Chapter Sixteen #3
“Tell her, Rain,” Marissya barked again. When he didn’t, the shei’dalin turned to Ellie, hands on hips, and said, “He’s been using the Lords of Council for target practice!”
Ellie’s jaw dropped and she stared at Rain with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You didn’t.”
Flags of red darkened his cheeks.
She put her hands to her face. “Oh, gods, you did.”
His jaw clenched. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t start firing off Fey’cha by the dozen. It was only one Fey’cha, and I was making a point.”
“The point had to be made with a weapon?”
“I was trying to explain about the return weave that is spun into Fey weapons when they’re forged, to prove that finding a Fey’cha where a crime has been committed doesn’t necessarily mean dahl’reisen are involved. I thought a demonstration would be more effective.”
“He nearly pinned Lord Bevel’s ears to his chair,” Marissya interjected.
“I used black,” Rain exclaimed when Ellysetta continued to gape at him in horrified disbelief. “That insolent little bogrot was never in any danger.”
“That insolent little bogrot is a lord whose vote we needed in Council,” Marissya retorted. “I asked you to meet with those nobles to befriend them, not alienate them still more. They’re never going to support us, Rain, if you can’t show them more than anger and threats.”
“I tried reason—and that got me nowhere. If they’re all too blind and too arrogant to secure their own safety, then let them choose death! After these continued affronts to Fey honor, this pervasive contempt for our many sacrifices, I no longer care what happens to these fools!”
“Well, I care,” Ellysetta said.
Rain turned towards her in surprise. Dax started to say something, but Marissya caught his arm and shook her head, then turned to watch Ellysetta with an encouraging look. ?Speak, little sister. You can make him hear.?
“This is my homeland,” Ellysetta said. “These are my people. My family. My friends. Hate the nobles, if you must, but they aren’t the only ones in danger.”
“Ellysetta—” Rain stepped towards her. Her raised hand halted him.
“No, listen to me. If the Mages are rising again, as you believe, then Celieria is in danger. We have no defense against magic. Without you—without the Fey—we will fall to them. You know that.”
“You speak of Celieria as if you still belong with them and not with us,” Rain said.
“You have all accepted me as if I were one of you, and for that I’m more grateful than I can say, but I am Celierian, Rain. This is my homeland. What happiness can we ever find together if I abandon my country and my people to destruction?”
He went very still. “Are you saying you will refuse our bond if I cannot stop the Eld agreement from passing?”
“No, of course not—”
“Because Celierians are free to make their own choices, but that freedom has a price. They must live with the consequences of their choices, just as the Fey do. I have warned Dorian. I have told him that opening the borders will end the alliance between our two countries. I have begged him to invoke primus. He could put an end to this right now, but he will not. Without stone-hard proof, he will not act against the wishes of his Council. They have usurped his power, and he allows them to do it.”
“And if the Council passes the agreement because you made no effort to prevent it, what then?” she returned, refusing to back down.
“If you’re right about the Mages reconstituting their power, then abandoning Celieria to them will only give them millions more souls to claim, millions more soldiers to swell the ranks of their armies. Can the Fey afford that?”
The corner of Rain’s mouth lifted in a snarl.
“What I’m saying,” Ellysetta concluded quietly, “is that you must at least try. It doesn’t matter how you feel about the nobles, because this isn’t just about them.
” She gave a short laugh. “I’m terrified about tonight’s dinner.
I’m terrified that my presence will do more harm than good.
I know the nobles will be watching every move I make, and many are likely hoping to find something to mock, something with which to discredit you.
But King Dorian asked us to attend, and so I will go, because, no matter what I think, I know you believe the Mages are a very real threat, one that must be stopped.
I’ve done my best to adapt, to change how I dress, how I speak, how I act, because I know you’ll need every advantage you can muster to win over the Council of Lords, and I couldn’t bear it if I were the cause of your failure. ”
“I’ve already told you, you don’t have to change. You are perfect just as you are.”
“That is Rain, my mate, speaking, not Rain, the Fey king. I’m a woodcarver’s daughter, a commoner without a drop of noble blood in my veins. There are lords who will consider it an insult even to have me in the same room with them. And that makes me a liability.”
