Chapter 12
DAVID
It doesn’t matter what they expect. It only matters how you react.
After Isobel carted Sean from Kywyn’s suite, those words still echoed in David’s ears, setting off a chain reaction of quiet hysteria that he bottled up.
Those few moments when he’d imagined this place might be the emancipation he’d always dreamed of felt so distant now.
How had he not learned by now to stop wishing for things?
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Kywyn said under his breath toward Sean’s aunt. “How could you omit the fact that you not only knew Elenya’s son was alive but also where he was?”
“Elenya and Lana did not want their sons found, Kywyn. There was a reason they left!” She spared a short glance at David. “Elenya tried to spare her son their prejudices. Do you think he’ll be treated well here?”
Couldn’t be worse than back home, David thought.
“Blaire—”
“I’m done arguing with you about this, Kywyn. Now, I will take my son and leave you be. I’m not needed here.”
With a last glare in David’s direction, Cole stood and followed his mother from the room.
He’d been so silent during their conversation, David had almost forgotten Cole was present, but the glare was familiar.
Fatigue, however, had worn David down, and anxiety had built a rat’s nest in his chest. He couldn’t summon the energy to respond with anything but a blank stare.
Once they were gone, stillness descended. Autumn and Kywyn traded a strange bout of eye contact, some silent conversation that David wasn’t privy to. Not that he cared. He was content to stew in the silence for a long, long time.
He replayed the story in his head once more.
Two brothers. One woman standing between them. Everyone died.
Behind his left eye, a pulsing pain roused. He needed a drink. A strong one. With gin.
Wordlessly, Autumn rose to grab a bottle of red wine. She uncorked it and poured a glass, then handed it to him. David hesitated before accepting but ultimately gave in. The wine was dry, with a crisp bite like nothing he’d ever tasted.
“There will be a bonfire tomorrow,” Kywyn said. “The realm will want to celebrate your return.” The man’s uncanny resemblance to Sean should have set off the hate receptors in David’s brain, but nothing surfaced.
He arched an eyebrow. “Celebrate my return, Kywyn? You sure?”
A small smile formed at Kywyn’s mouth. “You remind me of your mother.”
“The woman who abandoned me.”
A tint of surprise shaded the man’s emotions. “I believe she was trying to protect you.”
Yet she couldn’t have sent him anywhere more perilous.
Did they have any idea what David had been subjected to? If Blaire hadn’t told them David’s whereabouts, she sure as hell wouldn’t have told them anything else.
“She failed,” he said flatly.
Autumn cut in before Kywyn could respond. “Why don’t you come with me? I can show you where we sleep and get you cleaned up.”
“Where we sleep?”
She nodded. “We sleep together.”
David’s lips parted. Did she, with her fancy accent, understand what those words meant?
“The four of us,” she added.
Distasteful images splattered over the forefront of David’s mind, but he kept his face expressionless.
Her smile blossomed into something bright and joyous. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
After a quick goodbye to Kywyn, David followed her to the hallway. Her hand touched his, and he jerked away from the fire in her skin, but she gripped his retreating fingers. Merciless heat wound up his arm, like sunlight after spending years in cold, wet darkness.
This girl was coated in a layer of sunshine. Her ecstatic emotions were irresistible, and he wanted to draw closer, to revel in her joy.
That was…not normal.
They arrived at an intricately carved door, all vines and flowers and labyrinthine knots.
She swung it open. “This is the Sovereign quarters.”
The vestibule was manned by a plump creature with a mass of dark hair piled atop her head. Her eyes flew wide as they landed on him. “It’s— You—”
“Rowilda, meet the heir of Manae,” Autumn said in that glittering language he somehow understood.
Rowilda dropped her head, tapping her temple twice. What the—
“’Tis my honor.” She opened the entry door without looking at him again, letting them into his new digs.
A lavish foyer opened tall and wide, dominated by a round entry table.
Multiple arches led further into the suite, as welcoming as the quarters he’d just left.
To his right, a sitting room, and beyond that, a dining space with a sideboard along one wall, currently being cleaned by another squat person who had the same build as Rowilda.
A half-drunk mug of tea sat abandoned on the entry table before him.
Tiny waterfalls dripped down the corners of the rooms, falling into decorative basins.
How the hell did they get waterfalls in a tree?
Autumn followed his gaze as she trod around the table. “The water system in the Tree is Luster fed.”
David sighed, annoyed at her mind reading.
