12. My Only Safe Harbor
12. MY ONLY SAFE HARBOR
RUSH
After all I’d endured at the hands of the queen, whittling away the hours in her company and that of her ladies shouldn’t have been that difficult. I shouldn’t have had to continuously remind myself not to allow my irritation to crack the careful mask I had to keep in place.
I’d already revealed too much of my true intentions to her. She knew my brothers and I had been in the bowels of the palace and discovered the dragons she kept prisoner there. She had to know the only reason I did a damn thing she wanted was because I couldn’t lose another sister. Larissa was my responsibility, and I’d already let down Ramana in the most devastating way possible.
I couldn’t now risk the one chance I had at becoming crown prince of this forsaken kingdom. I was so close to achieving my goal. I had a duty to all of faekind to see the Mirror World returned to what King Spiro intended it to be all those centuries ago.
So I tamped down my revulsion and smiled graciously at her and the ladies. I pretended not to recall, in the kind of vivid, hideous detail that reverberated down to my very fucking bones, how the night before the queen had forced my body for her entertainment . She’d reduced me, a drake who led an entire clan, who was responsible for the well-being of countless fae and their families, to an unwilling whore .
While we waited for the first round of contestants to emerge from the doorways that hovered ominously behind her throne, I nibbled on finger foods and sipped at overly sweet sunrise spirits without tasting them. I was no longer cordoned off. I had been encouraged to mingle, and now I longed for the safety of that shadow rope. At least behind it, I didn’t have to pretend quite as much. No one dared approach me atop my isolated chair, save for one.
Elowyn .
I’d only just met her, and yet … Elowyn was different from the others. She called to something inside me even when I knew she shouldn’t. She’d been my only safe harbor the night before. My shame was worse for knowing she’d witnessed how I hadn’t fought the queen. How I’d joined her in her bed when she’d asked. How I’d fucked her though I’d feared my dick would rot from the contact with her putrid, nasty-ass cunt.
I’d had enough disappointments to last me, and already it was obvious the queen would choose Natania to be my bride. There was no point in hoping for anything else—for any one else. What I wanted had no value in the queen’s plans. And so it wouldn’t in mine either.
Occasionally, Azariah would meet my gaze across the great salon. Although he looked away quickly, I still recognized the skittish apprehension of a fellow prisoner. He and I might not be caged as were the captives in the dungeons several levels beneath our feet, but we didn’t have our freedom any more than they did.
Even the king was her prisoner. And Ivar and Braque too, though they trotted after her with adoration radiating off them like freaking sunbeams.
“I think something’s happening,” Malina squeaked excitedly, and though I tried to stop it before it happened, a recollection of how she’d squeaked in the midst of sexual pleasure accosted me.
Quickly, I pinned my attention on the doorways, eerie for their centers, so dark they looked capable of devouring a person’s essence and never returning it. Seeking to banish the memories of so many of these females, naked and eager for me, panting like beasts in heat, I studied every single detail of the doorways as if they were the most fascinating things I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Aye, something’s moving inside that one,” another of them exclaimed. I hardly knew this one’s name and title, and yet the pitch of her voice, excited as it was, conjured yet another flashback: her, staring up at me with a ravenous smile across a face I’d blurred out even then, hands wrapped around my dick.
Like a languid animal, the queen uncrossed her legs and unfurled herself from her throne. On her way to the gateways, she pointed a predatory smile at me. I returned it but shivered inside. How many times would I have to entertain her and her ladies before she was sated? Before she grew bored of my torment?
Once the queen stood across from the first doorway, Natania emerged from it so quickly I suspected she’d run through it. Her hair, a ridiculous pile of shocking red coils, had come undone in places. Her dress was askew, her skirts separating from her corset, and a bite mark was a bright bloody red along one forearm. Whatever creature had chomped on her, its mandible was no larger than a feethle’s.
Eyes as jittery as Azariah’s, the countess stumbled to a stop in front of the queen to dip into a curtsy.
The queen beamed at her even as she delayed in allowing her to rise.
Eventually the queen flicked lazy fingers at her and said, “I expected you to be first to complete the opening event of our Nuptialis Probatio, and how nice it is to have my expectations met without incident for once.”
The queen looked at me over her shoulder.
Was she … was the bitch implying my “performance” the night before hadn’t met her expectations ?
I actually ached from the effort it required not to react to her insult—taunt?—I wasn’t sure what it was other than completely infuriating. Had she truly believed I would be excited about her defiling me? If so, she was more delusional than I’d imagined.
She turned her attention back on Natania, and even facing her back I struggled not to swipe a butterknife from a table and hack at her until she was an unrecognizable pile of parts.
