9. Villains Scarcely Disguised
9. VILLAINS SCARCELY DISGUISED
ELOWYN
The Great Salon of Delicacies was abuzz with chatter as I and the other surviving contestants stood around awaiting the queen’s arrival, I to attempt to murder her with eye daggers—one day I’d succeed in killing her—the others for the commencement of the first event of the Nuptialis Probatio.
The only man to wait with us was Rush, cordoned off from the rest of us by actual rope, one made of that same glowing dark shadow as the chains the queen had used to bind us in the throne room on the day of my stabbing. I suspected the forced separation was solely to keep me away from him. She seemed all too eager to shove him into the arms of the other females, especially Natania. Really, whoever would do, so long as she wasn’t me.
The shadowy rope draped between silver posts that had been cast to resemble miniature trees, beautiful even as they caged Rush. He sat alone atop a fancy high-backed chair, posture impeccable and strong, staring stoically out the windows at the gardens below.
I’d already tried, unsuccessfully, to engage him in conversation. Not only were his replies to me abrupt, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes, as if he didn’t want me to notice whatever turmoil must brew behind those moonlight eyes of his.
Not only did I want to see it, I wanted to share in it with him. To share the burden.
He wouldn’t allow it. I was back to being a stranger to him.
The unisus Azariah was there too. Predictably majestic, his coat was a thick, shiny, pure white. His mane and tail were braided, and when they caught the sunlight, they shone like rainbows. Kept pulled tight to his sides, his wings glittered. Even his horn appeared polished.
He, too, stood apart from us competitors, albeit without a divider between us. His muscles twitched continuously, even more so whenever he allowed himself to meet my eyes from across the room. That such a magnificent magical creature should live in constant fear of the queen only made me hate her all the more. Every time I started in his direction, he casually moved away. An open friendship with me obviously wasn’t worth whatever backlash he’d receive from the queen.
Octavia Lily Rose, however, shared no such compunctions. The young woman, who wore her innocence like the others wore their potent perfumes, stuck to me like glue. She leaned closer to me to draw my attention from Rush. I couldn’t look away, even when he wouldn’t meet my expectant gaze. I could scarcely believe this was the same man who’d made love to me just the night before last, who’d declared his undying love for me and sworn he’d never forget me, no matter what.
So much had happened since then. So much had already been broken.
“How do you think they died? Who do you think killed them?” Octavia asked in a low voice tight with nerves. She clutched her delicate glass of “morning” rose liqueur with white-knuckled fingers.
Slow to look away from Rush, I answered, “I’m not sure.” It was only a minor untruth. I didn’t know who the snake was, though if someone at court would give me straight answers I could probably find out. There couldn’t be that many male snake changelings among the nobility, much less ones whose sons had been roasted and served up for dinner.
Octavia shuddered and took a sip, her eyes slightly glazed. “Who would even do such a thing?”
Now that was a question for which I had a long list of guesses.
“Who would be so … so awful? Eliana’s head…” Octavia interrupted herself to tip up her glass, this sip longer than the previous in an attempt to dull her nerves.
I didn’t blame her. After the queen’s nightmarish “entertainment” with Rush, I’d believed myself too numb, too shocked to be shaken by anything else. I thought, How could anything be worse than watching Rush give his body to the queen, and then for her to pass him off to Natania, Malina, Coretta, and Eliana?
Apparently, the bad was only going to keep getting worse around here. Eliana had sent the changeling to kill me, and for that reason alone I didn’t regret her death. When I remembered her greedy hands all over Rush’s naked body, him appearing miles away just to avoid feeling her touch, I regretted it even less.
But the snake, with just his fangs, had somehow gnawed her neck until her head hung on by little more than some grisly shards of bone and ropes of sinew. Blood had pooled on her bed, highlighting the contrast between it and her ashen skin. Her eyes and mouth had been wide with her surprise. She’d died that way.
Perhaps the snake had used magic to cause so much damage, I wasn’t sure. I kill things , he’d told me. And man, did he ever.
