Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Two hours later, there’s no sign of Keir.
What is he doing?
I pace the party, trying to hold my own with people I don’t care about and trying to avoid both Falion and Mistmark.
Someone laughs about how “Malechus is keeping such a close eye on dear Anissa,” and the group I’m passing all exchange secret smiles.
I slip among them, hoping for more information, but the only other thing I glean is that with Belladonna marrying, Malechus’s stakes as a bachelor just increased.
And that’s when I finally see Keir, surrounded by a flock of pretty fae woman.
Our eyes meet across the garden.
This was my idea. But I hate the way it feels to see him with a pair of handsome blondes practically perched on his knees.
Stop it, I tell myself. They’re hardly perched upon him. And they’re gigglers. He hates gigglers….
It doesn’t matter if he hates gigglers or not, because he’s doing exactly what you asked of him.
“Stop staring at him. Stop staring at him. Stop staring at him,” I whisper under my breath, and turn to intercept another servant with a tray of iced lemons.
I’ve eaten three already.
But I should have been watching my back, instead of Keir.
“The Lady Merisel of Greenslieves,” Belladonna purrs, linking her forearm through mine as she slips out of nowhere. “Walk with me.”
Clearly, there’s little choice. “An honor, Your Highness, though are you not busy with your forthcoming wedding?”
“For you, I’ll make time.” She cuts me a smile and leads me toward the maze.
What is with this maze?
If I were Malechus, I’d send a dozen dryads into it to hide, and I’d have every secret that’s available at this bloody court.
The thought makes me look closely at every tree in the row. Not a single face is revealed in any of the trunks, but a shiver runs down my spine regardless.
And then my mind helpfully conjures a recap of Mistmark and Falion’s conversation.
Not helpful.
It’s a big maze. It’s not as though the beast will be lurking near the party….
You can always throw Belladonna at it….
“The wedding celebrations have been lovely thus far,” I say, though I’m terrible at small talk.
And who needs to make it right now?
Clearly, she’s not dragging me in here because she thinks I’m a stimulating conversationalist.
I can get away, I remind myself. She can’t chase me through the shadows.
“Then thank Malechus.” Is there an edge to her voice? “He’s the one who’s hosting this entire mockery.”
Mockery? I cut her a look. “You care not for the Lord of Mistmark?”
“I care not for marriage.” Belladonna turns directly toward the wall of trees on our right and whispers something to them. The trees shift apart—they actually uproot themselves and walk—and then we’re facing a low stone wall, a little secret garden in the middle of the maze.
There’s even a door with a brass knob.
Belladonna pricks her finger on a needle she has tucked in her belt, and then presses the welling bead of blood to the handle. The door swings open, and she shoves me through into a walled garden filled with dozens of nocturnal flowers.
A circular pool dominates the little garden. The moon’s reflection shimmers there, and though gorgeous night-blooming blood lilies decorate its surface, I catch a glimpse of little foxfire lights dancing among their red petals.
I don’t dare go closer, just in case the flowers ensorcel me.
This is the Court of Blood, after all, and something has to feed them. Beneath the surface are bound to be yards of tangled vines. Hungry, strangling vines. It’s what gives the plants their name.
I face the princess. “What is going on? What do you want?”
“Poor, sweet Merisel,” she says, watching me with her back pressed against the door. “I’ve had my eye on you from the moment you arrived, did you know?”
I arch a brow. “Me?”
“I wondered what sort of woman had stolen his heart,” she says coldly. “I wondered what sort of woman had survived the plot that saw my sister killed.”
Ah. She wants to know how Narcissa died. “It was a terrible thing—”
“A terrible thing indeed,” Belladonna cuts me off. “I saw the horror in her eyes when Prince Keir had her body returned to us. And I know my sister. Narcissa feared nothing. And yet some sort of dream-forged monster stains her corpse with terror? I think not.”
I can see the wall again and those hands clutching for safety.
Narcissa was entombed alive and by the time Keir had her chiseled free of the marble, she was long dead.
I very nearly suffered the same fate.
The horror of that moment lingers still, like a phantom fright within my heart that needs only receive a single thought of remembrance in order to rear itself again.
“Your sister was brave,” I say softly. “But Calliope was… a monster.”
I don’t even know if that was the truth.
I liked her. Until she decided to kill me, I thought we were friends.
But from what she’d said, her mother had poisoned her mind.
