Chapter 12 Sparks
SPARKS
ELYRIA
The instant the council room doors slammed behind her, Elyria had to fight the instinct to sink right to the floor. She released a long stream of breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding, shooting Ollie and Jocelyn a warning look as she did.
“I see the meeting went well,” Ollie chirped, blue wings flicking up from his back as he stepped out from his resting position against the wall. “Are we done here then?”
“I certainly am,” Elyria answered curtly.
“Everything all right?”
“Oh, everything will be fine. So long as no one refers to me as a ‘symbol of unity’ again anytime soon.”
“Duly noted.”
There was a beat of silence as Elyria took another slow breath. The trio of royal guards standing just outside the council room doors shifted nervously.
“We’ve been fine here too, thanks for asking. Been making new friends, haven’t we?” Ollie wiggled the tips of his fingers at the human guards. Two of them grimaced, though the third offered Ollie a wary sort of half-smile in return.
“That’s three coins, Oleander,” said Jocelyn, hand lazily perched on the sword slung at her hip. “I’ll take my payment now, or you can repay me in drinks later. Pick your poison.”
Elyria narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to regret asking what the bet was for, aren’t I?”
Ollie flashed a sheepish grin. “How long you’d last in there before storming out.”
“Well, I suppose that I should be flattered by your faith in me, then, if you lost.”
“Don’t give him too much credit, your ladyship,” said Jocelyn, smoothing a loose strand of ash-brown hair back against her head. “He lost long ago, having assumed you wouldn’t last the first hour.”
Elyria scowled.
Ollie lifted his palms. “Hey, now, I—”
“Not another word,” Elyria warned. Truth be told, she wished she had left earlier. What a waste of fucking time that was. What a waste of time this was all turning out to be.
All that waiting, with nothing to do but twiddle their fingers until they finally got their audience with the human king, and what did they have to show for it?
Not one fucking thing.
Elyria should never have agreed to come here in the first place.
Should have followed her gut and started hunting down leads for Malchior weeks ago, regardless of whether she had the king’s sanction.
She could have located a dozen different cultist nests by now, she was sure of it.
Could have already found him. Could have avoided all this mess.
Instead, she really was about to be forced into playing the role of a prized pig, all to paint some picture of unity that didn’t really fucking matter if they couldn’t stop Varyth Malchior from executing whatever nefarious schemes he was surely planning.
Celestials help them all if he found the second half of the crown before they did.
Elyria had felt the power it held. Even the fourth quarter of hell would not be far enough to escape should Malchior figure out how to unlock it.
Stars-damned motherfucking pompous fuckwits, the lot of them.
Stars-damned Cedric Thorne, with his square jaw and gold-brown eyes and infuriatingly rational suggestion.
And with the unwelcome thought of that scarred lip and the way it looked when it was pulling into a smile, Elyria turned to walk away. Ollie moved to follow her, but she stopped him with the lift of a hand.
“Stay,” she commanded. “Wait for Kit and Dentarius. I’ll find you all later.”
Ollie looked as though he wanted to protest, but a silencing glare from Elyria had him swallowing whatever words might have been on his tongue.
She stormed down the corridor, the heels of her boots echoing sharply against the marble floor. The corridors of King’s Keep were too pristine, too bright, their gilded fixtures polished like they were meant to blind. Everything for show, everything a distraction.
These days, Elyria vastly preferred the dark.
She’d turned the corner and was halfway down the next corridor when she heard footsteps behind her. She whirled toward the source of the noise. “Ollie, I thought I told you to—”
Not Ollie.
Cedric was panting, as though he’d sprinted to catch up to her. She resumed her stormy stride without hesitation, her shadows rousing under her skin as she stalked away.
“Elyria, wait.”
She didn’t wait.
“Elle.”
Again, she whirled on him. “Don’t call me that.” She crossed her arms as he closed the distance between them. “What, is my escort to start now?”
He huffed a breathless laugh, the sound of exasperation. “I only suggested that to try and convince His Majesty to allow—”
“Yes, you seem very much inclined to follow His Majesty’s allowances,” she interrupted. “How are you so fine with being trotted around the city as some personification of the accords?”
Cedric sighed, raking a hand through his chestnut hair. It had grown out since they’d parted ways in the Lost City. Elyria found her lips pursing in irritation over how well it suited him.
