22. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
D ays turned into weeks, and nothing changed. I would occasionally receive a small note from Oaken Rose with some little piece of information.
Still working on it . . . OR
Whatever happens, know it’s for the best . . . OR
I haven’t forgotten . . . OR
Soon . . . OR
Be ready . . . OR
Have you chosen yet? OR
I hadn’t seen her a single time, though, and the more I tried to talk to the others about the deal we had made, the more I realized I couldn’t. I would push so hard that I popped a blood vessel in one eye, and still nothing.
It was Violet who had finally delivered me from the futility of my obsession.
“You’ve been an idiot, haven’t you?” she asked me one night, pulling up an overturned bucket to my cot when all the others had gone to bed.
The only sounds filling the warrens were the slapping of crafted flesh against crafted flesh and the snores of the others.
“Usually. You’ll need to be more specific.”
I wished I could see her face. I wanted to gauge her expressions. I had started to learn more about those around me and the micro-tells that they tried so hard to school .
Not that Violet tried to school any of her reactions. On the contrary, unlike the others, she was rather generous with her expressions. She could get away with it, too. Not only was she the eldest of all the humans in the warrens but also the hidden power behind them. If a Fae wanted favors but could not afford the price of their own daora, they needed to bargain with her, and she was the shrewdest of hagglers.
“You’ve made a pact,” she hissed, the sound of her porcelain pieces sliding against each other telling me more than the flat tone of her voice.
“And if I had?” I strained my eyes, trying to see the outlines of the cracks in her face.
“Then, I’d tell you you were a fool and beat you bloody myself. The fact that you cannot tell me yes or no but have been skirting around this place, trying to spit something out for the last few weeks, tells me I’m right.” She growled and grabbed a fistful of my shoddy nightgown. “What did I tell you about the Fae, Cricket? I told you they were not to be trusted. I told you that all of them were bastards. And you’ve got a contract swirling in your head now. Let me guess, it was with that Raven, wasn’t it? Did he oath-swear you into fucking him? Tell me true, girl!”
In the blackness, my lashes fluttered. “What? First off, what the fuck, Violet? Second off, why the fuck would he do that? He can barely tolerate me, and I him. Plus, I sort of stabbed him a few times.”
“You could stab that boy until he bled ten rivers, and he would swim across them and ask for more. And he’d do that because of exactly what you just said. You think that boy can barely stand you, so you haven’t given him so much as a swish of your skirts or a flutter of your eye. Fae aren’t used to being told no by something they want. And, yes, I said some thing because that’s all you are to them. A thing. So, was it him?”
The venom in her voice sounded personal, like a festering old wound was bleeding out.
“No. I haven’t seen him since before the last Hunt. He’s avoiding me because I stabbed him. ” I pushed her hand from my nightgown and sat up, flicking a match to the small tallow candle near my bed. It cast barely a flicker of light, but it was enough to see the rage and hurt and concern pooling between the fissures in her doll face.
“Blind as a bat. Yet still I believe you.” She sat back and considered. “But you’ve made a pact, yes?”
I tried to say yes but couldn’t, so I simply nodded.
“For what? Magic?”
I shook my head.
“Money?”
I shook my head again.
“Please tell me you haven’t been fool enough to oath-swear for freedom.”
My head didn’t move. It couldn’t. It wouldn’t budge a single inch.
“You damned fool of a girl!” Her voice raised and echoed off the alcove to be met with vitriolic hisses for her to shut up. “Cricket, you fucking idiot. None of the Fae can free you from this place but the one who owns you. And even then, how would you get out! None of us know the way.”
She sighed heavily and scratched the palm of her hand down her face. “Well, it’s done as day now. Can’t break an oath. You’ve got yourself into a mess and can’t even talk to anyone about it. Foolish child. I hope it was worth the price you paid for it, but it never is. I’ve seen enough of us fall prey to the Fae and their damned deals that I know whatever it was that you swore away was not worth the price of whatever it was you are getting in return. Mark me on that. You may think you were smart enough to outwit the Fae, but you’re not. You know how I know you aren’t? Because you were fool enough to agree to an oath with a Fae to begin with.”
