15. Cornered and wounded animals
CORNERED AND WOUNDED ANIMALS
ENORA
More sleeping. More eating. More lounging. More inspecting every nook and cranny of my room. That dismal monotony was all my life had devolved into again after I survived initiation into the Agōn Ferr.
My sprite companion had returned, though, and their company was a welcome relief.
Apparently, they had important tasks to deal with back in the woods, being their principal emissary and all, and thought it best to dash back while the feast and initiation had me occupied.
The sprite was positive they had left a note for me, or, at the very least, they imagined they had.
But they returned to doting on me like the best of my nursemaids ever had when I was a child, ensuring I fully recovered from the initiation before Maksym even considered putting me in any training.
Months ago, if someone had told me my keeper would be a two-and-a-half-foot-tall, animated sapling with wings, I would’ve died from the hysterics of it.
Late in the afternoon on my third day of rest–and festering boredom—Eilir came by with a message they were ecstatic to deliver.
Max wanted to have dinner with me. Alone.
And, according to Eilir, I was in no way suitable for such an occasion.
So, like any good prisoner-turned-betrothed, I washed my hair for Maksym. For good measure, I scrubbed every inch of my skin, too. Was it a bit exuberant? Probably.
But I had hazy memories of Maksym carrying me up to my room after the initiation and treating me with such care, it left me perturbed. He made sure I drank, gave me a bit of privacy as a maid helped me fight out of sopping clothes. Even shuttled me straight to bed after, too.
And now, a dinner invitation? Alone?
Maybe it wasn’t as hopeless as I thought it was going to be.
“You look lovely, princess,” Eilir crooned, hands clasped in front of their body as they watched over my shoulder in the tall mirror of my room. “I told you they would fit you!”
They were right on both fronts.
The spread of clothing Eilir had arrived with were the best fitting things I’d worn since awaking in Grimmoria.
Sure, my eyes were still painted with dark, sunken circles from the hellish exercise that was the initiation, but I had pants.
Black, simple, and modestly fitted with ample pockets, they tucked well into a pair of tall boots the sprite had sourced as well.
Paired with a gauzy white blouse and a deep burgundy vest, it was like Eilir had an inkling of how I’d dress myself back home.
I questioned them about that thoroughly, but the sprite just shrugged and hmphed as they followed me around my room.
Apparently, someone needed to see the warpath tidied.
“So the women here don’t dress like this at all?” I asked Eilir as I glanced back, finally satisfied with my work on the vest’s ribbon closure.
The sprite grimaced.
“Um. Not exactly,” they said, a little too slowly. “They like…flowy things.”
I looked at my legs and then back at the sprite, sighing as the realization hit me. “These are pants for a man, aren’t they? Infantry?”
My short time inside Grimmoria’s dungeon was muddied at best, but Gallan had spent enough time in my cell for me to appreciate his uniform—I was a soldier at my core, after all. I’d also seen the same pants on several Elixia members at the initiation.
Hell, Gallan had been wearing them that night, but I clearly had been too busy being sick or ogling his bare chest.
I was just embarrassed it took me so long to realize why the overly practical garment seemed a little familiar.
Eilir let out a frustrated squawk. “I was working on short notice, princess!” They clamped their hands on their nonexistent hips and fixed me with a stare.
“For just a second, can you not appreciate that I ventured into our barracks in the middle of afternoon training and found you a piece of clothing that not only fits, but is clean and has no holes or patches?”
I flashed the sprite a smile. “I wasn’t complaining, you know?”
They scoffed and flew into the bathroom. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Putting my feelings into articulate words wasn’t always my specialty, but, goddess, I appreciated Eilir.
It had been maybe a week since I’d met the sprite, and yet, I felt like I’d known them my entire life.
Maybe under different circumstances, I would’ve taken alarm at that, but being foolishly optimistic was holding my precariously frayed seams together.
What harm could a friendship with a denizen of the woods be when I’d almost just lost my life, seen the lives of my countrymen lost, and been forced into an engagement with a broody dark fae king who was the son of the other dark fae king I’d thought I was being forced to marry instead?
Highly unusual times.
“So, my dinner with Maksym,” I called out to Eilir as muted clattering traveled from my bathroom. “Any words of wisdom you’d like to impart on me?”
Another couple of clinks and clanks followed before the sprite zipped out with a small pot in one hand and a decorative hairpin in the other.
