Chapter 26 Rae #2
“Do you know what it’s like to be taken in by the man who killed your mate?
” he asks savagely. “To need him to keep the monster inside you in check so you can stop him from killing more worlds? To stand beside him, speak with him, eat with him, feel on you those hands that killed her? No, I’m not going to stop.
If you want him alive, makhair, then you have to kill me. ”
I shake my head.
“You make me want to fight,” he says softly. “Many times I thought to give up, but you make me want to keep going. To do what I came here to do. Do you feel it, Rae? Do you feel the bond between us?”
“My lady,” the page boy says. Impassive. Quiet. “We need to go or you will anger the king.”
The tug in my chest. The hook of gold.
“I…” I swallow hard. “Let’s go, then. What does the king want?”
The boy gives me a flat look. “I was only told to take you to him. Nothing more.”
“Well, then. Lead the way.”
I’m aware of Jai walking a few paces behind us as the slender page boy leads me through the palace.
“Do you know what it’s like to be taken in by the man who killed your mate?”
I shake my head to clear it. It’s like a buzzing in my ears, the answer clinging to the tip of my tongue.
It can’t be.
He said I am his mate, but his mate was killed. The shape of his face, so familiar… I last saw it a hundred years ago.
“Don’t you know me?”
“This way,” the boy says, and I focus on my feet to avoid tripping and falling as we go up some stairs.
Jai is right behind me. Acting as my bodyguard, since he sent Arkin away. Was that my fault? Did I drive a wedge between him and his only friends?
But I had to say it. Ask why Arkin and Tru had been there. I can’t regret that. Nothing good is ever built on lies and untruths.
I couldn’t hide the truth from Jai any longer.
And you can’t hide the truth of who Jai is from yourself any longer, either. Gods, my head hurts. But how can that be? He’s not… he can’t be…
“This way,” the boy says. It occurs to me that he looks exactly the same as last time. His uniform, his hair, even the little cowlick on his forehead.
“You are the one they always send,” I murmur. “Why? Who are you?”
“I am a spirit of this palace.”
I stop. “Spirit. You mean a ghost?”
“Yes. Come, my lady. We cannot linger.”
“But everyone can see you,” I mutter, hurrying once more after him, my heart thudding.
“Only those who have lost someone, and be honest, who hasn’t? They can see me like they can see Athdara. To be a shadow is to be a ghost.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Truth often does.”
My head throbs. My chest aches with gritty emotions. “Jai isn’t dead.”
“But he has died many times.”
Death is just a gate. A passage of transformation.
We pass by open doors and salons where the fae nobility is playing games.
Right now, a fae lady is trying to fish a black apple out of a bowl filled with rose wine.
In the next salon, two fae nobles are competing in growing seeds held in their palms. One of them is already a small tree in full blossom. The other is black and withered.
As we cross another salon, movement catches my eye and I turn to see a lady hurrying away, her pale gown streaked with crimson designs. Small beads drop to the floor as she runs, bouncing off the marble floors.
Pearls.
She glances back at me as she flees, and I stop in my tracks. That face… and the look in her wide eyes… I know her.
But a fae man appears beside her, grabbing and yanking her away so fast she stumbles.
“Wait!” I shout.
The boy sighs. “My lady, we are in a hurry. We are already late.”
“Rae?” Jai catches up with us. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Lynn!” I start in her direction. “Did you see her? I have to find her.”
“Who’s Lynn?”
“The girl whose place I took in the trials.”
“All right.” Jai easily keeps up with me as I rush after Lynn and the fae man. “Why do you have to find her?”
“I thought she had been returned to the land. I didn’t know she was still here at the palace.”
“Well, be that as it may,” the boy says, “we must press on.”
“No. She looked scared. Lynn!”
“Do you think she’s in trouble?” Jai strides alongside me, the boy’s grumbling fading behind us. We hurry past open doors.
“A fae man was with her.” I check inside one room, then another. “Lynn! Are you okay? Where are you?”
Why doesn’t she answer? Why is she still here?
I check in every room we pass, but she’s gone. There are stairs up ahead. Could she have gone up there?
“My lady,” the boy says, appearing before us suddenly, “the king is waiting.”
“We can’t go just yet.” I turn. I think I hear footsteps, voices… “Lynn?”
But it’s not Lynn. A group of guards is hurrying toward us.
“Athdara! There you are!” a familiar guard shouts.