I had been a fool. And as the days wore on, with not even a single petal from her stupid roses showing up, I felt more and more foolish. She had been so sincere. She had held my hand so tightly. I had not felt like she would trick me. Why would she? She had nothing to gain from our deal except something I didn’t even want. I had made sure that the wording had been very specific, nothing I wanted. Nothing I valued but something I had anyway. It would be something I wouldn’t miss .
My hunt was drawing me up the stairs, a wave of drudgery and flesh washing out and across the palace. I had lost count of how many times I had walked these corridors. So many times that I could find my way from the warrens to the King’s chambers without a guard and without even opening my eyes. I knew every nook and cranny of the passage, knew what sights and what scents to expect. Where each of the mirrors I avoided were. So, when the scent of leather, cloves, cardamom, cedar, campfire smoke, and the warm scent of clean, masculine skin filled my nostrils, I didn’t miss a single step when I closed my eyes and drew in deep lungfuls of it.
It was faint. He was not next to me, not near this corridor at all, but he had passed through it. I felt like a bloodhound, sniffing and snorting the scent of my quarry and yearning to chase it down. If I put one toe out of line, would the guards escorting the small group of us to the royal chambers fall upon me and drag me back? I hadn’t tested the edges of my enclosure yet. I could only hope as loudly as my mind would allow that I would run into him.
I did not have to hope for too long. There he was, as I turned the last corner before plunging into that dread hallway, at the junction, speaking to two other guards. They looked young, the tips of their ears covered in the plain plate mail of the guards but held no rank engraved into it like that of other guards and soldiers.
The moment I turned into the corridor and saw him, he looked up from his conversation, and his forest-green eyes met my gaze and held.
I wanted to run to him. I wanted to yell out and call him over to me. I wanted to do anything but silently stare at him as I walked slowly with the other humans at my side. Neither of us looked away, though, and my heart became a flight of parrots screaming at the sun and battering their menagerie cage with eager wings. My stomach tightened and shook with tension as I held my breath.
It wasn’t until I was a few steps away that he broke off from the others.
“I’ll escort them from here, Dark Skull. ”
The thunder of his voice, deep and steady, rumbled through me and struck lightning across every nerve in my body. I had missed that soft bass more than I had realized. I felt like a drought-blighted plain begging for the clouds to rain upon me again.
The guard at my side nodded and peeled away to join the two new guards where The Raven had abandoned them. They fell into jovial conversation, and the humans didn’t seem to notice as I let my path veer slightly toward him. He said nothing, just let his black leather-glove-clad hand fall from the pommel of his sword and dangle between us, occasionally brushing mine as we walked in silence.
I stopped at that awful, grotesque carved door as the other humans went about their own chambers to attend, leaving The Raven and I alone save for the three guards thirty or forty feet away. The Raven positioned himself with his back to the door, and I facing it, but we stood in utter silence.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I whispered, hoping I didn’t sound as pathetic as I felt.
“I’m sorry for it, too.” I barely caught the twitch of his lips as he teased, “I, unfortunately, had to recover from a fist fight with a dread cat and then from a boar.”
I looked up, scanning his face for the scar that should have been there. I had slashed him deep and could see all the way down to his bone when he walked away. There was nothing there, though, nothing but soft skin, kissed by the loving daylight and a small trace of the ghost of freckles that had once graced his nose. “A boar?”
“Mmm. I promised a lady of the court I would take care of one bore, so I arranged a hunt. Unfortunately, an entirely different boar decided there were one too many wild pigs in his forest, and I owed a price for that atrocity.” He adjusted himself, and I noted he was favoring one leg slightly. “Took some time to heal from that. But I am here. As I said I would be.”
He had and had said he would be there when he could, and here he was.
The ancient woods of his eyes turned fully toward me and regarded me, taking me in with a quick sweep of his gaze. “You look well. I trust no wild pigs have rampaged through the palace while I was in the infirmary?”
I smirked at him, flattered he would even ask. The parrots in my chest gave way to a dance of butterflies fluttering through the hidden sky within me. “No, just dust mites, old food plates, and a jerk of a cat. I named him Goose, by the way.”
The Raven tore his gaze away from me down to the overly large black cat that was sitting at my ankle, cleaning his head with a paw. “It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, Goose. I would ask a boon of you, let’s not have any repeats of that first night, if you don’t mind humoring me.”