I couldn’t shake the knowledge that Eliana had intended her fate to be mine. At least there was poetic justice in her end—an immediate boomerang of her actions. I hadn’t felt safe at court to begin with, but now every little noise or movement from beyond my direct vision caused me to whirl around to face it.
Eliana hadn’t been the only one to die.
In the aftermath of her gruesome death, and the unease that came with no one but maybe me knowing who killed her, or how the killer could have caused all that damage without anyone realizing it in time to catch him, it took another hour before the second corpse was discovered.
Still warm, the body of a visdrakess from Forzantos rested in her bed. The curtains remained drawn around it. Her face was peaceful, as if she’d passed contentedly in her slumber.
I hadn’t spoken with the woman. I did, however, remember the healthy rosy color of her cheeks. There was no way her death was natural.
“Poison.”
“What?” Octavia asked.
I chortled darkly. “I’m guessing the other woman was killed by poison.”
Octavia gulped. “There are many ways to kill a fae other than poison.”
I turned toward her as she drained her small glass. Immediately, a goblin materialized and shuffled toward her with a crystal decanter at the ready.
After filling her glass, he asked me, “Milady, would you like me to top yours off?” His voice was a deep familiar rasp that made me miss Pru with a painful pang.
I stared at him for a beat too long, singling out bits of Pru from his gray-tinged face, bulbous nose, and pupil-less eyes.
Eventually, I replied, “No, though I thank you for the offer.”
The remnants of whatever had been in that vial of Rush’s still lingered in my body, and I desperately desired the sharpness of my senses. Save for too few exceptions, I stood in a pit of poisonous vipers.
The goblin’s hairless brow quirked as he blinked those large eyes at me, once, twice. Then he regained his composure and bowed before shuffling backward to blend into our surroundings.
“Why did you do that?” Octavia asked.
I raised my glass and was taking a sip out of habit before remembering I should have asked the goblin to take my drink. “Do what?” I asked distractedly, my gaze once more traveling to Rush’s back. It was too rigid, dammit, like he was withholding his true self.
“Thank it.”
I faced her. “Why wouldn’t I thank him?”
“The goblins are servants.” She said it so matter-of-factly.
Octavia was one of the kindest fae I’d met since my arrival at the palace. If this was how even she viewed the creatures, then it was easier to understand the goblin’s shock at my gratitude.
Opening my mouth to explain what I felt like should be obvious, I found myself sipping instead. What was the point? Actions would speak louder than words. After I claimed the queen’s throne, I’d free more than the dragons. I’d free the goblins too. The fairy servants as well. The humans. Everyone suffering at her hands. It was a long list.
After all, I’d spent most of my life in Nightguard, and there I’d been a servant myself. I knew all too well what it felt like to always have to put someone else’s will before my own.
And was servitude really all that different from being someone like Rush? A high-ranking member of the nobility, yes, but beholden to the queen’s every despicable whim just the same?
Forcing my gaze from Rush when I hadn’t even noticed it traveling to him once more, I asked Octavia, “What other ways can we be killed in our sleep?”
Another visible shudder, her eyes burdened. “By the Ethers, far too many. I can’t believe we’re being made to all sleep together. And we can’t have anyone there to protect us! We can’t even talk with anyone outside the competition. Octavio’s probably out of his mind with worry.”
I frowned. “He has every right to be. We’re about as far from safe as we can be until the Nuptialis Probatio is over.”
She blinked at me, her eyelids sluggish. I studied her now half-empty glass. How much had she had already?
“You really just say whatever’s on your mind, don’t you?” she said.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s not what’s done.”
“Why not?”
“Because … it’ll get you killed.”
I snorted. “Seems to me that around here, you don’t need to say a word to have someone try to kill you.”
She lifted her glass and emptied it. Before she could lower it to her side, the goblin was there again, filling it to the brim.
“You could lie to me, you know,” she said.
“I could. But how would that help a damn thing?”
When the goblin silently extended the pitcher toward me, I shook my head and handed him my glass instead.
