41. Chapter 41
AMARIA
The dining hall was immaculate to the point of aggression.
Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across tables draped in white silk.
Gold-rimmed plates. Silver cutlery arranged with methodical exactness.
Hundreds of candles burning in sconces that lined the walls, their flames reflected in the polished marble until the whole room seemed to be on fire.
I stood near the entrance in my grey wool, my Suppressor ten feet behind me, and tried to remember how to breathe. I hadn't wanted to come. But the King's invitation wasn't an invitation.
"The tether requires proximity," he'd explained, his smile paternal. "My son grimacing through the fish course would reflect poorly on the crown. You will attend. You will remain close enough to spare him pain."
Spare him pain. As if that was the point. The point was to make me watch. To seat me in grey at the end of the table while Eryndor performed devotion to a princess in gold. To remind me exactly where I stood in his kingdom.
You've faced worse than this. But I hadn't. Not really. Battles I understood. Blades I could wield. This—the whispers, the sidelong glances—this was a battlefield I didn't know the strategy for.
The King sat at the head of the long table, resplendent in black and gold.
Vivienne was beside him, radiant in white silk, her laugh carrying across the hall like music.
And next to her—Eryndor. His face was pleasant, open, and his attention was devoted to the princess beside him.
But the tether told a different story—control so rigid it hummed through the bond like a wire about to snap.
He was performing. I just couldn't tell who for.
The tether between us was muted. Distant. He'd built his wall so high I could barely feel him.
Good, I told myself. Let him play his games. A servant gestured toward my seat. Far end of the table. Surrounded by minor nobles who looked at me like I was something scraped off their shoes. I sat.
The speeches started before the first course arrived.
A noble with a powdered wig that defied gravity rose to deliver what he clearly believed was a stirring tribute to the King's wisdom. His voice droned on. And on. And on.
I was contemplating the lethal potential of my fork when a spark of dry amusement flickered through the tether.
That wig is ninety percent structural magic.
I went still.
Eryndor's voice. Or not his voice—his impression. A thought peaking through the bond.
One wrong sneeze and it launches across the room like a startled pigeon.
My eyes found him across the table. His face was stone, his attention fixed on the speaker with polite interest.
But his eyes—
For one heartbeat, they slid to mine. Crinkled at the corners.
Pepper exists. I'm just saying.
I thought back, not sure if he could even hear me.
A pause. Then:
Tempting. But I have a better game. Look at Lady Vrenthorpe. Third from the left.
I looked. A severe woman in emerald green, her posture rigid enough to double as a coat rack.
She's been stealing glances at the footman by the wine.
I watched. Sure enough—a quick glance. A flush creeping up her neck.
They're having an affair.
You don't know that.
She's wearing his ring on a chain under her dress. I can see the outline. He keeps "accidentally" brushing her shoulder when he refills her glass. It's been four times.
Five, I corrected, watching the footman make another pass.
See? You're a natural.
The noble was still going—something about the King's "luminous vision for a unified realm"—and I was going to laugh. I was going to ruin everything because the lost prince of Velmyra was narrating court scandals directly into my skull.
Stop, I thought. I'm going to get us killed.
Look at Lord Pemberton. The one sweating through his doublet.
I found him. Round-faced. Damp. Miserable.
He's been holding in a sneeze for the last six minutes.
No he hasn't.
Watch his nostrils.
I watched.
His nostrils flared. Twitched. He pressed a finger under his nose with increasing desperation.
Ten gold says he doesn't make it to the second course.
I don't have ten gold.
Then you'd better hope he has self-control.
Lord Pemberton's face was turning purple. His eyes watered.
The noble prattled on: "—and the magnificence of His Majesty's foresight—"
Pemberton's whole body seized.
He sneezed.
It echoed off the vaulted ceiling like a cannon shot. Wine glasses trembled. The noble with the gravity-defying wig actually stumbled mid-sentence.
The entire hall went silent.
Eryndor's face didn't move. But the tether was vibrating with the effort of not laughing.
You owe me ten gold.
I shoved my napkin against my mouth. My shoulders were shaking. Tears were forming at the corners of my eyes.
Across the table, Eryndor reached for his wine glass.
We are the only sane people in this room, his silence said.
I hate you, my silence answered.
Your shoulders are shaking.
I have a condition.
You have no poker face, Little Fox.
I have a FORK and I know where you sleep.
His wine glass paused halfway to his lips. The corner of his mouth twitched.
Noted.
He caught my eye across the rim of his goblet. The tether hummed with a suppressed, dark amusement that tasted like spiced wine. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
But then the grandfather clock in the hall chimed the hour.
Eryndor’s amusement vanished. Just snapped off. His gaze flicked away from me, tracking a pair of guards moving quietly toward the eastern archway. He watched them disappear into the corridor. His mouth flattened, and his posture stiffened.
He's putting the armor back on, I thought, the warmth draining out of the bond. He remembered where we are.
The first course came and went.
I pushed food around my plate and tried to ignore the whispers. The glances. The way the nobles near me leaned away like poverty was contagious.
"So this is the King's little project."
