Chapter 13
SAPHIRA
The highborn district and gardens had been strangely quiet as I had walked through them with Meiryn, heading back for dinner. I hadn’t noticed just how quiet until we approached the main gate of the castle and my ears twitched as I heard the hum of voices ahead of me.
I looked there, beyond that great arched entrance, to the inner courtyard and the pond.
Only I couldn’t see it through the sea of colourful highborn.
“Something must be happening.” I glanced at Meiryn, and then back to her again when her step slowed. “Meiryn?”
“It’s probably nothing,” she muttered but she didn’t sound convinced, and the way she paled as she stared ahead of her, a haunted edge to her sapphire eyes, didn’t exactly convince me either.
“You know something.” I reached for her arm, gripping it tightly, pulling her to face me.
She was quick to shake her head. “No. No, I don’t.”
Her gaze betrayed her, edging towards that gathered crowd.
The fear I could scent on her told me she was lying, and whatever waited on the other side of that wall of fae, it was bad. Really bad.
“Meiryn,” I whispered, imploring her to tell me, not hiding the hurt that flickered inside me as she remained silent. “I thought we were becoming friends, but apparently I was wrong.”
I released her and stormed towards the people standing between me and whatever lurked beyond them, determined to get my answers.
Only she caught my arm in an iron grip, halting me. “Don’t. We can go around. I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll just go around. Don’t go that way.”
The flash of terror in her eyes and her death grip on my arm combined to rattle my courage and rouse my instincts as a hunter, a predator. I scented the air.
Scented him.
Lorien.
Our bastard brother was up to something, and that fear written on every line of Meiryn’s pleading expression warned me that I wouldn’t like it.
I was the first heir she didn’t want Lorien to kill.
I didn’t need to look hard to read between the cracks to figure out what was going to happen if I went through the main gate.
But I still yanked my arm from hers and strode towards it.
A wolf on the prowl.
Because the only alternative was sneaking into the castle, acting as if I was afraid of him.
Fuck that.
“I guess we’re doing this then,” Meiryn muttered behind me.
Not abandoning me to my fate.
I tipped my shoulders back and my head up, and plastered my best ‘fuck you’ look on my face, the one Kaeleron had helped me perfect every damned time he had pushed me to my limit.
When I neared the edge of the crowd, they noticed me, parting in a wave on a ripple of murmured remarks.
Revealing Sylvan where he stood near a large stone at the head of the pond, flanked by two guards.
Not Lorien then.
Meiryn’s fear continued to hit me in palpable waves, and it rang in her voice as she whispered, “Don’t let him kill you.”
“Who? Sylvan?” I went to turn to look at her as the gap in the highborn closed behind us, completing the wall that left my only avenue of escape as either barging through them or fleeing over the pond and getting my boots wet.
The harsh clack of boot heels on the pale flagstones rang around me, a slow and measured step that felt far too intentional. Of course Lorien would want to make a dramatic entrance, playing to the crowd, gaining their gasps and twitters of excitement.
I slowly pivoted, coming to face him as he casually strode into the centre of the makeshift ring.
Lorien halted and preened his pale blond hair from his face as he smirked at me, making me want to pummel all six and a half feet of him.
My wolf side paced, rising to the challenge he silently issued with that smirk and that knowing look in his blue eyes that told me that he was going to get what he wanted, whether I liked it or not.
But he was wrong about that.
I had no plans to die today.
“I call upon the steward of this court to give his approval of this rite of challenge.” Lorien’s voice rang out, as commanding as a king and as pleasing as a court jester judging by the glee that rippled through the crowd, jacking up that heavy sense of anticipation in the air.
I looked beyond him to Sylvan, sure he wouldn’t allow it, even when deep in my heart I knew he would. He had allowed Lorien to murder all the other heirs, so why would he stop him for my sake?
Sylvan merely nodded, his handsome face impassive and his eyes cold, no trace of feeling in them as he stared at me.
I had the feeling he had expected this to happen, and that he welcomed it.
And the floor seemed to drop out from under me at the revelation.
This fight was real, Sylvan would not protect me, and I might die here.
My position as heir didn’t guarantee my safety, not as I had so stupidly, naively believed it would when I had agreed to come to this court.
“What rite?” I looked between Lorien and Sylvan, swiftly calculating my odds just in case they weren’t as dire as I knew them to be. Stalling. Buying myself time to figure out what the hell I was going to do to survive this. “I wasn’t aware of any rite.”