“Oh, I have a few.” They placed their bounty on the vanity and motioned for me to sit. I did, watching in the mirror as the sprite started raking its thin, branch-like fingers through my hair, sweeping bits back from my face. “First, you should just call him Max. I think he’d like that.”
I huffed a laugh. “I think it’s a little early for that.”
The last thing I felt like doing was doling out a term of endearment for the King of Grimmoria during our first dinner alone.
We may have been bound by our bargain, and he may have kissed me.
Twice. But that didn’t mean I was any closer to the man than when I barged into his war room and brokered that bargain.
“Fine,” Eilir scoffed. With half my hair gathered back, they slipped the pin in place with a shocking amount of ease. “Second, don’t ask him about his father or any of the years that led to the late king’s…demise.”
I narrowed my eyes at the sprite’s reflection, but little good it did with how they were focused on fussing with bits of my hair. “Why? I know Maksym killed him. He seemed to be quite proud of it when he told me.”
Eilir fluttered around and sank on the edge of the vanity, fixing me with a look that peeled me open. “Have you never worn pride as a defense, princess?”
“No, I—” I coughed right over the knee-jerk defense that almost shot out of me. “Okay, so your king has…parental issues. Got it.”
“Not my king,” Eilir sighed, as if I was a child they’d just had to repeat something for the dozenth time. “But that brings me to my third piece of advice.”
The sprite was quiet for long enough that I said, “Which is…”
Eilir pursed their thin lips and opened the small pot they had brought from the bathroom. It was one of many dried bits of cosmetics I had found, but as they swept the tip of their finger over the cracked and crumbling white substance, it softened, emitting a light, sweet scent.
They motioned me to lean in, and they dabbed bits of the scented cream behind my ear and onto my wrists, whispering, “Please don’t ask about his mother.”
I’d heard Eilir feign many tones of voice over the last two days, but the sadness they delivered that statement with was palpable.
I’d assumed Maksym's mother was dead, after Eilir confirmed it was her room I occupied, but I knew nothing else. “How long ago did she pass?”
Eilir sighed. “A very long time ago.” They closed the small pot of scented cream and stewed on those words for a few moments. “I don’t think Max was even in his twentieth year when she was executed.”
My eyes widened. “Executed? Why? Was there…unrest, or…?”
Eilir shook their head. “No, it was for heresy. She…claimed she saw things to come. Damning things.”
The shock I felt morphed into a sickly pit at the bottom of my stomach. The unsettling similarity between Maksym’s mother and my own aside; that was the sort of accusation that could only be fielded by one of very few, powerful people.
Like a king.
“Does that mean…” I swallowed, because I didn’t know if I wanted to know the answer. “Did his father order it?”
The sprite gave me a slow, sad nod. “Had her burned at the stake in front of the entire court. Made an example of her. Max was never the same after it.”
“Fuck,” I whispered.
There was no denying the deep-seated internal scar my own mother’s departure caused—as much as I tried to deny it—but at least I hadn’t watched her fucking burn. My mother left when I was a child because her time as a seer in Odessa ended, not because she’d be branded a heretic by her own husband.
I couldn’t fathom the scar left on Maksym’s psyche.
But it begged another question with no delicate segue.
“You said it was a long time ago? Maksym was maybe twenty?” I asked.
“He was,” Eilir sighed. “So different back then. Carefree.”
“I can only imagine. But…how old does that make him now?”
I hoped the sprite wouldn’t take offense at my transition from the tragic topic to something entirely selfish, and it seemed I succeeded.
“Well, let’s see now.” Eilir pursed their thin lips before they started counting on their fingers and mumbling, “If he was five then…and then his exile was at least fifty years ago, but his mother was twenty years before that… That would make him…” I couldn’t tell if the sprite was smiling or wincing when they glanced up at me.
“Ninety…something. Ninety and six, perhaps? I’ve lost count. ”
I coughed.
My soon-to-be husband was three times my age and didn’t look it at all. Not that there seemed to be any logic to the way full-blooded fae never seemed to age, but still.
I thought there might be some kind of indicator he was approaching a century of life, like an eye wrinkle or a stray glint of gray hair, but maybe I just hadn’t looked close enough.
Good thing I had an entire dinner coming up.
“So, I can’t talk to Maksym about his mother or his father, and he’s a bit of a grumpy old man,” I said, and Eilir chuckled. “Any other pieces of advice for me?”