The voice came from my left. A courtier with sharp features and sharper eyes, his smile showing too many teeth. He'd been watching me all evening, circling like a shark scenting blood.
"The wild thing they dragged in from the borderlands." He leaned closer, his breath wine-sour. "Tell me—do they always let you eat at the table, or do you usually take your meals from a bowl on the floor?"
Laughter rippled from the nobles nearby.
I reached for my power—
Nothing.
The Suppressor's presence weighing down like a boot on my chest. My magic was ash. I was just a fae in a grey dress being laughed at by people who'd never survived anything harder than a lukewarm bath.
The courtier's smile widened. "Looking for something? Weapons aren't permitted at the King's table. Though I suppose your kind doesn't understand civilized customs."
My hand curled into a fist beneath the tablecloth.
"I hear she's tethered to the prince." He pitched his voice to carry now, playing to his audience. "Bound like a dog on a leash. Tell me, pet—when he marries the Princess, will you sleep at the foot of their bed? Or will they kennel you somewhere more appropriate?"
More laughter. Louder.
The tether flared.
Eryndor's rage hit me like a furnace door swinging open—molten and thinly harnessed. Across the table, his expression hadn't changed. He was still listening to Vivienne, still smiling his prince's smile.
But I felt him. The violence coiling beneath his skin. The dark, vicious thing that wanted to cross this room and make the courtier swallow his own teeth.
The wine in nearby glasses had started to steam.
But I didn't need his rage. I had my own.
I set down my fork. Slowly. Let the silence stretch until his smirk faltered.
"You know what's funny?" My voice came out pleasant.
Conversational. "I've killed men twice your size with my bare hands.
Watched the light leave their eyes while they begged.
" I tilted my head, studying him the way I'd study a stain on my boot.
"You're sitting here, calling me a dog, and the only thing keeping your throat intact is the fact that my friends are hostages. "
The laughter died.
"So by all means." I picked up my fork again. Speared a piece of meat. "Keep talking. I have an excellent memory. And the King can't keep me caged forever."
I took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Wine in several goblets was now starting to boil.
Across the table, Eryndor met my gaze.
It was ablaze with ferocity and the tether was buzzing wildly.
One of the wine glasses exploded.
Shards scattered across the tablecloth. Nobles gasped, flinched, looked around for the source. But there was nothing to see. Just a girl in a grey dress, patting her mouth clean with a pristine napkin.
The courtier's face had gone the color of old milk. He turned back to his plate without another word.
The tether hummed.
What did you say to him?
I didn't answer. Didn't look at him.
But I couldn't block out the way his presence pressed against mine. The way the air between us tightened. The candles nearest our seats burned too bright, their flames leaning toward us like moths to a fire.
We weren't just dangerous to each other.
We were dangerous to the room.
I shoved a barricade up between us. His presence faded to a hum, then a whisper, then nothing.
Amaria—
Get out.
I grabbed my wine glass, and as I brought it to my lips, I noticed the Princess watching me from across the table.
Her amber eyes moved from Eryndor to me to the space between us where the air still rippled with heat. Her smile stayed fixed.
Her eyes did not.
She'd seen it. The suppression flicker. The power flare. The proof of exactly what we became when we stopped fighting the bond.
I made myself look away first.
But I could feel her gaze on me for the rest of the meal. Patient and calculating.
I needed air.
The dinner was winding down—dessert plates being cleared, nobles drifting toward the drawing rooms for brandy and backstabbing. I slipped away from the table while the Princess was occupied with a countess, Eryndor was trapped in conversation with a general, and no one was watching the fae in grey.
The corridor was cooler. Quieter. I leaned against the wall and let myself smile where no one could see it.
The look on his face. The way every noble at that table had suddenly remembered I had fangs.
But the Princess's cold eyes haunted me. I'd shown her something. Given her ammunition. The small victory had cost me more than I could see yet, and I knew better than to think the debt was settled.
I turned the corner to the guest wing and stopped.
Dreadscale was pacing. The marble shuddered faintly under each turn.
In all the months I'd known him, I'd never seen him pace.
He stood. He waited. He moved with the terrifying economy of a creature that had never needed to waste energy on restlessness.
But now he was prowling the length of the corridor like a caged animal, his massive frame eating up the distance in three strides before turning, repeating, turning again.
The Princess's ridiculous dog ran in circles at his heels, yipping frantically, trying to match his rhythm and failing spectacularly.
He didn't notice it. Didn't seem to notice anything.
Expecting him to stay in this castle is like expecting an apex predator to play house.
This was wrong. All of it. Dreadscale wasn't meant for marble floors and polished prisons.
He was meant for open sky and ancient fire.
Every day we stayed here, every day I kept him trapped in this political nightmare while I untangled my bond and plotted my next move—I was asking him to be something smaller than he was.
He turned. Saw me. Went still.
The dog slammed into his ankle and bounced off, undeterred.
"You're restless," I said quietly.
"I'll survive." He held my gaze. Nodded. Then pivoted toward the exit, the dog scrambling to keep up.
I watched him go, but the corridor felt too small without him. Too quiet.