Chapter 14
SAPHIRA
The motes of magic that lazily danced and swirled around the arms of the gold chandeliers suspended above the long dining table glinted off my wine glass, gilding the pattern cut into the crystal one moment and leaving it in shadow the next.
My gaze drifted down the long stem to the table and the shadow the rich red wine cast on the wood, a shadow that beckoned me as I subtly gripped my aching side, fingers curling around my ribs as they protested.
The bruise Lorien had left on them was spectacular, reaching from one side of my body to the other, and I’d had tears in my eyes when I had begged my handmaiden and Danica to find me a dress without a boned corset.
The thought of being squeezed into one had been unbearable.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to sleep tonight.
The healers had mended my face and the long gashes across my chest as best they could, and make-up had covered the rest.
Danica had kindly told me not to worry about the streaks that darted across my chest just below Kaeleron’s brand, and that they made me look fierce and I should wear them like a badge of honour, and that they were a mark of my victory.
A victory this opulent feast with fifty of the most powerful nobles of this court was meant to celebrate.
Only I didn’t feel much like eating when every movement I made, no matter how small, had something within me screaming in agony.
Or maybe it was the food that was on offer.
Beautiful fine porcelain dishes filled the table between high sprays of flowers, but there was a shocking lack of meat among the variety on offer. Much to my disappointment, I had discovered that even the golden-crusted pies contained either vegetables or fruit.
I held back the long sigh that wanted to escape me, partly because it would hurt if I let it out and partly because I didn’t want to appear rude, yearning for the hefty meat pies of the Shadow Court, or the juicy steaks and thick, rich gravy.
Gods, I would drive my dinner knife through Lorien’s chest right now if it would get me a tray of sliced beef or one of those sticky buns and some of that violet syrup Kaeleron was so fond of.
I smiled politely as a male two seats down on my left spoke to me about my victory, something all of them had done at some point during the meal, and then he glanced at Lorien as if he wasn’t sure what to say about his presence at the table.
Apparently, only the heir who had been crowned the victor in the challenge was meant to be present at the celebratory feast that followed, and the one who was being scraped off the flagstones and tossed on a pyre was meant to have their seat at the table empty. A reminder they were gone.
Only Lorien was very much present in the seat to my right, and looking fit to growl at every noble who looked at him.
He hadn’t said a word to me since storming away from me in the courtyard.
Meiryn had.
She had grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the crowd, demanding to know what I had been thinking in letting Lorien live.
I had been thinking he might be grateful. I had been thinking he might leave me alone if he knew I could beat him in a fight.
My reason for letting him live hadn’t revolved solely around him though. I had covered the truth of me with the noble thought that I had been doing a kind thing, a merciful thing, and that the highborn who held power in this court would see it and would back me over him.
Which they had.
But the real reason I had let him walk away?
I had been afraid of killing him, of getting more blood on my hands when I was only just coming to terms with what I had done in Canada.
Lucas haunted my sleep, together with the faces of every life I had taken, and when I woke and looked in the mirror, I wasn’t sure I recognised the person looking back at me.
I was coming to though as the days passed.
I was coming to see that fierce, but warm and kind female Kaeleron and others had said I was. The female I knew to be me.
I had been afraid I would lose her again if I took another life.
I wanted her back. I wanted to be me again.
I needed it now more than ever as I navigated this court, and struggled to face what might be the real truth about me—that I was part fae.
Not a wolf. Not wholly. Just the thought I might have fae blood, it stripped away something fundamental inside me, shattering that world I had known all my life and that person who had stared back at me from the mirror for every year of it until this year.
This dreadful year when all I had known had been shattered in so many ways.
The fated mate I had loved and dreamed of a beautiful future with had rejected and sold me.
The fae king I had fallen into a deeper sort of love with had rejected me too in a way, shoving me away to protect me before realising I was safest with him.
The parents I had relied on, loved deeper than anyone, had been taken from me.
