37. CHAPTER 37
Sorin
Two days.
It had been two day’s time since they had injected me with the potion Azhar had concocted and sedated me. I was going to throttle Azhar with my bare hands. But first, I needed to speak to Rensford and Voirel.
I needed to speak to King Mavros.
When I woke, my mind was clear, but my limbs were slow to follow suit. My brain was telling my legs to move, but they were hesitant to comply. Whether it was a side effect of the injection or the fact that it lingered in my system still, I wasn’t sure.
I certainly wasn’t going to let it stop me.
I understood why they had felt the need to do it, but it didn’t lessen the sting. If I were going to take my father’s throne and rule one day, I needed to maintain my composure and keep my wits about me. I couldn’t dissolve into a fit of rage.
I also couldn’t let them disrespect me by treating me like a petulant child. I was the crown prince, for gods’ sake.
That is what the reasonable part of me said, at least. The rest of me was begging for my anger to be unleashed on the king of Myros. To fly to Majur immediately and reclaim my mate.
If the Ashbourne royals found out about our bond, they would only use her against me.
What a fucking mess.
I was glad to find everyone I needed to speak with already sitting in the council room, discussing the future of this kingdom so comfortably without the one person who would be ruling it. I pressed the door open, stilted steps bringing me toward my place to King Mavros’s right.
“Didn’t expect to see me this soon?” I said, casting my gaze on each and every one of the council members sitting at this table.
“Sorin, I—” Rensford started, standing from his seat.
I raised my hand to stop him. “The only thing I want to hear out of anyone’s mouth is an update on the current situation, and what has been done to rectify it. I am confident that in the two days I slumbered, a solution—or at the minimum—a plan has been formulated?”
Silence descended upon the table, and it was only severed when King Mavros broke out into a coughing fit. We waited quietly until he regained his composure.
“My son, we have been deep in discussions about what to do regarding the human girl.”
My lip raised in a sneer. “She isn’t a human, and she isn’t merely a girl. She is my mate. My fated. She will be spoken of with the respect she is due.”
“My apolog—” King Mavros was reduced to coughing once more, blood and spittle coating the muslin cloth when he removed it from his face.
His condition worsened by the day. We wouldn’t be able to hide it for much longer.
“The truce we have with Myros right now is fragile, at best.” It was Emrys who spoke, his gaze serious as he leveled it on me. “We cannot incite a war over this.”
“I’m afraid that is exactly what we need to do.” The unfamiliar voice sounded from across the room, taking the words right out of my mouth.
Noor and Enora were standing beneath the arched frame of the darkened doorway opposite me, their faces masked in shadow. They stepped forward into the light, and there was something…off about Noor’s appearance. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“What in the seven hells do you think you are doing bursting into a war council meeting?” Emrys growled. He stood from his chair; his hand clenched into a fist on top of the marble table.
“What I have to say…you will want to hear.” Noor’s voice was soft as she narrowed her wrinkled eyes at my brother.
King Mavros raised his hand to signal the guards to remove them.
I stood, my chair screeching back against the marble floor. “Wait—” I held up a hand of my own. “Let us hear what they have come to say. It is obviously of great import.”
King Mavros’s face grew crimson with fury. “You do not sit in this seat yet. Do not think you can disrespect me and not be punished the same as everyone else!”
My gaze was pleading as I met my father’s. “This is Enora, Aveline’s closest friend. They grew up together. She knows Myros better than anyone else in Gothryn. She could provide valuable insight.”
I could tell by the now relaxed posture of Emrys that he agreed with me, for once, despite his outburst. That was a godsdamned miracle.
“Fine.” King Mavros spoke through his gritted teeth. “And why, pray tell, do you think we need to incite an all-out war over this human female?”
I lurched forward, but Emrys caught me, his arm around my neck to hold me back.
“Sit down, you insolent little urchin.” King Mavros spat the words so angrily spittle flew from his face to coat his cheeks.
“What did I say about Aveline being afforded the respect she deserves?” I roared.
“Sorin, you need to calm down.” It was Emrys’s voice at my back, quickly joined by Ren to pull me back into my seat.
“This…this has to be the bond,” Rensford said as they managed to bend my legs and pin me to the chair. “This isn’t like you. You aren’t thinking clearly.”
