14. CHAPTER 14
Sorin
My bedchamber was spotless.
I ventured that it had never been this clean. The sheets had been washed, bleached, and turned down. Every surface had been dusted. The carpet by the chaise smelled of fresh roses and the soot stain that had graced the fireplace tile for at least a decade had vanished.
The crimson velvet drapes on the bed canopy had been soaked clean and ironed. The closet had been reorganized, my clothes freshly pressed and folded. How had Aveline done all of this in merely a few hours?
The scent of her still lingered, crisp and bright like lemon blossoms.
It took me a moment to even realize Calliope was strewn across the bed, her dress both hiked up around her hips and pulled down to pool around her waist. Her breasts were exposed to the cool night air.
The windows on the far wall were cracked open and her skin pebbled beneath the crisp summer breeze.
I had forgotten that I had sent for her.
The only thoughts that filled my head all day were of the soft, pale skin that had wheedled its way into my thoughts. The fresh citrus scent of lemon and pomelo. Two eyes—one brown, one blue.
It made me feel weak. That her beauty could enrapture me so.
That I was so…susceptible.
No wonder she had seduced the prince of Myros.
For me…it had only taken a simple look. That was all.
Thoughts of Aveline had devoured my mind so thoroughly I had entirely forgotten to go and see Azhar to have my dressing changed before returning to my rooms. I was due for another round of tonic, too.
I hadn’t been able to rid her from my thoughts, even when I had met with the king to plead with him to pause any plans against Myros.
He had dissolved into a coughing fit but reluctantly agreed. I didn’t mention Voirel, hoping that her continued presence at the castle would be a non-issue now.
I sighed heavily, traipsing toward the bed where Calliope lay sprawled.
“Long day, My Prince?” she asked, lashes fluttering.
I simply hummed noncommittally in response.
“Perhaps I can give you a massage? You look tense.” She drew herself up, placing her hands against my shoulders as I put a knee down on the bed.
The down bedding had been fluffed and was soft beneath my weight.
“I don’t much feel like talking tonight, Calliope,” I told her honestly.
I didn’t wish to take one woman to my bed while another currently occupied my thoughts.
I simply wanted to drink from her and be left alone to my own demons.
It had been at least three or four days since I had fed.
I needed blood at least two to three times weekly to keep up my strength, though that varied from one Vireth to another.
I pushed her back gently, and she obliged.
I brought my lips to her neck without preamble and bit down, her warm blood coating my tongue as it slipped down my throat.
Tonight, it didn’t taste as magnificent as it usually did. It tasted sour as it settled in my belly. Calliope cried out at the initial sting from my fangs but was quickly lost in the all-encompassing euphoria that accompanied a bite from Vireth.
She writhed beneath me, her peaked breasts pressing against my chest as the first button of my black tunic came undone from the friction.
I drank until I was sated.
I pulled back from her and licked my lips clean.
It has been days since I had a drink, and I felt the power of the human blood stirring within me as my thoughts settled.
This would help my cursed wound, surely.
I shouldn’t have let this long of a time lapse between feedings, and I chided myself.
I pushed back off the bed, leaving Calliope to her euphoric high among the now stained bedsheets.
I didn’t have the heart to send for Aveline to change them, despite that being her job. I would change them myself.
I reached the doorway to my chambers and glanced back at Calliope once more before exiting my rooms. The feeding didn’t hold the same pleasure for me tonight as it usually did. I was too preoccupied.
It was late, but not late enough to retire for the night. I didn’t wish to kick Calliope out of my quarters, but neither did I wish to share a bed with her tonight. I turned toward the wide curved staircase at the center of the castle that would lead down toward the main hall.
I ran into Emrys, a furry cloud suspended in his arms. I stopped halfway down the stairs—hand on the railing—quirking my brow at him. He halted opposite me.
“I found this little devil in the kitchens, trying to steal one of Kamari’s famous mince pies.” He ruffled the fox’s ivory fur with adoration.
“He belongs to Aveline.” I gazed at Quinnick with a soft smile. The fox appeared awfully smug. “She did mention he is accustomed to having free rein, though I am not sure how he escaped her room.”
“Aveline?” Emrys raised a brow.
I nodded. “My new housemaid.”
