Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Sylvi
Ihad seen Jack angry before. Seen him seethe silently, concealing his fury behind that glacial stillness he wielded like armor—a prince sculpted from hewn ice, untouchable and remote.
Despite the fact that it infuriated me when he turned into that brooding, unfeeling statue, cutting himself off from the world, from me, I knew to give him his space.
At the end, he always resurfaced as the prince I’d known him to be.
But this? This was different.
Something terrible was gnawing at him, and it wasn’t just the queen’s decree.
Jack had weathered his mother’s relentless ambitions for years without losing himself to his rage like today.
He had learned to survive her manipulations by slipping away into his books, his art, his quiet rebellion.
He hadn’t inherited her hunger for power, but he had inherited her steel-like coolness—or so I’d thought.
Tonight, as I watched him storm away covered in frost, I knew whatever was eating at him ran far deeper than the shock of the surprise betrothal the queen had thrust upon him.
And though I knew he hadn’t supported his mother’s ill-fated campaign against the Christmas realm, I had an inkling that Lord Kaelven’s whispered accusations of a traitor in the kingdom had been what had wound Jack up so tightly.
His tension had blasted through the War Room like a silent scream only I could hear.
What the Hel was he hiding?
A knot twisted in my chest as I tracked his shadowed silhouette vanishing through the tall, ornate doors that led to the evergreen gardens.
I pressed a hand against my breastplate, as if the gesture might soothe the suffocating pressure there, a stinging ache that burned hotter with every echoed memory of the way he’d growled my name.
It hadn’t been a warning; it had been a command, raw and unnatural.
The sound crawled beneath my skin like jagged claws dragging down my spine, rooting me to the ground like a towering tree.
It had been a while since I’d seen it—if only a whisper of it—the unseelie magic that lurked within him, slumbering just beneath the surface of his carefully controlled exterior.
His crystal-blue eyes had darkened to pitch black.
The change had been fleeting, a mere flicker of shadows snuffing out the light, but it had been enough to send waves of dread rippling over my skin like the skittering of unseen insects.
But more than frightening me, it had stung like the bite of an ice scorpion.
When he’d first come into his unseelie magic, I’d made him promise that he would never use it on me. For him to break that promise, to invoke Voice on me, a magic steeped in the unseelie’s darkest powers…
Gods, he’d better have a damn good explanation.
The invisible chains holding me in place dissolved the moment he disappeared, the compulsion falling away like dead leaves from a tree.
“That wall he erects at times can be so irritating,” a smooth female voice said, cutting through my thoughts.
I spun around, startled to find the queen in the hallway mere feet from me, the tips of the needle-sharp diamonds on her crown glinting.
The stealth with which she could move was unsettling, her presence a living shadow.
I quickly glanced over her shoulder and noticed the council members were exiting the War Room, thankfully lost in personal debates.
“Your Majesty,” I replied, bowing my head. I wasn’t sure how to respond to her comment, and the silence between us became too palpable, like an invisible wall closing in around me.
She must have noticed my hesitation as she moved closer, her steps unhurried, the soft rustle of her gown like the whisper of tall grass swaying in the breeze.
“It might surprise you, but I’ve never truly been fond of your friendship with my son.
The daughter of a common fae fraternizing with the Crown Prince of Skadgard.
” She scoffed, as if the concept was beyond ridiculous. Repulsive, even.
The blood drained from my face.
“I’m sure you can imagine the sordid rumors that have been whispered in the halls of my palace.”
Why was she bringing this up now? She’d never once mentioned her displeasure with our friendship before.
“Your father was an honorable and loyal soldier, which is why I forgave him for bringing you into the palace without my permission. I’d not been keen on the idea, but I kept a watchful eye as you and my son grew close.
After his father passed, something in him changed.
Like a shadow hovering over him, waiting to eat up his soul.
But you brought out something in him, Sylvi.
The light. Joy. I’d never seen him so happy than whenever you visited the palace. ”
“His friendship has been a gift to me as well,” I said, unable to think of anything else but the truth, careful to keep my voice steady, to hide the way her words had wounded me.
