9. Purely hypothetical, of course #2
“Like lots of things I can’t tell you,” they squeaked as they dropped my hand and flew ahead, their wings glittering in the nytefire light. “Max would be very unhappy with me.”
“Oh, come on, Eilir.” I put on a pleading voice that used to get me out of trouble with my father. “What else does he like? It would really help me decide what I’m going to do if I knew more about him. Does he have hobbies? Collecting wives as prisoners and killing them, maybe?”
Eilir looked back only to level a frown at me.
Right.
It was time for a different approach, and I was running out of time.
I’d just caught sight of open doors pouring light out into the hall, and someone had just carried a platter in. So, I stopped dead in my tracks. “I have a question about something else then, if you’ll humor me?”
Eilir’s wings buzzed as they flew back. With their tiny hands planted on their slim, bark-covered hips, they said, “I might.”
“Do all sprites have wings like yours? I…well…” I flashed them a sheepish smile. “You’re the first one I’ve met.”
Eilir’s black eyes widened before they shook out their wings and smoothed back the stems of leaves atop their head, like a preening little bird. “Yes, we do. Variations in color and size, of course.”
“I see.” I tapped my chin. “Do the colors mean anything? I don’t have wings, of course, but my father always said the color of my eyes meant I was to be as sturdy as the earth beneath our feet.”
Eilir smiled at that.
“It depends on how She felt when She created us. What purpose She thought we would bring.”
“She?”
“Mina, silly,” Eilir chuckled. “She is our mother.”
Well, that was news to me, though I wasn’t sure if that was because I’d never been told it in my scant few history lessons on the reportedly extinct creatures, or if it was just never discussed.
The gods of the dark fae weren’t exactly a topic we delved into often.
“Well, she was clearly thrilled when she created you,” I said. “Your wings might be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.”
That much was the honest-to-goddess truth.
I’d never seen such rainbows of colors reflected in something so natural, let alone so equally delicate and strong-looking at once, like tissue paper that could lift a boulder without it tearing.
It made sense now that only the hands of the Mother of the lower pantheon could craft them.
“My wings?” Eilir squeaked, swatting a hand in dismissal. “They are nothing, princess. Wait until you see Max’s. His are magnificent, and so big!”
I cleared my throat. “Max has wings?”
“Oh, does he ever!” Eilir clasped their little hands in front of them. “He keeps them out of sight most of the time, especially after what his father did, even though that makes me sad. He loves flying, always has, like a gigantic bat. And he—”
The sprite slapped their palm over its mouth and buzzed away.
I hurried after them down the vacant hallway, my achy calf and too-big boots be damned. “What else, Eilir? You’ve caught my interest now.”
“No!” they squeaked. “That’s it, princess. You tricked me! No more!”
“Oh, come on,” I whined. “I think I’ve earned another piece of information for that. Just one more! Please, Eilir.”
The sprite spun around, planting their hands on their hips, and their thin, bark-like lips curled. “One more.”
My eyes widened. “Really? Okay. How about…” I glanced back down the hall to buy myself a moment, but something came to me quickly. “Who used to occupy my room? Maksym said it wasn’t a wife he killed, but I don’t believe that.”
A bell chimed in the distance, and the annoyance slid right off the sprite’s face, replaced by something woefully uneasy.
They rubbed their hands together before flying right behind me and giving me a nudge forward. Just like when they helped me up off the ground that morning, they carried a shocking amount of strength in that push.
“You’re going to be late for dinner, princess,” they squeaked. “Go, go. Max doesn’t like tardiness.”
Another push, and I moved farther down the hall.
“So he did kill her. Great,” I scoffed.
“He did no such thing,” Eilir retorted. “Now move your bottom, walker.”
I tried to glance back at the sprite, but they gave me another solid shove. “So it was his wife, then?”
“No! He’s never had one.”
The doors were just a few feet away now, and my chance at getting an answer narrowed with the distance.
So, I planted my feet and turned. “Just tell me who used to live there, please. I won’t ask anything else of you.”
