Chapter Thirty-Four Riela #2
And now it was time to keep my side of the deal and get the door open.
I slid my hand down to his, then stepped back. “I’m going to open the door again.”
He nodded, and I closed my eyes and focused, since that seemed to work best. But after a few minutes, the door remained firmly
shut. It had been so easy earlier, even the second time when I wasn’t desperate for help.
What had changed?
I tugged Garrick down to the stone. “Let’s re-create what we did earlier—minus the stabbing.”
He lay flat on the dais and I knelt next to him. I pressed my hands to his shoulder while Grim crowded behind me. But despite
coaxing and cursing, the door refused to open.
“I don’t understand,” I murmured.
“Perhaps this will help,” Garrick said. I started to ask him what he meant, but his arm flashed out and drew my dagger. I reached for it, but I was too slow. He plunged the blade into his shoulder without so much as a flinch.
“Saints fucking sovereigns,” I snapped, “I didn’t think you were this stupid.”
“Try the door,” he murmured, unfazed by the growing bloodstain.
I reached for the door in desperation, but it refused to open. I pulled the dagger from Garrick’s shoulder with less care
than I might have if he hadn’t just stabbed himself. I snatched the bloodied makeshift bandage and pressed it to the wound, then tipped my chin at it. “Hold that.”
“You do realize I’m an Etheri sovereign?” Garrick asked, his voice mild. When I scowled, he pressed his hand to the bandage.
“This will hardly kill me.”
“I realize you can’t be trusted around knives,” I groused. I moved to set the dagger aside, but the blood on the blade caught
my attention.
Garrick’s blood hadn’t opened the door.
But perhaps mine would.
I’d been bleeding during the initial attack. And I’d cut myself on the dagger earlier today. But now my blood was gone, and
the door refused to open.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I sliced the blade across the back of my arm. Garrick lunged up and grabbed for the
dagger, but I was already bleeding. I barely noticed when he seized my hand. As soon as my blood touched the dais, I reached
for the door, and the world shifted.
The door had opened with my blood.
A shiver worked its way down my spine. That could not mean anything good.
Garrick’s magic slid through me, healing my arm. I laughed, but the edge of panic had caught me, and it came out closer to
a sob. “Don’t waste your time.”
“Healing you is not a waste, ang oydo.”
“Don’t you understand?” I hissed. “My blood—”
He pressed his lips to mine, cutting off the words. The guards murmured in surprise, but the kiss was brief and nearly chaste.
“Don’t,” he whispered, his voice barely a suggestion of sound. When I nodded, he leaned back and pried the dagger from my
numb fingers. He wiped the blade on his trousers, then returned it to the sheath at my waist, all without letting go of my
hand.
“Do you think that was wise?” Grim quietly asked from behind me.
“She is under my protection. It’s better if the court learns that early.”
“Hania said Koru has taken your place for the last several decades. You would be wise to be wary of your court, Your Highness.”
Garrick’s jaw clenched and his eyes flashed, but his grip was gentle as he raised my arm. “Let’s test the touch theory. Take
her hand and help her rise.”
Grim carefully pulled me to my feet. He was as tall as Garrick, so I had to look up a little to meet his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” he murmured in return. “I don’t mind my other form, but it is nice to have thumbs again. And a voice. You would not believe
how boring growling gets after a while.” He grinned and belted out a snippet of a popular bawdy song, stopping just before
the good part. “Try doing that as a wolf.”
I laughed, as he’d meant me to do, and a soft expression touched his face. Behind me, Garrick stood and took a step away.
We stayed in Lohka. If touch was required, then their bond was strong enough that I only had to be touching one of them at a time.
“Protect her as you would protect me,” Garrick ordered.
Grim’s fingers tightened ever so slightly on my hand, in either surprise or disagreement, but he bowed his head without complaint.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Garrick started to turn away, but I reached for him. “Wait.”
He stopped, and I looked at him. Really looked.
He was striking in Edea, but here, he was gorgeous.
His face was harder, sharper, as if a layer of civility had been stripped away.
