17. Crown Prince and Future King of Embermere
17. CROWN PRINCE AND FUTURE KING OF EMBERMERE
RUSH
Vanities were commonly found solely in the rooms of females at the palace. Even the king’s chambers lacked one, though they did boast a full-body standing mirror, ornately decorated with a gilded double-dragon royal crest and a sizable ruby worthy of the queen’s ostentatious tastes in its center.
And yet, despite the fact that by all accounts I was a formidable warrior, winner of the damn Gladius Probatio, and leader of the Amarantos clan, I sat atop a plush velvet stool of a deep violet, across from a large matching vanity the queen had ordered sent to my room an hour ago.
Now Horst did his best to avoid my tracking stare through the mirror as I watched him free my hair from its usual slim, scattered braids, and entwine feathers into the loose strands of silver.
The feathers were as long as my hand and a deep, iridescent indigo that shone with gold when the light of the lumoons bobbing around my head danced across them. A dusting of golden specks dotted their ends, suggesting stars in the nighttime sky.
I’d only ever seen them on the bird itself, but there could be no doubt these belonged to a male trufy . A very dead trufy, I’d wager. He wouldn’t have given up those astonishing feathers with which he courted his mate any other way.
The feathers, along with a black silk robe, had arrived with the vanity—more gifts from the queen.
When the goblin hooked a feather into my hair in such a way that it revealed the pointed tops of my ears, I growled.
He startled, meeting my eyes in the mirror at last. His brow was arched in alarm.
“Sorry,” I grumbled. “It’s not you.”
It was the queen, always her , and the evidence that she was making me her plaything. Ordering me dressed how she wanted, to debase me however she wished.
“Not the ears,” I told him without explanation.
There wasn’t reason to risk sharing my true thoughts here in my temporary room where the queen had likely planted her usual spying spells—or Braque’s, probably. Unlike when I’d spoken with my brothers, Horst wasn’t an ally. He was merely another of the queen’s many prisoners.
“Of course, midrake,” the goblin said easily, his deft fingers twisting my hair in such a way that the pointed tips of my ears remained hidden.
It was a silly insistence, really, when I knew what the robe meant. It wasn’t as if the queen had been subtle. She intended to have me in her rooms again tonight, naked but for the robe.
Revealing the tips of my ears should have been the least of my worries. And yet … they weren’t. They were one small thing that might remain mine while I exposed the rest of myself for her entertainment .
To avoid his reaction, I gazed out the window, so high up in the palace I would have been able to see beyond the boundaries of the royal city had it been daytime. As it was, the night was dark, too cloudy for strong moonlight.
“Do you know what Her Majesty intends for me this night?” I eventually asked.
When the goblin delayed, I forced myself to glance in the mirror. His throat was bobbing repeatedly along the column of his thin, lined neck.
“It’s alright,” I offered gently though the statement was ludicrous. Nothing was even remotely close to alright. “Just tell me.”
His throat jerked again.
“I’d rather know and go in prepared than not,” I added.
My supply of olvidian was depleted. I’d na?vely assumed the queen would grow bored with her torment of me sooner.
Horst cleared his throat in a deep rustle. “I … believe Her Majesty has had enough of the dancing…”
My blood seemed to chill inside my veins. My chest stilled, trapping a breath .
“I believe she intends to … join with midrake tonight,” he articulated carefully, likely as aware of our potential hidden audience as I was.
Unseeing, I stared into the mirror—until all I could see was myself and the person the queen was forcing me to become.
I jerked my stare back to the window. “Cover the mirror.”
The goblin’s fingers stopped moving across my head. “Excuse me, midrake?”
“Drape something over it. I don’t want to see myself.”
Not right now. Not like this. Not feeling how much I was letting myself down. How much I was betraying the mate I had but couldn’t remember.
After a mantle concealed my reflection, the goblin’s hand landed on my shoulder for a moment so brief I turned to confirm it was there at all.
Horst lifted it and resumed his task. “I’m very sorry.” His voice was deeper than usual, gruffer.
I studied his face. His thin lips were pressed into a sad, mournful smile. The stringy trail of hair that hung in a braid from his chin drooped.
Again, he cleared his throat. “Her Majesty wishes to celebrate the end of the second event of the Nuptialis Probatio. Only two more events remain before midrake will move on to the Regius Probatio.”
He hesitated as if to add, Along with the female winner, the future princess and your bride , but didn’t.
He would remember I had a mate that wasn’t any of the remaining contestants of the trials even if I’d been spelled to forget.
I faced forward, staring blankly at the coarsely woven threads of the black mantle. The queen didn’t need official reason to host any sort of festivity—she’d proven that many times over. But the second event had indeed finished earlier that day. The queen had devised a series of challenges concerning etiquette and social practices at court that had seemed so inconsequential I’d barely paid attention—until five contestants died.
The females faceplanted into their bowls of creamed purple-turtle soup, upsetting the myriad utensils, goblets, and platters the princess-hopefuls were meant to be revealing mastery of.
The queen hadn’t so much as flinched as their heads slammed onto the table, soup splattering in every direction, while the remaining females shrieked. Nor had the queen bothered explaining the cause of their sudden demise, not even to ruminate upon it. Not even to lob false accusations, or perhaps to praise the conniving perpetrator for their wily ways.
I suspected a fast-acting poison. Maybe one of Braque’s alchemical potions. The females were dead within instants.
The queen flicked a hand in the air and a horde of goblins instantly hustled over to remove the bodies while she finished her soup. No one else dared touch theirs, even though it was a luxurious delicacy not to be wasted, most especially in the current disapproving company. The turtles’ shells only striated with the highly desired purple veins after two centuries of life.
For once, the contestants revealed a healthy dose of common sense. Appearances suggested the goblins had been anticipating such a cleanup.
