Chapter 23
At least now Ryn knew what this part of the trial was meant to test.
It was definitely her patience.
No, the fae hadn’t listed that one, but she hadn’t exactly been honest or forthcoming about anything else, so why limit her expectations?
The next two days were also going to test Ryn’s ability to protect poor Xavi. From boredom, from judgement, and from being found out by her family… not to mention her entire neighborhood.
It was bad enough that she’d arrived without warning, bringing home a man they all assumed to be her fiancé.
If his true identity were discovered in the process?
Neither the neighborhood nor her family’s reputation were ever likely to recover.
And Xavi himself would undoubtedly be met with hostility and violence—hunted like a wild creature or driven out by sheer terror.
There would eventually be a price to pay for this deception, and a part of Ryn knew that she should have admitted to the error the moment her brother shouted about them being betrothed.
But they’d been standing on the doorstep holding hands. There was no innocent explanation other than a pre-existing betrothal, and Ryn had no heart for disappointing her family yet again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to Xavi. “I promise I’ll explain.”
She was going to owe him so much more than an explanation after all this.
Of all the diabolical places for the curse to dump them, it had to pick her very own front door.
It was a place she was ill-prepared to handle gracefully, even on her own, and now she must do so with a highly dangerous warrior in tow.
One with volatile magic, a mercurial temperament, and no understanding of human social cues or expectations.
Though he did apparently understand their language quite fluently, and wasn’t that a conversation they were going to need to have eventually.
But even so, she wasn’t sure he knew just how difficult her world could be to navigate. After all, there were no monsters, no magic, no cursed valley of mist.
But there were enemies of a sort—enemies that could not simply be killed and forgotten.
You could not slay the monster and move on.
In some ways, the world of gossip and reputation and social hierarchy was far more terrifying.
It could destroy with a single word. Leave invisible scars that lasted a lifetime.
Spread lies that became invulnerable to the truth, and leave those on the outside feeling colder than a Dunmaren winter.
And speaking of cold…
The dowager baroness had turned icy politeness into an art form, and it was this skill she now focused on Xavi with a smile that warned more than it welcomed.
“Perhaps you and Olivier would excuse us for a moment. I must begin making plans, and I wish to consult with Camryn on the details of the upcoming festivities.”
“I, uh…” After twenty-six years of being a disappointment to her mother, Ryn somehow still felt incredibly guilty saying no.
But she absolutely must not leave Xavi alone.
And honestly, she would rather wrestle that salamander again than be forced to help plan a party to celebrate her own fake betrothal.
Strangely, it was Xavi who once again came to her rescue.
“I believe Ryn has been hoping to show me her favorite childhood haunts,” he said suddenly. “Perhaps the matter of the… ball can wait for a short time?”
And then, so smoothly that Ryn knew he had to have done it before, he took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it right in front of her stunned mother and brother.
Oh saints and stars, now she was blushing.
And not only blushing. Her heart was making an absolute fuss, her nerves were rioting, and her hand felt as if it belonged to someone else.
Someone who knew what to do when a handsome gentleman kissed her fingers and said he wanted to spend more time with her.
Even if it was fake. Even if he was just unexpectedly talented at acting like a devoted—and entirely human—fiancé.
She had to get him out of that room before he oversold their story.
“Actually, I’ve been dying to… to…”
To what? Words, Ryn!
“Uh… show him the fishpond!” She said it with so much false enthusiasm that even her brother looked at her askance. “And the stables, of course, and the… the garden. Mother, I swear I will attend you after dinner, but for now I’d like a moment alone with Xavi to show him my home.”
It was possibly the most unconvincing performance of her life, and it was nothing short of a miracle that no one questioned her veracity.
“Oh, very well,” her mother agreed reluctantly, eyes averted as if she could somehow ignore the horrifying display of intimacy she had just unwillingly witnessed. “But for my sake, I am begging you—change your apparel the moment you return to the house.”
Ryn looked down at her traveling clothes and grimaced.
Yes, they were a bit worn and badly needed washing, but she did not want to give up her boots, or her pockets.
Not when the curse could rip them away from this place without the slightest warning.
But it wasn’t as if she could attend her own betrothal ball looking like this, and she had begun to fear that these trials were not about to let them off so easily.
“Yes, Mother,” she said meekly. “I’m sure there is something more suitable in my room.”
When no further objections arose, she whirled around, gripped Xavi’s arm, and towed him forcefully through the nearest door.
They were outside and well beyond earshot of the house before Ryn recalled exactly who and what she was tugging around like a child, and let go, blushing again as her fingers tingled with the memory of his kiss.
Drat him anyway. For making her forget for a moment that he was not the solid, ordinary human man he appeared to be.
The sort of person she rather wished would kiss her hand and make her feel tingly right down to her toes.
The sort she’d completely given up on ever finding, much to her mother’s dismay.
Which circled neatly around to the reason they were in this mess to begin with.
“I’m sorry,” she said, after peering around the end of the garden hedge to ensure no one had followed them.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be permitted to talk before we’re interrupted, but I want to begin by apologizing for my family.
They can be quite overwhelmingly enthusiastic about entirely the wrong things, and I’m deeply sorry for having involved you in this farce of a betrothal.
