46. Chapter 46
Lunette
The moment the door shut behind Owain, the silence pressed in. I shuddered, thinking about the assassin. I had no doubt the Assembly wanted him silenced, given what Owain had told me about his interrogation. But so soon?
Something about all this felt wrong. I stood where he’d left me, listening to the echo of his footsteps fade, waiting for the restless tension in my chest to settle back into something I could ignore. But it lingered no matter what I did.
I dragged in a breath. He’s fine. He said it was nothing.
Right… Time for a nap to shut down the worries.
I made my way back under the furs, fully clothed. The bed still smelled like the forest back home mixed with dark, sweet tea.
I was so exhausted, sleep should’ve come easily as I breathed him in. Instead, every small sound scraped at my nerves. A guard shifting on the other side of the room. The faint murmur of voices in the corridor. Logs on the hearth popping.
I lay there, willing myself to rest.
He said it was nothing.
My eyes snapped open and my heart stumbled into a sprint at the sound of low, angry voices growling at each other near the door. From his slumbering spot on my stomach, Muffin sprang to feral wakefulness, hissing at nothing and everything for bothering us.
“It is by order of the king—step aside.” A man’s voice.
“There, ya happy?” Anne snapped. “You’ve awoken her ladyship!”
Given her nature, Anne was probably close to slapping him. I shoved the furs aside, the prickle of unease turning into sharp, icy frustration as I realized exactly who I was about to confront.
I hadn’t even fully stood up before Lord Coryanthus strolled into Owain’s room.
Like a frigid hand clamping down on my shoulder out of nowhere, the violation set my defenses on high alert.
His persistent wooing with letters, flowers, and candy had already made me dislike him, but invading Owain’s space like this pushed my dislike to hatred.
Four men, two clad in the distinctive royal colors and two wearing his house’s, trailed him, giving credence to his claim. Yet even as I told myself that everything was aboveboard, my gut insisted otherwise.
I straightened, still disheveled and sleep-weary, to face him. Muffin mewled and jumped off the bed to wind between my feet. I looked down at him; he was nervous.
Me too, little guy.
I scooped him up to offer what comfort I could. Anne came to stand beside me, her body tensed as if ready for a fight.
Lord Coryanthus’s expression shifted into the false sort of warmth that men like him used to disarm. Years of barely veiled contempt had honed my ability to discern just how insincere he was instantly. He was judging me for so obviously sleeping in Owain’s bed.
Where and how I spent my time was none of his concern. He was just the type of man who thought everyone and everything around him should bend to his sense of morality and to what he wanted.
Well, he was willfully oblivious to the fact that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
“My lady.” He inclined his head. “His Majesty requests the pleasure of your company. In your rooms, if you would.”
“In my rooms…” I repeated. Calling this a request was almost laughable.
“He was most insistent.” The manufactured sincerity in his expression didn’t waver.
Owain wasn’t a paranoid man. He wouldn’t have put so many guards around me if he didn’t think there was a valid threat. My gut was screaming at me that leaving his room was wrong. But what choice did I have if Berian ordered it? He was the only one with the authority to override Owain.
“Why are you the messenger?” I asked, Muffin still tucked under my arm. Anne had gone very still beside me, watching Coryanthus with a focused hostility I wholly approved of.
“His Majesty granted me an emergency appointment as Regent of Magical Affairs.”
The alarm bells tolling inside my mind grew louder. If there were a cabinet of magical affairs, I surely would’ve had to meet them at some point. At the very least, Owain or Reina would’ve mentioned it by now. Whatever this last-minute change meant, it wasn’t good news.
Muffin, for once, didn’t squirm. It was as if he knew something was wrong. I turned to Anne, my voice bordering on a plea. “I’ll take Muffin with me so he can use the balcony. Will you wait here to pass along my excuses?”
I’d spent so long pushing back against her well-intentioned bullying that I hoped this sudden docile change would signal my desperation. I needed her to witness that I was being taken against my will so she could call for Owain.
She nodded then sank into a curtsy that was much deeper than usual. Her eyes never left mine as I followed Coryanthus out the door.
Stomach rising into my throat, I reached for the mate bond. Owain was still there, his intense focus betraying no fear, only a profound sense of worry. I chose to take comfort in that.
