Chapter 10
“Wait,” I say, breathless.
“For?” Isolde’s eyes dance over me as she pulls me toward the conservatory. Milky, morning light spills through the stained-glass window and paints the room in watercolors.
I glance over my shoulder. “What if we’re seen?”
These clandestine meetings of ours are usually spent in my quarters, away from prying eyes or curious ears. We never go anywhere else, not with the risk being so high.
She pauses and eases me closer, until the distance between us fades to nothing. The swell of her bottom lip brushes mine. “Oh, my Briar, who’s around to see?”
My pulse skitters, and a swallow slowly makes its way down my throat. Behind us, the long hallway stands empty, save for a handful of marble busts. Every staff member is busy on the bottom floor, preparing for the opening of The Gales.
“He won’t find out.” Isolde lifts a hand, and a gentle breeze floats up my arm. It grazes the curve of my shoulder and travels across my collarbones. Her fingertips follow the path of her power. “Well?”
A shiver works up my spine, and warmth billows beneath my skin, spreading over my bones. I trail my hand over her waist and to the small of her back, reveling in the way her breath catches.
I hover my mouth over the shell of her ear. “By all means.”
She sighs against my temple, and as she pulls away, her pupils widen, nearly blotting out her irises. A smirk plays on her face as she leads me into the conservatory.
Foliage swallows us.
Ferns curl overhead, their tendrils hanging over the entrance and tangling in my hair. Ivy climbs the latticed walls, passing behind broad-leaved plants.
Humidity clings to my skin, and Isolde banks right, luring me by the hand. She smiles over her shoulder—all mischief—as her hair bounces against her shoulder blades.
“Where are we going?” I whisper, my voice shrouded by the fountain bubbling in the corner.
A cloud passes overhead and throws a shadow over the conservatory. She comes to a stop beside a metal table surrounded by chairs. “Right here.”
She guides me, pressing my lower back against the edge of the table. A lazy smile pulls at her lips as she dips her head and drags her nose up the slope of my neck.
My pulse flutters. Her touch shuffles my thoughts and makes it hard to remember the conversation I wanted to have with her—information that might save my life.
I anchor my arm around her waist, steadying myself. “Has Caelus mentioned anything about The Gales?”
The words are thick and oily on my tongue as her mouth brushes the hollow of my collarbone. I hate using her like this, but if anyone has insight of what to expect in the coming weeks, it’s her.
She hums against my skin. “There’s a lot he’s not telling me.” A kiss, pressed to the space below my ear. “He’s been pacing his quarters, talking about how, if it were up to him, no one would survive.”
“Why’s that?”
“If everyone was dead, no one would be granted a wish.”
I open my mouth, but she captures it with hers, pressing her body against mine.
She eases me onto the table, her hands warm as they roam my body.
My skirt hitches, and my legs wrap around her waist as she tilts my head back.
Her kisses are hungry, wanting, and my body aches to give in—turn off my mind and fall into her.
“Anything else?” I breathe.
She pulls back and raises a brow. “Why are you so curious about it?”
My voice falters, but I manage a shrug. “Aren’t you?”
A moment passes, and she drags her bottom lip between her teeth. “I suppose I am. Well, he mentioned this will become a running tradition—an offering of sorts that will celebrate his power and the coming unity of the courts. This year, apparently, The Gales will represent the sea.”
“The sea?” My stomach churns. It’s either Caelus making a mockery of my mother, or representation of the looming control he has over my home. But if any of the trials are on the water—
I won’t last five minutes.
She nods, and on a low exhale, whispers, “I wanted to enter, but he wouldn’t let me.”
My hands freeze on her hips. “You, what?”
“Reckless, I know. Silly, considering most people would look at me and wonder what I could want, what I could possibly wish for.” A huff.
“He told me I’d be an immediate target—taken out by those who have a problem with the crown.
” Her eyes harden, offering a glimpse of the queen that once was.
