Chapter 18
A few days into the Accord, Imogen hosted a second silvered event. She was calling it a garden party, and it was going to be held on the same grassy hill where we’d celebrated the spring equinox and Beltane.
The most powerful faeries from each house had been invited.
For the other houses, that meant approximately thirty guests each and their personal servants.
For Blood House, it meant Lara and me, since the five Noble Fae from Earth House were too nervous to go public with their new allegiance, and two Earth Underfae who had offered to serve as our handmaidens.
A dryad named Carys trailed my steps, while Lara was accompanied by an asrai named Besseta.
I eyed Carys as we climbed the stairs towards the surface.
She was slender and pale, like the aspen trees her kind liked to sleep inside, with short, curling yellow hair.
White bark grew at her hairline and over the backs of her hands.
She’d been beaming all morning, thrilled by her new position, but I kept feeling the urge to apologize.
Having a personal servant after recently being one myself was…
uncomfortable. But none of the Underfae wanted to rest or flee Mistei as the humans did; they wanted to serve a house.
“It’s the Fae way,” Lara had told me. “They aren’t going to want the same things as the humans do because they aren’t human.”
At least I’d found the vaults where Blood House kept its gold so I could start paying my new servants.
It had been a shock to look at those heaps of shining coins and know they were mine.
Lara said we would need to select a treasurer to manage what went out and came in—not that any funds would be coming in until we had services to offer the rest of Mistei.
Blood had once provided healing services and midwifery, but with only me wielding that power, we would need to find other ways to sustain ourselves.
At the top of the stairs, a door cut into the hillside had been flung open.
The sunshine made my eyes water, and the breeze held the heady perfume of flowers.
Planter boxes bursting with dahlias, lilies, geraniums, peonies, and more were laid out in rows ringing the hill, and between the rows were wooden tables topped with gauzy canopies.
The tables were set for tea, and servants circulated with trays of wine.
The gown I’d chosen today was glittering silver with an intricately wrapped bodice, and a ruby-studded tiara perched atop my braided hair. Beside me, Lara looked like a flower herself in a rose-red gown layered with organza petals. Everywhere we walked, faeries watched and whispered.
Imogen presided over the gathering from beneath a lavender awning that matched her eyes.
She wore pink again, the puffed sleeves bound with opalescent ribbons, and Osric’s crown rested on her brow.
Torin and Rowena sat with her, radiant in white.
When Lara and I passed by, the three ceased their conversation.
I nodded at them, trying to pretend I didn’t feel like a deer being sized up by wolves, and it felt surreal when they nodded back.
“May I bring you anything, Princess Kenna?” Carys asked, practically skipping beside me.
“Why don’t you rest in the shade?” I suggested. There were a few trees scattered over the hill, stragglers that had survived whatever long-ago clear-cutting had smoothed out the slope, and many of the servants were clustered beneath them.
Carys’s eyes grew plaintive. “I wish to be useful, my princess.”
I wasn’t comfortable ordering her around, so I tried to think of something that would keep her busy. “Can you listen to the servant gossip? It would be helpful to know what’s happening in the other houses.”
Carys looked thrilled. “I will learn anything I can.”
I watched her scurry away, wondering if I’d become like Oriana and Kallen. Was dispatching Carys as a spy truly better than letting her bring me strawberries or wine?
Lara looked at my face. “Where did you send her?”
“To listen in on the servant gossip.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea.” She gave Besseta similar instructions, and the asrai curtsied before gliding away. Lara looped her arm through mine. “I see Imogen is inviting comparisons to Queen Brigitta again.”
“How so?”
Lara gestured at a trellis wound with yellow and pink roses. “Her standard was a yellow unicorn on a pink field.”
More symbolism implying Imogen would be a benevolent ruler. I wondered if anyone actually believed it.
We passed Lord Edric of Fire House, who was dressed in a gold tunic bright enough to rival the sun. My eyes quickly found Aidan nearby, watching his master with a smile. When he saw me, his grin widened.
I smiled back, though I felt the sting of unhappiness. If I failed to support Drustan, that friendship would likely snap like a thread pulled too tight.
Kallen’s sister, Una, joined Edric in conversation.
Her black linen dress was simpler than those worn by the other Noble Fae, and I remembered with an unpleasant jolt where I’d last seen her wearing this outfit.
