Chapter 25 Dinner
Dinner
The King of Coins in reverse represents a man of materialism, who wallows in his avarice, one who dominates others through exploitation, possessiveness, and worse … ruthlessness.
I’M IN A NEW BLACK and gold dress, crimson cape draping over my shoulders, the deep hood covering my hair.
Draven sits at my side, his eyes traveling the length of me like nothing between us was ever interrupted.
The long table in the dining hall is full of advisors, courtiers, and Draven’s cohort, Commander Soto and our guards lining the walls.
I scan the table, hoping for a sign of my brother or mother, but there are no young men and even fewer women seated here.
They have news for us. I’ll fill you in after dinner when I hear the rest, Draven tells me, mind to mind, his tattoo glowing.
“What a pleasure it is to have you here, rather than your empty seats,” the elven king simpers snidely.
Draven doesn’t respond.
I look at Draven pointedly, my hand squeezing his knee beneath the table.
He shifts, clearing his throat, and finally turns to the elven king.
“So sorry, I’ve been distracted. You’re right of course. I take the blame.” His hand spreads across his chest, yet his other one grasps my thigh beneath the table. “My team is extremely thorough. I made a promise to my father I’d come home breathing.”
“You say that as if there are threats around every turn,” King Eldarion accuses. “Even in my own house.”
“Well, I’ve been trained to never mistake a serpent for a toad,” Draven replies. The linked bridge between us remains open, like a corridor built within my mind.
Are you seriously implying the elven king is a toad at his own table? I ask, pressing the thought his way.
He’s more likely a snake, Draven replies.
Whatever happened to not winning a pissing contest? I press. Even I’m better at diplomacy.
Love, your expressions have annotations the whole room can read, Draven responds, and I’ve heard that before, though not so poetically.
I resist rolling my eyes and Draven’s meticulous voice turns logical.
I can’t assume that he’s not in some way working with King Altair.
Better to prod and see what comes out. The elves are typically neutral in our conflicts, but Altair can be persuasive, and you heard the way Eldarion spoke to me earlier.
We need to know where we stand before we can make the next move.
“And here you claim the seraph king sees boogeymen in the shadows,” King Eldarion manages tightly, holding his wineglass out for a servant to fill.
My eyes snag on the golden manacles at her wrists. They’re not connected by a chain, but the bruises make their intent clear. Then I notice her round ears.
I barely hear whatever Draven and the king say next, playing at words as if deciding where to slit the next knife.
The woman walks around the king and stops at me, filling my goblet with more rich elven wine, my throat dry as I take in the bruises trailing up her sleeves, little brown and purple islands against a peach sea.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her when she’s done.
She freezes as if I’ve turned her to stone. Draven’s eyes trail from her wrists to her young face, before meeting mine. The woman nods, swallowing in terror, before she turns and fills Draven’s glass instead of replying. She likely isn’t allowed to speak to anyone seated here.
All around this room, I catch glimpses of the golden manacles. Dotted among the immortals are enslaved humans. I’m sick; a collar is a collar even if it’s studded in diamonds.
Remus. I pray that he was made into a changeling, that he’s not wearing the same gold chains.
Would I even recognize his face if I saw him again?
What did they do with the children? And my mother, taken from an immortal prison, for the gods know what.
She’s in these lands, assuming she survived at all.
I desperately wish Fable and Malik had news to share with me now.
I wish I had decided to say fuck it, scour this place myself, even if it raised questions with the elven king.
My appetite disappears, and I find myself drinking the wine too quickly.
Here I am in a pretty dress, with the attentions of a mighty prince.
But in another Selection … this could have been me, forced into servitude.
The World seems to have chosen me at random.
I’m spoiled in comparison, given great power I didn’t even want at first. The two of us are headed toward thrones, but it might not come soon enough to help these people.
You’re not eating, Draven points out.
Neither are you, I push back, deflecting. My hands shake, and I clasp them together under the table.
