Chapter Eight
A DAY LATER, MALACHIZRIEN SENT HER A GIFT.
Or maybe it was a cruel joke.
Kadeesha glowered at the lady-in-waiting who held the rankling gown.
The Apollyon king had sent both the attendant and the garment up to Kadeesha’s rooms, apparently.
The medium-brown-skinned woman with silver eyes and soft, loose curls had introduced herself as Lady Arrenia, a princess of the cardinal bloodline of Niyarre and daughter of the Stone Warden.
She’d been sure to drop her titles chock-full of vitriol too—one had to make it clear, Kadeesha supposed, when one felt insulted to be serving someone they thought beneath them.
Based on fae court hierarchies, that was technically true.
Kadeesha might have been an archprincess, but she was of an outside court—one that was an enemy, no less.
Noble blood within one’s court always outranked noble blood from outside, even if the outside blood was of a higher sovereignty.
It was a rule that held true across each of the fae courts, the only exception being seated monarchs.
Truth or no truth, however, Kadeesha still thought about making the woman choke on the gown draped over her arm. But she didn’t want to piss Malachizrien off by murdering one of his people. At least, not while she was stuck here and needed him to provide those she cared about safe haven.
It didn’t keep her from airing her distaste. “That asshole is beyond unserious,” Kadeesha growled. The sheer brown gown matched her skin tone so perfectly that it would give the impression that she was mostly nude. He wasn’t in the room, but she heard his arrogant chuckle all the same.
Arrenia, still standing just inside the door to her bedroom, glowered. “His Grace’s formal title is Apollyon king. You need to address him properly.” Her tone dripped disdain.
Kadeesha returned a honeyed smile. “I clocked your magic levels the moment you stepped into this room. Your power is decent, but nothing staggering. It for sure doesn’t compete with mine.
So I’d watch my tongue, if I were you, or you might find it missing.
Or, perhaps, you might stumble upon it being scorched from this earth along with the rest of your body.
I may not be of this court, but I am an archprincess and heir to the Aether Court. Don’t forget that, Lady Arrenia.”
Kadeesha’s own cool words dropped her into the roiling memories of all that had transpired in the last handful of hours.
Her whole life had changed in such a short amount of time.
And one of the biggest changes was the falsehood she’d just declared to the Apollyon noblewoman.
Because Kadeesha was no longer an archprincess or an heir.
She’d been stripped of everything—she’d lost all titles, her homelands, and her court.
She ground her teeth together to keep from showing any outward anguish.
Yes, she’d been prepared for the latter two outcomes once she married Rishaud, but losing so much in this manner—in the explosion of violence that had ripped it from her—felt like striking her own chest, dead center, with an aether bomb.
She swallowed against the near-overwhelming tide of grief that gnawed at her stomach and then smothered it.
It wasn’t the time for weakness, for wallowing, or for sentimentality.
Too much was on the line for her to do anything except operate with cold clarity from here on out.
Her life, her mother’s life, her Nkita sisters’ lives, the very future of her court, perhaps the continued existence of her entire kingdom, everything that mattered depended on how she maneuvered going forward.
With her mind and emotions wiped of misery better left buried deep, Kadeesha focused back on her lady-in-waiting.
The Apollyon noblewoman stood rigidly. Rage smoldered in her narrowed stare, and Kadeesha curiously wondered what she—or someone in her family—had done to piss off Malachizrien.
It was the only reason Kadeesha could think of why a woman of such high birth would be assigned as her lady-in-waiting.
If the woman’s mother was really who she said, then her family governed most of the southern Apollyon lands, where its mountainous border backed up to the Stone Dominion.
This woman serving as the lady-in-waiting for the queen mother, that Kadeesha could see—that’d be an honor befitting the prestige of her family.
But to be assigned to wait on an inferior Aether woman, that reeked of insult—and fuckery. Matter of fact …
Kadeesha bolted across the room. Lady Arrenia screeched as Kadeesha shoved her against the wall.
She dug her elbow into the woman’s throat.
She flailed, trying to break free, but Kadeesha was stronger.
This was plainly a cosseted noblewoman through and through, yet that didn’t mean she wasn’t a threat.
