Chapter Twenty-One #2
“I’ll think about it.” I doubt I will. I’ve succumbed to the urge. I’ve filled this need. There’s no reason to ever do this again.
“My door is unlocked for you whenever you desire or should you change your mind about tonight.”
“I won’t change my mind about tonight, and we’ll see about tomorrow.
I’m not your lover, after all.” I still as my eyes snag on the crown of flowers.
It must’ve fallen off when he laid me back.
He might be a king, but that is the only crown he could ever give me.
Pointless. Condemned to rot. Discarded by dawn.
I ignore it, going for the door. It’d be dangerous to accept too many gifts from him. He’d get the wrong idea. The flower crown stays on the floor. His remains on his head, somehow still there even after all our indulgences.
“You could be my lover, if you wanted. It’s not uncommon for kings.”
I freeze. As if that would be appealing to me. “ ‘Lover’ is the last thing I want.”
“Why do you resist all notions of love so fervently?”
The question gives me pause. I stare into a dark corner of the room.
Every memory of Joyce rises to the forefront of my mind.
Her torture. Her candy-coated words to my father.
My father’s weak excuses, time and again.
His explanations. Katria, I was lost in an abyss that she saved me from.
You will never understand the wound the death of your mother left…
Oh, I understood. I understood Joyce sold him lies and he bought them up faster than the silver from her mines.
Just like I understood how, with time, it became easier for Father to be on her side. The older I got, the more I looked like Mother and the harder it was for him to be around me. All the while, my home became a crumbling remnant of bygone days. Lost forever for what?
Ah, love.
“Because love is pain,” I whisper.
“Love is life.”
I glare at him and snap, “What would you know, a runaway prince locked in a tower who buys the only wife he’s ever had?”
Davien’s eyes widen a fraction, but instead of anger, his brow furrows into something that looks like focus. Sympathy radiates off him. “What makes you say love is pain?”
I don’t answer, focused only on my escape route. With a flap of wings summoned in a blink and a shimmer of magic, he’s in front of me, hand holding the door shut just as I go to open it. I glare up at him.
“Let me out.”
“Why do you think love, of all things, is pain?”
“I have seen what happens when two people fall in love. One collapses into the other; all sense of self, and worth, and strength crumble under the boot of the party who ends up on top.” Like the image of my father that I had built in my mind, strong and resolute, turning to dust the moment Joyce entered our lives.
“I have heard the bitter fights, the barbs, the hate that is slung and smoothed over in the name of love, precious love.”
“None of that is love,” he whispers.
I roll my eyes. “Love isn’t like the storybooks. It’s a transaction, at best.”
“No.” Davien takes a step forward, encroaching on the last of the space between us.
“Love is the closest thing we have to meaning in this world. The love of a mother for her children, the love between friends, the love of a husband and wife, love for who we are and all those who strove before us to hand us the world we have now—love is why we live, why we fight, why we carry on when things get tough…it is not always easy. But it is our reprieve from true hardship, not the hardship itself.”
“You lie,” I seethe even though I know it’s not true.
“Katria…” He trails off, eyes searching mine. “What happened to you before you came to my home?”
“Let me pass.”
“I’m trying to—”
“Let me pass!” My voice raises a fraction and he steps aside quickly.
I yank the door open before he can say anything else, storm out, and barely resist the urge to slam it in his face.
I lie in bed well past the sun the next morning. Footsteps echo down the hall as the world wakes around me. I wonder who else stays here. Shaye and Giles seem to. Oren, likely. Hol has his own home. Vena and her advisers, maybe?
My breath catches as a familiar gait traverses the hall. His steps seem to slow at my door, all but coming to a stop. How do I know him by his walk? Can I really smell him from here? Or is my mind dredging up memories of last night? Or, far more likely, does my skin still smell like his?
Davien keeps walking.
I keep replaying the night in my mind, but it doesn’t make any more sense the more hours that pass. I toss and turn. Not sleeping, but not feeling like I’m awake either. I’m trapped in those moments we shared. Moments that should have never transpired, but somehow did.
Why did I kiss him? Why did I let him kiss me? How did I end up in his bed?
I groan and roll over, tangling myself in the sheets. I ache from head to toe. I thought kissing him would relieve this tension, but it has only made it worse.
When I can no longer bear the heat from stewing in my thoughts, I get up. The best thing I can do is confront Davien. The sooner we’re together, the sooner things will feel as though they’re back to normal. We can shrug off whatever happened last night as the oddity it was and move along.
“It’s normal, really. Two people our age, obviously attracted to each other. These things happen. There’s no reason to read into it or make matters awkward. The itch was scratched, we’re done,” I murmur to myself, trying to find my own encouragement as I dress.
The flowing fae fashions are no longer odd to me.
I’m more accustomed to showing my shoulders and arms, though I’m still mindful of my back.
I wonder what my sisters would think if they could see me now, flowing sleeves and plunging necklines I’d never dare to wear back home.
I stop and stare in the mirror. My skin is bright and dewy.
My cheeks are rosy and my lips full. The longer I stay here, the more I look as though I am a part of this world.
I wonder if there could be a way for me never to have to go back. If the king’s magic can keep me, a human, alive here, then maybe there’s something Davien could do for me that would allow me to stay and live out the rest of my natural life here. I frown at myself.
What am I thinking? Live out my life here? In Midscape? Among fae and their magics? What place is there for a human like me? None.
Moreover, that would mean I’d have to live out my days in the same world as Davien.
I’d have to watch him become king, watch from afar as he married and sired heirs.
Or, worse, watch him as his lover from the periphery of his life.
No…a life back in the human world would be far better than that.
In fact, being a world away from him might not be distance enough.
I emerge from my room and head downstairs. Hol, Shaye, Giles, and Oren are all clustered at the usual table. Maps are scattered among them, dotted with scraps of paper that look like memos exchanged by pigeon. They all look at me at once.
“Vena wanted you,” Oren says. “Davien is already there.”
I hesitate, picking up on a strange feeling in the air. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Go on.” Oren tries to give me a reassuring smile but there’s too much worry in his black eyes.
Dread fills me as I stand before Vena’s doors. I hesitate just a second, seeing if I can overhear any talking from within. But the doors are too thick. I knock.
“Enter,” Vena calls.
Sure enough, I find Vena and Davien within. But they’re not alone. The Butcher from before, Allor, is there as well. She leans against one of the walls, arms folded.
“What’s happened?” I ask as they stare at me. My eyes lock with Davien’s. Worry twists his face, scrunching his brow. A terrible silence continues to tighten the muscles in my chest to the point that it hurts to breathe.
“Well, if neither of you is going to tell her, I’ll—” Allor starts.
“King Boltov is sending an army to Dreamsong.” Davien’s rumbling voice only makes the words more ominous.
“What?” I inhale sharply.
“Word has finally reached him that I’ve returned…and that you are with me.”
“Does he know of the magic?” I whisper.
“He knows everything.”
“There was a spy among us.” Vena curses. “He must have slipped through our wards at the beginning of the celebrations to deliver word.”
“What does this mean?” I had prepared myself all morning to face Davien, but not like this. While I was dancing last night, a king was plotting my death.
“It means the king knows you have the magic he needs to possess so he will never be challenged again.” Allor wears a wicked smile when she speaks. “So he’s coming to kill you for it.”
And here I thought the worst of my problems today would be facing Davien.