Chapter 47
The Serpent
Days after I’d placed Livia on my throne, the palace was still locked in a frenzy as servants and courtiers and common folk adjusted to a woman in power. I wouldn’t take it back. There was a rightness in my chest, like this was the path I should’ve taken all along.
Carpenters were half finished with a twin throne in the great hall. Carved in foxes and ivy and a swallow in the center of the back. The royal smith set to work fashioning her a circlet in the shape of oak leaves and would present it at an official coronation at the next full moon.
Of course, if I’d known there’d be such a need from the house lords to discuss my lunacy, I would’ve killed them all—save for Gavyn, who found it wholly entertaining—and been done with them.
“Lord Hesh,” I said, desperate to sound bored.
The man was made of more stone than flesh.
The only small piece of his towering form were his teeth, ground down from the constant tension in his damn jaw.
“As I told you, if I cared for your opinions on the royal court, I would have consulted you. Alas, I care little.”
“My King,” Joron interjected. He was as slender as a sickly tree, with knobby limbs to go with it. “We seek not to tell you how to rule your court, but what you have done…it is a weakness against us. You’ve given the earth fae—”
“What?” I snapped. “What have I given them? A union? A call to peace? You recall the days the Ever Folk went to their realms, when trade was once prominent between our people, when the lands thrived together.”
Joron spluttered. “Those were different times, My Lord.”
“And they will be again.” I faced the far end of the table, one fist curled over my leg. “Lady Narza, what do you say? Think a queen is a weakness for the Ever?”
“What else will a woman say?” Hesh grumbled.
“I don’t believe I was speaking to you.” I gave the lord a warning glare and took pleasure in the way he pinched his lips. “What say you, Grandmother?”
Narza had been silent, but to the surprise of every house, she’d arrived after Joron summoned a council to discuss the blasphemy of an Ever Queen.
My grandmother had had little to do with me after the death of my mother.
I’d always resented her for it, always wanted her to steal me away to her house to escape the cruelty of my father.
She never came.
Oddly enough, in this moment she looked at me without indifference. More like she did not recognize me.
“I say,” she began, “our king has been burdened by a broken kingdom for a great many turns. At times to heal, it requires vast change. I am optimistic your act to change the way of things will only benefit our people.”
Not praise exactly, but it meant more than I expected to have her approval. Hesh and Joron muttered until Gavyn flamboyantly expressed his enthusiasm for a new queen.
“Already the king and queen,” he said, “have cleared away the darkening on the far isles in the House of Bones. They are stronger together, and I for one like the king a great deal more when the earth queen is near.”
I narrowed my eyes and fought the urge to kick his damn shin under the table.
Slowly, I rose from my seat. I’d been kept long enough from Livia, and I tired of their blustering.
“The truth is, I do not need your approval. Any of you. In fact, Lord Joron, I would think hard on your support of your king and queen. Or the palace might take note of the lotus trade you’ve begun with the privateers in the far seas. ”
Joron’s eyes widened, and the blustering fool startled in his seat when I slammed my palm on the table.
“In fact,” I went on, “your involvement in the Skondell lotus trade makes me wonder if you might be the one financing House Skurk to betray your king.”
“No.” Joron shook his head vigorously. “No, Highness. I…would never involve myself with such a house. We’ve used the lotus for study, that is all. To find new uses. I swear to you.”
I pulled my hand back before the cretin could kiss my damn rings, and gave Gavyn a quick glance. He’d done his duty and found more than one wretched secret.
“And Hesh.” I drummed my fingers over the table. “You’ll return to your province to find the sirens you’ve been holding beneath your manor are no longer yours for whatever twisted reason you were keeping them.”
Narza’s eyes burned in a swift unforgiving rage. “What is this? You’ve imprisoned blood of my house?”
Hesh saw females as tools to expand a bloodline, but beneath the surface, he feared Narza. “Trespassers. I am within my rights to detain them.”
“Liar!” She seethed. “You want their voices, is that it? Want to lure folk to your province? Or is it you merely want to use their bodies in the hope you secure an heir with a unique gift, like our king?”
I slammed my hand on the table again. “Let this be a warning—I do not care for your opinions on the queen, and I will be watching to see that your support is given to her with unwavering fealty. In fact, I suggest you each look within your own houses and consider how much stronger you might be if you did the same.”
Without another word, I abandoned the council room.
