Chapter 38 Rae
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
RAE
“It’s time to dry you, my lady, and get you ready for His Majesty.”
I could have wept with relief when Daria bustled in soon after Mera left, bringing with her two maids and two male servants carrying buckets of hot water to fill the tub.
I don’t want to get out of the water, even though it has gone cold. After all, I don’t mind the cold so much. Haven’t done so since I became something other than human.
I sink under, and through the water I gaze up at the high ceiling, distorted and rippling like the surface of the sea.
I’m not human anymore. And Jai knows it. Just like the king has guessed it. Just like Mera knows it.
I’m dying, dying to see Jai—Mars—but he’s resting, and I don’t know if he’s still Phaethon or not, and I’d rather hide in the tub for a moment longer, letting the water soothe my shredded soul. Avoiding any real conversations.
“My lady.” Daria appears over me, her face a blur, a shifting darkness indicating her eyes and mouth. She bends lower. “How long have you been under…? My lady, you’ll drown!”
She plunges her hands into the water and grabs me, pulling me out. I gasp as my gills stop functioning, my lungs struggling to take over.
“Daria,” I manage.
“What happened? Are you unwell? Did you pass out? I should have been paying attention, I am so sorry, I—”
“I’m fine.” I turn my gaze away, unable to think of any good excuse apart from, I’m finnfolk, this is my nature now, something I can’t say. Grabbing the rim of the tub, I shove myself to my feet. “Bath sheet.”
“Right away, my lady.” She scurries away to one of the chairs and returns with a large bath sheet which she proceeds to wrap around me. “Let me stoke the fire.”
“Don’t bother,” I say but she pays me no heed, helping me out of the tub and then going to kneel by the fireplace and poking at the burning logs.
Wrapped in the sheet, I stand there, wishing I could sink back into the water. Into dark oblivion.
But that’s the coward’s way out, and if the queen hadn’t ordered me here… Did I volunteer, or did she order me? Why is memory such a hazy maze?
Strange how I drifted in the deep for so long, despite the fury burning in my chest. Why didn’t I try this on my own earlier? Why didn’t I emerge from the waves and climb the walls of this palace, locate the king and end him?
The spell. I needed her aid to enter the games, get close to the king.
A hundred years with barely a memory to show for it…
“Your gown is here,” Daria says, her voice a distant hum slowly expanding into words, “sent by His Highness. We need to do something fancy with your hair, though first we need to untangle all those knots. All this salt. It’s crusted with it. A terrible mess.”
Another gown that feels familiar somehow.
A noise distracts me. A tapping. I half-turn away from Daria, trying to locate its source.
“Such an honor, to be marked by the fae king himself,” she is saying, now sounding bitter and introspective.
“Is it because you befriended his general, the shadow man? Aren’t you ashamed of placing yourself in these men’s hands after all they have done to us?
Or is there a hidden plan you’re not telling us about? Everyone is speculating—”
“Daria,” I interrupt her low rant. “Something is knocking on the window.” I walk over there and start when I see the winged shape outside.
“Aethry,” he says in my mind. “Let me in.”
Look who’s here…
“A darakin!” Daria gasps, hands covering her mouth. “It’s right outside!”
“Help me open the window.” I struggle with the handle. It’s heavy.
“But, my lady!” She’s shaking her head, eyes like saucers. “We can’t. They are dangerous. If we wait, it will go away.”
“He’s my friend. He saved my life. Let him inside.”
“My lady! It’s a dragon!”
“A small dragon. Size matters.” With a huff, I let my bath sheet fall to the carpet and use both hands to unlatch the window, throwing it open.
“About time.” Remi dives inside, right past me, landing on the carpet and dragging long grooves into it with his claws. “I’ve been knocking for a while. Have you gone deaf?”
Daria screams and backs away toward the door. Opening it, she steps outside and slams it closed. I can hear her steps running away.
“What is wrong with her?” Remi huffs.
I sigh. No matter. I will dress myself. I turn back to Remi. So what’s all this fuss about?
The darakin folds his wings and stalks toward me. He keeps his head low, his wings folded in, and it’s oddly endearing. “Hey.”
Hey yourself. What happened?
“Nothing. I just wanted… I needed to be here, with you.”
Why?
“How should I know? It was a feeling. I want to… to curl up with you by the fire, tell stories—”
Tell stories?
“Stop repeating my words. A pause. I felt… that you were upset. That you might need me.”
Aw. I… I’m still naked, I realize, and for some reason I feel uncomfortable with Remi seeing me in my birthday suit. Turning my back to him, I grab a robe Daria left for me on the bed and slip into it, tying the belt into a knot. I’m okay.
“Are you?”
No, you’re right. I’m not.
Hearing him inside my head doesn’t feel so weird anymore. He stalks to the fireplace and I join him, sinking to my knees on the rug.
He shifts closer to me, clicking scales and rustling leathery wings. His teeth are bared, and though he’s a small dragon, they glint like blades. Small or not, he’s an impressive presence beside me, the flames bathing his pale form in gold.
I dare stroke a hand down his scaly back and he goes still.
Why did you choose me, Remi? Jai said you wanted to meet me when he first called you down.
“I don’t know.”
Don’t toy with me.
“I’m not, I swear. I saw you and felt… close to you. Don’t you feel that with other people sometimes?”
You’re not people.
“I am a person. I think and speak and feel. Does my shape matter so much?”
He has a point.
He shifts a little closer and lays his snout on my shoulder. I freeze but he only stays like that. Dragon breath isn’t pleasant, especially that of a fish-eating dragon, and I gag a little, but he also smells of salty water and open skies and… and innocence.
I’m frowning at this last thought when he rumbles inside my mind.
“Do you think the dead can return?”
I flinch. I… don’t know, Remi. Why do you ask?
“The thought has been eating at you. I feel it.”
I was under the impression you only heard my thoughts when I directed them at you. Are you rummaging inside my head?
He hisses out a stinky breath. “No. But some emotions filter through.”
Alarmed, I shift and he raises his heavy snout off my shoulder. Filter through… to everyone?
“Who is everyone?”
You, Keres, Jai…
“That’s everyone?” He infuses the word with enough aloofness to ease my mind. “Nah. If we focus on you, perhaps.”
You were focusing on me?
“I was wondering if you were okay.”
Touched, I lift a hand to stroke his neck and smile. You are sweet.
A purr comes off him, so deep I feel it in my teeth and bones. He arches his neck against my touch. Then he moves back. “I’m not a cat, you know.”
You sure act like one sometimes.
He settles down on his haunches, his front clawed legs crossed, his elongated head resting on them. The flames play in his blue eyes. “The third trial is coming up.”
I blink at the complete change of topic. Yeah.
“Trial of water. I’m not sure I can help you with this one.”
I wasn’t expecting you to.
He harrumphs. “Well, I was.”
I cast him another smile. You are determined to be my friend, aren’t you?
“Isn’t all friendship like that?”
I shrug. Family is like that.
“Then we are family.”
I freeze. He’s sitting on the rug like an oversized pet, speaking of friendship and family, and I, who have lived for so long, don’t dare breathe. My eyes burn with tears. I don’t know what to do with this. It threatens to break me.
I can’t break now.
“You can do this,” he says, his voice echoing inside my head, and I lay a hand on his back. He lets me. “Whatever it is you came to do, Aethry, you can do it. Kill the king. Find love. Change the world. Whatever it is, and all that it is, you can do it. I believe in you.”
At least one of us does…