Chapter 14 #3
“What?” My head dropped, gaze landing on her. She was serious. My eyebrows rose. “You’ve never seen the moon. Gods, as a wolf that would kill me. I love the moon.”
“I’ve heard it shines in the shadows.” Meiryn came to rest beside me, facing the drop and the courtyard, her gaze lifting to the sky. “What’s it like?”
“Beautiful.” I was talking about more than the moon now. I was talking about the Shadow Court.
“It was rude of them to talk like that.” Meiryn picked at the stone railing.
“It was.” I stared hard at the sky, trying to see if the aurora were visible here in the light of Lucia.
“You could have put them in their place. You should have put them in their place.”
I glanced at her. “You’re right. I should have. They just caught me off guard. I don’t think they know what the unseelie are like. Not really.”
Meiryn shook her head. “They don’t. Very few do. They just hear what they’re told… and I think that’s probably a problem on both sides of this realm.”
She wasn’t wrong about that.
“Strange that for a species born of the same source—the Great Mother—we are so divided. I am not sure this is what Lucia wanted when she created us.” She nudged a lichen with her nail, gazing thoughtfully at it.
I wasn’t sure it was what the goddess had wanted either.
The story had made it sound as if she longed for children of her own, and I wasn’t sure she would have wanted them to hate each other.
I stared at the sky, searching for any trace of faint aurora, or a star, but all I found was vast emptiness.
So I turned and gazed at the forest that surrounded the castle, my mind on the goddess of this land who had taken a piece of her heart and had created two children with it.
The scent of the flowers in the garden below drifted up to me on a gentle, warm breeze, faintly laced with the smell of leaf litter and water, and I breathed deep of it, letting it curl around my wolf side to soothe me and sweep away any lingering trace of my anger.
There was magic in that scent, a spell that had woven its power on me from the moment I had found myself in this land, so far from home.
A spell that comforted me and gave me strength.
Why would a goddess take a piece of her heart to cut it in two to make her children from one source if she didn’t want them to get along? I wished I could ask her that.
I turned my back to the view again, eyeing the highborn who milled around the room, smiling at each other as they conversed. I was sure if I asked them that, I would find myself ostracised and shut in the dungeon.
“Did you manage to get to the library before dinner?” Meiryn pushed away from the wall, coming to face me. “Did you get my present?”
“I did, and thank you for it.” I touched her hand, my smile genuine as I thought of the gift she had given me. “I only had time to flick through two of his journals, but I’m sure I’ll find interesting things in the others.”
Sylvan halted as he stepped out onto the terrace with two finely dressed males. “Your father’s journals?”
I nodded, smile falling as I turned to look at him.
His eyes had never looked so cold. “Those journals are private.”
“They were written by my father.” I stood now and kept my tone firm as I faced him, refusing to let him tell me what to do.
I was heir. He might be used to having power over this court, but his time in control of it was limited now and I wanted him to know it.
“They might help me understand him better.”
Sylvan waved me away. “They are mostly filled with records regarding court business, detailing the tasks he carried out each day. They will be of little interest to you if you are seeking knowledge of who he was as a male. There are more suitable records for that.”
I smiled sweetly at him, feigning the good daughter and future queen. “This court is now my business, and perhaps I might learn something about how to run it from the journals.”
One of the males remarked, “It sounds like an excellent way of learning about the Summer Court.”
Sylvan dipped his head. “Of course.”
When he lingered, that cold calculating edge to his expression remaining, I looked from him to the males and back again.
“Was there something else?” I forced my smile to hold as his demeanour only grew colder still.
Unsettling my wolf instincts.
“I did wish to speak with you about something.” He stepped forwards, closing the distance between us.
“Thank you.” I excused the two males with a smile and a gentle dip of my head.
Before they had even taken a step back towards the doors, Sylvan broke the silence.
It was a deliberate and well-played stab of the knife on his part.
One that would allow word to circulate around the court, confirming the rumours those vile bitches had been twittering about.
One that was blatant payback for the fact I had pushed to be allowed to read Sylas’s journals.
He smiled that viper’s smile.
And landed a blow that shook me to my core.
“Since you confirmed during our meeting that you have lain with the Wrathful King, tomorrow you will undergo a physical inspection to ensure you are not with child and his mark will be removed.”