Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Jack
The word hadn’t even finished leaving her lips before a sharp hiss of frostfire crackled to life at my fingertips, blue-white light flickering like lightning along my knuckles.
The air dropped several degrees, and a shiver passed through the room as if Iskjold Ridge had released a centuries-old breath.
Several of King Maelthar’s guards moved instantly, swords half-drawn, snarling like wolves scenting blood.
I did not reach for my blade.
I didn’t need to.
The magic swirling over my hands said enough. “She is my captain,” I said firmly, my eyes blazing as I took a step toward the princess. “And you will address her as such, or you will not address her at all.”
Isolde’s lips parted slightly, as if surprised I’d spoken with such bite. Or maybe surprised I hadn’t frozen her to her chair.
The king’s fingers flexed around the carved arms of his throne, but he didn’t rise. And more importantly…he didn’t wield magic.
Interesting.
King Maelthar raised a hand with leisurely grace, his voice calm and composed. “Stand down,” he told his guards.
At once, his guards obeyed, though several looked reluctant to do so. I let my magic flicker out slowly, but the air remained charged.
Isolde’s spine straightened, chin lifted in protest. “Great-grandfather, how can you allow him to disrespect me like this? I can smell them on each other. For gods sake, he reeks of her,” she went on, eyes spitting fire, voice a mix of fury and contempt.
“And he dares bring her here, a female he’s marked?
Before me, his future bride? I will not have it. She must be escorted out. Immediately.”
My jaw locked. “She is my captain, princess,” I repeated, steel edging every syllable. “And she stays. Or I go.”
Isolde stood, the movement so smooth and fluid, she looked like a viper posturing for an attack. “You think to humiliate me before my people?”
“This isn’t about you,” I said, forcing icy calm into my voice, even as my pulse roared. “This meeting is about a marriage arrangement being forged to bridge an alliance between our realms. Do not mistake duty for desire.”
Maelthar exhaled slowly, a king trying to hold together the already fraying stitches of this fragile pack. “Isolde. That is enough. Take your seat.”
She glared at her grandfather. “I will not allow this pompous prince to disgrace me—”
“Sit. Down,” he ordered, and this time I felt the buzz of his unseelie magic zap over my skin. Voice. “Now, girl.”
Her lips pressed into a grim line, words dying on her tongue. She had no choice but to obey his command and fold back into her chair.
“You must forgive my granddaughter,” the king said, finally rising from his throne and approaching me, hand outstretched.
I took it and immediately felt the pulse of his magic.
He was a fraction shorter than me, but broader at the shoulders, and the grip of his callused hand spoke of centuries wielding a blade.
This was not an act of respect, but one meant to remind me I was merely a guest here.
My hand still clasped in his, I said, “Your Majesty. I appreciate your hospitality in welcoming me and my guard to your camp. But if insults like this are what await us each day of this envoy, I fear there may not be much diplomacy to speak of once we arrive at the capital.”
The king’s obsidian-silver eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “She is young. Passionate. She will learn restraint.”
My eyes shifted briefly to the princess. She stared back with daggers in her eyes. Seemed I wasn’t the only one being dragged into an unwanted marriage.
Behind me, Sylvi hadn’t moved, hadn’t said a word. But I could feel her rage. If Princess Isolde hadn’t been a royal fae, Moonshadow would’ve been at the female’s throat.
And I couldn’t help but blame myself for this encounter, for the shame the princess had tried to throw at Sylvi’s feet. I should’ve known that as a royal fae, Isolde would’ve been able to smell our scents on each other.
“Come now,” the king said, reclaiming my attention with a glint of something too polished to be sincerity. “We mustn’t let a quarrel between females distract us from court business. Join your soldiers and rest. I’m sure the pass was grueling. We’ll speak again at supper.”
I bowed stiffly, every muscle coiled tight. A strange sensation slid down my spine like a ripple through still water, barely seen but not unfelt.
As I turned to leave, I glanced over my shoulder and caught Isolde watching us, her gaze fixed not on me, but on Sylvi.
Her face was emotionless, stale, but her magic couldn’t hide its intentions.
I felt it, subtle as silk, brushing along my power like a spider testing a web.
It wasn’t strong—not like her grandfather’s, definitely not like mine.
But it was familiar.
The same whispering void I’d felt in the Wildlands. That hollow gravity of absence. A black hole in the weave of magic.
She wasn’t sending a warning. No, that thread of magic she’d aimed at Sylvi had been a threat.
My fingers twitched, and a thin crust of hoarfrost bloomed across the surface of her chair, a creeping veil of rime climbing the carved wood.
She shrieked at the sudden chill and lurched upright, her slippers catching in the hem of her gown. She stumbled forward, hit her knees hard, and nearly went face-first into the fur-covered floor.
“Imbecile,” she snarled, rising to shaky feet, her cheeks flushed with rage.