“At least maybe I’d be able to forget for a minute that these might be the last days of my life,” she said on a shaky breath. “I feel like I’ve barely lived. I’m not ready to die. The Etherlands are wonderful, I know that, but I’m not through with really living. And I don’t even want to consider leaving Octavio alone for centuries. I don’t think he’d make it without me.”
“Would he die if you did? Is that how it works with twins here?”
Her brow furrowed. “‘Here?’ You mean in the Mirror World? Shouldn’t you know?”
Before I could even begin to attempt to explain how little I felt at home in the Mirror World—only to discover it was my purpose to save it—she went on.
“I didn’t even want to be here. I actually asked not to be part of the Nuptialis Probatio. I have no desire to marry Rush and become the next crown princess. I just want to go home. With Octavio.”
“Let me guess. The queen didn’t care.”
At that, Octavia pursed her lips, her stare darting in all directions. As if sensing her concern, a pair of severed ears and an eyeball that had been occupied with Natania and Malina zoomed closer .
As if I were swatting a pest, I backhanded the closest ear. It tumbled from the air while the other two disembodied spies zipped beyond my reach.
The ear careened toward the floor, where I held my shoe at the ready to crush it, grossness factor be damned. A moment from skimming the floor, it wobbled and flew upward and away.
“What in dragonfire was that about?” Octavia asked, eyes big and once more alert.
“You don’t wanna know,” I muttered grimly.
“You know, I think you’re right. I don’t think I do.” She drank as if she could see the grotesque spies as easily as I.
My sharp movements had drawn the attention of some of the others, and I cast the females a wary look. They were bedecked in enough colorful, opulent splendor to almost make me believe I’d dreamt the eager debauchery of the night before.
But no. And now, one of the strongest, bravest, most selfless men I knew appeared too ashamed to make eye contact with me.
Like the queen, many of these women were villains thinly disguised behind artful makeup and hair, beautiful dresses and jewels.
While meeting as many of their stares as possible, I asked Octavia, “Tell me what you do know about them. There must be ways we can protect ourselves from them while we sleep.”
Octavia shook her head, the curled end of her rose-blush braid brushing her bare shoulder. “I don’t know much about any of them.” She dipped her head toward me and whispered, “Don’t really want to know any of them, to be honest. They scare me.”
“With good reason.”
“I don’t know what magic they have. As you know, no one tells anyone of their magic unless they have no choice.”
Which was exactly why the queen had spread news of Rush’s, Hiroshi’s, Ryder’s, and West’s abilities. To disempower them. Rob them of the advantage of surprise.
The queen had, however, left the females in this room armed, most likely to use them as weapons she’d point in whichever direction she chose.
“You must’ve heard something,” I pressed, refusing to let hope wither and die.
“No, nothing concrete. Nothing trustworthy. And any rumors Octavio and I heard could’ve been purposeful misguidance.”
She met my eyes. Hers glistened with fright. “I don’t think we’re going to survive this, Elowyn. Short of not sleeping the whole time, I don’t know how to protect myself. And even then, how could I stop whatever monster tore off Eliana’s head?”
I tsked . “We can’t just not sleep. This trial could last weeks with how the queen’s already drawing it out. We’ve been in here for, like, half an hour and she’s not even here yet.”
She gulped. “We won’t make it.”
“Like hell we won’t. What’s your magic, then?” When she hesitated, I added, “I’ll tell you what I know about mine, though it’s not much. Certainly, it’s not enough.”
“I’ve seen yours. In the arena.” She stepped closer so our arms were touching and lowered her voice to barely an exhale. “You’re connected to the land. That’s unheard of.”
Reverence , I realized. This time it wasn’t fear that had her whispering.
Though I still felt like an imposter, like this was all a crazy mistake, like I probably shouldn’t be in Embermere at all, I made myself meet her stare head-on. “Yes.”
“Why?” she eventually asked. “How are you able to connect to the land?”
“I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me.”
Again, she hesitated.
“Look, Octavia Lily Rose…”
“Just Octavia’s fine. Our parents liked a mouthful.”
