Chapter 19
Aoife
The bell over Best Dressed jingled as I walked in, looking for my advisor and our prisoner.
“Your Majesty!” I looked over to see Ceri, Marsten, and Meera with their heads tipped downward while Ronan sat in a chair staring at me with his dark expressionless eyes.
Marsten stood, twirling a long strand of his brown hair around a finger. “Are you joining us for wine and cheese night?” He put a hand to his chest.
“No,” I said slowly. “I am here because I heard our prisoner is getting drunk.” I shot a look at Meera. “You’re supposed to be guarding him.”
It was my idea to have my advisor look after the prisoner, and the last thing I needed was for Meera to mess this up and Lor to hold it against me as a reason I should cede my crown. I couldn’t afford any mistakes to be made right now.
“Ceri always serves warm milk,” Meera said as if that was a good explanation for why she’d brought the prisoner along.
Ceri’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s not drinking. Just enjoying a little cheese.”
I wasn’t sure how everyone could be treating this man like he wasn’t their sworn enemy. He’d been part of a group actively trying to destroy them for years, and they were just welcoming him to wine and cheese night.
Like Ceri could read my mind, she said, “Everyone deserves a second chance. Ronan’s been telling us a bit about his journey. The brotherhood recruited him when he was just a child after they killed his parents.”
I sighed heavily and looked at Meera, who was lapping up milk from a shallow bowl on the ground. “Don’t you dare take your eyes off him for a moment.”
I half turned to leave when Ceri spoke. “Do you want to join us?” She gestured toward the yellow couch and bright blue polka-dot chairs on either side of it. “We have plenty of wine.”
“Just like the old days,” Meera said, whiskers twitching.
Marsten looked between my advisor and me. He crossed his legs, his colorful yellow skirt swishing around them. “Okay, color me intrigued. What happened in the old days?”
I stared at the jug of wine sitting on the round coffee table. “We’d often sneak wine from the cellar and get drunk. It turned into a weekly tradition. A wine night.”
“No cheese?” Marsten wrinkled his nose.
“We didn’t exactly have access to cheese as slaves.”
“Ah.” Marsten grimaced. “Right.”
Ronan hadn’t said a word, just watched me with his dark eyes.
Maybe it was better if I stayed and kept an eye on him. I didn’t trust him, not one bit.
“Alright, then.” I reached out a hand. “Give me a glass.”
* * *
I was no longer sure my head was attached to my body. I sat in one of the polka dot chairs, drinking my eighth—no, ninth?—glass of wine.
“I still can’t believe you broke up with Brock,” Ceri said, nudging Marsten from next to him on the couch..
“Who’s Brock?” Ronan asked, sitting in the chair opposite mine. He’d said very little over the course of the night, just watching and taking everything in.
“My boyfriend,” Marsten said.
“He’s one of your guards,” Meera added, from where she lay on the floor, belly distended and full of warm milk.
I leaned back in my chair, swirling my wine and thinking through all the royal guards’ faced.
Lor had made me sit down with him and meet each and every one after we’d first been coronated.
“Is he the one with the dark complexion?” If I was thinking of the correct guard, he was very handsome.
Ebony skin and tight curls that haloed his head. A bit like Ronan, actually.
“Ugh, that’s the one.” Marsen slumped and took a huge gulp of his wine.
“I still don’t get it,” Ceri said. “Things were going so well.”
“You talked about him nonstop,” Meera grumbled, and Marsten shot her a look that made me laugh.
Everyone looked at me, and I held out a hand. “Sorry,” I said. “I can’t feel my face so I’m a little loopy right now.”
“Oh godwitches.” Marsten covered his face with his hands. “We got the queen drunk. His Majesty is going to be furious.”
That only made me laugh harder. “His Majesty is busy playing cards with his brothers.” And my former lover. “You said so yourself. He won’t even know I’m here.”
“Won’t he notice when you don’t come back to your bed chamber?” Marsten raised a thick, perfectly manicured brow.
“We don’t sleep in the same bed chamber,” I said, horrified.
“I knew it!” Marsten shouted and stuck out his hand toward Ceri.
She harrumphed, then shoved her hand into the pocket of her dress and dropped a few gold coins in Marsten’s outstretched palm.
“You were betting on my sleeping arrangements with His Majesty?”
“Oh we bet on all kinds of things between you and the king,” Marsten said, and Ceri elbowed him in the ribs.
“Ow.” He rubbed the spot. “Everyone does.”
Ceri stomped on his foot.
“Will you stop that?” he said. “It’s true. You all are the talk of the town. Your relationship is a complete enigma. No one quite knows what to make of it.”
I gestured toward my advisor. “Why don’t you just ask Meera? She knows everything.”
“The cat?” Marsten asked. “She’s like a locked box. Can’t get a single good piece of gossip out of her.”
Meera lifted her head. “I don’t know the intimate details of their relationship.”
“There are no intimate details,” I said.
“So . . . no hate sex?” Marsten asked, sounding almost disappointed.
Ronan coughed, banging his chest while Ceri choked on her wine, and Meera scowled.
I burst out laughing again. “Absolutely not. Lor has no interest in any kind of physical relationship with me, which he’s reminded me of many times over. I think there’s someone from his past, maybe, that he’s hung up on.”
Leena. The name popped into my mind before I could stop it, exactly how Lor had said it, so tenderly.
I met Ronan’s gaze, and he gave a short nod. “There was,” he said. “Leena.”
The wine curdled in my stomach at the thought of this former lover who Lor probably wished was his wife instead of me.
“This is getting juicy,” Marsten said. “Who’s Leena?”