The guards at my door were not the ones Owain had stationed there earlier. They were also wearing the red and yellow of Lord Coryanthus’s house. I looked down the hall and saw more of the same—too many of them.
Coryanthus swung my door open with an air of entitlement, gestured for me to move, and followed me inside.
The fire was lit. The room smelled faintly of the untouched bread, butter, and jam that had been delivered as a snack earlier, even though I’d been in Owain’s room. Everything was almost as I’d left it.
Except the air felt…pressed. As though too many people had taken the oxygen from it before I stepped inside.
Berian occupied my favorite chair by the hearth. His tired gaze fixed on me the moment we entered. Even in his fatigue, it held a motionless intensity that reminded me of a snake poised to strike.
Seeing him there—even though it was a violation—should’ve brought a sliver of comfort.
He was proof that this whole thing wasn’t a lie Coryanthus had made up.
But the sight of the man wearing white robes in the chair beside him obliterated the illusion that this could be anything less than extremely dangerous.
Holy gods, they’re working together.
“Your Majesty, Grand Magus Thibault,” I said, performing a sloppy curtsy because they could both go to the Otherworld for all I cared.
Yet even in my anxiety and mounting disdain, I couldn’t turn off my healer’s impulses.
Berian should not be upright.
I knew that grayish pallor all too well.
It was the color of a body carefully rationing its remaining vitality.
I’d poured magic—my own lifeforce—into this man.
Had coaxed his lungs and heart back into steadiness, and now he sat in my chair by my fire and looked at me with those flat, assessing eyes as though I should be the one asking for permission to be here.
Berian coughed once, wetly, as he dismissed his two guards to stand in the hallway. Thibault gently thumped his back.
Whatever this is, I hope you all pay for it. Especially Berian. He had to know by now that his brother cared about me.
Coryanthus’s hand closed briefly around my elbow and steered me, with gentle inexorability, to stand in front of the king. I wanted to slap his touch away then scrub my skin from the contact. But I was stuck.
Coryanthus’s guards followed me.
I released Muffin from my arms. He smartly absconded to the balcony. I could see him through the window where the curtain had been drawn, a small tan shape investigating something at the base of the railing with total absorption.
I was so distracted by making certain Muffin was okay that I didn’t hear the bolt closing until it snicked home.
I didn’t register the soft pulse of magic that crawled up through the stone wall until it had already sunk all the way in.
By the time the sensation of the ward moving into place reached my conscious mind, the working was complete.
I was even more trapped than I’d thought.
Berian didn’t react to any of this, just looked at me with his usual distant scrutiny. I didn’t know why I ever expected more from a man unburdened by the need to accommodate anyone other than himself.
I cleared my throat of the vitriol that threatened to cascade out, and asked primly, “Your Majesty, what can I do for you?”
“Smile,” he said. “You’re getting what you’ve wanted since coming to the Tir.”
Out of this blasted room? But that was a dream, and I was living a nightmare, so I said nothing.
My silence prompted him to offer a further explanation. “A proposal.”
My nails dug into my palms hard enough to sting. I didn’t have a choice to be here, I certainly wasn’t about to be nice.
“A proposal,” I repeated. “You mean an order.”
He had to know I’d just left his brother’s bed. But not a single flicker of empathy crossed his features. “There’s little difference for me,” he said.
Disgusting. He’d been carried here on the last dregs of the strength I had given him. Now he was doing the next best thing to threatening me. Owain had warned me that we might have to deal with this, but so soon?
“Why me?”
Something that was neither shame nor calculation gleamed in his eyes. The ingrained reaction of a man who knew that desiring something meant getting it easily. “I need a wife.” He paused just long enough to look me over. “But you’re more valuable than that… I can control my shadow with you.”
Not his brother or Owain, his shadow—like he was an afterthought rather than a person. Still, Berian’s honesty shocked me. Maybe he thought it didn’t matter how honest he was since he held all the power.
“So you’re that afraid of him,” I accused. I had no interest in being his queen.
Berian gripped the chair arms and pushed himself up.
His body strained, lifting a mere two inches before failing, legs quivering, breath coming out in a harsh gasp.
He bonelessly slumped back into the chair.
Yet even as his body staged a mutiny, his cold eyes were still utterly certain of his power over the situation.
Even crippled, Berian had enough arrogance to believe he commanded Fate herself.
The ominous sound of a latch creaking open felt ready to prove him wrong.