Emrys pinned me with a skeptical glare but didn’t press. He handed the fox over to me, and he willingly leaped into my arms.
“I assume you know where he belongs, then?” he asked, turning to head back down the staircase the way he had come.
I nodded. I called after him, my voice thick with sarcasm. “Sure, I’ll just take care of it myself.”
“As you always do, Brother,” Emrys replied, his back turned as he disappeared from sight.
Things hadn’t been tense between us these last few days, and I hadn’t expected his impulsive comment to catch me off guard.
I turned back up the staircase and descended on Aveline’s room in the dormitory wing.
I knocked once. Twice. Three times. There was no answer.
Where could she be at this hour? I tried the handle and to my surprise it gave way beneath my touch, she hadn’t bothered locking the room. Quinnick trotted in and made himself comfortable curled among the threadbare bed.
Aveline wasn’t here.
To my knowledge, she didn’t know anyone else in the castle. Maybe she had made a human friend on her journey? Met someone to befriend at the indenture market?
I knew it was an invasion of privacy, but not searching her room would be an oversight. Ren was convinced she was a spy for Myros, and if nothing else, perhaps I could find something we could use against their prince.
I opened the trunk at the foot of the bed to find only a few beautiful, beaded gowns. They were far more elegant than anything I would expect for a typical human, but they were well suited to the maiden of a prince or for life at court. There were cosmetics, undergarments, and shoes.
No weapons to be seen, not that I had expected there to be.
I lifted the cot and Quinnick let out a resentful huff. Next to a spring that had popped was a small leather pouch. I pulled it out, sitting on the cot beside Quinnick and unzipping it.
Inside, there were several vials of colored liquids with droppers. Crushed herbs and ground leaves. One might not think anything of it, except a bright pink flower caught my attention and my brow furrowed.
Foxglove.
A beautiful flower to be sure, but it was also poisonous.
What did Aveline need poisons for? And why was she hiding them under the mattress?
It was true that maybe she could have merely appreciated the flower for its rare beauty, if it weren’t for the assortment of other dangerous herbs alongside it.
This small, seemingly innocuous leather pouch revealed an entirely new motive for her. Was it possible Aveline was not sent to spy on us after all, but rather, sent to kill me instead?
Perhaps I had underestimated her.
Maybe Ren was right, and her softness and elegance was simply a ploy to charm us.
To get closer to me and my brothers. Was it possible that Aveline wasn’t simply sent away because Queen Dyata didn’t approve of her relationship with her son?
No…she was sent here to prove to them that she could be their next queen.
That she was worthy of marrying their heir.
My own arrogance had blinded me to her true motives.
I stood, the leather pouch afire in my tight grasp.
Quinnick didn’t bother opening his eyes this time as I lifted the mattress to return the pouch exactly where I had found it.
I had trivialized her presence.
Downplayed the entire thing to Rensford as if there wasn’t a reason for me to care about her appearance at court. Though Rensford was already suspicious of her, neither of us had seen her as a true threat to our lives. Because how could a human kill a dragon?
Poison…that was how.
I stood once more, rattled. I moved toward the door, wrenching it open. A familiar figure blocked the way out into the hall.
“Valerian? What are you doing here?”
My youngest brother stood in the doorway, a sly smile adorning his full lips. His arms were crossed over his chest. “Have I found you snooping, Brother?” he asked, a laugh in his voice.
“What are you doing in this wing of the castle?” I shot back.
He hated when I answered a question with a question.
He rolled his eyes. “Looking for you, obviously.”
“For…?” I prompted.
I hadn’t seen Valerian since we had returned from the castle after our flight to Myros. He had vanished to Ravenwood for gods only know what reason. I stopped caring where he went a long time ago. If he wanted to shirk his duties as a Blackwater prince, so be it.
“I was tired tonight and decided to stay in. I was stealing the good liquor from Father’s study when I saw two very guilty looking humans sneaking out the front door in the main hall.”
“Sneaking?” My brow creased in confusion. “They are free to come and go—”
“As they please, yes.” He finished for me. “But the new ones…they don’t know that.”
I inclined my head “So?”
“So, I was curious. I followed them.”
I motioned for him to continue with my hand, impatient. Valerian always loved to draw things out and watch me squirm.