“But I want freedom enough to die for it.”
My tongue is a lead weight as I study her face. Maybe if she knows I entered we could work together, her feeding me information and covering for me while I’m Harriet.
I bite down on my cheek. Isolde traded her dignity to cling to a fraction of her power when she surrendered to Caelus. She doesn’t know that when I found out what she had done, I entered the castle with every intention to kill her.
But I trust her. We’ve spent nearly a decade together, and if we could earn our freedom, we’d have the rest of our lives.
She cups my face, her gaze soft as she brushes a finger over my cheekbone. “I’d give you freedom too, Briar. We’d be free, together.”
Tears sting my eyes. “Isolde, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Her head tilts, and she nods for me to continue.
The air goes thin, and my heart pounds in my chest. If she disagrees with what I’ve done, there’s no going back. “I—"
Greenery shifts behind her, and the hair on the back of my neck stands.
“You saw them go this way?”
Caelus.
Isolde’s eyes shoot wide, and she throws herself away from the space between my thighs the same moment he rounds the corner.
I jump from the table and trip over my feet. Grappling for the edge of the table, I regain my balance and drop into a curtsy. “Your Highness.” My voice is shaky, and my pulse goes still as I watch the blood drain from Isolde’s face.
Caelus’s eyes shift between us as two of his advisors appear behind him. His attention settles on Isolde, and although his hands rest clasped across his front, a muscle in his jaw tics. “You are excused.”
Tears don’t well into her eyes, but I catch the hitch of her chest—the way her fingertips tremble at her sides. She nods. Gathering the skirt of her dress, she disappears the way we came, the sound of her footsteps fading into the distance.
My heart slams against my ribcage. He can’t kill her. The power she provides him is too valuable, too important. But he can bring her close—make her wish she was dead.
Caelus nods to his advisors. “Be sure Isolde makes it back to her quarters.”
A sour taste floods my mouth. A queen needs no keeper.
They leave us, and Caelus studies me, his face giving nothing away. My stomach twists into knots, forming a noose around my lungs. I smooth out the wrinkles coating the front of my dress, but there’s nothing to be done about the undeniable flush to my cheeks.
He circles me, his hands clasped behind his back. “I need to speak with you.”
My pulse sputters, and my breath is a solid weight in my throat, but there’s no way he saw Isolde’s lips on mine. If he had, I wouldn’t be standing. “I’m listening.”
Sunlight fills the conservatory, and a bead of sweat trails down my spine. He pulls out a chair, its feet dragging over the stone floor.
He must know I entered.
That’s the only explanation for the line between his brows and the rigid set of his jaw. Either that, or he knows I’m withholding information about his brother’s potential uprising.
My heart is a death knell in my ears. I trace my gaze over the weapons strapped to his body and gauge how quick I’d need to move to pull one off his waist. How deep I’d need to plunge it to pierce his heart.
“Isolde’s power isn’t enough to sustain me.”
A stone settles in my gut. “What?”
“It’s weakening. Depleting, actually. It’s been over ten years that I’ve been siphoning her power, and soon it’ll run out.
And when it does, she’ll die.” There’s no sympathy in his voice, only the bluntness of a man concerned more about losing power than the life tied to it.
“Terra is requesting sacrifices to maintain the power, and we came to an agreement. The Gales. She offers a wish, I give her dozens of willing lives.”
A hollow space widens in my core. The man who entered The Gales before me flashes through my mind—with his threadbare clothes and sunken cheeks.
There were so many like him, seeking a chance to escape poverty.
But if sacrificing them means keeping Isolde alive, I’d do it a hundred times over.
I shift on my feet. “Why are you telling me all this?”
A slow, wicked grin spreads across his face. “Because I may be close to finding a way to separate my power from Terra. To have infinite power.”
My jaw slackens. The humidity presses in, and sweat gathers along my hairline. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s been done before.”