She picked the archway straight ahead, bypassing the multiple common areas, guiding him down a hall to a closed door. “We’ve kept this room clean, just in case. This is where your ancestors slept.”
“Seems like I don’t want to be associated with my ancestors. Maybe I should start fresh.”
“This is starting fresh.” Still smiling, she rolled her eyes and pointed toward a nearby door framing the messiest bedroom he’d ever seen. Why did any person need that many clothes? “My room is just there.”
David stared back and forth between the two adjacent bedrooms. “We sleep…together?”
“That’s what I said.”
He shot her a thorough side-eye. “I think you knew that’s not how it sounded.”
She grinned. “Yes.”
“Is your closet on the floor?” he asked.
Autumn’s laugh filled the space. “I’ve asked the brownies not to put things away, or I can never find them when I want them.”
A strange sort of logic.
In David’s new room, a bookshelf stuffed with archaic books took up one entire wall.
Intriguing. A second wall of windows let in so much light, he squinted against it, glad for the curtains on either side.
The four-poster was dressed with cream linens, and an open wardrobe stood opposite, empty of garments.
“We’ll get you some. You’ll look out of place in”—she pinched the sleeve of his dirty T-shirt—“mortal clothes.”
His attention drifted to her dress—crimson with an overlay of…pure light? The skirt ended mid-thigh and black leather boots wrapped her leg to the knee. Her hair wasn’t human red. It reminded him of shimmer-dusted roses.
This place was a trip.
“Sean and Bel sleep on the other side of the suite, and our washroom is over there.” She pointed to another door.
He leaned against the doorframe, torn between relief from being rid of his father and discomfort with the idea of sleeping in the vicinity of two strange women and a man he hated.
“There’s a lock on your door,” she said.
Before he could comment, she stepped closer. Her warm fingers shifted the hair resting over his scar, and he wanted to retreat, but excitement sparkled in her inhumanly gold eyes, radiated from her body. She cupped his cheek, flooding warm happiness through him.
An image of red hair, gilded by sunlight flashed through his mind. A sunny smile just like hers.
“I shall always be stronger, Galadaine! Admit it.”
“I will eclipse you someday, Rhiannon, dear. I am patient.”
“I’ve dreamed of you for years.” Autumn’s voice turned dreamy. “But seeing you, the image of Galadaine Manae, is nothing like a dream.”
Taken aback, David pulled away from her. “Were they dreams or nightmares?”
She shook her head, smile wilting. “You were like my brother. A lifetime ago.”
“Was I?”
Her gaze turned wistful, as did the kaleidoscope of happiness inside her. “You don’t remember?”
“I would save you, Galadaine, but you are too far down this path. I cannot follow.”
“I need no saving. Save yourself, Rhi, before it all collapses. And if the opportunity appears, you kill me.”
“I will not.”
“Not really,” David said, afraid to explore that memory any further. “But I think I’m remembering bits.”
Autumn nodded. “It’ll come. Why don’t you bathe, and I’ll find you something to wear?”
The shower flowed just like the waterfalls in the living areas—originating from…nowhere? Were there pipes? How the hell—
David shook himself.
Mystery for another day. He had too many questions to care where the water came from.
After the dirt and sweat from his flight through the mist had drained away, he dressed in the clothes Autumn provided him—a cotton tunic and pants—and let her drag him into the open.
Mistake.
As soon as they came upon other living creatures within the Tree, heads turned, and the surrounding emotional constellations connected with identical strands of fear. It fed an uneasiness burrowing right in the center of David’s heart.
He’d been in worse places, he told himself. Worse situations. He could handle anything that came next.
Did he want to though?
“Ignore them.” Autumn clasped his hand and motioned toward relevant points of interest on the lower floors of the Tree. Common areas. A school. The infirmary. The Great Terrace, which served as a dining hall where the four noble families held court.
David eyed the library as they passed, his hands itching to wrap around those books. How much knowledge existed in that room? He still had so many questions, so much he didn’t know.
“You can explore it later,” she said, hacking into his thoughts again. “We need to get you outside.”
“Why?”
She aimed a sweet smile at him. “So you can breathe. That was a lot of information, and you seem like someone who needs time to process.”
Fair enough. Though outside wasn’t exactly where he’d pick. They strolled toward the exit, and he ignored the overt stares, focusing instead on Autumn. The girl made of sunlight.
“So tell me about magic,” he said. “What did Kywyn call it? Luster?”