53
Aspen
Jail would have been a logical option if the enclave housed one. More importantly, if the clan didn’t care about my wellbeing.
Instead, I found myself in a high circular room on the top level. Floor to ceiling window slits traveled along the chamber’s diameter, offering a three hundred and sixty degree panorama of The Lost Treehouses. When closed, heavy sliding shutters offered insulation from the cold.
Overhead, leaf garlands covered the ceiling. I’d never seen this place and wondered who in the clan had discovered it.
Leaning against a wall between twin candle sconces, I slid to the floor. Tipping my knees to my chest, I hunched over, dropped my head onto my thighs, and dry-heaved.
Hours passed. Flare’s knots chaffed my wrists, tight enough to render manacles inferior. Yet not so constrictive that I suffered.
My eyes watered at the kindness. Arrest a turncoat who conspired with their worst enemy, and this clan would mutilate the perpetrator. But arrest a member of their found family, and retribution became unfathomable to the point of gut-wrenching.
Jeryn had filleted and tortured prisoners for minor infractions. Let alone treason. Though if I had wanted to hurt anyone, I would have taken advantage during the battle. The clan was astute enough to realize this. And compassionate enough to place me somewhere that provided a measure of comfort.
A tray of untouched beef stew, rye bread, and water stood beside the locked door. I hadn’t felt like eating since the clan brought me here.
I also couldn’t sleep. Even so, some type of round cushion piece centered the room, akin to an oversized divan. More than one person could stretch out there or meditate on their shortcomings.
Doubtless, the clan would call in reinforcements. Making a public example of my crimes would be fair, but it would also incite social unrest. A spy, a team of insurgent knights, and Summer’s involvement would alert the nation to impending Seasonal war.
No. The fellowship would deal with me privately for now. And if Eliot, Briar’s ladies, and Queen Avalea had been waiting for a message, they’d be on their way soon.
An owl hooted. The noise stirred up memories of swinging beside Aire, the knight kneeling at my feet, his mouth sinking between my thighs, his whispered confessions, and his grumpy attempts to smother every grin. These visions tore a hole in my ribs.
Beyond the enclosure, branches shook. One of them uncoiled through the lookout grille and brushed my toe like a finger.
A consoling gesture. Reciprocating, I reached out to caress the bough. “Thank you for helping us,” I murmured.
We stayed like that until my muscles relaxed, then the branch retracted from the chamber.
Because the sun set early in Autumn, constellations spangled the sky, pupils of silver light peeping through the canopy. In Winter, lore existed about the celestials. I didn’t know much about it, but I pondered if the tales had anything to do with fate.
A sad smile quirked my mouth. I hoped Nicu found all the stars he’d been searching for here. If not, he would someday.
Nicu. Was my friend all right?
And Aire…
Was he…
I caved forward and shuddered into my knees—then snapped upright. The door latch twisted, the grind of rusted iron wheezing through the cabin. As the partition veered open, I surged to my feet.
With the rope tethering my hands in front of me, I straightened my shoulders. However, my features were another matter. They threatened to collapse as Poet appeared, his irises glittering like poison ivy, streaks of kohl lining his eyes.
His expression pinned me to the floor. Without looking away, he held the door ajar for Briar, then shut the fixture behind them with a decisive click.
For a while, they stood at the opposite end and stared. Bruised, clad in blood-soaked clothing, still recovering from a month of sleepless nights over their son, and worn down from what must have been hours of debating with the clan, they had to be exhausted.
Briar’s red hair burned through the darkness. As if presiding from a dais, she held herself upright, her features detached.
Like a shadow made manifest, Poet stalked toward one of the vista points.
The heels of his boots struck the stones.
With his profile tilted away from me, the jester angled his head in thought.
“Congratulations,” he applauded. “I’m so pissed off I haven’t yet thought of changing into a fresh velvet coat, perhaps accessorizing with a bit of rustic trim to complement the setting. ”
I licked my lips. “Poet—”
“My princess and I have been preoccupied, you see. I’ve been having a murder tantrum, and she’s been fighting to calm me down. Because an hour ago, I wanted to rip your fucking heart out.”
It took everything in me not to retreat a step. Always, I had idolized and adored this man. From the time I was a child, he protected me like a niece and had never uttered a single destructive word to my face.
“Alas, that was the father in me,” Poet countered in a hollow tone. “I have a tendency to overreact when my son is sleeping in the midst of a spy. Someone in cahoots with the same man who would see Nicu dead.” He drew in a long, shrewd breath. “But the jester knows differently.”
Cunning. Deceptive.
A history of duping the Spring Crown. All to protect the people he cherished.
Yes, the jester knew differently. As did the princess. They had played their own versions of political chess many times.
Still. The wisest couple on this continent wouldn’t forgive on a whim, even for someone they cared about. That was their strength, as well as their burden.
“I had to choose,” I appealed. “My honesty or your safety. Including my mother’s safety.”
“Rhys has been targeting us for years, regardless of who was on his side.” Poet’s head twisted, his jaw cutting a line in my direction.
“And I daresay, we’ve done a splendid job targeting him back without needing extra protection.