But I knew it was pointless to try to mask my feelings when my heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped animal.
Powerful royal fae not only possessed magic, they also had preternatural abilities that heightened all their senses beyond a common fae’s abilities.
Which meant she could hear the way my heart thundered, and she knew my insides were roiling.
A frigid smile carved across her face, her violet eyes brimming with simmering malice.
“Tolerating your friendship as children was one thing, but things are different now, Captain. The prince is to wed the Unseelie Princess, and I can’t have you jeopardizing this alliance by clouding his head and conflicting his heart. ”
My breath stilled, my lungs refusing to cooperate as I tried not to cower from her cutting gaze.
“I’m no fool, Captain. Anyone can see the glances you steal toward each other, the tension that arises whenever you are in a room together. Whatever fantasies you’ve built inside that little head of yours, end now.”
My lips parted, but the words evaporated on my tongue.
“Wait…” Her lips twisted into a serpentine grin, reducing me to the dirt under her heel. “You didn’t think his heart belonged to you…did you?”
A deathly chill drilled into my bones. “Your Majesty… I never—”
“Please, Captain. Don’t embarrass yourself.
” Her voice lowered, growing softer, more intimate, as though she were sharing a secret.
“I don’t need you to tell me how you feel about my son when I can read it etched in your eyes like a manuscript inscribed in oily ink.
But I don’t make the rules, Sylvi. A union between you two is not only absurd, but also unlawful.
He’s a royal, and you don’t possess an ounce of noble blood. ”
She leaned in, her oppressing gaze almost stealing the oxygen from my lungs.
It took everything in me not to step back.
“I didn’t promote you to this position because of your merits, and not because of your father’s legacy.
I promoted you because, unfortunately, you are the only person in this realm capable of influencing my son.
As captain, you can now shadow his every movement without suspicion, and you are to report directly to me—only me.
I want to always know his whereabouts. I can’t have him disappear for days again like he did this past week, especially with the Unseelie King visiting my court. ”
The realization struck me like a blow. My promotion. Her demand that I move into the palace. Every decision she’d made, every opportunity she’d offered…
It had all been a calculated move to control Jack through me.
“I need this betrothal to go through without incident. Am I understood, Captain? If you need to fuck my son to get this thing between the two of you out of your systems, then do it before my uncle arrives with the princess. If I’m to forge this new alliance with the Unseelie Court, I need my son focused.
I need him to wear his crown with pride and honor.
I need him to embody his title, to become the foretold Son of Ice I birthed so he can one day take the throne and become the Frost King all the realms are meant to bow down before.
Not become some meaningless scholar retreating into his damn books like some pitiful scribe. Am I clear?”
I was without words. Not only about the way she spoke about her son, his supposed destiny, but at the realization that fell over my entire body like a pail of iced water.
I’d gone from being promoted to captain, to being reduced to Jack’s whore and keeper.
The crack that splintered through my body had me nearly crumbling to my knees.
“Captain?”
“Yes…Your Majesty,” I said, though the words—like venom on my lips—carried no conviction.
“My uncle will arrive in a week. I need this palace readied for his arrival.”
“And what of the mole? I need to focus—”
“Are you not the captain of the guard, my dear? Prove to me why I shouldn’t have listened to my prime chancelor when he advised me not to promote you.
Find the mole, but I want you to make Jack your priority.
He needs to come around, Sylvi. See to it that he does.
I’m counting on you…the entire kingdom is. ”
She swiveled away, her gown sweeping behind her like a sheet of liquid indigo, but she suddenly stopped mid-stride and glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling with something darker than onyx.
“Oh, and Captain? I forgot to ask. How’s your family?
Aldric still managing that rundown tavern?
He should’ve accepted the palace’s offer to work in the royal stables.
Your father once mentioned he’d been quite the rider before the accident.
Pity… He might’ve even joined the guard if it hadn’t been for that gruesome injury. ”
My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. “Thank the goddess for your royal healer, Your Majesty, or he might’ve lost his leg. Aldric enjoys working at the tavern now, though. It’s an honest job.”