“Only because the Fire Court queen gained her power from Serinos. The laws of the underworld work different from Terra’s.” I brace myself against the table. “And what came of that? She disappeared over fifty years ago, along with her court, because her power became uncontrollable.”
“You’re thinking too small, Briar. I don’t want to link myself to Serinos.” He taps a finger on the table. “I’d separate my power from the gods altogether. Become one myself.”
My blood turns to ice.
“Think about it.” His eyes grow distant. “Serinos rules the underworld, Terra the earth, but what about the heavens? I could become powerful enough to challenge Terra and the chokehold she’s had on power. The Earth, Sky, and Sea would be mine.”
I focus my breathing. In. Out. “How?”
His gaze returns to me, and his lips spread into a smile far too wide for his face. “I’m ironing out the logistics, but when I sort it out, I’ll grant you whatever power you desire if you help me.”
I clench my jaw until it aches. I want nothing from this man—nothing but to watch as he takes his final breath beneath my hands. “What do you want from me?”
“Like I said, it’s still in the works. But you’re smarter than you look, and with you by my side, there’s nothing we couldn’t accomplish.”
He rises, dragging his fingertips along the metal table as he makes his way to me. I root myself to the spot, unwilling to back away.
“I want to see you at the welcome ceremony tomorrow,” he says. “We’re introducing the competitors.”
A chill spreads over my skin, and my stomach flips. I can’t be Briar and Harriet at the same time, and he’ll notice if either are missing. I lower my gaze. “I have to visit my uncle tomorrow evening. He’s unwell, as you know, and—”
“It wasn’t a question, courtesan.”
A swallow makes its way down my throat, and I nod.
He leans closer, his lips too close to my skin. “Very well, then. Tomorrow, at daybreak, the competitors arrive. With any luck, they’ll all perish in the first competition, and I’ll be done with it all. Terra says we have to hold a competition, not that anyone has to make it to the end.”
His hot breath skates over my temple, and he presses closer, bringing the blade at his waist inches from my reach.
“You could be the most powerful woman in the world, if you help me. Think on it.”
Biting down on my cheek, I hold in my retort. Whatever it is, I’d never help him defy Terra. And, when I win this competition, I’ll already be the most powerful woman in the world.
His hand shifts and traces over my knee, roaming up my thigh. I grip the edge of the table and stop myself from squirming away.
I avoid his touch as much as possible, but unlike the men I’m assigned to entertain, I cannot pour tonic in all of Caelus’s drinks. Nights with him are when I’ve mastered the art of removing my mind from my body. Turning myself into a shell.
But pinned against him like this, I can’t pull away. I can’t fight back. I can’t risk him deciding I’m not valuable enough to keep around.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth.
Footsteps sound from my back, and Caelus sighs. He retreats, and I inhale a deep, cleansing breath.
An armada captain appears from around the corner.
Medals crowd the front of his jacket, and metal caps adorn his shoulders, mimicking the wings of the falcons they fly.
I clench my hand into a fist. How many of my people has he killed at sea?
How many lives have ended at the blade strapped across his back?
“Updates from the warfront, Your Highness.”
I hold my breath and scan his face. This is what I’ve been waiting for, why I’ve spent the last ten years hanging onto conversations—for a glimpse of news about my mother.
“Thank you,” Caelus says. “Briar was just leaving.”
My attention shoots to him. “Don’t you think I should hear what he has to say? Maybe I could be of use.”
“My dear.” He chuckles, pressing his hand to the small of my back. “You’re just a courtesan. No need to worry yourself with politics.”
My molars grind together, but I hold back my argument. I brush the handle of his blade, only to know how easy it would be to unsheathe it.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I grit out.
My mind whirs, and my inhales are shallow sips of air as I stumble out of the conservatory. If he has truly discovered a way to harness unlimited power, winning this competition will mean nothing. Saving Isolde would mean nothing.
If he becomes a god, I cannot stop him.