More than once, we mopped the floor with that shithead enough times to start a cleaning service.
In which case, we could have kept your mother from harm in the castle. You only needed to say the word.”
“I wasn’t going to risk it,” I maintained.
“Not where Mama was concerned. And although confessing wouldn’t have made you any more of a target than you already were, I had a direct outlet to bring Rhys down, an opportunity to steer him in the wrong direction.
” I panned over to Briar. “For that, I needed to win his trust.”
The jester and princess evaluated those words with caution. After swapping a glance with her husband, Briar’s shoulders lowered a fraction.
“Strategic,” she concurred. “It’s a move we haven’t tried. We’ve had no opportunity to seize that advantage.”
“Until you,” Poet remarked, his frame swerving toward me.
Briar joined him. “Aire has been pleading your case nonstop.”
“Pleading is not the word I would use,” the jester drawled. “He raged like a bull to the point where I’m stunned Jeryn’s ears didn’t bleed, which would have been the only perk of Aire’s tirade.”
“Nicu has pleaded your case as well,” the princess continued, then raised an eyebrow. “And another witness has spoken on your behalf.”
I gasped as she withdrew my acorn from her mantle pocket. According to Poet and Briar, the clan searched my cabin and found nothing incriminating. However, Aire presented my hooded cloak with the tasseled acorn, a gift from the oak, from the night I destroyed the camp.
Because Briar had developed a kinship with that tree, she traveled there hours ago with Poet. Approaching the oak, the princess asked if the recipient of that acorn had entered Rhys’s camp with insubordinate intentions.
The oak tree confirmed my intentions toward the knights. Despite the sting across my markings, hearing this news flooded me with warmth. Whatever happened, hopefully the clan would allow me to tell Mama, to soothe her worries, maybe ease her affliction.
My pulse steadied. “What else did Aire show you?”
Briar’s aloofness thawed a fraction. “What do you think he showed us?”
“Maybe something resembling a vial. One that’s fit for an impotent Royal who repels his wife.”
Despite the residual fury, Poet’s mouth twitched. Likewise, confirmation flashed across his wife’s features.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she hinted.
“Then maybe it’s a solution to beat Rhys,” I suggested in a rush. “Not through his army, his spies, or his death.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the jester scoffed, fluttering his fingers in the air. “I have a healthy appetite. There’s always room for that man’s dead carcass, preferably on my dessert plate.”
I repressed a somber grin. “Sounds like we’ve got the same diet.”
Poet’s amusement dimmed. In the harsh reflection of a constellation, his eyes narrowed. “Do we?”
Thinking back on our theories during the last roundtable in the castle, I pressed on. “The key isn’t him or his cult. It’s his son.”
Briar tensed. “The heir is a male?”
I nodded. “Rhys never revealed much else. But he did reveal that hidden gem.”
After a moment, the jester tapped his sculpted chin. “’Tis a start.”
Absently, we drew into a huddle. Another silence followed.
The princess’s gaze relaxed another notch. “Your supporters have made a strong case in your favor, not least of all Nicu.”
“He found your note,” I ventured. “As if it had been waiting for him.”
Briar’s eyes trembled. “He told us.” Then she drew herself up while Poet slipped his arm around her midriff. “We need time to consider everything.”
Understood. “What do Jeryn and Flare say?”
“Flare agrees,” Poet murmured. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck what Jeryn thinks. However, my wife does. And I tend to do what she commands.”
“You had better,” Briar remarked.
Humorless chuckles escaped us. Quickly, the sounds petered out.
The Winter King and his mate had been visiting for Reaper’s Fest, so their extended stay in Autumn came at a vital time. In any case, Jeryn had trusted advisors governing Winter until he returned with Flare.
Glimpsing the ropes binding my wrist, a chink appeared in Poet’s veneer. “We would loosen Flare’s knots, if you weren’t such an apt fighter.”
I flinched. “I would never—
“We know you wouldn’t, Aspen,” Briar assured. “At least, we do now.”
But I was still on trial. And protocol came first until the clan unanimously agreed to release me.
If they agreed.
Then I realized. Briar had called me Aspen.
Not once since they arrived had either of them said my name. My shell broke open, and whatever they saw on my face dismantled their facade. Briar shuffled forward and cupped my face, Poet bowed his head to mine, and the three of us breathed in the same air.
The jester and princess, who pulled me out of that nightmare with the Masters.
The jester and princess, who had known me the longest, who adopted me into their family, who had asked for my real name from the start.
The jester and princess, who I hurt, who I betrayed, and who I would die to protect.
A whisper fell off my tongue. “I’m sorry.”
Briar set the acorn in my palm and whispered back, “We know that too.”
She draped the cloak over me, then Poet offered a sober wink, and they slipped through the door.
After devouring the tray’s contents, I curled up on the floor. I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew, the hinges screeched again. Ripped from dreams, I scrambled to my feet as a larger form stepped into the chamber.
Murmurs passed between two people. Then the door shut, locking the figure inside with me.
Confused, I opened my mouth. Except as the male turned and swept the hood from his face, a gasp flew off my lips. “Aire.”