Ivar’s stare zeroed in on me. I schooled my features into blankness in case they gave me away. The man was too sharp. Braque was smarter than he looked, but no real danger. Ivar was a different story. For years I’d tried to take his measure, and still didn’t believe I’d succeeded. If any courtier were capable of surprising me, it was he.
“Come, Natania,” the queen was calling over her shoulder as she sauntered back to her throne, the female following her trailing train at a respectable distance. “Tell me all about your experience so that I may best judge you.”
At least the queen was no longer pretending she did anything but that.
“The rest of you…” The queen addressed the horde of attentive females anticipating their turns. “One of you go through now that a door is open. The rest of you, you’ll retire to the Silver Salon of Rarities and Curiosities to enjoy the exhibit I’ve prepared for you until you’re called.”
I’d never witnessed the countess so nervous as she stood at attention across from the queen, waiting until the other women obediently disappeared. Once she resumed speaking, her hands fluttered—an unladylike habit I was certain her mother, the dowager countess, would condemn if she were present.
“Well, Your Majesty … I’m not sure where to start, other than to say it’s quite lovely on the other side of that door, the one I went through anyway. The darkness intimidated me before I passed through it, but I found myself in a pleasant meadow, the kind common in Bendisantos, where I enjoy taking picnics whenever I’m there.”
The queen’s eyes took on a bored glaze, and Natania gestured animatedly as she rushed on before seeming to notice her nervous tell, and clasped her fingers tightly in front of her misshapen skirts.
“Little sooner than I was through the doorway, I encountered an awful band of feethles who were so ravenous I’m certain they forgot they’re sometimes people. They were commoners, had to’ve been. No changeling at court would behave like they did, gnashing and growling at me as they were.”
Natania shuddered, and I was left wondering whether it was for theatrics or if she was really this shaken to face a pack of changelings when she kept company with the likes of the queen.
“Then a sneakle snuck up on me?—”
“It is what they’re known for doing,” the queen added in a lackadaisical tone which wouldn’t have been alarming save for its speaker.
“Oh yes, yes, Your Majesty. ‘Tis true. But this one bit me .” Natania’s brow rose as if to say, Can you believe it? The nerve of the thing !
If something so insignificant as a sneakle bite could so fluster the female, she wouldn’t last a day as ruler of Embermere. Surely the queen must know it too.
“Next there was a snake, who was actually quite polite.”
Based on the queen’s sudden scowl, the snake wasn’t supposed to have been. I suspected she’d soon again be serving roasted serpent in the Hall of Mirrors.
“There were quite a lot of animals trying to scare me. But for the most part, it wasn’t too bad.” She tipped her chin up until her coiled hair started to slide, then she hurried to return to neutral, and moved stiffly afterward. There was always a chance the queen would punish Natania for her unkempt appearance in her presence, regardless of the reason for it.
“Well, except for a pair of numenits. They were truly awful.” She rubbed at the skin around her bite. “They threw rocks at me and pulled my hair and clothing. They pinched me something ferocious, but at least they didn’t bite me.”
The numenits were fairies slightly smaller than the goblins but with equally disagreeable temperaments. If pinch her was the worst they’d done, Natania had been fortunate.
“I was brave, Your Majesty,” Natania insisted in an unwavering voice, and Azariah and I shared a look that was nearly an eyeroll on both our parts. “They didn’t shake me. And the meadow, that was truly lovely.”
The queen studied her hands, tipping them in the direction of the windows so a black diamond the width of her finger could catch the light.
When the queen appeared to study her nails next, Natania fidgeted, hesitantly asking, “Is there anything else Her Majesty would like me to address? So she can complete her judgment of me and award my points?”
The queen’s gaze snapped sharply to hers, as if she’d somehow forgotten the female was there. “No, that’s it. You’re excused. Join the others for the exhibit.”
Natania opened her mouth, reconsidered, bowed, backed up toward the door without turning, and slipped out into the hallway with a final wary glance at the queen. Her footfalls picked up speed until she was running away.
The queen smirked. “How … trite,” she finally settled on and shared a meaningful look with Ivar. Braque frowned in displeasure at being left out and shifted closer to his precious queen in two steps of his stubby, stockinged legs.
She leaned back on her throne and summoned a goblin, who openly ran to her side with a laden tray at the ready. While she sipped from a noticeably opaque silver goblet she, Ivar, Braque, Azariah, and I silently waited for the next contestant to emerge from a threshold. The unmistakable hue of blood crusted at the corner of her lips, and her eyes, usually a disconcertingly bright sky-blue, gleamed with a sheen of … very faint … crimson.
She blinked and the effect disappeared, making me question whether I’d imagined it all along. The queen was villain enough on her own without my imagining additional wrongs.
It took the length of time for the queen to drain her goblet and gesture for more before another contestant stumbled out from a door. Two others followed soon after.