“I hate spies when I’m not the one dispatching them,” Kadeesha hissed.
“I am not so stupid as to utter a word around you I wouldn’t want Malachizrien to know, but the point remains the same.
When you report back to your liege, please tell him I said that.
” Kadeesha released the woman and stepped back.
She bent over, clutching her throat with both hands.
The wretched gown dropped to the floor beside her feet encased in jeweled sandals.
“You’re … you’re … Everything about your people is right!” Lady Arrenia heaved. “Your kind … are … monsters. The real … savages …”
Kadeesha waited until Lady Arrenia lifted her eyes, so the woman was staring Kadeesha in the face, when she said calmly, “Us southernfolk hold the same notion about Apollyons. So I guess it’s one thing you faefolk north of the Yunnas have in common with us who live on the other side.”
“My king … will … hear of this,” Lady Arrenia rasped. Kadeesha gave credit where it was due; she’d managed to right herself when she spoke this time.
Kadeesha raised a brow. “Didn’t you just hear me? I told you to tell him everything.” She pointed to the door. “I can dress myself well enough for tonight. You may go.”
The woman held her throat, glaring. Then she wisely fled the room.
Once Lady Arrenia was gone, Kadeesha stalked to the insufferable gown and snatched it up.
She mentally prepared herself to put it on as well as advance through a beauty regimen that would leave her looking every inch like a king’s stunning war prize when Malachizrien paraded her as that exact thing during a court revel tonight.
Kadeesha didn’t need Lady Arrenia to accomplish the task.
Her mother had been a concubine since Kadeesha was born and centuries before.
Yashira had taught her few things, leaving most of her education to royal tutors.
But Yashira did devote some time to teaching Kadeesha the art of seduction, a useful tool Yashira had always insisted was as valuable a weapon to have in her arsenal as Kadeesha’s aether fire and Zahzah were.
If Malachizrien wanted her to play the part of the damsel who’d fallen into enemy hands and needed rescuing, she would and she’d do it well—it was a matter between mercy or death for the Aetherfolk she couldn’t whisk away to sanctuary.
Because once Rishaud learned where Kadeesha was and he discovered her mother and Nkita were out of his reach, he was the type to still seek a target to spend his rage on, one that would further punish Kadeesha and the Aetherfolk for their princess screwing with his destiny.
But she was gambling on his infamous wrath being tempered if whatever spies he had within the Apollyon Court reported back to him that Malachizrien was holding her as a captive.
At the very least, it should cause the other dominions to speak out against Rishaud punishing innocent Aetherfolk without true provocation.
If there was one unifying tenet that the ever-quarreling southern monarchs collectively upheld, it was keeping to agreed-upon political decorum that ensured mutual preservation and avoided shared destruction.
If the other courts allowed Rishaud’s savagery to run rampant among the Aetherfolk without righteous cause, then the logical conclusion was that he could easily execute the same actions within their kingdoms. She prayed to every Celestial that might deign to listen that for once they would grant her true favor and she wasn’t gambling wrong.
Then, there was the second reason that she’d lean into playing Malachizrien’s war prize before his court wholeheartedly: She wanted Rishaud as fiercely as he did; she wanted Rishaud to come rescue her, so she could watch Malachizrien sever more limbs and cut Rishaud down piece by piece.
She, herself, wanted to be close when it happened so she’d be within range to carve out his heart and then burn his body to ashes so nothing could regenerate from it.
And she’d find a way to do the same to Malachizrien for his callous actions.
Making sure she was granted proximity to achieve both meant she needed to use every lesson Yashira had imparted and seduce Malachizrien into keeping her close for the duration of her stay instead of placing her at arm’s length after tonight’s revel.
After all of that, she’d go home, rebuild the Aether Court, attend her coronation as its queen, and become a monarch who would’ve never been so intimately involved with a despicable man like Rishaud in the first place.
Unlike her father, she would’ve never cultivated such close ties that shoved her people within range of Rishaud’s venom.
Yes—she, Rishaud, and Malachizrien all held blame for the massacre of Aether fae. So did the former Aether king.