Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
I plead a headache the next day as the prince and his cohort of ass-kissers ride out for another afternoon of bride hunting. After last night, I don't have the stomach for it.
He doesn't quite look disappointed when I say I'm staying, though he does smile and murmur, "Avoiding me again?"
To which I roll my eyes. "Only you would think I've feigned a headache to avoid your company."
"I don't know what gives me that idea."
Caught.
"If you're feeling better tonight, perhaps you might care to play a game of Redcap with me in my rooms?"
It's the perfect opportunity. I don't know why I hesitate. "Perhaps. If I feel better."
He nods and mounts up, but his hot eyes watch me as he wheels his black stallion out the gate.
I waste no time. Despite the invitation—or perhaps because of it—I decide it's my only chance to search the prince's rooms. He doesn't always wear the claw, though try as I might, I couldn't see whether he was wearing it beneath his shirt when he left.
Afternoon sunlight is when I'm at my worst, but it's a simple matter to Sift into his bedchambers.
Not quite so simple to find what I'm looking for.
There's no sign of the relic. He must be wearing it, which means I must face him again.
Tonight.
I glance at his bed. I joked about it with Soraya, but the idea of stealing a kiss from the prince just so I can slip the relic from around his throat makes my stomach roil. We've barely had any time together—I have been avoiding him of late—but I know his thoughts on betrayal.
And worse, I know the feel of it.
I don't want to do this.
It was one thing to filch Angmar's precious trident. The king is Seelie through and through, and makes Ismena look like a kindly soul. I enjoyed stealing it, truth be told.
But Prince Keir has been kind. He's solicitous, charming, protective.... And while he's making a pretense of playing the game, I know the deaths of the two princesses have bothered him greatly.
I won't pretend he's not dangerous. It's there in every step he takes, every flicker of those hot gold eyes. The man's a predator who exists at the top of the food chain. Cross him, and I'm sure he'll rain his wrath down upon you.
But he's not cruel.
And he doesn't deserve this.
Think of the soul-trap. Think of freedom. Think of everything you can do when you're no longer beholden to the wraith king.
It doesn't help.
Because once I'm free, what then?
I have nowhere to go. I have no one to go to.
And every time I look in the mirror, I'll know my freedom came at the cost of his trust.
It makes me feel dirty.
* * *
That night, every eye is on Ismena, and she knows it. There's an air of nervousness around the dining room.
Nobody goes anywhere alone—even to the washroom—and dinner conversation is subdued. There's no sign of Prince Keir.
Probably a good thing, for I haven't yet resolved my feelings in regards to tonight's invitation.
If I don't go to his rooms, I'll probably never get another invitation.
If I do, then I'll destroy the hint of... something... that lingers between us.
"Well, since the company is so subdued tonight, I think I might just retire." Ismena makes a grand show of pushing her chair back.
Over a dozen eyes watch her.
And she's clearly a little bothered by the fact no one says anything.
She recovers well. "I guess I'll see you all in the morning. Or whoever makes it through until dawn."
Nasty words, but as she leaves, I realize her shoulders are squared and her fingers curl into the fabric of her skirts, as if she can practically feel the daggers lobbed at her back.
Or as if she's scared.
Something has been bothering me about the entire ordeal.
Ismena's a typical Seelie bitch; quite content to tear others to shreds when she's one of the group, but now she stands alone she's almost scared. She's not the type to face a fight without someone at her back. A coward through and through, who only gains her claws in company.
But now the little coterie she formed on the first day has vanished. Altrea and Narcissa were her closest allies, and the other girl who hovered in their shadows—Louella of Goldenrod—is suddenly pretending Ismena has the pox.
Altrea and Narcissa. Why were they the first to fall?
Why would Ismena kill them?
Narcissa may have won a private picnic with the prince, but he's made it clear he's unimpressed with their nasty jibes.
As Calliope said, the other girls see me as the competition, but although the Banewolf attacked me the other night, I wasn't the target.
And Ismena hates me.
If she had anything to do with this, then I would have been the first victim and Narcissa and Altera would have cheered her on.
I've been so distracted by the prince and Soraya, that I didn't even think it through.
With Ismena gone, the other princesses are also retiring.
A prickle of suspicion trickles down my spine.
The attacks have happened every night, and I cannot help but wonder if my suspicions are correct, and I know who the next victim will be.