I nodded my understanding and quickly moved on. “We have to be able to trust someone in here, or you’re right, we won’t make it out of this alive.”
“I have only ever trusted Octavio.”
“I get it, really I do. But he’s not here now. I am.”
She stared at me for so long I wondered what she saw, realizing I’d misinterpreted her earlier distraction for drunkenness when the woman appeared all there now. Perhaps her innocence concealed a sharp shrewdness I hadn’t suspected .
Maybe she was dangerous. Everyone at court seemed to wear masks of carefully crafted personas.
With a jarring jolt, I realized I couldn’t trust anyone at all—save Rush, who’d forgotten me, and my friends, who were cut off from me.
When I was a second from stepping away from her and going over to Rush to see if I could extract more than monosyllabic conversation from him, she finally said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Aye, okay. But you can’t breathe a word of it to anyone.”
“I promise I won’t.”
Her perfectly curved eyebrows arched. “You … promise ?”
“I do.”
“No one’s ever promised me anything before, not when a promise can never be broken. Well, other than Octavio, anyway, but he hardly counts. We were born bonded to each other.”
“Do you promise to keep what I tell you secret too?” I asked.
She canted her head to one side, as if studying a rare marvel. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I get that a lot.” I kind of did, anyhow. Easy to happen, when I was the only one here who barely belonged.
The double doors burst open and half a dozen guards dressed in sky-blue tunics filed in .
“The queen’ll be here soon,” I added urgently. “I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine.”
After noticing the guards, she still hesitated. Finally, “Alright, fine. I promise too. But you go first. As it is, Octavio will probably yell at me for a straight hour for making a promise at all. He’ll be bound by it too.”
When her lips clamped shut with comical regret, it was easy to guess that both her person and her magic were tied to her twin.
When the doors closed behind the guards and there was still no queen, the chatter grew louder, Azariah more jittery, and Rush more intent on blocking out all of us.
I scanned for too-close spies, found them all wary of my backhand, and whispered to my only possible ally, “I’m daughter to the king and to Odelia Catalina Corisande, the queen’s eldest sister and rightful heir to King Erasmus.”
The glass slipped from her fingers to the floor and shattered with a tinkling crash . As one, every creature in the room spun toward us, even Rush. When I hurried to catch his gaze, he turned back around. Fuck , he really, really didn’t want to speak with me.
I ignored the usual clench of my heart that followed that realization as I called out, “It’s fine, everyone. Just a broken glass.”
Natania, Coretta, Malina, and several others whose names I hadn’t yet learned glared at me, as if even that statement of mine were offensive. I was the stench that would cling to them if they were to interact with me .
I glowered at them across the open room, petite tall tables with pretty finger foods off to one side, until most looked away. Natania and Malina didn’t. Both women narrowed their eyes at me in open challenge.
“Fuck. You,” I mouthed at them.
Natania gasped so loudly the sound reached me. But Malina only grinned. Coretta drew next to them, curious stare roving between them and me.
When I next took in Octavia, her glass had been reassembled into one shiny, unmarred whole, filled to the brim once more, and was back in her white-knuckled grip. The goblin responsible was already fading back into the wall.
She stepped so close to me that her breath tickled my ear. “That’s not … that can’t be possible. You can’t be their daughter.”
My smile was bitter. “Oh, but I am. That’s why the land connects to me. It sees me as the true heir, not the queen. At least, I think it does.”
She sucked in a wheeze that left her choking out quiet, feminine coughs. Once she recovered, “You’d better not let Her Majesty hear you say that or?—”
“She already knows.”
Another wheeze shook her chest. “By the Ethers … no wonder she wants to kill you. You’re a true threat to her.”
“Sure am. And I’m gonna murder the fuck out of her.”
The scaless stared at me so long I feared I’d broken her. But eventually, after a shake of her head to return her from wherever she’d gone, she uttered, “Octavio and I are connected. Whatever he experiences, I can as well. Whatever I experience, he too can.”
“How so?” Finally, perhaps something helpful.