Well, I had my fill before dinner, Draven says, eyes dancing.
They invite me to play, but I can’t summon the energy to distract myself.
Draven gently puts his silverware down, laying his napkin across his plate. “That was delicious. King Eldarion, did this beast come from one of your famous hunting trips?” he asks, charm suddenly hitched on like a shield, as if he’s shapeshifted in front of our eyes.
Eldarion blinks, thrown in surprise, and my brows furrow. What’re you doing?
Playing to his vanity. Draven squeezes my knee beneath the table.
“Yes, I killed this one myself, it nearly gored several in my party.” Eldarion’s grin is smug. “He weighed over a ton. A dangerous but beautiful beast.”
“That’s very impressive,” Draven admits, and if I didn’t know how good of an actor he was, I’d have believed him, too.
He leans closer, nearly conspiratorially.
“I can see that you’ve imported quite a few mortals who’ve avoided Selection into your realm.
I’ve heard you’re personally keeping Destarion’s rates quite low.
” Draven steeples his fingers, elbows on the chair’s arms, his eyes a deep, ocean blue.
I know I didn’t share the thought but Draven’s clever enough he must’ve figured it out.
The king takes this change in topic as some olive branch. He cuts into his meat and says, “You’d be amazed how many capable hands wind up in Destarion. The mortals’ cowardice benefits me greatly.”
“And are they all house staff? Entertainment?”
“Some are barely worth the food to feed them. They typically go to the mines, or undesirable jobs for as long as their mortal coils will hold. But we make use of the capable … every merchant needs hands, every lady a handmaid, though some mortals surprisingly have immense talent.” The king shrugs, raising the glass of wine to his lips.
“As you know, elves look for the most artistic and beautiful in Selection, but occasionally we find them hiding away.”
I hang on his every word, hating him more and more.
“We have a few every season. Years ago we had one … she was rather beautiful, a lava-blessed who became rather valuable. As you know, sometimes we find diamonds in the coal.”
My mother’s bright red hair flashes in my mind.
King Eldarion’s smile is sharp. “During her punishment it was revealed that she had a lovely voice, along with some other enticing attributes. An eastern lord needed a siren for his court, so I sent her to him as a gift. It was quite a prosperous exchange—you should’ve seen the rubies and emeralds he sent in return from his mines. ”
Rune. RUNE. Draven’s voice turns loud in my mind, and I look to him, realizing my eyes are watering. All I can hear is my mother’s singing. My father said it was prettier than all the seraphs in Nevaeh combined. But the rest of my mind is screaming.
I make a show of messing with my sleeve, turning my head aside, and let the tears quickly drop as I try to regain some composure. Draven hisses, Rune, let me help you. The field. Picture the snowy field. The king, he’ll be able to tell—
I slam the small access point down between us, severing the connection.
I can’t hear anything more. It’s taking everything to not lunge across this table and take out King Eldarion’s eyes.
My hand runs down my steak knife. How stupid, how unbelievably arrogant, to leave this in front of me, and then say something like that.
The king’s attention draws to me, and Draven’s warning sinks in under his cool gaze. I remember what Draven said about auras, the way elves can read people, their emotions, their intentions.
I think of that cold snowy field, and a chill washes over me as my emotions numb.
Draven forcibly clears his throat, the sound jarring, and it yanks me from the last of my murderous thoughts.
“Fascinating. I would love to hear a voice like that. And … where is your heir, by the way?” He looks pointedly around the table.
“I was hoping to congratulate Prince Ronan on his completion of the Kingbreaker Trials.”
Eldarion scoffs dismissively. “He is off at the Ravine, in his second year. Much like you.” It must be their version of the Forge. “The last thing that boy needs is more praise.”
“Could you regale us with the Trials? I hear every Selected child chosen by elves competed in it? I enjoy a good challenge, as I’m sure you know.
It sounds like it was both deadly and amusing.