Alistair was waiting in the corridor; I glared my annoyance and tried to hurry past him.
“You cannot avoid me forever, My King.”
“I can and I will.”
Alistair snorted. “There are matters in need of your attention unless you would like me to defer to our new queen. She has a much softer tone and does not fling blades.”
I fought a grin. “No, I don’t want you to defer to the queen, since I am going to see her, and that would take her from me. The same reason I do not want you to defer to me.”
Alistair’s breath puffed through his thin nose as he tried to keep my pace. “I am trying to feel pity for you, My Lord, truly I am. But you live in a glittering palace, have the power of the kingdom, a beautiful mate—”
“Gods, old man, what is it you need from me?” I stopped in the middle of the corridor and faced him.
“Peace talks.” Alistair smoothed his too-tight gambeson. “Do you still wish to attempt a truce between the earth fae in time for the coronation? If so, it would be to the benefit of us all to not anger the house lords.”
If anything about this made me uneasy, it was the thought of bartering a truce with the man who’d offered me peace more than once only to have me steal away his heart, leaving him to wonder what horrors she was facing day after day.
Odds were he’d take her back and ram one of his axes in my skull.
“Lord Hesh and Lord Joron can sink to the depths of the Ever Seas for all I care,” I said. “If they cannot accept there is no healing the Ever alone and a woman is their savior, that is their risk to take.”
Stand against my Songbird, and they would meet their end much the same as the assassins.
“Livia is preparing a missive to send to her folk for a neutral meet. With the earth prince and princess speaking for us, peace is attainable. The lords will need to accept it.”
“I’ll see to it the palace is accommodating for a swell of earth fae.” Alistair snapped his fingers. “Oh, one final matter.” From inside his gambeson, the man removed a pouch. “As you requested. They’re ready.”
I grinned when I looked inside. “Perfect.”
Servants and palace staff still avoided me, but their eyes weren’t filled with as much fear as I strode past, more like they were curious if I’d slipped into madness or truly had a sliver of a heart.
“King.”
Halfway up the staircase to my chambers, I startled. “Narza? I thought we had finished our conversation in the council room.”
Disguised as the blind hag, my grandmother stepped from a deep alcove window. “You’ve given your heart? Last time such a claim was made, it nearly destroyed the bloodline of the House of Kings.”
I leaned close. “Then let it burn.”
Narza tilted her head, a wildness in her eyes.
“I’ll burn the Ever,” I repeated, voice low, “and start anew if I must. There is no world where she does not own me.”
“Then guard your bond, Erik. We still do not know who is behind the spell cast of the darkening.” Narza hummed. “Dangers are amongst us.”
“And I face them with my queen.”
“I hope you do, Grandson. I suppose we shall see.” A sly smirk painted her illusioned haggish features, but she said nothing more as she backed into the alcove.
By the time I reached my chamber door, my temper was shorter, and I thought if anyone else kept me from seeing her, I would do as Alistair said and begin flinging knives.
“Why are so many damn people in my room?”
Livia snapped her gaze up from the table near the fire nook, as did Alek, Tait, and Celine.
“I wanted opinions on the missive,” Livia said, grinning. “I’m trying to keep your head, Bloodsinger. So are they. Perhaps a bit of gratitude.”
“Ah, I see.” I opened the door to the corridor. “You all have my appreciation for getting your asses out of our room.”
Celine gestured to Alek and Livia. “I think you two better speak to your folk, not the king. He’ll get us all killed the moment he opens his mouth.” She glared at me as she strode past. “Last time I help you, Highness.”
“Doubtful.”
Tait followed. He’d been sullen since we were boys, but there was a touch of something lighter in his features. Still, he hardly acknowledged me. I hardly acknowledged him. Alek hesitated as he approached.
“You most of all,” I grumbled. “Why are you still here? Go home.”
“A debt must be repaid, Bloodsinger.” The corner of his mouth curved. “Trust me, you’ll want more than Livia’s voice standing for you against my uncle.”
He gave Livia a bemused look, then followed the others out of the room.
I had my arms around her waist in the next breath, my lips on her throat. “I see you painted more windows.” My eyes lifted over her shoulder to the scene of a trapped monster waiting to be reunited with his lover in the skies.
Nightfire had always been my favorite myth. I liked that it was becoming Livia’s.
“You were gone last night. Nightmares crept in, so I painted this to chase them away.”