Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
RAE
Elegant in a black suit with gold trimmings, along with the obligatory gold mantle and towering crown, the fae king gazes at me with an undecipherable expression on his handsome face.
I stand frozen, a deer caught in the brambles, all arrows pointing at me.
What will he do? I inadvertently insulted him. Shoved at him, for all the Gods’ sakes. He’s the fae king, the king of this entire world, and I’m nothing to him, only…
“You’ve always been mine, Aethre…”
“Lady Rae,” the king says, and belatedly I drop into a clumsy curtsy—clumsy because my legs ache and my torn, drenched dress clings to them. My scraped palms stick to the fabric, and my bare feet slip a little on the shiny marble floor.
“Majesty,” I whisper.
“One might think you’re running away from something. Or someone.”
My mouth twists at what I take to be teasing. “Majesty, I apologize, I—”
“Come with me.”
“But I—”
The mark on my hand stings suddenly, making me gasp, and I find myself stepping closer to the king.
He gestures for me to walk beside him and I rush to his side, feeling another sting, this time in my mind, a touch of disappointment and annoyance at the contrast between my dismal state and the king’s expectations of me.
It doesn’t feel like the annoyance is mine. But…
“This way,” he says and we make our way down another passage. I fall into step with him, the sound of my bare feet on the floor drowned out by the tapping of the king’s heels and the guards’ boots.
We walk and walk, and my legs burn, but I utter no complaint. I keep stealing glances at the king’s face, that hard profile, the gray eyes, the pale gold hair pulled back from the high forehead.
“Mars?” I whisper. “Jackal?”
His gaze flicks to me but then we turn into another corridor and the guards bustle ahead to open a heavy, double door.
Did he hear me calling him that? Does he remember that nickname? Does he care?
Of course he cares. Of course he knows. He put his mark on me and the throb in my wrist feels like a caress, lulling me. He came to find me and take me to his room. He’s the boy I once loved.
The boy that was and the boy that is. My other half.
The king of my heart.
The room we enter is colorful and opulent.
It appears to be a tea room with low furniture done in somber hues.
There are shelves and glass cases set against the walls to showcase delicate porcelain from Porthain, the main production center of the fae, located near the capital, Siris.
Heavy velvet drapes hang at the tall windows and a roaring fire burns in a fireplace.
In front of it stand two ornate red sofas, two armchairs, and a low round table.
The king stops beside me, two guards entering after us, closing the double doors and flanking them.
Quiet falls, broken only by the crackling of the logs and the flames consuming them, then by the swish of the king’s golden mantle dragging on the floor as he approaches the fire.
The dancing flames gild his pensive face, the elegant lines and planes of it. The tall crown on his head sparkles.
A log explodes into sparks and he takes a step back.
“The fire is not my element,” he says. “It doesn’t like me. Unlike water.”
I don’t quite understand what that means or implies.
I walk around a plush armchair draped in yellow velvet, stitched with birds and branches, and sink into it, biting back a sigh as I take the weight off my legs.
My bare bloody feet and filthy shins look completely out of place against the rich, dark rug.
Refreshments sit on the low table. A teapot lets out an aroma of traditional rose and krath bark infusion, favored by the fae. Small round cakes baked with honey and topped with crushed nuts sit in an elongated dish. Crystal decanters of various spirits and goblets complete the picture.
So cozy and elegant. It reminds me of home…
I snip that thought in the bud and sit straighter in the armchair. My stomach rumbles, but I ignore it. My fingers dig into the plush velvet armrests.
“Is it true that you bite Athdara and drink his blood?” I ask softly.
He tilts his head forward. “To ease his suffering.”
“I thought pain was the only thing that helps him control Phaethon. Not bloodletting.”
“Phaethon, ah yes.” He gives a slight nod. “Sudden physical pain distracts him. But the mental distress Athdara is constantly under still needs to be eased.”
“Your bite eases that distress?”
“Hosting an Eosphor of such caliber inside your body is a heavy burden. It is a different sort of pain.”
“I didn’t know. He… he’s in distress all the time?”
The king doesn’t reply.
My chest feels so damn tight. The protectiveness Jai has shown me, entering the games for me and holding me at night when the nightmares woke me up, those crooked, boyish smiles he gifted me, and to know he’s always in pain? That’s my heart on the floor.