” Draven’s asking about my brother, likely among those changelings.
I wonder who raised Remus, if he competed in the Trials, how far he got.
Draven’s team must’ve found out about the Trials, but he’s clearly still trying to narrow my brother’s placement in it.
Eldarion shrugs, smirking in amusement. “The Kingbreaker Trials were held to see if any of the changeling children from all of our Selections could be worthy of king. To be declared a true elf. It included several deadly rites. My favorite included them scaling a waterfall to collect an object treasured by our people, while sharks stirred below.”
There’s uncomfortable shifting at our table; the rest of the conversations seem to have died out as attention focuses on the king.
The queen quietly says, “We lost many changelings that day.”
“The Master of Games had secured them all to the rock wall with rope, and only my nephew realized he would have to remove it to leap far enough to reach the object.” Eldarion’s lips twist to the side as he swirls the wine around in his glass.
“Rather clever.” Though he says it as if his nephew somehow cheated.
“These games sound like fun, to play or bet on,” Draven adds, nudging the king along.
“Sounds like I would’ve been shark meat,” Malik says, and an uneasy laugh ripples around the table.
Images of my brother scaling slippery rock, water splattering his face … I remind myself he’s an adult now, the same age as me, but I keep picturing him as the child we lost.
Whether he competed in the Trials and lost, or won, or was trapped within these halls … it’s all a fate I’d never have wanted for him.
“The prince wears the item now, a symbol of his victory. It’s a beautiful ring,” the king says regretfully.
My eyes snap up, but Draven merely tilts his head, appearing captivated though I swear I can feel his thoughts buzzing even if he doesn’t show it. Those soon turn silent, as he masters himself.
“Prince Ronan will make a fine heir.” The queen seems to note the dismissive look her husband slid Draven at her comments. “He has proven himself, darling, you must admit.”
The table politely nods, though no one speaks up with their support.
Draven looks to me meaningfully, but right now I barely care that this ring might be Seithr, the Kingmaker. I want to know if my brother was one of the changelings lost in these horrific games.
“I didn’t expect a winner to be quite honest.” Eldarion’s smugness makes me want to flip this enormous table. “Many did not survive.”
My brother could very well be among the dead. I could’ve missed saving him, by months.
“What about the other changelings who survived but didn’t complete the rites? What are their fates?” Draven asks. I notice he’s adopted the same dismissive tone Eldarion uses when discussing mortals. A mirror.
“They returned to their host families, or to the Ravine. Unlike the druids, we preferred to keep our lines pure, for as long as possible, so I did not take on a ward myself.” Eldarion reaches a hand across the table, to a small planter in front of us and his fingers lift, coaxing, persuading the plant to grow.
“I wanted nothing to do with the Selection. I desired only an heir of my own. Yet there is no end to the Curse.” A second plant stretches, its stems entwining with the one beside it.
At last, a flower blooms, and I’ve never seen a blossom so strained, as if it chokes on the life forced out of it.
“So, we are required to join druids and seraphs, sullying our lines for survival. In the end, I’m glad it was Ronan.
As my brother’s ward, he will carry the ruthlessness of my line. ”
“He’s certainly something.” Draven’s lashes flutter a moment, like he can’t summon an extra fuck to give about the subject of the winner turned prince.
He finally manages, “You must have an account of it and all the competitors who entered somewhere? I am always looking for inspiration. A new challenge.”
“It was all recorded for history. I’m sure we can find a completed account of it for your entertainment.” Eldarion seems eager.
Even drowning in fury, I can’t help but admire the way my princeling manipulates a conversation, leading the king along.
“Is unicorn not to your liking?” Eldarion asks me, and I blink, not understanding him until he lifts his fork, raw meat speared to the end, pearlescent in the light.
My stomach turns, outrage mounting.
“I admit it’s not for everyone, but these ones are a rare, winged breed. Sweeter than veal, more flavorful than duck. They say the flavor is strongest in the most innocent.”