36. Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Kaed’s door was closed when I woke. I didn’t check if he was there or not. I was not going back in again. I wouldn’t be prepared for the sight of him topless, the silk bedspread wrapped around his hips.
Shaking my head, I forced the thought away.
Mercifully, Audrie decided today was the day she was going to give me a tour of the city markets. I needed the distraction, even if I couldn’t tell her exactly why the events of last night had happened.
I couldn’t exactly say I’d left so I didn’t combust from the urges that were kindling deep within me for Kaed.
Audrie wove us through merchants and fortune tellers, vendors selling everything from cured meats to spiced wines.
There were stalls set up selling only ground spices, from cumin to star anise.
There were honey and lavender stalls with bees buzzing around them.
Richly coloured awnings hung over some that smelled divine and others that smelled so strongly of cheese and curds that my nose wrinkled.
Tottering behind us, was Audrie’s little round cat, Turnip. Sometimes, he’d hop onto the stalls to inspect them, only to be shooed away by merchants.
Audrie didn’t stop at any of the stalls though. She pulled me along through narrow streets, under archways and down steps covered in worn rugs. She knew exactly where she was going.
We passed the jesters and jugglers, dancers and fae wielding simple magics for amusement. I wanted to stop and admire the spectacle, but Audrie took my hand and tugged.
We didn’t stop until we had come to the sugar market.
Once she had her cakes in hand, she finally slowed her pace so we could take in some of the stalls.
After a few steps in silence, something very fragile passed over her as she stifled a sniffle.
“Dee told me what happened. You don’t have to act like I can’t handle it.
” Audrie traced her finger over the edge of an embroidered blanket, the stall overstuffed with throws.
Her hazel eyes were molten as they looked at me.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you. ”
My chest constricted, and I suddenly felt like the older sister I never really was to Leesha.
“No more lies between us.” She intoned as though it were a decree.
I nodded, forcing the cold memory of last night from my mind, not willing to dredge it up again.
“So, you were with Denora?” I smirked.
A rosy hue stained her cheeks that dipped into matching dimple valleys on either side of her face.
She shoved a cake into my hand, ignoring my question. “What is going on between you and Kaedian?”
Taking a bite, I nearly choked on the fruit sponge cake between my teeth. But she was waiting for me to reply. My choking notwithstanding.
Bleeding Crowns … Why was she asking about Kaed? And me!
But she had stirred something with her probing. My words took over before I could swallow them. “Kaed. Does he—Has he—” As soon as I started the question, I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it. I didn’t even know how to ask what I wanted.
Did I really want the answer?
“Has he been … involved with people?” I hedged, thinking of Sapphine and the refused offers of Pearl and Daeghan’s heirs.
“Has he been involved with people before you?” Audrie clarified.
“We’re not involved,” I shot back. “Not really.”
“I know that.” She’d been privy to the whole story from the start, so I don’t know why I felt the need to remind her that our betrothal was all just a lie that had gotten out of control.
“I don’t know much about his, um”—she picked at a cake—“history with, um … I wasn’t in the fortress of Hayden long before he moved my studies here. I don’t think he’s had anyone to the Alabaster Palace since I’ve been in the city these past two years.” She looked at me expectantly.
The monster that dwelled in the darker parts of my soul stayed silent, but smiled.
“But he is more than two centuries older than me, so I suppose he could have had dozens, maybe hundreds of people to his rooms. I only moved to the Alabaster Palace when you arrived. I like it there. It’s nicer than the scribe quarters near the library.
” She shrugged as she picked her way over a stall with colourful jars, her thoughts now refocusing on her new room, not my question.
Jealousy rose in me like bile at the thought of being one in a long line of what I’m sure were beautiful fae and humans alike. And I wasn’t even in the line. I was standing to one side. Watching. Hungry. I groaned internally.
Get a hold of yourself. He’s not your betrothed. And you’re not getting into his bed.
“I know he was supposed to marry Lady Sapphine. But she ended up marrying Lord Tymon not long after it was all broken off,” Audrie offered as she moved to a stall with silver urns, each of them smelling of different sweet smokes that they puffed out from tiny nozzles.
“Why did they not marry?” Genuine curiosity forced me to ask.
“I don’t know.” She let her fingers linger on the silver. “It’s not something they put in the history books.”
“You must have an idea?” I wasn’t usually one for gossip, but I couldn’t picture them together.
Audrie paused her perusals.
“You know more, don’t you!” I laughed. “Friends. No secrets,” I reminded her.