“Everyone’s watching us.”
“Let ‘em watch. Tell me now. I can feel her getting closer. We don’t have much time.”
I hadn’t realized it until I heard the admission aloud, but it was true. Somehow, some way, I could sense the queen’s approach.
Oh dear holy fuck, please don’t let her and me become connected like the twins. I might genuinely prefer to burn in the Igneuslands for eternity than to experience whatever evil lived inside the queen.
“You can feel her ?” Octavia seemed appropriately horrified by the thought, her mouth slack.
“Yes. Now go. Talk.”
She nodded to herself as if overwhelmed but trying to keep herself together. “Like if he hears something, I can hear it too, if I try to. Or like if someone kisses him, I can feel what it’s like for him—if I want. And it’s the same for him with me.”
I felt my face brighten. “That’s amazing.” Octavio could help us. Maybe he could keep watch remotely while we slept—or something. We could figure it out.
“I already tried,” she said in response to whatever was scrawling across my face. “Since the Nuptialis Probatio started, I’m completely cut off from him. I can’t even hear him in my head like I sometimes can. He must be frantic with worry. ”
While I was considering, she added, “I’m in a room full of females who want to kill me, who no doubt have magic that can accomplish the task quite easily, and I’m completely powerless.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Didn’t you just hear me? I’m disconnected from Octavio. I feel his absence like someone carved out my freaking heart while it still beats. I can barely think lately I’m so out of sorts.”
“You aren’t powerless,” I insisted firmly.
“How can you even say that?” she whined. “Do you have more magic than connecting to the land?”
I can connect to willing dragons too. I can withstand some of the queen’s magic when she tries to force me to do her bidding. I was able to break Braque’s glamor spell over me without even meaning to. Rush is my mate and our bond is strong enough to undo the spell that shut off my magic for most of my life.
Ultimately, I only said, “I’m still learning about my powers.”
She chuckled grimly, dimming her usually bright charm, then scoffed, “Now’s not the time to be learning.”
“No shit. But it is what it is. Regardless, we aren’t powerless. Do you have a blade?”
Her head swiveled so that she fully faced me instead of also keeping watch of our audience. “Hah. Whatever would I need that for?”
I rubbed at the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Look, I’m going to go see if Rush will talk to me again. ”
“He won’t.” She smiled sadly. “He doesn’t want you to see what”—she glanced all around us before whispering conspiratorially—“what the queen did to him. It’s written all over his face, and he doesn’t want you to see that.”
“He doesn’t remember who I am anymore.” The admission actually hurt, scraping against my tongue and cheeks as it spilled out.
She tapped the corners of both eyes. “I see things. I watch. So does Octavio. Just because the queen’s made him forget you doesn’t mean his heart doesn’t know you. We’ve all seen how he looks at you.”
She smirked wryly. “Probably another reason why she wants to kill you so badly. But just how no one could ever make me forget Octavio no matter what they tried, you’re still in there for him. It’s why he wouldn’t let go of you last night, at the end,” she added gently.
Involuntarily, my eyes closed against the onslaught of the sudden images that flashed through my memory. As with last night, her hand landed on my upper arm in a gesture of comfort. Also like last night, it wasn’t comfort enough.
“I’ve gotta go,” I told Octavia. “We’ll talk more later.” I stepped away, and her hand hovered in the empty space.
All at once, I couldn’t wait to reach Rush. To force him to face me. He’d shrugged off my earlier efforts, but I’d get him to speak with me now. I wouldn’t stop until he did.
If there was any chance Octavia was right and I could get through to him, I’d been an idiot for not pushing him harder from the start.
My feet practically skimmed the floor as I rushed toward his roped-in cage. Surprised at my sudden arrival, he faced me without my having to utter a word.
When my mouth opened, however, he turned away.
I scowled and barked in a fierce whisper, “Rush, you have to look at me right now.”
Perhaps it was the unexpected command that had him ruefully turning my way again.
I didn’t delay: “Braque has put a spell on you to make you forget me. We’re mates . You love me, and I love you.”