“Ark? What is it?”
Now I recognize him, too, in his helmet and leathers, though I don’t see Tru.
“There is a sea drak attack on the lower levels. Come, we have been looking for you.”
“Sea drak attack?” I breathe.
“I’m coming.” Jai is gone, replaced by Athdara the warrior, the king’s sword.
The shadows rush around him, materializing his black armor and the twin swords on his back.
He turns to me. “Go, but please… come back to me, makhair. Don’t let him keep you, mark you more. Don’t let him make you doubt me again.”
My throat closes up. “Jai—”
“Go. I’ll see you later.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m coming with you.”
He looks torn. “It’s not safe.”
“I will fight by your side.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?” He smiles. Then his smile falls. “What’s going on?”
Two guards are coming toward us. “We have been charged with delivering Lady Rae to the king.”
“No. I’m coming with you.” I reach for Jai. “Take me with you.”
But his jaw clenches and his dark eyes glitter. “Go with them, makhair. At least you will be safe with him if there is an attack. I don’t think he’ll hurt you, not since he put his mark on you. If he tries to harm you, call for me.”
“Call, how?”
“The bond,” he says, joining Arkin and the group of guards.
The bond… I’ve felt it so many times. “Do you feel the bond?” he’d asked me and I’d said no.
But the two guards grab my arms. “Come with us, my lady. The king awaits you.”
“No!” I look around for the page boy, but he’s gone. “Let me go!”
I don’t give a rat’s ass about the king waiting right now, but they don’t give me an option. They drag me away from Jai, down hallways where fae laze about, shooting us curious looks.
“Let me go,” I mutter over and over, struggling to break their hold. “Take your hands off me.”
All the way to the royal apartments.
By the time we enter the opulent room, I’m seething, not even paying attention to the food set out on the table or the vases with flowers set on podiums all around. Star flowers, the blooms favored by the fae.
All my focus is on the king who is standing in front of the fire, a goblet in his hand.
“Release her,” he says without glancing around, “and close the door.”
I yank my arm away from the guard the moment he releases me and turn to face the king. “There’s an attack on the sacred palace! A sea drak attack! We have to go out there and help!”
“There is no need. My guards will take care of it.”
I study the long pale plait of hair hanging down his broad back, the white and gold tunic, the matching pants and satin shoes. As I watch, he takes a sip from his goblet, the flames dancing against his face, and my fury grows.
“Take care of it? Athdara and your guards put their lives on the line and you sit here, drinking wine?”
“I am the king. Not the general. Athdara has that title and that responsibility. After all, he isn’t called the King’s Sword for nothing.”
“But you said… you’d lead your men into battle.”
He finally turns around, his gaze undecipherable. “This isn’t my battle.”
“This is your sacred palace! And you are the king of this world. You don’t give a damn, do you? If your people live or die. And speaking of which. I saw Lynn. Why is she still here?”
Pale brows knit. “Lynn?”
“The human girl whose place I took in the games!”
“Oh. That girl.” As dismissive as one can be. “One of my men wanted her. I gave her to him.”
I gape. “Gave her? Like she’s… a thing?”
“She’s a human. What do I care about humanfolk?”
“I was human. Didn’t you say you loved me?”
“Did I?”
This is it. I was wrong. This isn’t Mars. Nobody can change so completely.
I want to weep tears of frustration and embarrassment for my mistake, but I won’t let him see me cry. Besides, there is relief in finding certainty, at last.
I draw a long breath. “Why did you call me back? What do you want with me now?”
“I want you to kneel,” he says, his voice cold, “and beg for my forgiveness.”
“What for?”
“Disobeying me. You slept with Athdara when I expressly commanded you to refuse him. Kneel!”
For disobeying. Not for sleeping with another man. “I won’t. I didn’t set out to disobey you but I won’t regret it.”
“You are my betrothed. I said, kneel!” He doesn’t even bother to use the mark and make me do it. The silver mist wraps around me, forcing me down to my knees. “You do as I say. Remember that.”
“I never asked for your damn mark! For a betrothal, we’d have to mark one another and drink each other’s blood, swear oaths and intimacy! Share memories. There is nothing between us.”
“You’re wrong.” The mist pushes me lower until my forehead touches the carpet. “There is a link between us and you know it.”
