Chapter Eleven
Pikquarrys
My heart pounds like a hammer on hot steel when the feybells twinkle again, more aggressively this time.
I rouse with a groan, finding myself in the living area of my small cottage.
I attempt to rise, using the back of my hoofrest lounge to pull myself upright.
My stifles buckle, and I flop back down.
“What is it?” I snap.
The servant’s voice wavers as they respond with the King’s request to see me.
“The clingy bastard can wait.”
“Erm—”
I throw a cushion at the door. “Tell him I forced you. Two hours. I’ll be there in two hours.”
Vyrion’s laughter booms through the ashenoak door, and I wince. A visit from the King is the last thing I need while nursing a headache after drowning myself in brandy to sleep to escape the incessant thoughts of his precious daughter that plagued my mind all night long.
Princess Loreleivnna. Her soft cheeks, darkened with ire. Her sweet laughter, like a cool balm on burnt fingertips.
The decorative knob wiggles in warning before the door flies open, clanging against the wall. My friend laughs at the way it makes me clutch my head, and I take refuge in the sound, knowing it means he likely isn’t here for my head thanks to whispering spiritvines.
“Sever your roots,” he commands as he steps further into my lodgings. “It’s time to rise and bask in the sun. My daughter requires her Guardian.”
“Already?”
I didn’t mean to voice this thought. Vyrion shoots me a curious look, but I rub my temples to blame my pounding head. He regards me with pity, buying my farce.
“What did you observe yesterday?” The King waves away his servant, who’d followed him inside with a pitcher of water. He pours it himself and offers me a horn, retreating to the adjoining dining area. “I respect the Starcrag family, but Loreleivnna won’t confide in me. Did he act inappropriately?”
“No,” I admit, though it pains me to say. “He was a gentle creature.”
“Then why was she distraught?”
“She was distraught?” Did our interaction cause her distress? I suppose I was a mess afterwards as well. Though we’d gone our separate ways in the early afternoon, I’d spent the rest of the day into the night in a tavern making poor decisions, the consequence of which I’m dealing with this morning.
No, it’s too egotistical to assume she’s as affected by me as I am by her. She was quite enamored with the handsome saytrus before he ditched her. The memory of his hands circling her waist, her flirtatious giggles eating at my eardrums, has me eyeing the empty bottles of brandy littering my floor.
“She went straight to her room yesterday evening, before the moonflowers even unfurled their petals. Even my eldest couldn’t get the poor lass to open the door.
” King Vyrion sighs. His brows lift toward my full horn of water, and he waves his own to encourage me to drink.
“Then the sun greeted the horizon, and she danced toward it like a spring bud, chirping on about a new suitor today. The zephyr fae traveling with the Isles of Aethereusum representative.”
My head pounds anew. I stifle my growl with gulps of water that slosh into my stomach like sour ale.
I consider requesting my friend find someone else for the task of Guardian, but know my pleas would be useless.
I don’t have any valid reasons for breaking my vow, and I certainly can’t speak the truth.
“Her time with Dhek was good. Average. Fine, even. Rosy.” I fumble for words. This conversation should not be happening, and all the water in Hydra couldn’t douse the heat in my core.
“Rosy?” Vyrion tosses his hands up in exasperation, a drop of water flying from his horn. “First the spiritvines withhold details, and now you!”
Maybe he’ll dismiss me from this stars-cursed duty without intervention, and I can return to the forge in Ashfall Valley to sweat out the thoughts of my best friend’s daughter in the molten runoff of Mount Ingensduum.
“She seemed to enjoy herself. They were very, erm, close to each other when he was called away, and even then she appeared unaffected.” So close that I couldn’t hear what they were saying. So close that I’d nearly sprung from the ground and tossed the fopweed into the river below.
The King sighs. He stands, tops off my horn, tilting the bottom so that I take another drink.
He turns toward the door. I breathe a little easier knowing I’m nearly free of this interrogation.
“Loreleivnna is the most delicate bloom in my garden.” Vyrion pauses with the door partially open, gripping the iron flower knob my father forged when my mother was still with us. “I cannot allow her to be plucked by just anyone. Be the guide she needs. Pay more attention this time, Brother.”
His words strike like flint against my spine, but I manage to withhold my wince. In the past few days, I’ve come to believe Princess Loreleivnna may not be as fragile as he claims, but I understand that as his youngest daughter, she holds a precious spot in his heart.
I place a fist over my chest and lower my chin, answering with a solemn, “I vow to do better, Your Majesty.”
King Vyrion huffs, shaking his head at my propriety, but he returns my nod and closes the door gently behind him.