He leaned against the door frame. “One of them was your new maidservant.”
“How do you—” I started, but he cut me off again.
“I know a great many things that happen in this castle. You all think me some sort of imbecile or deviant. Little do you know, I am the eyes and ears of this place.”
I opened my mouth to protest—to tell him we didn’t think of him that way—but it simply wasn’t true. We did. We never gave him credit where credit was due.
“Your new little human pet was accompanied by a historian hired in the library. She is Veytari fae from Myros.”
My mouth parted at this. I knew she had to have gone out, what with her rooms being empty. It was only happenstance that Valerian had seen them and followed.
“Where did they go?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
“Ravenwood.”
“And…?” It was like pulling teeth trying to get the right answer out of him. If he weren’t my baby brother, I would wring his neck.
“And I saw them picking flowers at the docks when they first arrived off the vessel. Poisonous flowers. The kind Azhar always crushes up for your tea. I also saw them entering one Hortensia Grimlock’s herb shop, the sprite with the amaranthine wings.”
This information wouldn’t typically be suspicious, but after what I just discovered hiding under her mattress…it most certainly was.
“And that’s all?” I asked.
“That’s all?” He laughed, his pale cheeks blushing pink. “I thought you might want to know your new maid is an herbwitch, or worse...”
She had already admitted to me that she and her mother owned an apothecary in Myros. Was that all this was? Did she simply have a passion for it?
“Thank you, Valerian. You have been most helpful,” I said through clenched teeth.
He cocked his head to the side. “I want to go with you.”
“Go with me?” I moved to enter the hall once more, but he did not budge from blocking the doorway.
“Yes, go with you. You are going after her to spy on her, are you not?”
I tapped my fingers against my leg in annoyance. “And if I am?”
“Ren is in the Wraithwood on guard duty tonight.” He pointed at me. “You need a wingman. Pun intended.”
I pinned him with a stony gaze.
A long moment of silence passed between us. I didn’t need anyone to go with me, but Valerian had been right to assume Ren would be my next stop. My expression must have given my musings away.
“I know that you and Ren plan to use her against Kallias Ashbourne, and I wish to help.”
I pursed my lips. “And how, exactly, do you know that?”
His rose-tinted lips simply curved into a knowing smile.
“Have you been spying, Valerian Blackwater?” I asked in jest.
“Don’t get me wrong, Brother.” He placed a hand over his heart in a demonstration of honesty. “I love women, love to drink, and love to piss off Father. But it is always the one that everyone underestimates that can be but a fly on the wall…completely unnoticed. A wraith among dragons.”
My nostrils flared.
“I was on my way to Ravenwood, anyway. That sweet little thing I met last week, Fantome…”
“Fantine,” I corrected, a muscle ticking in my jaw.
“Fantine, right. She will be at that little tavern by the bluffs. You know the one, the thatched roof and the rowdy company. Anyway…I will be going with you. With, or without your permission.”
I released a slow breath. I didn’t trust Valerian, not as far as I could throw him. Which, incidentally, was pretty far considering I was the strongest of us. But this conversation did nothing to bolster my trust in him.
I brushed past him, checking his shoulder in the process. He was almost as tall as me, but he was leaner. I was all corded, hard muscle. He was long, gangly limbs.
“I trust you will stay silent about this?” I called over my shoulder, not stopping.
I gazed back at him and his answering grin spread from ear to ear, showing off his pointed canines. Where I was a half human bastard who could pass as human any day of the week, Valerian was thoroughly Vireth.
He reminded me so much of Father.
I marched down the hallway, pressing open the double doors across from the grand staircase and casting a glance over my shoulder at Valerian. I wanted to wipe that shit-eating grin right off his perfectly pale little face.
I stepped up onto the balcony railing, spreading my wings out behind my back with marked force. Valerian took a step back beneath the pressure, the air stirring heavily behind me. He joined me at the railing, his copper wings flapping at his back.
I let out a harsh breath as my shoulders tensed. I vaulted off the railing, allowing my black wings to spread wide and beat against the tepid, summer air. Despite the cool breeze, the climate was still more balmy than I preferred.
I heard Valerian lift off behind me to follow. The only noise filling my ears was the soft hum of our wings beating against the night as we disappeared into the darkness.