Seravyn
The great hall has gone mad.
Tonight, the world is upside down. The court has been throwing itself into the feast for hours, drowning the imminent war in cask after cask of Aldric’s best wine.
The minstrels are playing badly on purpose.
The footmen are pouring wine onto the stone floor in mock toasts.
A lord is wearing a kitchen maid’s apron.
The kitchen maid is wearing his sash. Two of the hall’s velvet curtains have been torn down and turned into gowns for women who dance, most of their skin on display.
And everywhere, courtiers are finding ways to bask in the reverie, turning chaste court decorum into a feast of lust—groping, dancing, kissing.
This is the Lord of Misrule.
What folly looks like when it’s been sanctioned by a tyrant of a king.
I sit at the high table in a gown of crimson silk that Aldric has chosen for me, the bodice fitted so snug I have to take shallow breaths not to spill out of the extremely low neckline. The skirt cuts a high slit up my leg.
Aldric sits beside me. His hand has been on my thigh for the better part of the first hour. His fingers spread possessive over the silk, his rings cool through the fabric, and every so often he slides his thumb in a slow circle, testing, reminding me who I belong to.
I take a sip of wine, just to dull the sharp fury of it.
The king’s official court jester is a short, stocky man named Prineus.
Tradition states that, during the Lord of Misrule feast, the court fool can sit on the king’s throne, preside over the feast, and mock the courtiers—and even the king himself—without consequence.
Though no fool has truly been foolish enough to test it against King Aldric.
I turn my gold wine goblet by the stem. “When do the actual festivities begin, My Lord?” I ask this to keep things light between us, and in the hopes of hurrying the feast along. “I’ve heard that Prineus’s act during the feast is highly entertaining.”
Aldric’s cheek rests against his fist, and he slowly cocks his head my way. “Is my bride so easily bored?” he says, his thumb continuing to leisurely swirl. “As I understand it, you’ve found plenty of ways to keep yourself amused while I’ve been detained away from court.”
My neck straightens. “Of course. So many things have to be done before the wedding,” I say, keeping my voice light. “I’ve been kept plenty busy.”
He hums a gruff sound from deep in his chest. “Interesting, considering you’ve yet to get fitted for your wedding gown.”
I take another slow sip of wine.
Aldric shifts, leaning closer to me, his voice lowering. “I don’t so much mind where you seek entertainment, love,” he says, a threat hedged beneath his words. “So long as come our wedding night, the sheets are left crimson.”
At this, I meet his cold blue eyes, unable to hide the sudden shock in my features. “I’m not sure what you’re implying, My Lord.”
A lopsided grin tugs at his full lips. “As a princess of the Thorn Court, I find that difficult to believe,” he says, then merely turns his attention to the dancing courtiers.
“I had thought that, by accepting my father’s dying wish to make peace with Threnmere by marrying its most beloved princess, I was doing the noble thing.
” Aldric leans close to me once more. “I confess that, against my better judgement, I was resigned to this course. A means to an end. And I wanted to do little more with you than fuck an heir into you, then place you away, out of my sight.”
The air vacates my lungs. I hold his severe gaze, trying not to blink, to flinch. To show any sign of distress or the fury seething in my veins.
Aldric’s smile pulls higher at the corner of his mouth.
He moves in, placing his lips right up against my ear.
“Then you arrived, and every day since, I’ve had to look at the sadness in your eyes, your pouty little mouth.
Your breasts heaving above your bodice, as if the strain to simply breathe costs you.
” He backs away, finding my gaze. “I couldn’t figure you out, Morvaine.
How to appease you, make you happy enough to please my kingdom with its queen.
And then, I tried not to think of you at all. ”
His thumb stops atop my thigh. Then slowly, his hand inches upward, the force of his touch demanding.
“Nor to want you,” he whispers, making me shiver. “And yet, I find that I can’t help myself.”
Aldric moves away and reaches for his goblet, downing a healthy swallow of wine.
“You’re a maddening woman, Seravyn.” His gaze slips over me, something dark and vile buried there.
“And it appalls me to confess that seeing you give a smile to a lowly, ragged jester makes me rife with a feral kind of envy.”
He looks across the hall, to where Ren is leaning against a stone pillar, and his jaw tightens.
A flame of fear fans to life in my chest, and I measure my voice when I say, “It’s a tad ridiculous for a king of your stature to be jealous over a jester, don’t you think, My Lord?”