“We said no lies. Not no secrets.”
“Well, how about some gossip then. Tell me,” I urged.
A vendor offered us a sample of some sort of buttery pie, but I ignored it in favour of the story Audrie was about to tell. A plaintiff meow came from Turnip as we passed over the food, but Audrie hushed him.
“Lady Sapphine is the daughter of a very, very wealthy lord. The only daughter, in fact. Her brothers died early in the war, and so her father was rather protective of her, I suppose. Or so they say. Kaedian’s family is royalty, and the Northern Corner steel they forged was used throughout the war.
But it was Sapphine’s father who supplied most of the warriors. ”
It’s not that this wasn’t interesting, but it also wasn’t what I needed to know right now. I tried to focus on her words, but all I could think about was Kaed with Sapphine.
“Steel and armies?”
She rolled her eyes. “Less history and more gossip?”
“Please.” I smiled.
Audrie sighed dramatically, but I knew she was loving this. “Some history?” She bit her lip. And I conceded.
I knew Crown histories. Or at least I thought I had.
“Viverna was the Crown in the East, they had been the only human Crown of the four, ever.” Audrie paused at a parchment stall, her fingers trailing over the rough edges of the sheets.
“It’s part of why so many humans still live in the city.
And the allyship with the Vivernan Crown was the beginning of the fall of the Western Crown and the stronghold of Fort Gorrim. ”
Audrie looked like she was about to launch into another history lesson.
“So, what does this have to do with Kaed and Sapphine?” I pushed.
Only mildly thrown off course from her prelecting, she answered.
“Well, Kaedian is the eldest of the Northern Crown heirs. And the Southern Crown had no heirs, so Sapphine’s family sided with the North in hopes of a rise in status.
I suppose they chose wisely there,” she mused, mostly to herself.
“And ... Aurora vanished … eighteen, no, maybe twenty-five years ago?” She looked to the sky as if it held the answer she needed.
“Are there more books on Aurora?” I interrupted.
“More?” She tilted her head.
“Ah,” I paused. “Someone gave me a book.”
Audrie’s eyes bugged. “Who? Where did they get it?”
Were they that rare?
“Eryk …” I said in a shakier voice than intended.
Audrie stiffened beside me, and I instantly regretted bringing his name into the day. She knew he was responsible for Kaed’s freedom. And she wasn’t stupid. She had to know it would cost something.
“Sapphine’s family was the power in the south and the east once, em,” she hesitated looking to the sky again.
“Once Aurora was gone”—she drove the conversation away from Eryk as we pushed on—“but before that they had been eager to marry a wealthy family, royal if possible. But rumour has it …” Audrie looked around the stalls.
No one was listening, but I leaned in anyway.
“That she had already fallen for Hart. She only wanted to marry Kaedian for his crown, and when he found out about her and Hart, he called it off.”
I didn’t bother hiding my shock.
He’d been prepared to marry Sapphine despite my not seeing a single bone in either of their bodies that would fit together. I thought of Tymon and the way he looked like he was constantly fighting an acidic flame that licked at his skin when he was around Sapphine.
“And she wouldn’t even marry Hart then, once she was out of the engagement. I don’t think she wanted one brother. But both. One for the crown and one for under the gown, if you get my drift.”
“Audrie!”
“What? It’s what I read. I didn’t say that.” She flushed and tucked her arms around her.
I laughed and pulled her along.
As we meandered, my mind whirled with the new information. Turnip ran on ahead as if he knew where we were going.
“You have to try these.” Audrie stopped at a stall with candied fruit piled high in crates, completely forgetting her lewd comment.
Oranges, lemons, cherries, plums, all of them dusty with crystallised sugar. They looked mouthwateringly good.
“I’ve no money,” I said, my stomach gurgling embarrassingly loud as I eyed the candies.
“Sure you do.” Audrie leaned in and spoke to the merchant.
He handed her a bag of plums and smiled.
“How did you do that?” The girl had more magic than I ever would, which wasn’t hard. But I didn’t think she had those powers of persuasion in her!
“Easy. Kaedian told me you had a line of credit here in the markets?”
I stood, gaping, the bag of treats forgotten. “What?” And I had bothered stealing things to barter. When had he put that in place?
“It’s been very helpful for buying ledgers and candles I’ve been using.” Her eyes went wide at her own admission. “I mean. For the research. For studying. I haven’t been just using Kaedian’s—Lord Kaedian’s money.”