Why does it make me so sad?
The king finally turns away from the fire, and I find displeasure written all over his face. “Now we shall speak of your misconduct.”
Oh. He hadn’t been teasing me earlier. My nails dig into the velvet. “I apologize. I thought—”
“You thought,” his voice cracks like a whip, “that shoving at the king, in his own palace, in front of his courtiers, was wise?”
I bow my head. He’s in his royal rights to execute me for my audacity, but… this is Mars. He wouldn’t hurt me. “Of course not. I wasn’t thinking straight after the trial.”
“Such behavior is unacceptable.”
I grit my teeth. “But, Mars—”
“Inexcusable and punishable.”
He sounds serious. So serious. I swallow hard. “How will you punish me, then?”
He walks slowly around the low table toward me, his eyes like shards of ice. “I will be magnanimous and this time I shall not. Because you are my bride.”
“Your bride?” A nervous laugh escapes me. “About that. This mark you put on me… You didn’t mean it, right?” My heart drums an uneven beat—one for hope, two for despair. “You barely remember me from—”
“You accepted the mark. Too late to question it.”
Heat rises in my chest. “I never asked for your mark. Why did you place it on me without asking?”
“I am the Anax. Your king.” His voice softens as his gaze moves over my form. “And you are mine, are you not?”
“If I am…?”
“So you see,” he says, stopping before me, “I cannot punish you without causing whispers. We have to present a united front.”
I blink. His words are so… cold. Of course the mark would mark me as his, but with the shock of realizing he’s Mars and the sea trial that followed, I hadn’t been able to think straight, and now…
“What about your betrothed?” I whisper, my mouth dry. “Lady Selene?”
“That is another matter.”
“Is it?”
“Don’t you want to be mine?”
It’s like a spell. Warmth spreads through me, making me drowsy. Of course I want to be with Mars. How is that even in question?
“Now we need to talk about Phaethon,” he says, and I blink again, losing the thread of the conversation, of my thoughts.
“What about Phaethon?”
He leans over me, placing his hands on the armrests beside mine. His are long and white. His face is bowed over mine, suddenly way too close, and it seems made of marble and precious gems. White stone cheeks. Gray opal eyes. Pink tourmaline lips. Pale gold hair.
He smells of roses, but underneath the scent, there is a bitter whiff of something I can’t place. He’s crowding me and I press my back into the soft cushions of the armchair.
I think he’s going to kiss me, especially when he lifts a hand to grip my chin, his gaze dropping to my mouth. I hope for it, want it and yet I don’t. I don’t know what I want.
“Phaethon,” he says, “is a fascinating creature, don’t you agree?”
It takes me a long moment to realize he’s not kissing me, and to remember what he’s talking about.
“Phaethon?” I frown. “Yes.”
“And you. Just as fascinating. Your voice…”
Oh hells. My voice. The magic. Panic slithers down my spine, curling around my bones.
“Tell me more,” I blurt out, to buy myself time, for what, I don’t know. I don’t want to poke at that bad feeling curling in the pit of my stomach, but I know that he can recognize magic and my voice is a clue.
It’s his turn to frown. “More?”
“About our time together that long ago. Tell me what we did together, what we talked about.”
He goes very still, in that way so particular to the fae and dragons.
That reptile-like immobility while they wait for their guileless prey to approach.
Funny, since the fae seem to have little affinity for dragons, except perhaps for the wyrm, the legless, earth-burrowing variety.
They may have air magic, but the dragons belong to the element of fire and as the king said, the fire doesn’t like him.
Just like it doesn’t like water.
“A bright star fell,” says the king, pulling away from me and straightening. “It fell across the sky. And it wasn’t an Eosphor or a great dragon, and yet it was both.”
I start. I had seen a bright star fall when I was little. The bards had sung about it, made up stories about its significance. Said it heralded the rise of a great king or queen. Said it portended good fortune.
But it was the contrary. Everything went to ruin afterward. At least for me.
“That’s not…” I clear my throat. “Not what I asked you. I asked about—”
“Our time together. It was a long, long time ago, Rae.”
“Still—”
“I loved a girl once,” he says, “with hair like ebony.”
My breath leaves me in a rush. My eyes burn. I know those words. Mars spoke them and I’ve kept them in my heart like talismans.
