Chapter 44 – Vale
Chapter 44
VALE
O utside, the waning moon shone, though it somehow felt like only minutes had passed since I’d last seen Neve. Since I’d learned we were related.
We’d been intimate, and I’d dreamed about taking her and burying my cock in her every way possible.
I’d fallen in love with her.
I swallowed down the revulsion and chased it with a strong ale. The horn was empty, so once again, I held it out.
Sitting in a dilapidated armchair across from me, looking at home in his small family library, Thantrel cleared his throat. “You might have had enough, Vale.”
“That so?” I grumbled, fingers walking along the top of a side table. “I seem to remember what happened today. So I would argue not.” I stood, intent on filling my horn. The motion threw me off, but I righted myself quickly. Or so I’d thought. The way Arie and Thantrel looked at one another hinted otherwise.
Gryphon’s balls. If they’re agreeing on something, it must be true.
I sighed. “Fine. Someone get me water. Or perhaps I should go flop in the snow and lie there until morning.”
The snow had fallen all day. Perhaps it would continue to do so and bury me. At least then, I wouldn’t have to deal with the many thoughts running amok in my head.
“Water.” Arie stood up and rushed from the room.
Caelo set his own horn in a holder. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Did I want to talk about how I was in love with my aunt? How she was born of a family line my father despised? How he’d kill her in an instant if he learned? The skin on the back of my neck tightened at the thought. By the dead gods, I needed to get Neve out of Winter’s Realm.
But would she want to go? She was a Falk, with as much right—or more—to claim this land.
No, I didn’t wish to talk about those matters.
“I’d rather not.”
“Fine.” Caelo rose from the settee he’d spread out across. “I need to piss, anyway.”
He left, leaving me with Luccan and Thantrel. I eyed them suspiciously, a question arising.
“Did you two know?”
Luccan gaped. “That she’s a Falk? Of course not! You think we’d hide that from you? ”
I’d hidden things from them. Like that my father believed their family might have the Ice Scepter.
“We didn’t know,” Thantrel echoed. “Father never tells us things like that. To protect us.”
“Also because you don’t need to know everything.” Lord Riis entered the room as if he owned it, which I supposed he did as this was his ancestral home. “Sons, I’d like to speak with Prince Vale. Alone.”
“Arie went to get him water,” Luccan said even as he rose from the armchair he’d occupied for hours.
“It can wait for what I wish to say.”
Luccan nodded, but Thantrel eyed his father with skepticism. “Where did you go? No one has seen you since this morning.”
“Another thing you do not need to know. Now, leave us.”
My friends left, and I remained looking up at Lord Riis. “Well?”
“I see you haven’t taken these revelations well.”
I snorted. “One could say that.”
“Well, I’m not sure if what I’m about to tell you will make your night better or worse.”
“How could it get worse?”
Lord Riis gave a half smile. “In my experience, it can always get worse. Though the other side of the coin is true too—it can always get better. That this news, while it might be a shock, will have an upside.”
I gestured to the chair Thantrel had occupied. “Out with it then.”
“Kind of you to offer me a chair that has been in my family for centuries.” The Lord of Tongues took the seat. Once settled, he leaned back, the picture of relaxation, though the slight tightness in his jaw said otherwise.
“I spoke with Neve after you left?—”
“Isolde,” I grumbled. “Shouldn’t we call her Isolde?”
“For now, she wishes to go by Neve. Though I take it as a good sign that you care enough to even bring up her birth name.”
“Feelings don’t just turn off, Leyv.”
He gave a single humorless chuckle. “I understand that well.”
Something in his tone, a lightness, made me forget the depths of my turmoil. I looked up at him and caught him gazing out the window.
Though I’d paid it little attention, in the distance, if one looked closely enough, you could see the towers of Staghorn Castle—where my mother grew up. Where she’d lived until the day she’d wed my father.
“I left Riis Tower today,” he said, turning back to me. “Returned to Avaldenn. Your father is furious that you and Neve have disappeared. Furious, too, that the vampires left a path of destruction in the city, and he has no one to blame.”
“I tried to tell him.”
“He should have listened. The only good thing in all this mess is he has not noticed my sons are gone.”
My stomach pitted. I hadn’t considered that either. While the Riis brothers had more leeway than most nobles because they lived in Avaldenn, they would be expected to be at Frostveil Castle for the Courting Festival events. By coming here, Luccan, Arie, and Thantrel had put themselves in danger.
“They should go back,” I said. “Father might call an event at any moment.”
“I agree,” Lord Riis said. “I told them as much this morning, but they would not leave you after what happened.”
I swallowed. “I don’t deserve such good friends.”
“You do, Vale.” Lord Riis leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “But to my point—I do not wish to speak of the king or the Courting Festival.” He exhaled. “I only mention that I returned to Frostveil because, while there, I told someone where you were.”
My spine straightened. Telling someone that we were here would reveal Luccan’s gatemaking power. “Who?”
“Your mother. She needed to hear that you were safe, and we had something important to discuss, something we both think that you should finally learn.”
He looked uncomfortable, an unusual expression for the male.
“You didn’t tell her what you believed about Neve, did you?” The idea made my chest tighten and my blood race.
Lord Riis looked away, and I leaned forward. “Leyv? You promised .”
“I did,” he agreed. “And I broke that promise, but only to?—”
I shot out of my seat, and in two strides, had the spymaster by the throat.
“Mother will tell my father, and he will be even more pleased to kill Neve than he already was,” I growled. “I demand to know why you broke your promise.”
“Because . . .” Lord Riis’s voice was strained, but he did not fight back. If he had, he might have been able to break free, for the Lord of Tongues was one of the few faeries larger than me. “Inga had to be convinced.”
“ Of what? ”
“Telling you our secret.” He could barely get the last word out.
I relaxed my hold on his neck slightly, enough for him to take a full breath. “What secret?”
His eyes locked with mine. “You and Rhistel are not Aaberg by blood. You are my sons.”