I just… I didn’t know how to tell them they’d gotten the wrong idea.
If you’d rather not continue in the lie, I understand and we will go back in there right now to explain the truth. ”
“The truth?” Xavi echoed, one eyebrow arched sardonically. “And which truth do you think your family will be able to accept without questioning your grasp on reality? My actual identity? Fae curses? Legends come to life? The true reason we are here?”
“The truth that we are not betrothed,” Ryn retorted, feeling a bit exasperated. “You know perfectly well we cannot tell them the truth about anything else. They barely believe the fae are real, let alone that they can live for a thousand years and curse people into an enchanted sleep.”
“I believe I’m the one who confirmed their suspicions in the first place,” he countered. “So, no, I do not wish to change our story.”
She peered up at him in confusion. “Then you think this is something we have to do? As part of breaking the curse? How could pretending to be betrothed to someone else possibly prove my fitness as a bride?”
Her heart gave an odd lurch. She still did not want to be the king’s bride. No matter what was meant by the word, no matter what fate and the curse had decreed, and no matter how handsome, noble, and kind Keldreth ven Rianor might be.
“I think,” Xaviel murmured, “that you should show me to the fishpond as promised. I believe your family is watching us through the second-floor windows—no, don’t turn and look—and we would do well to present the appearance of happiness and accord.”
“Drat,” Ryn grumbled. She should have known they would be spying.
“Let’s go then. But I’m still not convinced.
I think we should come clean before my mother parades us around in front of the neighbors for the sake of her own satisfaction.
” She shot Xavi a sharp glance as he took her arm.
“But while we’re out here, I would very much like to know where you learned to flirt, and why you speak such excellent Abreian. ”
“I was second only to a king,” Xavi returned smoothly.
“Before the curse, and before the Great War, I was a highly sought-after member of the court. It would be more surprising if I did not possess such skills. Also, did you suppose I actually spent the last thousand years pouting, as Kel contends? My only task was to secure human brides, and very few of you speak any language other than Abreian, let alone that of Dunmaren.”
Honestly, she hadn’t given much thought to what he’d done during the times between searching for brides, because even to consider it hurt her heart.
The isolation, the curse, the steady decline of hope as the magic ate away at his soul—the thought of it made her nearly sick with horror. And to think that if they failed…
No. No matter how much she didn’t care for the idea of being Keldreth’s bride, it was even worse to contemplate what might happen to Xavi if this curse was not broken. How he might feel having experienced this small gift of hope, only to have it cruelly stripped away.
None of this was his fault, and he deserved to be free. So whatever she had to do to win this war against fae, fate, and centuries-old curses, she would.
“Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad,” she said, taking a firm hold on her wobbly emotions. “It will make our task a great deal easier. Now, if we are to succeed in this deception, there are quite a number of other things we ought to discuss while we have the chance. Starting with…”
“Balls.”
Ryn glanced up at Xavi and bit her lip. “What about them?” she asked cautiously.
“How can balls be elaborate? And why would you invite your neighbors to watch you throw one?”
After a brief moment of confusion, Ryn burst out laughing.
“A failure of translation, I fear. My mother was not speaking of the round thing you throw for children, but a particular kind of party. Where everyone dresses up and eats and mingles and dances. Which means…” She sobered abruptly at the thought.
“We will have to find you clothes. And teach you to dance. And inform you of the many insults you will be expected to endure without stabbing anyone.”
“As I have told you before”—Xavi glowered at her forbiddingly—“I am capable of not stabbing.”
“You say that now, but you’ve never met my neighbors.”
Ryn led the way through a gap in the hedge, then started across the broad expanse of lawn towards a distant copse of alders. “Fishpond is just beyond those trees.”
“Please tell me we are not actually going to fish.”
It was impossible to miss the intended sarcasm. “No need to be rude,” Ryn muttered. “Just because that one time was a failure doesn’t mean I can’t fish. But no. In this case, we’re getting out of earshot of my family so we can make a plan for how we are going to survive the next two days.”
“And what about after the next two days?” Xavi inquired. “What if you are eventually able to return home after all this is over? Should you not also be thinking of that?”
It was an unexpectedly painful thought. If they succeeded in breaking this curse, and if she survived, and if she was free to leave—though that was by no means certain—would she simply go back to her mundane, everyday life as if nothing had happened?
But that was far too many ifs. “We cannot get ahead of ourselves,” she said briskly.
“Right now, we have to focus on the trials. The curse. Figuring out what that wretched fae is up to and how to free you and Kel for good. Whether any of this is real or not, we simply have to get through it and deal with the outcome later.”
There was no need for him to know what the outcome was likely to be if she returned home alone after this. Dismissed from the university, shunned by society, subjected to her family’s profound disappointment and disapproval…
But thankfully, those things had never mattered as much to her as they did to her mother and aunt.
What mattered most to Ryn was the truth, and she would forever be able to cling to the knowledge that she’d pursued it to the very end.
The same truth her father had written of so many years ago.
The truth of the story she’d dreamed about since she was a child.
Indeed, she had not only pursued it, but found it. And no matter what the future might hold, that in itself would be enough for her.
Wouldn’t it?