Chapter 1 #2
Kole cleared his throat, and Betsee flushed scarlet.
“Oh dear. I almost . . .” She shook her head and abruptly stepped into the chambers.
She closed the door, then whispered a spell.
A mist of magic washed over its frame, and I didn’t have to ask to know that she’d just activated the chambers’ sealing spell upon its rim and locks.
So this was to be my prison cell.
“What were you saying about my arrival? Something about breaching something?” I asked Betsee.
Betsee’s flush deepened, and she shook her head.
“I’m sorry, my lady, but I cannot tell you.
However, I believe you’ll be having a visitor in the morning who will be able to reveal more information.
But for now, I’m to ready you for bed and provide you with any refreshments you may enjoy before you retire for the night. ”
Kole positioned himself by the door, his huge sword rising from his back, which looked as menacing as a razor.
“Do the authorities of this place,” he said cryptically to Betsee, “know that I’ll be stepping away for the night?”
Betsee nodded emphatically. “Yes, they do, and I’ve been told that you may go. I’ve sealed the chambers, and guards will be positioned outside the door, so she’ll be safe until the morning.”
“Authorities?” I frowned at the warrior.
He gazed down at me, his eyes blazing even more despite his expression remaining entirely blank. His very-Kole mask was firmly back in place.
I tried not to react to the alluring planes and angles of his face, but my heart began to thump, and that stupid thing in my chest once again yearned.
The warrior inhaled. “I have to go,” he said gruffly. “But I’ll be back in the morning.”
Genuine shock billowed through me. “Why would you be returning? Isn’t your job done here?”
“Not even close.” With that, he disappeared in a wink of mistphasing magic.
The air swirled around where he’d vanished, and I was left reeling at his cryptic response.
Betsee, however, squealed. “Stars!” She slapped a hand to her chest. “I’d been told he could do that, but I’ve never seen anyone mistphase in real life before.
How unsettling.” She shuddered, but then she clapped her many hands together.
“Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, we need to choose your sleeping attire and then order whatever you may like to eat.”
The servant busied herself in the room, but I barely heard half of her cheerful ramblings. I was still staring at the air where Kole had once stood.
Kole was gone, and he’d taken the Wishing Stone with him, which meant my uncle was inevitably doomed to whatever terrible fate awaited him.
Betsee insisted that she draw a bath for me, so I changed out of my clothes into a robe, but when I began to fold my pants, something fell from the pocket. It landed with a sharp ring on the bathing chambers’ floor, and Betsee picked it up.
“What’s this?” She held up Kole’s tracking charm, pinched between her fingers. It was opaque green and the size of a marble.
I froze. Kole had given that to me so he could find me anywhere in the realm. I’d taken it gladly, convinced I could trust him completely.
How wrong I’d been.
“It’s nothing.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my tone. “You can throw it away if you want. It’s no longer important.”
She shrugged and tossed it into the trash.
Somehow, not long later, I was standing before the bed in soft nightclothes that had been pulled from the wardrobe that curiously held several pieces of clothing all in my size.
My stomach felt empty, but even though Betsee had wanted to ring for food and I hadn’t eaten in hours, I’d insisted that I wasn’t hungry.
“I’ll turn down the bed for you.” Betsee’s numerous arms all reached out, moving at once in precise and coordinated movements that had the bed ready in my next breath.
“May I ask how long you’ve worked here?” I climbed onto the bed, trying to make an effort in conversation since Betsee had been nothing but kind to me, and so far, I’d been entirely sullen.
“Twenty full seasons, my lady.” She fluffed the covers around me.
“Why do you keep calling me my lady?”
“Because I was instructed to.”
“By who?”
She opened her mouth, but then her cheeks flushed. “Oh dear, you’re quite good, but I can’t reveal that.”
“I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble.” She was about to turn away, but I snagged hold of one of her hands. “Please, Betsee, please tell me what’s going on. Why have I been brought here? I’ve done nothing that warrants being locked up.”
Her eyes softened. “To keep you safe, my lady. Truly, that’s all I know, but I believe more answers will be coming in the morning.” She patted my hand. “Now, you should try to sleep. Good night.”
She left in a flurry of arms and hands, and when the door opened, I saw several guards positioned in the hallway. I knew she hadn’t been lying. Kole hadn’t either in that aspect. Their orders were to keep me safe because, for some reason, somebody was after me.
Me, of all fae. I still couldn’t comprehend why.
As far as I knew, I was a nobody, and I’d never done anything to hurt anyone.
Yet the king and queen apparently knew of me.
And Verin had been in my aunt and uncle’s home to hurt us, or perhaps just me if Jamie’s comments were to be believed, yet Timith had been the one to fall ill.
Once again, memories of that elixir Jamie had found in Verin’s room clouded my thoughts, as well as the peculiar thing the lying servant had said when she’d finally cut her act.
“You’re all pawns in the game of night. I am merely a servant, but my liege will get to her eventually.
Now that we know for certain who she is. ”
She truly had been in my aunt and uncle’s home for ulterior motives that somehow involved me. Even though I didn’t understand why, I couldn’t deny that fact.
I fell back on the pillows, and my stomach churned.
The clock near the bed told me it was almost midnight.
Moonlight filtered into the chambers, and my exhaustion was beginning to set in.
After my terrifying visit to Silventine Wood earlier in the evening, in which I’d found the Stone, and then my emotionally charged return home with the warriors, in which my entire reality was swept out from beneath me, I was bone-tired.
But I kept thinking about my uncle, or rather, the male I’d always believed to be my uncle. But according to Aunt Gwen, he wasn’t my dead father’s brother, as I’d been raised to believe. In fact, neither Gwen nor Timith were related to me at all.
I turned on my side, stomach tumbling anew as I considered everything.
Gwen had said they’d been bound by a fairy bargain never to reveal the truth to me. She’d said the crown had commissioned that bargain.
So perhaps they were also pawns in whatever game was being played, but even if they had withheld the truth from me, I still loved them, and I knew they loved me too.
Which made what Timith was turning into all the more heartbreaking.
And the fact that I hadn’t saved him kept twisting my gut with guilt.
I tried and tried to figure out what in the realm was happening or why I’d been singled out, and the only thing I could think of that stood me apart from other fae was my forbidden magic—my innately powerful ability to read fae’s minds and fully and completely control them if I chose to, completely unbeknownst to them in the process.
Nobody else in the kingdom had that kind of power, even though some powerful fae could psychically control others with verbal commands. But nobody could control others as covertly and absolutely as I could. It was the only thing that made me unique from other siltenites.
So does my magic have something to do with this?
I frowned even more because I didn’t see how it could. The only fae in the realm who knew what I could do were me, Gwen, and Timith, and I knew neither of them would have told a soul of my abilities, so there was no way Verin could have known what I was capable of.
Tears moistened my eyes. Everything was such a mess and made absolutely no sense. But worst of all, my uncle was doomed to whatever fate lay ahead of him.
“I’m sorry I failed you,” I whispered into the dark.
I closed my eyes, and even though I tried to keep my focus on my uncle as I drifted off to sleep, it wasn’t his face that kept creeping into my mind.
It was Kole’s.
His betrayal cut me anew, and tears streamed down my cheeks as I sobbed into the pillow.
Foolish. I’d been so foolish.
I let myself cry, just to get it all out, but it didn’t change my reality. I was alone. Caged. My uncle was either going to die or turn into something that wasn’t fae. And Kole was nothing but a warrior who’d done the job he’d been commanded to do.