She spent years telling Calliope she was special, and that if she ate Keir’s heart she would be able to transform into “what she was meant to become.”
“You’re a liar.” Pushing closer, Belladonna suddenly digs her fingers into the barely-healed wound across my hip.
Despite years of conditioning, I hiss and grab her wrist.
Her green eyes light up. “Ah. Then I was right. What were you doing in Anissa’s maid’s room last night? Come to finish the job?”
“The job?” I push her hand away from me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And Anissa? The Lady of Withenwold? I barely even know her. Why would I be in her rooms?”
Belladonna’s lip curls. “I know you’re up to something, you poisonous little toadstool. I don’t deem it coincidence that you were there when my sister died, and last night I just happened to cut an intruder in Lady Anissa’s rooms with my magic. Show me your right side and prove it wasn’t you.”
Protest dies on my lips. If I refuse her, she’ll know for certain it was me.
“Would I not still be bleeding if it was me that you’d cut?
” The dress I’m wearing is a confection of black silk, with ample amounts of flesh showing.
The fabric drapes around my throat, crosses in the front over my breasts, and then flows into my skirts.
My lower back and navel are bare and there’s a gold collar around my throat that holds it all together.
It took me two maids and a lot of guesswork to get into it.
And some inventive cursing toward Keir.
I tug one of the pieces of material aside, revealing the curve of my right flank. The skin there is pink and tender. “See? No cut. I bumped into the corner of the vanity this morning though, so I daresay I’ll expect a bruise.”
Belladonna traces a clawed fingernail down the phantom remnants of the wound, and I grit my teeth.
If I was free to be myself, I’d punch her in the face, but I’m not.
Sweet, innocent Merisel would never confront a princess of the Blood Court.
She shoves me back, toward the pond. “Your innocent smile doesn’t fool me, you little wretch.
I’ve questioned every princess who was at the Court of Dreams that night.
Ismena said you were the only one unaccounted for the night my sister died and that you were friends with this Calliope.
My sister could kill a fae from a hundred feet away.
So how did a single madwoman manage to take her down? ”
Another shove, and I feel my heeled slippers take in the edge of the pool.
I shoot the pond a wary look.
The foxfire lights in the blood lilies flicker with frenetic energy. A vine slithers through the water toward me as if it senses my shadow.
If I land in that water, I won’t be coming out again.
“Tell me the truth,” Belladonna snarls, lunging closer. “Look me in the eye and tell me you had nothing to do with my sister’s death. Tell me you didn’t see a chance to thin the competition and whisper Narcissa’s name in your friend’s ear.”
I grab a fistful of her gown. If I’m going in, she’s coming too.
“I had nothing to do with her death! Calliope fooled me just as much as she fooled the others! I’ll bet our dearest Ismena forgot to mention what happened the night Calliope tried to kill her?
I was the one who saved her. And when Ismena bolted for safety, Calliope tried to shove me in the damned wall too. Does that sound like I was involved?”
“Oh, she mentioned what happened.” Belladonna’s hands capture my wrists. “You came out of nowhere, she said. You appeared as if you’d leapt out of thin air and drove them both to the ground.”
I still.
I’d Sifted and attacked Calliope from behind. Ismena had been so panicked, I’d hoped she’d been confused enough in the rush for her to think I’d run at them.
“I know you were there last night,” Belladonna whispers, pushing me backward until I’m arching over the pond. A hungry tendril reaches for me. “And I know what you can do. It was you last night in Anissa’s rooms, wound or no wound. Admit it.”
I panic as my heel slips on the edge.
The only way out of this is to Sift—which will prove her point.
“If you truly thought me involved,” I try to bluff, “then you wouldn’t be questioning me. You’d have simply pushed me in the pond by now. So what do you truly want from me?”
There’s a moment where we stare at each other.
And I see it in her eyes. I guessed right.
She sets her sharp fingernails to my chest, right over my heart. A sudden sharp pain spears through me, leaving my head spinning.
Suddenly, the pond is the least of the possible dangers here.
“I don’t know how you turned yourself invisible last night.
” She leans closer, her lips whispering against my ear.
“And I don’t care. Kill my future husband, Merisel, and all is forgiven.
Kill him and bring me his heart, and I won’t snap shut the curse I just twined around your heart.
But do it soon. Before this fiasco of a wedding ceremony is completed. ”
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