Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hal’s approving hum broke the shocked silence. “A neat solution to many problems.”
Chancellor Desor fixed a fiery look on Austin.
Under it, Austin recalled all that he knew of the man.
He had thrown Tristan and Hal into a body of water with a trapped, raging whale.
He had forced Tristan into a competition that had nearly cost him his eye.
He had separated Hal from Tristan, removing the protection he had in his older brother.
Tristan knew exactly which bones healed and which didn’t when he shifted.
A lump of hot lead sat heavy in Austin’s stomach.
“That is impossible,” Desor stated bluntly. “Our nations have been at odds since the Zatic people betrayed the Solas family and took power. Expecting us to—”
“Did you just glare at me?” Austin interrupted.
Desor’s mouth snapped shut. The following silence was tense, primed for violence.
Desor looked at Tristan for aid, but Tristan’s indifference had been replaced with hardness.
He had no choice but to meet Austin’s eyes, allowing Austin to see clearly the panic and anger swimming in them.
Austin assumed Desor knew he was a siren, but what else could he possibly know of him?
Nothing of his temperament. Nothing of how to apologise for a slight.
“No,” Desor said through his teeth. “I’m sorry if I came across that way.” He bowed to Austin. “I’m told I have a severe face, but I meant no insult.”
Austin moved his gaze to Tristan. “Do you expect me to listen to them bickering all night?”
Tristan inclined his head. “Shall I clear the table?”
Austin waved off the suggestion, standing. “I’m going to listen to Kada.”
He took deep breaths as he strode away, trying to calm the bristling anger inside him. If Tristan wished to harm Desor, he would have done so already. It wasn’t Austin’s place to step in and cause trouble. Nor was it his place to dictate what nations received aid.
Tristan caught up to him as Austin slid into an empty seat at the edge of the long table nearest the musicians. Austin kept the scowl from his face. “I did not say that for you to base your actions on.”
Tristan pulled out a chair and sat opposite him.
“You made a suggestion, and I thought it was a good one. Hal did too, if you didn’t notice.
Whether they’ll take the advice is up to them, but you are right.
By sending my Troop, I can alleviate the current ghoul problem, but unless they change, they will face the same problem next year, and the year after.
” Tristan’s full attention was on Austin.
“Are you terribly bored? I thought you might find them entertaining.”
Perhaps, if Desor hadn’t been sitting at the table putting Austin on edge, he might have. “How long will Desor be here?”
An odd look crossed Tristan’s face. “You dislike him so strongly?”
Austin gave Tristan an incredulous look. “Why is that surprising? After all Desor did to you? Of course I dislike him! I don’t understand why Hal even let him into the city. You don’t forgive him, do you?”
Tristan thought about it. “When Hal and I reunited here, Desor sent us letter after letter. Naturally, we ignored them, and when we learned that he was coming to see us in person, Hal took me aside and asked what I wished to do with him.”
“And?”
“Hal studied justice in the Citadel, and I thought he would know best what punishment our upbringing deserved.”
“But he’s free. He’s not being punished.”
“Not physically. Desor traded much for us when we were born. He went from belonging to one of the wealthiest families in Asar, second only to the royal family, to a man with only a family home and a scant bank account remaining. We were meant to gain it all back for him. He needed only wait until we were grown, and then none would be able to oppose his family…or so he thought. Hal thought that rather than killing or torturing him, simply denying him the advantage he had traded his family’s fortune for would hurt more.
His power is little now. As you can see, he is not regarded well, even within his own court. ”
“So your question, forgiving or not forgiving…” Tristan shrugged. “He doesn’t matter enough for either.”
Austin stared hard into Tristan’s face, not understanding, not really, and envying him all the same.
He was reminded of Liam. Of his calmness while Austin raged, emotional and uncontrollable.
Tristan had grown up in conditions similar to Austin’s own, yet he had emerged from it intact.
Austin’s childhood had spat him out broken.
Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “I have upset you.”
“You haven’t. I’m thinking about Cessair. I don’t think I could ever think of him and feel as little as you do about your father.”
Tristan placed his hand over Austin’s where it lay carelessly on the table. Austin picked out Kada’s pipes among the symphony. He focused on that and the warmth of Tristan’s hand.