“A brotherhood member,” Ronan said, voice turning glum. “Probably a traitor rebel, just like Lor.”
“Lor is a king,” I said, “and you’re lucky he’s such a good man, otherwise, you’d have been dead long ago.” I wasn’t sure why I was defending Lor, why this man’s words made me so angry.
Everyone’s wide eyes turned on me. I didn’t want to talk about Lor anymore, didn’t want to think about him and this Leena.
“So what happened with you and Bick?” I asked Marsten.
“Brock,” Marsten corrected.
“Sure, Brock.” I fluttered my fingers in the air while Ronan stared stonily ahead. “What happened between the two of you?”
Ceri straightened. “Marsten thinks Brock is going to make him give up his hair and makeup business.”
“Ah, then him and Lor must have something in common.”
So much for not thinking about Lor. It seemed my drunken mind only wanted to think about him.
Marsten and Ceri shot each other a look I didn’t understand, then Marsten leaned forward, propping his chin in his hands.
I sighed, the alcohol making my brain fuzzy but good. “Lor just wants a queen to bow to his will. He doesn’t want a partner. He makes the rules, and I follow them.”
Meera gave me a pointed look. “You do not follow them.”
Ronan snorted. “Sounds about right.”
I was getting tired of this prisoner and his commentary, but I also couldn’t help the curiosity that rose in me at his words. He’d known Lor in a capacity none of us had. He’d known Lor the butcher. Not Lor the good king.
“What does that mean?” I asked the prisoner.
He tugged on one of his tight curls, and it bounced like a spring. “He was the same way in the brotherhood is all I meant.” He held up his hands as if to tell me he meant no harm. “He was never much of a team player.”
“I wonder why.” Ceri tapped her chin. “All the Wolfgangs work so well together. They love community. Well, except Wolfe, but that’s mainly because he’s a huge grump.”
Ronan leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.
“Lor was always different. He never celebrated raids or killings like we did. He took everything so seriously. I think a lot of it weighed on him. I always respected him for it. Respected how regimented and controlled he was. Now I know it was because he was just playing a role. He never wanted to help the brotherhood or further our goals. He was just trying to destroy us the whole time.”
“He was trying to save you,” Marsten said gently before I could snap at the man again. “That’s what he’s always trying to do.”
Ronan nodded. “Yes, well, either way, Lor’s always been controlling. Not surprising when his mentor was Arthon.”
“Who’s Arthon?”
Ronan shook his head. “Another traitor. He was the butcher before Lor. He was also the leader of the rebels. He recruited Lor to take his place. All things I’ve found out from Lor while I’ve been stuck here.
Arthon was . . . a difficult man. He wasn’t easy on Lor.
He held him to a higher standard than everyone else, and we all thought it was because he wanted Lor to continue to build the fearsome reputation he’d built as the Butcher of the Brotherhood.
I guess the real truth wasn’t much different: Arthon wanted Lor to be the best he could as the rebel leader.
Either way, Arthon was cold, rigid, and he punished Lor often for not meeting his standards. ”
“What did he do?” I asked, a pit forming in my stomach. Arthon sounded so familiar to Fairwitch.
Ronan’s face paled. “Not my story to tell. But it’s amazing Lor survived all that. Arthon built him to be an arbitrator of justice, put a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, and constantly made him feel not good enough. Lor is who he is because of that man.”
Sympathy filled me. I’d never actually stopped to think why Lor felt the need to control everything and everyone.
I’d lumped him in the same class as the godwitches—a dictator who just wanted everyone to bend to his will.
I’d always known that wasn’t fair, but hearing Ronan’s side of it made me regret thinking of Lor that way.
“It sounds like he has what all of us have,” Ceri said.
“What’s that” I asked softly.
She bit her bottom lip. “Baggage.”
“I don’t think His Majesty just wants a queen to bow to his will,” Marsten said as if he’d just read my thoughts.
“I think you both have different ideas about how to run Fairwitch Isle, and I think we could use both your strengths. Besides, I’ve seen the way the king looks at you. ” Marsten shot me a suggestive look.
I stiffened. “With hatred in his eyes? With a fiery rage? With impatience and exasperation?”
All things I’d experienced with Lorcan Wolfgang.
Marsten tilted his head. “Mm, no not quite. More like with . . . longing.”
I jerked like he’d slapped me. “No, whatever you saw, you saw wrong. I’m a thorn in Lor’s side. He’d be far happier if he’d never broken my curse.”
Ronan had slumped back in his chair, quiet again.
“That’s not true.” Ceri grabbed a piece of cheese and chewed on it, face thoughtful. “Lor is . . . well he’s always been impatient, sort of. Like he’s frustrated that he clearly knows the right way to do things, and he’s waiting for everyone else to catch up. But he normally is right.”
That was what irked me the most about him. That as much as I disliked his ideas, they were good ideas.
“My point is,” Ceri continued, “Lor would never wish he hadn’t broken your curse.”
Hope flickered in my heart, a quiet voice whispering that maybe Ceri was right, which was ridiculous because I didn’t care if Lor regretted breaking my curse.
“It was the right thing to do,” Ceri said. “If he had a hundred chances, he’d do it a hundred times.”
Ronan nodded in agreement.
Just like that, the flame died. Of course that was why Lor would break my curse. Not because he wanted to rule by my side but because it was the right thing to do, and he was incapable of doing anything else. The prisoner sitting here alive and well was proof of that.
I stared at the jug of wine sitting in front of me, then reached out and grabbed it, filling my wine glass once again.
“Um, should you be drinking . . . oh my, that’s full, very full,” Marsten said.
I ignored him, filling it to the rim and raising my glass. “Cheers,” I said as I tipped my head back and drank.