I hadn’t gotten that far in my reading yet, and that grin on Lorien’s face said he knew just how ignorant I was about not only court politics but traditions, and he was taking advantage of it.
“All of our father’s heirs have been granted the right to challenge another for the throne. It is an ancient practice, one many courts have moved away from, but one that was restored to this court since his passing.”
I didn’t want the damned throne, and I certainly didn’t want to kill anyone, but it was looking a lot like this was a kill or be killed scenario I had found myself in and I was going to survive it somehow.
Even if I had to kill Lorien to do it.
“You could have warned me.” I wasn’t sure whether I said those words to Meiryn who stood behind me, or Sylvan where he stood at the far end of the arena, his calm and unreadable mask revealing nothing.
“Sorry,” Meiryn whispered.
I kept my gaze on Sylvan, trying to read him anyway. I had the sinking feeling that he had been the one to reinstate this ancient rite. I wasn’t sure why he would want all the heirs to kill each other, and I didn’t get time to think about it.
Lorien’s grin widened, the mask slipping for a moment, revealing the vicious and dark monster Kaeleron had painted the seelie to be as he flashed his emerging fangs at me. “Make your peace with your gods.”
He thought this was going to be over quickly.
It was right there in his eyes as they flashed with victory.
With that same proud and condescending look Kaeleron had given me that day he had tested me in the glade back in Falkyr, punishing me for speaking out of turn and questioning him about the happiness of his people.
I hadn’t stood a chance then.
I wasn’t sure I stood a chance now.
Not even when I had trained so hard since that day and had been able to land a blow on Kaeleron in our most recent sparring match. Without resorting to unleashing my wolf side on him out of frustration.
Lorien thought he was going to easily beat me, because I was female and only half-fae. A mutt in his eyes.
Only he didn’t know I had been trained to fight by two powerful unseelie warriors.
I had wanted to keep my ability to fight under wraps for longer than this, playing the role of meek and weak female, but I didn’t have a choice.
After this, Sylvan would know I could handle myself, that I wasn’t the delicate female I had led him to believe I was, and I would just have to deal with it.
Surviving was more important than keeping up a ruse, and if I was going to survive this court, I was going to have to fight with all my might.
“What are the rules of this rite?” I stared him down.
“No magic. A weapon of your choice,” Sylvan answered.
No magic.
“Including teleporting?” I flicked a glance at the steward.
He nodded, his gaze narrowing on me, sharpening by degrees.
Because I was going to fight, and he wanted to see it.
He wanted to see if I had been telling the truth about how Morden had helped me escape, and that I had been shaken by how many I had killed.
I couldn’t pull my punches though, even if it would expose me.
I had to be ruthless if I was going to survive this, because that look in Lorien’s eyes said there were only two ways I was leaving this ring.
Either I won and walked away the victor.
Or I lost and someone carried my body to the pyres.
Oh gods.
I looked back at Meiryn, a bubble of panic bursting inside me. “If I die, please burn my body on a pyre to release my soul to my ancestors.”
She blinked at me, and then rallied, nodding before she found her voice and said, “Do try not to die though.”
“I’ll do my best.” I turned back to Lorien, who was eyeing us both now, looking at us as if we were filth on the bottom of his boot.
Because he thought we had teamed up, that we were friends now, and that placed him at a disadvantage. Two on one was far harder to take down than one on one, even if the two were untrained.
Female.
Lorien hadn’t fought a female heir yet. Not according to Meiryn’s account. He had murdered seven male heirs. He hadn’t killed a single female, and I knew one thing.
I wasn’t going to be his first.
I was going to teach him a lesson about females and underestimating us because of our gender. Some of us had claws and fangs, and we knew how to use them.
“I want my dagger,” I announced, as commanding as Lorien had been when he had challenged me.
Sylvan didn’t look surprised.
Lorien did.
His first two mistakes.
Not knowing I possessed a weapon of my own. Believing I would fight as a wolf.
A guard approached me, my dagger gleaming at me from the gold velvet cushion he carried, proving Sylvan had known how this would go and had been prepared.
Lorien’s third mistake?
I seized my dagger, and took to my dress with it, hacking away the skirt until it barely reached mid-thigh and my legs were on display.
Believing a wolf had any shred of modesty.