I turned fully to her, unrepentant. “You might be my betrothed, Princess,” I said, frost swirling from my hands, shadow-laced and humming with cold fury, “but threaten my captain again, and you’ll learn why they call me Son of Ice.”
The unseelie guard led us to a sectioned-off ward on the camp’s southern flank, cordoned by banners and patrolled by silent, expressionless soldiers. Tents were already being erected for my warriors, and a fire pit had been dug and filled with burning logs. My people had begun to settle in.
But Sylvi…
She hadn’t said a single godsdamned word the entire walk back.
And now her eyes darted around the camp as if she were looking for someone, or something. The wind tugged at the loose strands of her braid, her cloak whipping behind her. Her knuckles had tightened on the hilt of Moonshadow, her jaw locked in a way I hadn’t seen since she first joined the guard.
Gods, her nerves were wreaking such havoc through her body, I could feel it like a charged wire vibrated through me. My fingers itched to reach for hers, to offer her comfort, but when I slowly inched toward her, she broke from my side. Too fast, too suddenly.
My chest pinched.
I thought about giving her space and letting her sort through whatever was troubling her, but I couldn’t just stand idle. Something was off. Terribly off. I followed, just in time to see her disappear behind one of the larger supply tents.
I rounded the corner and froze.
She was doubled over beside a pile of refuse, one hand braced against the wooden post of a feed trough, the other clutched to her stomach. The retching sound punched straight through me.
“Sylvi,” I said, rushing forward.
“Don’t.” Her voice was hoarse, trembling. She held out a hand, warding me off like I was the very cause of her sickness. Her shoulders trembled with each retch, and I could do nothing but stand there helpless, horrified.
When it finally passed, she staggered upright, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist. Her chest heaved, and the light in her eyes looked like it might shatter. “Did you know?” she rasped.
I stepped closer, cautiously. “Syl—”
“Did you know this would happen? That she’d be able to smell it—smell me on you?”
Guilt lashed through me. “I should’ve known,” I admitted.
“For Skadi’s sake, Jack.” Her voice cracked, raw with something more than fury, as she pressed a hand to her racing heart. It pounded so loudly, I felt it in my chest. “She said you marked me. What the Hel does that even mean?”
I dragged a hand through my hair, the wind cutting through my armor. “When I…when I touched you, tasted you—gods, Sylvi—it was more than desire. I wasn’t thinking about instincts, or politics, or court consequences. I was just…consumed.”
Her eyes burned bright despite the pallor of her face. “Consumed?”
I exhaled, shame crawling through every limb. “When a royal fae gives into that kind of intimacy, especially while using magic…sometimes, if the bond is strong, it leaves a trace. A scent. Like an energy signature. But it’s only supposed to happen when you—”
I paused for a breath, the words tasting of broken glass on my tongue.
“Syl, it’s why I couldn’t make love to you, no matter how desperately I wanted to.
I couldn’t bring myself to take that from you when I couldn’t promise you forever.
I guess…I guess my magic was stronger than I realized.
It’s not something that’s ever happened to me before. ”
She stared at me, something fragile flickering in her gaze.
“Syl, I’ve been with other females before, but…”
“But what?” she spat.
“I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you. You mean everything to me.”
She staggered back, her face scrunched into something resembling disgust, or maybe confusion. Shock. “So, what, you decided to brand me like I’m your fucking property, like I belong to you? You knew we were coming to meet your future queen, that she could scent me on you.”
My chest heaved, but the words got stuck in my throat. The way she looked at me…like the mere thought of me marking her repulsed her, cleaved me in half.
Silence pulsed between us, heavy with things neither of us were ready to say aloud.
She turned away as if fed up with me, ready to leave me behind in the back of that tent, but I reached for her arm. “How can you act like the mere thought of me marking you disgusts you? You asked me to claim you, Syl. You begged me to.”
She yanked her arm away, her breath hitching as she squared off with me, jabbing a finger into my chest. “You bastard. That was before I knew you’d leave me in your bed alone. Before I knew you’d brand me like some war spoil, like something to be claimed and shelved.”
A shudder ran the length of my back at those words, and I could barely control the surge of magic that flooded through my heart, making it pound against my ribs like it was going to explode.
I ran a knuckle down the side of her cheek, my soul shattering into infinite jagged shards.
My voice was rough, barely under control.
“Is that what you think? That I put my mark on you to own you?”
Her jaw trembled.
I stepped closer, gently cupping her cheek.
Frostlight sparked beneath my fingers where I touched her, casting her skin in a soft, ethereal glow.
“Elskan mín…” I uttered softly, broken. “My mark is not a brand that signals to others that you belong to me. It is not a claim of my ownership. It’s a surrender of my very being.
A beacon that signals to others that I belong to you.
Always have. Long before I even knew it. And long after I take my last breath.”
I kissed her brow, my lips brushing softly over her skin. And because I couldn’t stay another second without falling to my knees, I let my magic claim me. Let it eat me whole until every fiber of my body turned into nothing but shadows and frost.