“I loved a boy,” I whisper, a sob catching in my throat, “with golden hair, gray eyes, and a smile that lit up the world. And it wasn’t you. It could never be you. You’re a monster.”
“Everyone changes.” I see his boots passing in front of me. “You may be a savage from the deep, but even you must know that you obey your king.”
“You’re not my king.”
“One day I will be king of every race, in every world, and I will stomp on your impotent kind until it vanishes from the universe.”
I swallow a gasp, refusing to make any sound.
“I should have had you flogged the first time I sensed you. I should have bound your hands and feet and thrown you into the sea. The affront. The insult.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending.
“You are Godsdamned finnfolk! Inside my palace. Mingling with my people. Pretending to be something else, thanks to that spell you have on you. Pretending to deceive me.”
“Did you know that the great dragons and seafolk have a lot in common?”
He said that the night in the garden, before the second trial. The night he put his mark on me.
“And then I knew you,” he says. “Knew who you really are. Your real name.”
I lift my chin. “How did you know? Like you said, we all change.”
“You more than most, didn’t you?” How can he be smiling when he has me kneeling on the floor, at his feet, like a disobedient pet? When he’s making me do it?
While I’d knelt willingly at Jai’s feet. Even Phaethon’s. That had been a pleasure. My pleasure. My choice.
This, not so. Not at all.
“How do you know what I am now?” I insist.
“I watched the games, or do you think me blind and stupid?” The flames of the candles flicker. The air winds about us like a snake. “You are a mermaid, are you not? With a fishtail and scales, an abomination of the deep.”
I say nothing.
He stops. “Well, I need something from you.”
“Something more. Apart from refusing Athdara. Apart from doing your bidding without fail.”
“Yes.”
“Such as what?” I ask.
“I need you to transform into your finnfolk shape.”
“What for?”
“You don’t ask questions, beloved. You obey.”
I swallow hard. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can. I want to see your true form.”
And then I feel it. The mark on my wrist throbs. Prods. My power, that dark spot in my chest, in my mind, aches. But nothing happens.
“I told you, I can’t,” I gasp. “I can’t shift.”
“Why not?”
“The spell on me won’t let me. You saw me in this last trial. I can’t transform.”
He bows over me. “You can break the spell on yourself. Athdara didn’t tell you, did he? He wants to keep control over you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kissing him, touching him… it reminded you of something you lost. It eroded the spellwork just enough for your voice to come back. Voice, and gills. Interesting…”
“You’re wrong. I can’t. I can’t break the spell. Athdara was the one who broke the spell over my voice.”
He laughs. The sound… isn’t at all like Mars’ laughter in my memory.
The more I look at him, the less he looks like Mars.
“You are ignorant and weak. And this.” He grabs the jacket I’m still keeping closed over my chest and tears it open.
Bearing my breasts over my ruined gown. “You slept with Athdara and then came to see me. The insolence.”
When he grabs my arm and hauls me up, I have to resist the urge to punch him in the face. Break that perfect nose. Splatter him with his own blood.
Then he drags me to the sofa and I struggle in his hold.
“Stop this,” I whisper. “Stop this game.”
“For the sake of what we once had,” he says, still lying to my face, “stop being so annoying.” He drops me on the sofa and braces his hands on the back of it, leaning over me.
I flatten myself on the backrest, pulling the jacket closed over my breasts.
“Now, I need your assistance. Athdara is important to me. You are finnfolk. You will protect him in the sea.”
“Don’t lie to me. You don’t care about him—”
“This is no lie. I can’t lie.”
“You did lie! You told me he was the cause of my family’s death.”
“And so he was. Has he denied it?”
He hasn’t. Oh Gods, he hasn’t. But the more the king insists on it, the less I believe it.
“Everything I told you was the truth. Not a single lie.”
I swallow a sob. “I don’t owe you anything. You aren’t the boy I once loved. I don’t know you. You played me for a fool.”
His brows go up, and then he laughs. It’s a terrible, flat sound. “I am going back to my home world. You and him, you will give me what I want in the end. I only need to be patient. Meanwhile…” He claps his hands and servants enter, carrying familiar covered trays. “Food.”
I close my eyes, trying to stop my shivering. “We’re going to eat while the people out there fight the sea dragons?”
“You haven’t eaten dinner or breakfast. You need to regain your strength.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You will eat when I say so and go when I say so. Don’t you see? I am looking out for you, my champion. I always look out for my interests.”