“What happened that first night?” I asked, casting my gaze between the two.
Goose seemed unimpressed by the request and completely ignored it.
“For his honor, I will let Goose tell you when he is ready.”
“His honor? Or yours?”
“Mostly mine,” he admitted with a bashful grin. Reluctantly, he looked back at the door. “I can’t stay for long, Cricket. I was only here to walk the new recruits to where the royal wing was so that they would know the path should the alarms sound. I need to go now.”
We both looked over to where the new recruits were being regaled by something hilarious that the Fae known as Dark Skull had told them. They barely seemed to notice The Raven and me.
“Do you know how to get to the gardens, Cricket? From the warrens?” He pitched his voice low and soft, ensuring that only he and I could make out the words, as he fiddled with a string of brass beads hanging from his scabbard.
“Yes.”
“I have no right to ask this of you.” Though his voice was steady, even, unaffected by the emotion, his fingers were showing as they fidgeted with the string of beads I never got a good look at. He let whatever he was feeling swallow his words.
“Ask, Raven—before I say no, out of spite for making me stand in front of this stupid door. ”
He snorted a laugh and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling for a few moments before leveling me with a gaze so intense I felt like I’d fall over. It spoke a thousand volumes of poetry, of sadness and longing, of regret and anxiety, of warring emotions clashing through the evergreen spires of his eyes. “Will you meet me in the garden tonight?”
“If you think I’m going to fuck you just because you let me stab you and didn’t murder me for it, you’ve got another thing coming,” I snapped.
He grinned, all sheepishness fading away as the wolf came out and curled a deadly taunt across his perfect lips. “It would only be fair to let me slide my blade into you the way you slid yours into me.”
I fought the urge to let my jaw hang open. Violet had not been wrong, it seemed.
He recovered quickly, stuffing the dangerous look away behind the chivalrous mien he always wore. “I’d settle for a bit of your unguarded time, though.”
“I didn’t realize we were bargaining.” I smirked when the flash of that dangerous edge flickered in his eyes. “It’s too dangerous.”
“For a human to be seen with a guard at night, in the gardens of a palace that is spelled to confuse and disorient humans so they end up lost?” He tilted his head, judgmental doubt playing in his playful grin.
“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“Thought of, dreamed of, wished for, longed for,” he whispered almost to himself before raising his tone. “If anyone finds you, I will say that you were requested in the Ard Rí’s chamber, were overly confident in your knowledge of the palace, and got lost. It is as plausible as anything else.”
“Right, because I’m meant to be his whore, not his chambermaid.”
He winced but nodded.
I let my shoulders sag with the burden of my place in this castle. Whether or not others lied to me about it, The Raven never would. It was one thing I liked about him most. Even when he probably should have, he never lied to me. I wish I could say I gave him the same consideration .
“Fine. When?”
“Tenth bell. After the feasting will be cleared away. When the scullery maids return to the warrens from their duties, go to the gardens. Meet me near the flowering fountain. Do you know where that is?”
I nodded. I had spent far too long at that particular fountain the last time I went to the gardens. It was a marvel of unpatinaed copper flowers growing from a stream of crystal-clear water. Below it a small pond with jewel-like fish with the bodies of koi and the face of lions. I had wanted to sit and watch them swim peacefully for the rest of my days.
The Raven knelt and looked Goose in the eye. “Your lady comes to meet me in the gardens this evening. Will you escort her and chaperone our time together so that no harm comes of her? I will pay you for your services.”
Goose regarded him silently, tilting his head from left to right as he considered The Raven. The pair stared at each other for what seemed like ages, and I was about to break the two up from their ridiculous standoff before Goose reached out an inky paw and set it on The Raven’s wrist. The Raven sighed with relief.
“Thank you, Goose. I’ll breathe easier knowing she is protected by you as she ventures into the palace grounds at night.”
He pushed to a standing and met my bewildered gaze. “I will see you this evening, my lady.”
And with that, he was gone, retreating without additional word to the gaggle of guards at the end of the hallway. Time was not spared to explain why he had stopped to talk to “the Golden Pearl of the Warrens,” as the guards had started to call me. They just assumed whatever story they wished to fill in the blanks that The Raven seemed none too eager to explain.