He made a sound—half guttural snarl, half bitter curse—and came to her. His hands reached for her, slid over her cheeks into the thick spirals of her hair. Gentle, unyielding pressure tilted her head back, forcing her to look up into his face.
“You are our queen, our Feyreisa. You are the beacon that shines for us all. And if a single one among them offers insult, they will all feel the edge of my wrath.”
Her hands covered his. He would not hear the truth.
Not on this. But he could not afford to let anger blind him.
Not if he was right about the Mages. “Promise me, Rain. Promise that regardless of what insults the nobles may hurl—at you, at the sacrifices of the Fey, even at me—you will not abandon my people to the Mages.”
“You cannot ask a Fey to ignore insults to his mate.”
“But I’m asking all the same.”
“Shei’tani—”
“Promise me, Rain.” She held his gaze, refusing to back down. “Promise me, shei’tan.”
His eyes closed in defeat. It was the first time she’d called him shei’tan, and the sound of that single, much-longed-for word on her lips shattered his resistance.
Husband, beloved, mate of her soul: when she called him that, he could deny her nothing.
He bowed his head and brought her hands to his lips for a kiss, then pressed his forehead against them in a gesture of surrender.
“I cannot promise to hold my temper, but I will try. And for your sake alone, shei’tani, I will not allow insult to prevent me from fighting for Celieria’s safety. ”
A muffled sound came from the direction of the front door. Master Fellows stood on the threshold, his eyes suspiciously shiny. “Now, that,” he declared, “was the grace of a queen.”
Accompanied by Jiarine Montevero and two more of her ladies-in-waiting, Annoura walked through the palace kitchens, personally inspecting the preparations for tonight’s state dinner as she did for every such occasion.
As much as it annoyed her to throw a lavish reception for the Tairen Soul and his peasant bride, she would never let it be said that Annoura of Celieria had not entertained her guests to the fullest extent of her considerable palace resources.
Opulence and perfection were the hallmarks of her reign.
To offer less than that tonight would reflect badly on her.
Duan Parlo Vincenze stood beside her, clad in a pristine white chef’s robe, detailing the final changes to the menu while she and her ladies sampled the tidbits he’d prepared for them.
“Thank you, Duan Vincenze,” Annoura said when he concluded his presentation and she had finished tasting his sample dishes. “You have outdone yourself once again.”
The chef bowed and thanked her effusively and returned to his kitchens as the queen and her entourage moved on to the palace wine cellars.
Master Gillam, the man who personally inspected and approved every beverage that found its way to the royal table, was waiting for them by the large, heavy doors that led into the cool cellars.
He greeted them with a bow and led Annoura and her three ladies-in-waiting to a small table where he’d set out the suggested wines for this evening’s dinner, six in all, each carefully selected to complement Duan Vincenze’s menu.
Annoura and her ladies tasted each of the wines, and as always happened at these tastings, by the end of the fourth small glass, the women had lost some of their carefully cultivated starch and begun to laugh and share pointed jokes about other members of the court.
By the sixth glass, the jokes turned toward the Fey and the Tairen Soul’s peasant-born truemate.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but the Tairen Soul makes me nervous.
” Lady Thea Trubol, senior lady-in-waiting to the queen gave a dramatic shiver.
“I was there in the court the day the girl’s betrothal was broken, and honestly, ladies, there’s something positively .
. . animal about him. Did you hear he nearly pinned back Bevel’s ears with one of those Fey’cha of his? ”
Jiarine snorted. “With a head as big as Bevel’s, how could he have missed?”
The three ladies burst into tittering laughter, and even Annoura smiled.
Bevel was an infamous lecher with a lustful appetite for very young, very innocent newcomers to the court.
From serving girls to noble Seras not attached to an important family, the more helpless they were, the better he liked them.
“Well, let’s just hope Bevel isn’t idiot enough to chase after the Fey King’s girl tonight,” Lady Thea said. “You know how randy he gets after the first few glasses of pinalle.”
Jiarine burst into a fresh bout of giggles, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “No, no, here’s an even better idea. Wouldn’t it be amusing if the girl got drunk and made a fool of herself tonight? The Fey would never live it down!”