In and out went the competitors from the two doorways on either end. The one in the middle, the one Elowyn had walked through, never varied.
The more princess contenders cycled through those other four doors, the more firmly I trained my focus on the center one.
As a whole, the ladies’ reactions became predictable: harried, frightened, and frazzled, but relieved to have survived the first event of the Nuptialis Probatio relatively unscathed. Their stories were equally unsurprising: they encountered a variety of idyllic scenarios, all reflecting their home clan typographies, while they were approached by mostly unfriendly faefolk.
With each retelling, the queen cut off the contestants earlier, until the nineteenth one had opportunity only to mention the claw marks on her arm were from a numenit who wore a bear paw braced against a wrist.
“Where’s Elowyn? Why hasn’t she come back yet?”
Every single fae in that room had fully turned to face me before I understood that I’d voiced my thoughts aloud. I brushed off the outburst that was so unlike me with an affected shrug. “I apologize for my abruptness, Your Majesty. You have me enthralled with the well-engineered tension of the unknown you’ve developed in this trial.”
I hoped that didn’t sound as stupid to her as it did to me, and added, “It’s been a long time since she left.”
The queen’s attention on me was too piercing, and I silently chastised myself for my recklessness. Elowyn and I had only just met, but already I sensed there was the chance of an important, meaningful connection between us.
The queen thrived on finding people to threaten to guarantee my continued cooperation. By omitting her title and calling her simply Elowyn , I’d put a target on the woman’s back, when all she’d done since I met her was stand up to and defy the queen—impressive though highly foolish—and offer me a desperate comfort in the queen’s bed.
Finally, when I was already scanning my brain for something else to say that would make the situation better not worse, the queen swiveled in her throne to glance behind her.
“Yes, Elowyn should have been back by now.”
So she hadn’t missed my slip-up, of course she hadn’t . The woman was sharper than all my blades put together. If only she were stupid, my job would be so much easier.
“Ivar,” the queen added before another sip of what must be blood.
Her advisor dipped his head at her in assent and, faster than necessary, faster than was normal, zipped toward the door and walked through it .
Long minutes passed during which Braque drew nearer to the queen, though whether to protect her in Ivar’s absence or to further ingratiate himself was unclear. Azariah shifted his weight between both front legs, over and over again, until I wrestled with the urge to march over to him and physically restrain him. He always had been a nervous creature; the closer to the queen he was, the worse it got.
When Ivar finally returned to the great salon, it was with a stumble, as if the doorway had spat him out. His knees buckled for a moment but then he was righting the high open collar of his jacket and walking elegantly toward the queen. His back was straight as ever.
I didn’t understand why he bothered.
His clothing was shredded across the shoulders and chest, revealing his skin sliced into ribbons of flesh beneath. His hair stood on end across the left half of his head only. He was missing a shoe and a stocking. And he clutched his cutlass with a tight grip. The blade dripped blood, and the queen’s stare was drawn to it.
“Your Majesty,” he said, his eyes calm in a way that only came from seeing too much violence. “The lady Elowyn is gone.”
The queen’s stare jerked from the blood to his face. “What do you mean, she’s gone? She can’t be gone .”
“I agree, my queen. But she’s nowhere on the other side of that door.”
Her perfect brow furrowed. “But … how’s that po ssible? By a dragon’s death, where could she have even gone?”
“I couldn’t tell, my queen. There were an abundance of signs that she’d been there, but not of how she’d left.”
“What kinds of signs?” the queen asked with a greedy glimmer.
“Pools of blood, Your Majesty. Much of her dress left behind in tatters, including both shoes. I even discovered chunks of her flesh.”
The queen licked her lips, discovered blood at their corners, and licked them again. “Is that all?” Her question was breathless.
“No, Your Majesty. There were also clumps of her hair and what looked like a toenail. And then there was the echo of her screams.”
“‘The echo of her screams,’” the queen parroted in the tone of someone daydreaming about their first love. As if that were the most fucking wonderful thing the woman had ever heard.
“Where did the doorway take you?” she asked.
“I couldn’t tell, my queen. It was too bright. There were creatures everywhere beyond where I could see. But most left me alone once they realized who I was.”
“Who you are to me, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Braque’s jowls quivered slightly at the sudden downturn of his thin, pale lips. I wondered if he realized he did that. He really should be more self-aware. He might be related to the queen by blood, but that didn’t guarantee her favor. The only petulance she was known to approve of was her own.
The queen looked up at the sky through the windows, before turning back toward her advisor. “Do you think she survived?”
“I can’t say for sure of course, my queen, but it was a great deal of blood. Big pieces of her flesh. If she lived, it’s unlikely she will for long.”
Absently, the queen nodded. “I don’t understand how she got away. If for no other reason, the magic of the Fae Heir Trials should have prevented her escape.”