The scars cleaving down his cheek gave him a menacing air, his eyes were brighter and more intense, and even his skin seemed more luminous, like polished marble.
His ears had also lost their human roundness, and his shoulders were somehow broader.
His whole presence screamed power and danger.
“Your glamour is gone,” I whispered, then looked down at my arm. It looked the same as it always had, and a quick touch of
my ear proved it was the same shape it’d always been. “Do I look different to you?”
Garrick’s gaze traced over the contours of my face for a long moment before he shook his head, expression unreadable. Relief
and disappointment fought for dominance. I wasn’t Etheri.
It was as I’d expected, but ever since Garrick had brought up the possibility, some small part of me had hoped . . .
I hadn’t quite fit with humans, and now I wouldn’t fit with Etheri. It was apparently my lot in life to always be on the outside,
looking in. I squared my shoulders. I’d made a place for myself in Edea. I’d do the same here.
Garrick dipped his chin slightly, then turned back to the waiting guards. He barked something in a flowing, lyrical language
I didn’t understand, and the whole group fell to their knees and bowed.
Grim switched his hold to my left elbow and guided me to Garrick’s right side, just a step behind him.
Moonlit magic swelled and Garrick’s appearance changed. His bloodstained clothes were replaced with an ornate black tunic
embroidered with an intricate pattern in glinting silver thread. Tall black boots—polished to a reflective sheen and reinforced
with silver plates—encased his legs to the knee.
He had a longsword and a short dagger sheathed at his hips, and the magical claws on the tips of his fingers looked far more
solid than they had in Edea. My gaze darted back to his face. His expression had cooled and hardened, and a spiky, silver
crown rested on his head like it had always been there.
And I supposed it had.
Garrick slanted a single glance my way, then swept forward in a storm of moonlit magic. The kneeling guards scrambled to make
way without rising.
“Come on,” Grim whispered, pulling me forward. “We need to stay close.”
Garrick’s magic reverberated through the castle, rising higher and higher until it pounded against my skull, demanding obedience,
threatening death. I stumbled and pressed a hand to my forehead with a weak groan. Grim’s hand tightened as he cursed. His
silver magic rose and the pressure lessened.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
“Garrick is reminding his court who the king is. I’ll shield you, and my magic will translate the language until we can get
you a translation charm.”
We came to the huge glass doors that led into the ballroom. At least, I assumed they did if this castle mirrored the one I
was used to. All of the doors were shut tight, but Garrick waved a careless hand, and they all slammed open simultaneously.
A murmur rose from the room beyond, but as we swept inside what was indeed a ballroom, most of the people were already on
their knees, their heads sinking unwillingly toward the floor, venom in their glares.
The exception was the stunning blond man who was sitting on the throne at the far end, a silver circlet on his head. His fists
were clenched on his thighs, his knuckles white against his tan skin, but his back was ramrod straight.
If looks could kill, Garrick would be dead several times over.
Garrick’s voice fell into the silence like the drop of an executioner’s axe. “Cousin, you seem to be in my seat.”
“Garrick, if you think . . .” the blond gritted out before Garrick’s magic rose, cutting off the words.
“It’s King Stoneguard to you, and I think, Cousin Koru,” Garrick said, his voice deceptively mild, “that you are in my seat. Move. Now. Unless you would like to challenge me?” One raven eyebrow arched in question.
Koru’s head bowed even as silver magic swirled angrily around him. With a snarl, he slid from the seat and hit his knees.
But Garrick wasn’t finished.
The Etheri king lifted his left hand slightly and waited. His cousin seethed with hatred, but after a moment, he crawled down
the steps and pressed his forehead to Garrick’s hand.
If Garrick was worried about getting a dagger in the gut, he didn’t show it. He dropped his hand, and his magic climbed higher,
until the very walls vibrated with it. His cousin’s head slowly, slowly lowered to the floor, pressed down by Garrick’s power.
Garrick turned and let his gaze run over the rest of the cowering Etheri in the room. “Would anyone else care to challenge
my return?”