The sprite stared me down with a scowl before they huffed and turned, flying back the way we came. “His mother. But I didn’t tell you that.”
My eyebrows climbed.
That meant she was well out of the picture of his life or dead, as I had assumed. Unfortunately, I knew all too well that the former was just as good as the latter.
The reflection of the nytefire lanterns dancing off Eilir’s wings held my attention until the sprite disappeared down an offshoot and took their irradiance out of sight with them.
Goddess. An absent mother.
The last thing I wanted to do was to have a core wound in common with the dark fae king, but it was time to stop putting off the inevitable.
A deep breath filled my lungs, and I squared my shoulders before I strode the rest of the way down the hall, only to halt between the double doors.
I’d known no shortage of ostentatious rooms growing up at Caenleigh, but this was something.
A dark wooden table with seating for dozens spanned the length of the room, floral centerpieces in muted, pale tones dotting the entire surface of its sapphire runner. To one end, there were three place settings.
Like the other more private portions of the Keep, grand tapestries on the walls carried my eyes up to flying buttresses and cathedral vaulting draped with lanterns made of amber glass.
Despite its utter grandness, it was the second warmest place I’d been in the Keep—even though that wasn’t saying much after days on end in their dungeons.
And I couldn’t help but notice the strangest thing.
On the lengthy walk Maksym had taken me through the Keep, I hadn’t seen a single painting.
Tapestries, yes, like the ones in the dining room, all of various ages and depicting acts of brutal conquest, but none of the usual portraits that came with a royal lineage like Maksym apparently had.
My list of questions was growing to an unmanageable length.
Across the room, sets of glass doors interspersed some of those grotesque tapestries and led out to a terrace. Or so I assumed, even though a faint spatter of rain was making it hard to see much beyond the glass.
One set of doors was ajar, and I headed over.
As I grew closer, rounding the set end of the table, the smell of sweet smoke wafted in on a humid breeze.
Something was incredibly familiar about the scent, though I couldn’t place why.
I smoked occasionally, usually when lost in my cups, but never anything more than the cheap, barn-scented tobacco the taverns sold for criminal prices.
My father liked to smoke, and often at that, but he preferred expensive fodder for his pipes that made his entire office smell like rich earth.
Maybe this was a Grimmoria thing.
And it was, indeed, the Umbrite king who was out on the partly-covered terrace, leaning against a substantial planter with a plume of smoke pouring from his smile-curved lips.
Beside him, another man stood with his back to the doors and his hands stuffed in his pockets. It was hard to really tell in the dim light and shadows cast from the building, but his hair was quite light and tied back, or maybe just a little messy.
Something about the view plucked a strange chord of familiarity in my chest.
“Miss Wynn,” came Maksym’s annoyed drawl, and my attention bounced back to find his amber eyes vivid and framed by a raised brow.
In my periphery, the king’s guest tugged up his hood, squashing my budding curiosity. “Evening, both.”
My attempt at cordiality was met with a scoff from the king. Maksym pushed off the planter and strode towards me, his mage in stoic tow behind him. “You’re late,” he stated as he brushed by. “Are you always late for things, or is that just a treat for us?”
I gestured out towards the hall, even though the king wasn’t looking at me as he took his seat. “The bell just rang, and I was caught up talking to your sprite.”
Maksym cocked his head in my direction as he poured himself a glass of wine. “Eilir is not mine.”
“Well, forgive me for still trying to parse how you do things around here. They seemed to know plenty about you when you were a child, so…”
The wine bottle clinked against his glass as Maksym stilled. Slowly, he lowered it, and his eyes flicked up. “I’m trying to be a gracious host, Miss Wynn. Don’t tempt me otherwise. And for the love of Mina, take your seat so Jasper can stop standing there like he’s the fucking help.”
I blinked at the mage, who’d moved past me to pull out the chair to the king’s left. I hadn’t exactly paid much heed to how he was still standing there, his hand resting on the chair back, his face mostly obscured by that stupid hood and shroud of shadows.
Jasper swept his other hand from me to the seat.
“You want me there?” I stumbled out, and his curt nod had me moving.