My gaze turned sharply toward him. “I am thinking clearly, Brother. The bond is primal. All-consuming. Not a soul at this table has ever experienced it, and therefore, cannot speak to it.”
Noor waited patiently at the doorway with Enora, their faces drawn with concern.
I turned back toward them, my gaze desperate and pleading. “What do you know?”
Enora and Noor exchanged a wary glance.
One moment, Noor was an older, plump woman.
Her hair was gray; her face creased with the wrinkles of time.
In the next, she was a woman much younger, rivaling Enora in youthful appearance.
Her hair was ivory blonde, tightly wound in a braid crown around her head.
Her eyes were a piercing blue; her waist taught beneath a corset.
“Mage! It’s a glamour!” my father’s hand, Grenville, shouted.
I fixed him with a deadpan stare. “She is fae.”
It was true. I had known Noor all my life.
She had always resided at the castle for as long as I could remember.
I had no knowledge of her true age—and I never imagined her magic included shapeshifting or glamouring.
She was the library historian and the castle gossip, always sticking her nose into everyone’s business. She knew everything about everyone.
Grenville’s face burned crimson as he buried it beneath the collar of his shirt, flinching back from the attention he had drawn toward himself.
“What is the meaning of this?” I asked, rising to stand once more.
Emrys and Rensford still stood at my back.
“My name is not Noor…not in truth. My name is Greer Winterock. I am not merely a historian, as you know me around the castle. I have been overseeing this palace for centuries and have kept my true nature a secret. Not only is it a gift…but a curse.”
I raised a brow at her. “What is your true nature?”
“I have the magic of the shift, as you can see. Though I am no dragon.”
She was arguably more terrifying. A fae who could pass herself off as anyone else.
She could take the shape of another fae.
Another human. I hadn’t met anyone like her in my one hundred and thirty-seven years.
She had been cloaking herself as Veytari this entire time, when in truth she was Vireth.
Veytari did not possess shapeshifting magic.
I hadn’t been able to distinguish anything off about her this entire time.
“I have a reputation about the castle that I make it my mission to know everything about everyone. That is not the whole truth. I am an oracle.” She squared her chin as she glared down at me.
Gods above.
It was no wonder she knew every hidden secret spilled within these castle walls. She used her reputation as a gossip monger to hide the fact that she was an oracle, allowing her to sow the seeds of her visions while remaining anonymous.
Clever.
I knew Azhar hadn’t betrayed my trust. Greer must have seen my curse.
Emrys turned his bitter gaze on her. “You’re telling me you’ve been hiding in this castle for the last three centuries, when that entire time you could have been counseling our family? My father?”
I turned my gaze on him, pinning him to his seat. “We need to stay focused on the current matter.” I turned back toward Greer and Enora. “What is it that you have seen?”
Greer held my gaze. The silence that ensued was physically painful. I was practically crawling out of my skin as I waited for her to speak.
“War is coming.”
Emrys snorted, but I didn’t pay him any attention.
She continued. “It is imminent. The path for Aveline was not clear when we first met, though I saw her magic immediately.”
“You did? What is she?” I asked, heart racing.
Greer shook her head. “I’m afraid that is a separate journey Aveline must take to find those answers. What I can tell you is what I saw for her. And what I saw for you.”
I swallowed hard. “Go on.”
“I cannot see what will happen tomorrow or the next day. Not even next week. I only see what the old gods want me to see. With a bowl of water, I can scry. I can see Aveline as she is right now. Since I met her, I know who to search for. But the visions…they are an entirely different magic.” I took a deep breath as Greer continued.
“No matter the course you choose now, the result is war. If you do nothing, war will come. If you send men to recapture her, war will follow.”
“There is no way to prevent it?” I asked, voice cracking.
“We have tried so hard to maintain this peace for the benefit of our people. There is nothing I would enjoy more than reducing King Faris and his entire brood to ashes, but that isn’t the best course of action for our kingdom. It never has been.”
“I didn’t say that it was the best course of action, only that it will come to be,” she replied.
“But Aveline is safe, for now? They do not know of her magic. And Kallias is—is in love with her.” Anger burned hot up the back of my throat as the words left my mouth.