CHAPTER 62
With Beltane now past, and many gentry and nobles off to their summer homes in the country, evening festivities had grown quieter. Only one group of musicians played a tune near the base of the grand staircase, and a few fae danced nearby.
A half-moon peeked over Bristol’s shoulder, illuminating the porcelain plate shivering in her hands.
She viewed the delicacies that the Sun Court buffet tables offered.
Food, she thought. I only need food. She still hadn’t eaten since that morning.
Her stomach was eager, but her mind still wrestled with Pengary’s words. Our kind always stick together.
She swallowed, her stomach spinning uneasily.
Details kept jabbing her like darts: her affinity with fire, Pengary’s golden scales, his claws that were blue at the root.
And then another detail stabbed her—the drawing.
Her lifelong obsession with da Vinci’s dragon.
And then Cully’s words when Pengary tried to leap from the pillar: That hasn’t happened in years.
He must have sniffed new blood passing by.
Her blood. Heat flashed across her face.
Circumstantial, she told herself, forcing a shallow breath.
Everyone is six degrees from something. Her stomach wobbled as much as the plate in her hand.
She heaped a large spoonful of hot thyme potatoes onto it.
And then salmon puffs drizzled with dill béarnaise.
She breathed in the rich, warm aroma, her cheeks swelling with anticipation.
It was a welcome and needed distraction.
Of course she was rattled. She had just released her father from a fucking slab of marble.
She was being bombarded with too many emotions.
Food—that’s what I need to concentrate on.
She moved down the line, piling her plate with more, both sweet and savory, downing a palm-size vanilla tart as she went.
But Kasta’s words haunted her. If anyone spots him, he’s a dead man. No one would find him, she assured herself. Not Logan Keats, the wonder of Danu—
But they had found him once, or he wouldn’t have been imprisoned. He wasn’t impervious. He was a man.
She held her plate steady in one hand and poured herself a glass of wine with the other. And then she felt a presence close at her back, hot and angry. She didn’t turn around.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Tyghan said.
Her spine stiffened, her back becoming a wall. “The only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is if you knew what she did. Did you know he was in the pillar?”
“I knew.”
His answer, quick and unrepentant, jolted her, but she steadied herself. And then the same demanding voice. “Where is he?”
She felt his scowl, and the sharp edge of his words. He had no idea what anger was, but she remembered what her friends said: With you two at war, the other war looked grimmer. She still intended to win this war, and all the battles between, including the one at hand.
“Smile, Your Majesty. In case you hadn’t noticed, every eye in Sun Court is on us.”
He pressed closer, his heat radiating onto her. He whispered quietly against her neck. “I don’t give a fuck who’s watching us.”
She set her plate down and turned to face him, and flinched at the burn of his eyes.
“You should care,” she said. “Because the two of us happily working together inspires faith and trust in a victory to those watching. Appearances matter. Of course, you know how to make quite a show of that already, don’t you?
Wasn’t that the whole purpose of your grand gesture last week, when you held my hand over our heads for your troops?
” She drew out her next words, coating them with sugary sarcasm.
“And what are we without faith and trust?”
“Exactly,” he replied, still set on getting what he wanted. “How long have you known that it was Kasta who found your father first?”
Kasta had confessed? “Weeks ago, when I met with him in the barn.”
“And yet you didn’t tell me?”
“She had helped him. I didn’t want to condemn her for that.”
“But when she no longer served your purpose, you blackmailed her?”
She definitely confessed. “Don’t you dare judge me for that. All my father is guilty of is wanting to save my mother. Kasta was no longer helping him—and I found a fast way to change her mind. In case you forgot what I told you when you were wrestling with demons, I love my father.”
“Over everything else apparently.”
He turned to leave but she grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”
“To get my things out of your room, before I find them out in the hallway. I’m moving back to my room.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. “There will be no moving. Look around you.”
This time he did. It was clear they were having a heated conversation and, indeed, every head had turned their way. He pulled his arm free, his gaze locked onto hers, thoughts steaming in his eyes. “You don’t even know Kierus.”
“I know my own father.”
“Open your eyes, Bristol. You know the man from the mortal world, the artist who raised you. That’s not who he is here.
Here he’s a knight on a mission. I know that man, and I know him far better than you do.
We trained and worked together for eighteen years.
I know how he thinks, how he moves, and what lengths he’ll go to to get what he wants—and he wants Maire.
” He raked his fingers through his hair.
“Yes, he was the wonder of Danu, but he’s a mortal, dammit!
How do you think he got that reputation?
We were best friends. How many times do you think I saved him?
I was the one covering his back, time after time, keeping him alive.
I was watching his back this time, too, until you interfered. ”
“Are you insane? How is putting him in a pillar for a thousand years watching his back?”
“One month. That’s all I gave him, just long enough to keep him out of the way, and out of the council’s hands. To keep him from being captured again by someone else—like Kormick. Because that’s what will happen.”
A mocking laugh jumped from her chest. “One month? You expect me to buy that? Cully said from the start that it was a thousand years. My father said the same. He was already feeling hopeless. Everyone knows the sentence for Judge’s Walk. If it was truly only a month, why didn’t you just tell me?”
“The way you told me about Kasta and your father? The way you blackmailed her behind my back? The way you released a dangerous beast to add to our worries? I wish just once you would trust my judgment as Knight Commander and king.” His jaw clenched, like fury was about to explode out of his head, but he kept his words tight and low.
“I didn’t tell you because I am trying to juggle a thousand details for a nation on the brink of war.
Because I have to make some decisions without announcing them to the whole world.
Because every eye in court is always on me, just like you said.
Because . . . because I’m the fucking king. La-di-da!”
She glanced at the suddenly silent plaza, even the musicians pausing their play, straining to hear their words.
Tyghan shook his head with disgust. He stepped forward and pulled her into his arms, kissing her long and hard, but there was no tenderness or love in his touch. He pulled away. “There. Do you think that convinced them? I agree. Appearances matter.”
He turned and walked away.