“I have had more time,” Tristan said. “Nor was all my childhood spent with him. My teens were spent here, with Hal to guide me.”
“You don’t need to lessen your own trials. I’m emotional. It’s innate. I would have been this way even if I had grown up with only Liam.”
Tristan’s lips quirked.
“What?”
“Bee and Dew aren’t the only ones who enjoy your personality, Austin,” Tristan said. “I count myself among that number. You need not talk about your nature as if it is a disappointment because it is not.”
Eli popped out of the crowd before Austin could respond.
“I told Reba you’d be bored up there within the hour.
” He sat next to Austin. “Shall I share with you some actual entertainment now?” Without pausing for breath, Eli launched into an explanation of the ongoing scandals of Hal’s court, which, Eli was right, were far more interesting than the bickering at the high table.
A servant brought Tristan a plate of food, and Tristan ate idly as he scanned the room, his gaze sharpening on any who wandered too near.
As Eli paused for breath between scandals, Austin nodded toward the high table. “I was surprised to see the terrible beauty next to Hal.”
“Terrible beauty?” Eli cackled. “Got on your bad side, has he?”
“No, I like him.”
At the table, Kas startled.
“He’ll love that,” Eli said. “Kas has been Prince Hal’s only companion since he was stripped of half his fortune.
Half the city claims that he has Prince Hal bewitched with his beauty, the other half claims he has Hal too afraid to so much as glance at anyone else.
‘Terrible beauty’ indeed. Kas. Kas. Kas. Kas.”
Kas turned his head and pointedly scowled at Eli.
“Kas has excellent hearing,” Eli explained. “His family’s a bit of a mixed bag in terms of monsters. You wouldn’t guess it looking at him, would you? But the Spears are always beautiful. I reckon there must be fairy in his line somewhere, not that they’d admit it.”
“Why not?”
“They’d get eaten.”
Kas stood. Austin turned to Eli. “What?”
“Fairies are extinct now. The Solas family ate them all.”
At Austin’s incredulous look, Eli continued.
“Consuming fairies gave them long lives. Some of that family lived for almost five hundred years, but their children were born addicted to fairies—they’d die without them.
More children, more eating, fewer fairies.
By the time the Zatic family—now an empire—rose up against them, there were hardly any fairies left at all. ”
“That family are all dead now?” Austin’s voice came out in such a way that Tristan’s attention snapped to his face, and Eli hesitated. Tristan’s lapse in vigilance allowed Kas to step up next to them without resistance.
“Yes,” Kas said. “They’re all dead. King Micythus’s ancestors burned their bodies so nobody could eat them and gain the power they were trying to destroy, but the ashes held a potent enough magic still.
They sent out ships to the deepest trench of the ocean and dumped every last grain of that family into it. ”
A deep northern trench…
“Is that where your academic wanted those shells dredged up from?” Austin asked Tristan. Unease crawled up his spine. Cessair’s impossible, manic dream took on the shape of something possible.
Kas tensed. “Someone retrieved the ashes?”
“Their request was denied,” Austin said, staring hard at Tristan.
“I’d have to look at a map,” Tristan said. “Though perhaps their request was not as silly as it initially seemed… It’s a deep trench, Austin. I might manage going that deep, but I’m far more resilient than most. You or Hal wouldn’t be able to, nor would any other merfolk I’ve ever met.”
“And you won’t ever retrieve such a thing.”
“I won’t,” Tristan said.
Austin relaxed. Tristan truly seemed totally uninterested, even after learning something that could prolong his life lay somewhere he could access.
“Well, that doesn’t answer our question about…” Eli raised his brows towards Kas and received a fierce glare from the terrible beauty.
A defensive feeling flared inside Austin.
He was far too accustomed to how it felt to have others think the key to immortality lay locked inside your body.
It was a dangerous thing to have tied to your blood.
“He doesn’t look at all like he has fairy blood,” Austin said, his voice taking on a biting edge.
Eli leaned back in surprise, though he didn’t flinch. He read Austin’s expression and nodded.
“No,” Eli agreed smoothly, “it’s the most ridiculous rumour I’ve ever heard, and I’ll be sure to never repeat it again. He’s pretty enough to be related to merfolk, don’t you think? If falling short of passing for a siren.”