All that came out was, “Braque squeak squeak squee eak , gibberish, gibberish.” Like when the irksome alchemist hexed me not to disclose I was Zinnia. Although this time Rush was the one enchanted, somehow Braque was interfering again. I sighed.
Rush’s chest seemed to deflate, a reaction I didn’t readily understand. “Just leave me alone.”
“No way. I?—”
The doors opened with a loud flourish, and the announcer, whom I’d last seen slashed and bloodied to within a few inches of his life, cleared his throat. His cuts had partially healed, but he still looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a dragonling with sharp claws and a lack of restraint.
“Her Majesty the Queen Talisa Zafira Tatiana of Embermere. ”
Quickly, he stepped aside. The queen swept in with Ivar and Braque stalking behind her, at the edge of her gauzy train of sparkling sapphire blue that matched her equally sparkling dress. It was studded with gems along the line of her décolletage, drawing the eye to the plunging V of her bustier.
As if the dawn hadn’t delivered the death of two contestants, she beamed at us— apparently fucking delighted from her night of depravity, the cunt .
“Greetings to you all. I’m excited to begin our first event of the Nuptialis Probatio.”
Her attention traveled to Rush, to me, and then to everyone else.
Her incongruously chipper expression fell, settling into lines of abject sorrow.
What a crock of steaming dragonshit .
After a morose downward glance I hoped no one was stupid enough to believe, she peered at us again, her bright eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
“What a loss we’ve all suffered,” she said, and I harrumphed. Her stare blazed as it pinned an obvious warning on me before taking in her rapt audience once more.
In a voice that shook— the brazen artistry of this fucking woman! —she called out, “May their memories live forever. May their essences voyage to the Etherlands.”
When everyone, even Rush, parroted her empty words, my stomach sank .
“We’ll one day join them in the Etherlands,” she offered.
As many of the others agreed with somber aye s and yes es, I breathed out an, “You fucking won’t.”
Ivar’s and Azariah’s stares snapped to me, the only ones seeming to have heard me. I’d barely mumbled the words, not in the mood to deal with any more of her shit right now—or to be tortured, for that matter. There were a lot of shades of not killing someone, and I didn’t feel like exploring the boundaries of what the magic of the Fae Heir Trials would and wouldn’t allow her.
With Ivar still looking like he was endeavoring to implode my brain within my skull, the queen sauntered across the room, hips swaying seductively. When she reached her open throne halfway through the space, she sat and crossed her legs, allowing the deep slit of her voluminous skirts to fall open, revealing long, smooth stretches of unblemished skin. As if we hadn’t gotten enough of her nudity during the previous night’s festivities …
After Ivar and Braque settled to either side of her throne, a step behind it, she flicked a casual hand in Azariah’s direction.
The unisus about tripped over his own legs in his haste to heed her call. He trotted to a stop beside her throne, far enough away that she couldn’t easily lunge for him, and cleared his throat.
The soft hair of his beard swayed as he announced, “Female contestants of the Fae Heir Trials, welcome to the first event of the Nuptialis Probatio. Her Majesty Our Queen has determined that the first event will consist of a test of your abilities to correctly react to a series of fae and situations that will be similar to those you’re likely to encounter in the royal court of Embermere.”
Oh. Fuck. I was the least qualified to know how to handle practically anything in this court.
I looked at the queen. Her grin was wicked. That’s precisely the point , it told me.
“Her Majesty will judge you on the correctness of your responses,” Azariah went on, each word fueling the sense of unfairness and doom rapidly growing inside me.
“A crown princess will by necessity need to know how to properly carry herself in any of the circumstances the queen has designed for you. A most excellent first event by our queen.”
The odds were being stacked against me as I fought to win an honor that was, by right and Rush’s agreement, already mine.
The queen—the fucking asshole queen—knew it too. Of course she did. She knew much too much.
Her wicked grin spread until it exposed too-sharp teeth. They were tinged pink up by her gumline.
Blood .
Then she winked at me. Fucking winked at me.
What a crazy bitch.