I make my escape politely and dart around the nearest massive column into the shadows there. She has a head start on me, but I can move quicker than she can.
Blurring from shadow to shadow, I soon catch a glimpse of Ismena, pausing in the hallway that leads to her room.
One of the sconces suddenly dies, right outside her chambers. Ismena freezes. "Hello?" she calls softly. "Is anyone there?"
Why are there no guards in this section of the palace?
Another lamp abruptly plunges into darkness.
Sibilant laughter whispers through the hallway, and it doesn't sound as if it comes from any sort of fae throat.
"What's wrong?" whispers the voice. "Are you frightened, Ismena?"
Ismena staggers back a step, but she's whirling round, as if she's too afraid to flee. "Guards? Guards!"
"No one's coming to save you." There's a shadowy figure at the end of the hall, and it's suddenly rushing toward the princess. "You will die alone, and nobody will give a damn because nobody cares about you."
Ismena screams and finally turns to flee.
The cloaked figure is almost upon her, lifting a knife to plunge it into her back.
I Sift into the world again, slamming into the assassin. Rolling apart, we come onto hands and knees staring at each other, as Ismena bolts to safety.
And then I blink.
I'd been unsure of which princess the assassin would be, but the woman staring back at me—
"Calliope?" What in the Cauldron's name?
There's a sharp, merciless edge to her face as if her glamour's slipped. Eyes glowing molten in the night, she bares her teeth. "Where did you come from?"
"What are you doing?" I demand, tension coiling through my body. But I already know the answer. "You killed Altrea and Narcissa."
"They deserved it."
"They were harmless," I snap. "All teeth and claws, but no bite."
She straightens with a dangerous grace, and so do I. I can't help thinking of poor Narcissa's hands, forever reaching through that wall. What a horrible way to die.
"If it had been you who met my nightmares, do you think either of them would have shed a tear, Worm?" she demands.
"It's just a name," I reply. "Why care what someone hateful calls you? Once this was over, I'd never have given them another thought. They were stupid and wretched and unimportant."
And perhaps they knew it, deep in their hearts.
Perhaps it's the sense of such self-doubt that causes such petty princesses to try and tear each other down.
"Why?" I whisper.
None of this makes any sense, for Calliope's never shown any great interest in stealing the prince for herself.
And she was the one who told me I was the competition.
Why kill them if they're no threat to her? Why... is she even here if she has no interest in the prince's hand in marriage?
"I am born of greatness. And I shall not suffer the likes of them looking down their noses at me." Calliope seems to grow taller. "They are nothing to me. They ought to have groveled. Instead, they earned their fate when they sneered."
Greatness? What is wrong with her? "Why are your eyes glowing?" I whisper.
"Because it's waking," she whispers, shadows stretching out behind her like wings.
"What's waking?"
"You don't want to find out. Get out of here. I don't want to have to hurt you. You have done me some kindness these past few days. I remember."
"But the other princesses are fair game?"
"The other princesses are merely distraction." She draws another knife. "I'm not here for them. Nor am I here for you. If you get out of my way, I won't kill you."
"You're here for Keir." He'd said he thought someone had twisted the Other World to their magic, but this makes no sense. "You plan to kill him? Why?"
"Because I need to eat his heart."
Of all the things I expected her to say.... "Old lover? Killed your father? Owes your people a debt he won't repay?"
"This is not revenge," she croons, caressing the knife in her hand.
I step back, watching it carefully. "I thought you didn't have a taste for meat." She's picked at every meal here, eating only that which comes from the ground or the forest.
"This is not about flesh."
With each step closer, Calliope's eyes seem just a little more inhuman.
I once thought them akin to an eagle's eyes, but now I'm not so sure.
I've seen that amber glow before, as if something primordial looks back at you.
Every instinct I own is telling me to flee, but I can't help thinking of the prince.
"The blood of ancient queens runs through my veins," Calliope croons. "I can feel it waking in me, but I'm not strong enough. Not yet. I can't access the reservoir of power within me. I can't Awaken. I need his heart to bloom."
"Easy now, Caterpillar. Eating a fae heart is only going to give you indigestion. Especially this one."
If not a fatal sword in the guts. She's trying to bite off more than she can chew.
"Haven't you realized what you're dabbling with yet?" she sneers. "You think the prince is fae?"
"What do you think he is?"