Seven members of Embermere’s nobility had lost their lives thus far in the Nuptialis Probatio. Though I’d cared for none of them, their deaths haunted me as profoundly as my sister’s. They were an unwanted reminder of how easily the queen killed. Of how swiftly someone I did care for might be yanked away from me.
Of how much danger Elowyn was in.
Since Hiro, Ry, and West had told me she was my mate, I had fought to conjure up the moment when I’d first realized I’d been gifted one of the most precious blessings in existence, one I hadn’t dared hope for. I’d agonized in my attempts to recall how it must have felt.
But it, too, had been robbed of me.
Regardless, I understood she must be the piece of me that was missing, the phantom ache I couldn’t shake. Despite the gaping hole in my memory that had excised every possible point of contact with her, I knew because of how Elowyn had looked at me when we were in the queen’s bed: as if she suffered my pain along with me.
That was what mates were supposed to do for each other.
And I was letting mine down.
There’d been no news of her, at least not that I’d received. The days clawed past while the queen persisted with the artifice of her trials, continuing to pretend they were impartial and actually revealed something other than her will. She made no mention of the search for Elowyn. It was naught but her increasing irritability that told me Ivar hadn’t yet located her. Perhaps Azariah had found the courage to mislead him.
None of my brothers had gotten word to me either, not even to tell me if they’d left the palace in search of her as I’d asked, openly defying the queen’s orders that no noble was allowed to leave court without her express permission.
Isolated as I was, there was no one for me to ask. No one willing to put their head on the line.
“I’ll need midrake to undress to complete the final steps,” Horst said.
I dragged my attention back to him as if I were deep underwater, swimming up to the surface. Blinking at him, I finally nodded and stood. I removed my tunic and sat again.
“The boots as well,” Horst prompted.
I kicked them off.
“The breeches.”
My jaw clenched. My nostrils flared so significantly I noticed their movement at the edge of my sight.
But I stood and removed my breeches.
Before I could sit again, in a voice that stung for its melancholy, Horst said, “The underpants too, midrake. ”
Again, a stiffening jaw and nostrils. “What for?” I gritted out.
Horst swallowed, looked away, then stepped down his stool to retrieve more of the trufy feathers. He held them up to me in the palms of his hands for me to study.
Several of the colorful feathers were grouped together into two bundles, each capped in a metal ring. A third bunch clustered even more feathers together; their tips were lanced with ribbons.
I searched the goblin’s face for an explanation. He merely raised his hands so I could better examine the feathers.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I asked.
“They’re part of…” He sighed. “Her Majesty sent them for midrake’s adornment.”
“My ‘adornment.’”
Horst dipped his head, whether in deference, sympathy, or to avoid my stare, I couldn’t tell.
“Yes, midrake.”
“And where are these adornments meant to go?”
Horst flicked a glance up at me. “The, uh, rings are meant to pierce midrake’s”—he gulped so loudly I heard him swallow—“nipples,” he said in a soft whisper that was part whine, part grimace.
Certain I must have misheard him, and equally certain I hadn’t, I gaped at him for several moments.
“And the other?” I finally managed to grunt.
“Meant to, uh…”
My tattoos flared so suddenly I had to clench my eyes at first against their sudden brightness. “Don’t you dare tell me that’s meant to wrap around my cock.”
Horst exhaled so that his chest rose and fell markedly through his worn tunic. “Thank you, midrake. I did not wish to tell you that.”
“Is she serious?” I hissed.
His hands still raised toward me, Horst waited. Not only would the queen be serious, she’d punish me and him for disobeying her orders.
Could I do it for him, a kind enough goblin who probably hadn’t had a will of his own a single day of his life? Could I do it for the safety of the entire kingdom, the thousands upon thousands of fae relying on me even if they didn’t realize I was fighting for them? To win the crown and bring light back into our world? To restore the Mirror World to the glory of Faerie?
Could I do it for Larissa, the sister I’d already sacrificed so much for? For Elowyn? My brothers? To make Ramana’s sacrifice matter all the more?
As it turned out, no … no I couldn’t .
This, apparently, was where I drew the line.
Tattoos still brighter than any of the lumoons in the room, I said, “Horst, inform Her Majesty that I won’t be able to join her in her bedchamber tonight after all.”
Horst sucked in a sharp inhale that sounded like a sneakle coughing up a furball. When he recovered, “Is midrake certain that’s what he’d like me to say?”
Never had I been more certain of anything. If piercing my nipples and dancing around for the queen and her ladies with half a dead trufy hanging from my cock was the price for freedom, it wasn’t worth it.
Not for me it wasn’t.
I will have already lost whatever’s left of my essence .
I could never look my family and friends in the face again. I could never look at my mate and expect her to be proud to be my partner.
I had to be the kind of man I could live with.
Fucking the queen and her ladies once was more than this life should ever demand of me.
I was done.
Done.
Done.
Done.
Done.
Fucking done .
I was no one’s plaything, not even the queen’s. Especially not the queen’s .
Tattoos finally fading, I sat atop the extravagantly plush stool in front of the annoyingly opulent vanity. How dare she send them to me? As if nothing were more important than my preening in a mirror. My performing for her and her audience demolished my every iota of self-respect.
“Remove the feathers,” I told Horst. “I won’t be needing them.”
Horst’s breathing was choppy, but he set down the nipple- and dick-feathers and climbed his stepstool to begin undoing his work .
“Send a message to Her Majesty saying that I won’t be providing entertainment for her ever again. I am to be a crown prince and a future king of Embermere. I will be acting like it from here on out.
“If she wishes to punish me, then I’ll take my punishment. But I’ll take it as a man, not as her plaything. And if she decides to kill me, then whatever might await me in the Etherlands, or even the Igneuslands, will damn well be better than this.”