“A dark thorn she was, yet lovely and…”
“And?”
He turns away from me, but not before I see his pale brows knitting. “And there’s no need to dwell on the past. We’re here now.”
I stare at his back, reining in my shock at yet another dismissal. I’m still delirious about finding him, finding out he’s still alive and well, while he… he doesn’t seem to care that I’m here, except for that mark he used to claim me as his.
“Yes, we are here,” I say slowly, gathering my thoughts, digging my nails into the velvet armrests. “Aren’t you surprised? I know I am.”
Stupefied. Mystified. Exhilarated. Enraptured.
He doesn’t turn around. He walks to a cabinet and opens it to reveal bottles. “Of course.”
“How did you end up on my shore back then? Why did you let me think you were human? Why did you let me think you had died? What happened to you?”
“You’re asking too many questions.” He takes a heavy crystal bottle out of the cabinet.
“Am I? I thought you were dead!”
“Well, I am not, as you can see. But you…” Bowing over the low table, he pours golden liquid into two crystal goblets and turns toward me with a stern expression. “You have changed.”
“Of course I have! What did you expect? After everything that—”
“Changed in ways I hadn’t anticipated.” He lifts a goblet in my direction. “Here, drink this. It will help with your nerves.”
My hands clench in my lap. “My nerves?”
“Yes. You need to calm down. Like I said, we have things to discuss.”
I accept the goblet, struggling to rearrange my feelings, trying to define them. What I feel is… hurt. Disappointed. Sorrowful. Devastated, as if I’m losing a loved one all over again.
How can he be so detached? I know it’s been a long time, but doesn’t he feel anything for me anymore? And if he doesn’t… why put a betrothal mark on me? Why insist I am his?
I make myself get up, because I didn’t like how he loomed over me earlier. Standing, even on achy legs, makes me feel like I’m more in control. An illusion I find necessary.
My mind is whirling.
I don’t recall Mars interrupting my every sentence, dictating my every move and thought.
I don’t recall him dismissing me like this.
So lightly. So easily. Especially after finding out we’re both alive, after all the promises we made to each other, after I came here to kill the fae king and avenge him… only to find out Mars is the king.
So I’m full of questions and emotions that need sorting, but he seems collected and focused. Focused on things that have nothing to do with… us.
Even if it was so long ago, even if I keep telling myself that everything has changed, it doesn’t matter. I’ve spent every waking hour thinking about him, about what could have been, and I suppose I need closure.
Or a new beginning.
Now I’m starting to wonder if he has never felt the same way about me. If it had all been in my head.
I want him to reach for me tenderly, touch me, kiss me. Reassure me. Talk to me of all the things we used to discuss, Remind me of what we used to have. How we felt for one another.
Take me back to the past.
Make this real.
The goblet clutched in one hand, I take a step toward the king. “Mars…”
He throws me a dark look. “You can’t keep calling me by that silly name. You will call me Your Majesty, Sire, or Anax.”
“But why…?” A tug inside my chest stops the words on my tongue. With a small gasp, I place a hand over my heart, and the goblet falls from my hand, crashing to the floor.
A hook of gold is tugging on strings that make me want to laugh and cry and dance and crawl… A bright, warm tug. Is he doing this to me? No, it can’t be, I’m sure I have felt this before…
A knock comes on the door and a voice says, “Your Majesty, Athdara is here.”
Jai!
The king turns his scowl from me to the door. “Stay here.”
“What? No, I need to—”
“Stay,” he says again and the mark on my hand throbs, a dark counter beat to the bright tug inside my mind. “Wait here until I return.”
The throbbing fills my body, turning it heavy. My bare feet stick to the floor. The flames in the fireplace crackle too loudly as the king exits the room, closing the door behind him.
Push, tug, push, tug. I open my mouth but no words come out. I need to move but he told me to stay. I need to stay, but that other, bright pull fights the command.
The king asked me to stay. Mars asked me to wait. But I can’t, I have to… to…
I look down at myself, at my sodden dress, my bare feet, the tips of my fingers that have turned blue. Why keep me here now? Why insist on talking about Phaethon?
He must have his reasons.
But I can’t stay.
Pushing my feet to walk, I walk to the door, open it and escape.