthday, let alone anything, with him again.
Pressure built in her throat and head. She turned from the shelves and made for the doorway.
“Maeve.”
She swallowed hard and forced the tears threatening to slip from her eyes away. She turned towards him and held her chin up proudly.
Mal stood and crossed beside his desk. “Why did you come here?”
She sighed shakily. “Because you instructed me to do a job. I did that job and you are angry at me for it.”
Mal’s head cocked to one side. “I am not angry with you for finding out about the Library in Aterna.”
“Then why are you?”
Mal replied without hesitation. “Because he made you smile.”
Maeve’s mouth opened to retort before his words took hold. She snapped it shut.
“What-” she stammered, feeling her cheeks flood with warmth.
“He made you smile,” Mal repeated plainly.
Maeve looked down at the floor between them. Mal’s voice was regally calm.
“I haven’t seen you smile once since you got here.”
Maeve looked back up at him, anger festering in her core. “You asked me to get close to him.”
“And it was my first mistake as your Prince,” he said smoothly.
Maeve nodded, ready to argue further. “You leave for days at a time. No communication. No idea if you are alive or struggling. You come back and speak in riddles to me, in cryptic messages about this darkness out there. I haven’t got the faintest idea what it is you are subjecting yourself to.”
“As my second, you should worry about your training and protecting this realm. Abraxas can handle the politics of it all.”
“Politics?” She laughed. “I’m not concerned with that nonsense. I want to know what it is you’re doing out there.” She pointed out the window at the lands beyond. “What have you seen? What do you know? What has you so distant and so certain–”
“What has me distant?” Mal’s nostrils flared.
Maeve fell silent.
“You chose this distance, and you chose to be separated from me,” he said with a lethal calm. “Don’t you dare ask me such a foolish question.”
Maeve turned on her heel and made for the door. Magic covered the locks as they clicked into place before she reached it.
“I haven’t dismissed you,” said Mal lowly.
Maeve turned back towards him. “I cannot fathom how it is so easy for you to continue as though nothing has happened–as though he’s not dead and everything is as it was supposed to be.”
“I am pushing forward because that’s where Ambrose wanted us to be.”
“Do not presume to know what my father wanted.”
“I do not presume,” fired Mal. “I had many conversations about the future of Magicals with him. I spent many nights in his study, in his basement, rolling through all the possibilities for our future, Maeve. Mine and yours.”
Her chest tightened.
“I am not your enemy,” he continued. “If you desire separation, so be it. But do not chastise me for holding all of this together when it could so easily crumble. Do you truly believe he would have wanted his death to be the catalyst for collapse?”
“No,” she said through her teeth.
“No,” Mal repeated. “But that is what our true enemies want.”
“And who are they?” Asked Maeve.
“As far as I’m concerned, anyone that isn’t you and I.”
“Even your court? Those boys devour even a glance from you.”
“They are driven by my power, hungry for a taste of it, desperate for a place on top in the future I am creating.”
“I, too, was once driven by what your power offered me.”
“But it was replaced by deeper Magic.”
Mal’s eyes softened.
They took long, steadying breaths together.
“Show me, Mal,” she said calmly. “Show me these lands I am meant to protect. I am going mad in this castle with all these thoughts and dreams that do not belong to me.”