His features darken. “Let us find out just how ridiculous.” He raises his hand and snaps his fingers, and the servant tops off his cup.
Aldric then rises from his seat. Lifts the gold goblet in the air. The hall quiets, all faces turning to their king.
“My friends,” Aldric bellows. “For this one night, we have a tradition. The Lord of Misrule. The fool who reigns, who turns the court on its head, who pisses on our customs and makes us laugh in the face of it.”
The court cheers, applause cracks in approval.
“And tradition demands that my own jester sit on my throne.” Aldric gestures lazily toward Prineus, who has been preening in anticipation. “But I say tradition has grown stale, and what is the Lord of Misrule if not the night we tear down all tradition?”
A sudden wave of dread crashes through me, my gaze darting to Ren amid the crowd.
“My queen-to-be has a jester of her own now,” Aldric continues, looking down at me adoringly, though I can see the furious curl of his lips. “A fool who has, against all odds, charmed her into laughter. A fool who has succeeded in making the Princess Seravyn smile.”
The court turns. A hundred faces. A hundred glazed, drunken eyes finding Ren where he stands at the back of the hall, bathed in the shadow of torchlight, his hat in his hands, his expression unreadable.
I can’t breathe.
Aldric is furious over Ren being able to succeed where he cannot, and he wants to punish him for it. It’s not that Aldric wants me. It’s that he wants no other to have any claim over me—my smiles, my laughs, my affections. My mind. Body.
“Come, fool!” Aldric calls. He’s laughing, his features tensing in a dangerous way. “Tonight, you rule over my court. Tonight, you are the Lord of Misrule.”
The crowd erupts.
Goblets bang on tables. Boots stamp. Lords shout. Someone shoves Ren forward, and Ren stumbles a step before catching himself.
He looks up and locks with my gaze.
The softening of his mouth tries to reassure me, but it’s his fisted hand that tells the truth. His knuckles have gone white where he grips the hat.
He walks the length of the hall, the bells on his motley tolling a dangerous theme. The court is laughing, calling his name, throwing pieces of bread at him in mock celebration, and he doesn’t look at any of them—his eyes trained on me.
As Ren moves toward the dais, his gaze shifts to look at the king who stands atop it. He stops when he reaches the first step.
Aldric snaps his fingers once again, and one of his men brings a circlet woven of straw and gilded paper from the table. A mock crown for a mock king.
He holds the woven crown, then with a sneer, tosses it away. “No, this won’t do.” He faces Ren, head tilting menacingly as he regards the jester. “Kneel, fool,” the king orders.
A moment of hesitancy, then Ren does as commanded, lowering himself down onto one knee, but he does not lower his eyes. A muscle ticks in his jaw, the knuckles of his fisted hand bleached at his side.
Aldric removes the crown from his own head of white-blond hair, and the court falls to a hush. My stomach dips. This isn’t right. It goes against the crown, every custom.
Aldric himself has gone mad.
As Aldric places his crown on Ren’s head, he announces, “The fool is crowned mock-king, chaos reigns tonight.”
The court cheers, a wild kind of anarchy.
“Rise, Lord of Misrule,” the king declares.
Slowly, Ren rises to his feet, the king’s crown cocked slightly askew on his head. My heart thunders at the sight.
Aldric slings an arm across Ren’s shoulders—too heavy, too possessive, turning Ren toward the chairs that have been placed before the high table.
Aldric shoves Ren into the one on the right, then lowers his face next to Ren’s, having a brief, whispered exchange before he straightens and strides around the table. I only have a moment to question the king with my widened eyes before he’s grabbing me by the wrist and pulling up me to stand.
“Come, my love,” he says curtly to me. “You must join your king for the celebration.”
I clench my skirt, lifting it above my slippered feet as I’m dragged to the chair on the dais—the one right next to Ren, who sits there stiffly, his hands gripped to the carved armrests. Aldric maneuvers me into the chair, not so gently, and I see Ren’s shoulders stiffen.
Ren looks at me, his jaw locked tight. I widen my eyes, shake my head, imploring him not to speak to me—not to say a single word my way until this is over.
The court is screaming with delight. Aldric is grinning. He claps Ren on the shoulder, hard, then turns to address the hall in a booming voice about folly and the great inversion of tradition, and through all of it Ren sits perfectly still, his fingers gripped to the armrest.
When the speech is done, Aldric turns to his mock king, a devious light blazing behind his cool eyes. “Enjoy your moment, fool.”
My chest constricts at what that sentiment implies, that it may be his last.