“I am a knight of Kingshelm. He is the king. What would you have me do?”
“I did not let my own king prop me up as some symbol of purported peace. I do not intend to allow yours to.”
“I’d never presume you would. And I would never ask you to.” There was something wistful in his tone, and it softened the edges of Elyria’s ire.
“Then why are you here?” she asked.
He rubbed at his chest, his jaw working like he was trying to figure out how to answer, what to say.
Elyria braced herself for the inevitable lecture, for the pleas to return to the council chamber, to sit down and shut up and play the role she had been brought here for.
“I’m staying here, in the palace, you know,” he said instead, surprising her with the sudden change of topic.
“Perks of being victor, I assume?”
“Part of King Callum’s allowances,” he said, and though his mouth was tipped up in a smirk, Elyria’s cheeks heated over her unfair words. “And at Lord Church’s insistence, of course.”
Her demeanor cooled instantly. “Ah, yes. Your lord certainly seems . . .” She let her first thought fade away before voicing it.
This was Cedric’s benefactor. His adopted father, for all intents and purposes.
She supposed it wouldn’t be fair to lambaste the lord, even with the thinly veiled remarks he’d made prior to Cedric’s arrival in the council room.
“He clearly has a vested interest in these peace proceedings,” she finished lamely.
A pause. “He does.”
Another pause. Elyria shifted her weight between her feet, her magic feeling restless beneath her skin. “Well, I should—”
“Will you allow me to walk you back to your quarters?” Cedric asked.
“Don’t you mean, escort me?”
He rolled his eyes, the ring of gold at the center of each iris glinting. Like it was winking at her. “What I mean is, I’d like to accompany you. If you’ll permit me.”
“I am perfectly capable of finding my way around this place, you know.”
“Four hells, woman. Does everything have to be a fight with you?”
Elyria didn’t appreciate the hint of amusement laced through the knight’s words, but after a beat, she relented with a small, grudging nod. “Fine,” she said. “Walk me back, then.” In her chest, her shadows stirred approvingly.
Cedric and Elyria fell into step, side-by-side, silence stretching between them as they wound through the palace. They were climbing the stairs to the second floor when he finally broke it. “You were right, back there.”
Elyria’s brow creased. “About what?”
His mouth tipped to one side. “Everything, probably. But as I don’t want that going to your head, I’ll be more specific.”
She dug her fingers into the smooth banister as she attempted to suppress her grin. “Go on.”
“These weeks of inaction—months, really. I cannot say I understand the king’s motivations for delaying you all.
Dark reports have been coming in from along the Chasm, and I have no doubt the Cult of Malakar is behind them, but they’ve gotten rather good at covering their tracks.
All trails go cold so quickly. We do not know where they are based or have the smallest clue of where to find Malchior. ”
“I could find out,” Elyria said, fists clenching at her side. “I could find him. If only your king—and your lord—would let us do what we came here to.”
“I have no doubt,” Cedric said, his voice low. “Truly. I only wish I could make the same claim. I wish I could make good on my promise to you.”
Elyria’s steps faltered just as she reached the top of the stairs. She turned to face him. “Your promise?”
His face fell. “In Castle Lumin, I told you I would not let either of them get away with this. Yet I am no closer to finding Malchior or Zephyr than I was the day we parted. Nor have I ascertained a single clue as to Princess Selenae’s existence—let alone her whereabouts—despite having nearly read myself blind for weeks.
” He exhaled. “Tristan and I only just returned from our research visit to the Academy Library in Paideus yesterday before the ball.”
Things began connecting in Elyria’s mind—where Cedric had been, why she’d thought he wouldn’t be here at all.
She felt a visceral pang in her chest, something uncomfortable hitting right behind her ribs, at the thought of that having been the case.
What if he hadn’t been here? What if she’d never seen him again?
“I was only trying to help,” Cedric continued, pulling her from her spinning thoughts.
“I thought that offering an escort was a solid middle ground that would assuage the fears on both sides. We could get your party moving faster, while allowing the king some reassurances that you wouldn’t be immediately murdered upon setting foot in the first town you visited. ”
His shoulders were tense, his jaw ticking. As if the idea of said murder was deeply angering. Elyria thought the air might’ve grown a degree hotter.
“Cedric, it’s—”
“I didn’t realize,” he continued, “that my suggestion would come off as quite so . . .”
“Quite so what? Patronizing? Condescending?”