At a picnic celebrating the trials—one that had ended with the candidates Garrick and Markas tearing my dress open.
I rubbed my arm, feeling the bulge of Caedo beneath the fabric. There was a sting at my palm as Caedo cut through the sleeve. He’s here , the dagger said darkly.
I was about to ask who was here when my focus caught on a familiar face. A redheaded faerie in a purple tunic watched me warily from a nearby table. Markas, the sole surviving Illusion candidate.
Anger swept through me, and crimson magic seeped out of my skin to wind around my fingers. Before I’d thought it through, I started stalking towards him, Caedo sliding into my hand.
Markas paled and lurched to his feet, knocking the table with his knee and tipping a glass over. Golden liquid puddled on the table before dripping onto the grass.
I stopped in front of him, dress swirling around my ankles. I hadn’t had a speech planned, but as Markas’s pupils swelled and sweat beaded his brow, a realization made the words burst out of me. “You’re afraid of me now.”
He swallowed. “Princess Kenna.” Then he seemed to collect himself, because he shook his head, straightening his posture. “Afraid? Don’t be ridiculous—”
I slammed Caedo into the wooden table point-first. Markas made an alarmed sound and stumbled back.
What a coward. Without Garrick to shape his cruelty, he didn’t amount to much at all. “You’re lucky this is a silvered event,” I hissed under my breath. My smile showed teeth. “But we have an appointment.”
“An—an appointment?” He looked nauseated.
I pulled the knife out of the table, then raised my hand, encouraging Caedo to take the form it had the first night in Blood House.
Steel bones tipped with vicious claws. I clicked the claws together, reveling in his obvious terror.
“You won’t know when it’s coming,” I told him. “But I’m looking forward to it.”
I turned and stalked away.
“How do you do that?” Lara asked, catching up to me. She looked breathlessly excited.
“Do what?” My own pulse was slow to calm. I was imagining Markas falling to his knees, begging for a mercy I would refuse to give him.
Yes , Caedo crooned, sharing its own imaginings of a pool of blood mixing with the spilled wine in the grass. Vengeance is better.
The fantasy should have disturbed me, but it didn’t. Markas had nearly stripped me naked at that picnic. He probably would have assaulted me further if Kallen hadn’t intervened.
“How do you say and do whatever you want?” Lara asked. “Everyone was watching, and you didn’t even care.”
They were still watching, I realized. Dozens of eyes fixed on me, dozens of mouths moving behind shielding hands. Still, better for them to think of me as a predator than remember me as a victim.
I encouraged Caedo to swirl into a thick bracelet now that the threat had been delivered. “They aren’t going to respect me more if I’m well behaved.”
“I need to be more like that,” she said, a furrow between her brows. “No one’s ever afraid I might hurt them.”
“We can start by getting you a knife.”
“I think I need to actually stab someone before anyone will believe I’m capable of it.”
“Then we’ll find someone for you to stab,” I said distractedly, because I had spotted Drustan. He wore vermilion satin banded with gold, and his arms were folded as he gave me an unimpressed look. When he started walking over, I changed course, aiming for an empty table set for tea.
“How about Markas?” Lara asked, following me. “I should be the one to confront him, not you.”
I grabbed a cup full of berry-hued liquid. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t protect you the first time.”
That got me to stop thinking about Drustan. There was a soft ache in my chest as I looked at Lara’s guilty expression. She was remembering that picnic, too. “Would it make you feel better to hurt him?” I asked quietly.
She nodded, looking into her glass. “I want to be different. I should have started a long time ago.”
A shadow fell across the table as Drustan arrived. “This is a silvered event, Kenna.” He bent his head towards me, and my mind took that moment to remind me that the last time we’d been on this hill together, we’d been naked in a circle of fire.
“Did you see me break the peace?” I asked, raising the cup to my lips. The tea was cold and tasted like honey and raspberries.
“You threatened him.”
“Maybe you don’t remember what happened the last time I was at a party with Markas.
” I set my tea down hard enough that the saucer cracked and a fracture jagged up the side of the cup.
Reddish-pink liquid beaded along that seam.
“It makes sense you would forget,” I said, venom spilling out of me, because who was he to judge? “You weren’t the one to rescue me.”