The queen spoke of Elowyn as if she were as much her captive as I was.
“Azariah,” the queen barked, and the pegicorn shrieked before pretending he’d been clearing his throat. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling as if his reaction were inconceivable.
He clip-clopped to the throne. “Your Majesty?”
She studied him, her objectively beautiful features arranged in ugly disapproval. Azariah visibly shrank away from her disdain while not actually moving a single hair of his mane.
“Is the magic of the Fae Heir Trials still active?” she asked.
“Yes, Highness.”
“You told me none of us, and that includes me … and that includes Elowyn ”—she paused seemingly to appreciate her distaste for the female I was liking more by the second—“you told me we couldn’t so much as leave the palace until the trials are concluded. ”
“That’s c-correct, Highness.”
“And now you’re telling me the magic is still active.”
“Aye, Your Majesty-yyy-yyy.” His reply ended in an accidental bray he covered up with another clearing of his throat.
“Then how is it”—she spun in her throne to fully face him—“that Elowyn is gone ?”
Her fingers clutching the armrests, her shoulders arched forward and her collarbones jutted out, sharp as fighting batons.
“I-I don’t know how that’s possible, Your Majesty.”
“You don’t know.”
“No, I-I don’t.”
“Then what use are you to me?”
By dragonfire, if she tried to kill a pegicorn, I’d have to intervene. Every sacrifice I’d made, every plan I’d made with my brothers, would all be for naught. But I wouldn’t stand by and watch her slaughter Azariah…
I leaned in the pegicorn’s direction and felt the presence of my throwing knives concealed beneath the waistband of my breeches.
Azariah, bless him, actually looked confused by the question. “I alone can sense forms of magic others can’t.”
She waved a careless hand between them. “Yes, yes.”
“Perhaps Ivar?—”
Once more, she spun on him. He withered beneath the full force of those wicked eyes. “Yes, Azariah? Do continue.”
Azariah looked from her to Ivar and back. Fast, he shifted his weight back and forth between his hind legs. “I was just considering all possibilities, Your Majesty. Could the lady Elowyn perhaps be hiding beyond the door? Purposefully shielding herself from Ivar?”
The disapproval melted from the queen’s face as she peered at Ivar, who was already shaking his head.
“No, my queen. I’d never risk misleading you. I was very thorough. She isn’t there.”
The queen looked at Azariah again. “Is she anywhere in the palace?”
His eyes widened before shuttering. He stilled as if listening to a sound the rest of us couldn’t hear.
Eventually, with a shake of his braided mane, he said, “No, she’s not anywhere in the palace.”
“Within Embermere?”
Another minute passed while he “listened.”
“Yes, Highness. She remains in Embermere.”
“Where?” It was a barked order.
Inexplicably, Azariah glanced at me before again “listening.”
“Not far from here, Your Majesty. A few days’ travel at most.”
“I need more specifics.”
“I only feel her in a general radius. The information grows clearer the closer to her I am.”
“Then you and Ivar will go find her together.”
Braque smiled at the prospect of time alone with the queen—possibly the only person in the entirety of the Mirror World to do that—and Azariah tottered backward a step before playing it off as excitement.
He really leaned into the lie, tossing his head in what I guessed was an attempt at enthusiasm.
The queen only sighed and pursed her lips. “You leave at first light. Ivar will kill her when you find her. In the meantime, good riddance.”
She gazed out the wall of windows until a pleased smile contorted her lips. “Now this is an unexpected surprise. She broke the protection of the trials’ magic all on her own.”
“I volunteer to help find her,” I announced before thinking it through.
That smile widened even before it pointed at me. “No. You promised me nightly entertainment.”
I’d never promised her a damn thing in my life. That had been my parents. They were the ones to offer me into her service to spare Larissa.
She stood, her gown draping heavily around her. “I’ll expect you at my bedchambers every night until I tell you otherwise.”
“Very well, Your Majesty.”
“Now.” She extended her arm toward me.
Though I would rather cuddle a bloodthirsty feethle than touch her, I tucked it into the crook of my elbow. She led us toward the doors.
“We’ll enjoy the exhibit I arranged. You’ll love it, Rush. Every specimen of parvnit ever discovered.”
The parvnit was a fairy that required a special kind of magic to be seen, even by fae, unless they allowed it. They were known to be devious and fierce, yet loyal and brave as a creature many times their size.
Despite myself and my current company, I discovered myself excited to see them. They were rumored to come in every different color to have ever existed.
But when we entered the salon for the queen’s curios, I wanted to see none of it at all.
The parvnits, as small and delicate as hummingbirds, were lined up across the walls, pinned up by their wings.
Worse than that, the parvnits were suffering through the display alive.