And my beautiful Shadow King had an agreement with his high king that would take him from me, forcing me to see him with another female.
And now my father, who I had always looked up to, who I had always seen myself in, wasn’t my father at all.
My father had been a seelie king.
Enemy of my beloved unseelie king.
So, just for a moment, I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and turn back the clock to see the female I had once been.
I wanted normal. Just for a day. For a moment.
For a breath. I needed to look in that mirror and see the female I had been barely a few months ago.
Not the blind one who had believed love with my fated mate was real.
But the one who had discovered herself in the Shadow Court.
The one without all the blood on her hands, the grief in her heart, and the lineage that made me the enemy of the male I loved.
Gods, I missed him.
I missed our private dinners in that beautiful room in Falkyr, ones I much preferred to this charade. I missed being alone with him to sitting here, smiling at people who all wanted to speak with me, vying for my attention as I forced myself to eat to keep my strength up.
I hated this dinner that was too refined for my tastes, elegance expected.
I missed Kael and his heated looks and beautiful banter.
Everyone here was too formal, wearing a mask that concealed their plotting and whatever games they were playing with each other as they exchanged remarks and made pleasant talk.
I could read between the lines of their conversations, how each of them was trying to appear better than the other, and was subtly tearing the others down.
It was exhausting.
“You look tired,” Meiryn murmured to my left, where she sat in the first seat while I had been forced to sit at the head of the table, opposite Sylvan who hadn’t looked at Lorien once since entering the room.
He had studied me plenty.
“Do you want some more wine?” Meiryn’s gentle smile didn’t look like a mask.
Nothing she did made me feel as if she was plotting something, concealing plans to tear me down.
She had been here eight years without killing a single heir, and had watched Lorien tear through them all.
Either she had no interest in the throne, or she was waiting for us all to kill each other and leave her as the last one standing.
At least her hands would be clean.
Unlike mine.
I smiled tightly, not hiding my fatigue from her, or my miserable mood. Kaeleron had called me a morose kind of drunk. Apparently, I didn’t need to be drunk to be morose.
Godsdammit, I missed that bastard.
Even Meiryn’s mention of wine had a pang lancing my chest.
I had either drunk too much tonight or not enough. It felt like not enough.
“That would be nice.” I nodded to her.
Half expecting her to touch a finger to the carafe near her as Kaeleron would, using magic to transfer the wine to my goblet.
It caught me off guard when she picked up the glass jug and poured the rich, crimson wine as a normal person would.
“You seem surprised.” Meiryn hesitated, glancing between the jug and my half-filled glass.
I was quick to shake my head, keeping my voice low so our conversation would hopefully remain private. “Sorry. I’ve seen fae move wine using nothing more than the tap of a finger. I think I still have a lot to learn about magic.”
“Some possess more than others.” Meiryn finished filling my glass and set the jug down, leaning closer to me as she whispered, “I… I presume you speak of the unseelie king. A king would have the most magic, and such an act would come easily to him, I suppose. I don’t have that sort of control over magic and the environment, and would most likely hurl the wine all over your dress if I tried… but I could try.”
She teasingly touched two fingers to the jug.
My smile came naturally this time as I shook my head, enjoying how easily she could lighten my mood.
It faltered when I noticed a female two seats down on the right side of the table watching us, her eyes gleaming as she turned to her companion and whispered to her.
I didn’t need to be a full-blooded fae to pick up two words.
Wrathful King.
The thought of them speaking about Kaeleron had my hand closing around my dinner knife.
Sylvan suddenly stood at the other end of the table, snapping me out of the haze of my dark thoughts of plunging this makeshift dagger into the hearts of the females to silence their vile words about my king. They didn’t get to speak about him. He was mine.
My wolf side snarled in response to that, growling low with a hunger to ensure these females knew that he was spoken for, that he belonged to me.
I forced my fingers open, releasing the knife, and pushed back in my seat, wrestling with the instincts that demanded I stake a claim on Kaeleron.