Seventh Bell
SERAPHAE
And I was trying to pretend that I wasn't. Poorly.
I’d been in bed, falling asleep, the alcohol surging in my system. Then Riven appeared in the shadows of my cottage and said three words that flipped the world upside down.
Then they showed up.
Caelan had been standing on my front steps when I opened the door. And of course he looked as beautiful as I had remembered. Painfully, annoyingly beautiful. I wanted to punch myself for walking away, and I was drunk and shouldn't have been thinking about kissing him, but I absolutely was.
Maelor stood beside him. Arms crossed, looking like he was holding back many things to say.
The severity of my intoxication was made known when I had very ungracefully tripped on my own front step coming out to meet them.
Completely missed it because I was looking at Caelan, and Riven had caught me. At the same time that Caelan had reached out and caught my other arm.
So there I was, standing in front of the cottage, being held upright by the prince that was never mine and his Captain of the Guard who was starting to have a habit of being there every time I fought gravity.
I looked at Riven.
He looked at me.
Then I looked at Caelan.
Who was also looking at me.
Then I looked at Maelor, who looked like he was watching something very interesting unravel and didn't know whether to stop it or let it continue for entertainment purposes.
He chose the latter.
Carefully, I removed my arm from both men, straightened my nightgown, and walked. Wobbled. But it was done with my chin up and without further incident, all the way until I was inside.
I did not turn to watch the men follow.
The cottage had not been built for four people.
This became apparent immediately. Maelor pulled over one of the dining chairs. Riven pulled over the other. The small coffee table between us held a collection of objects that were rapidly pushed aside to make room for a stack of parchments that Caelan produced from inside his coat.
I sat with Maelor on the sofa.
Caelan sat across from me.
From somewhere on my right, I heard Riven moving in the kitchen.
The sound of the kettle. A drawer opening.
He was making tea without being asked, in a kitchen that was not his, finding things without being told where they were, which meant he had been in this kitchen before. I filed that away and said nothing.
It had only been a couple of days since I last saw Caelan. Looking at him now was doing very uncomfortable things to all parts of my body.
He looked as if he wanted to reach out and touch me but was trying his hardest not to. I could see it in the way he busied his hands with the back of the chair, the edge of the coffee table, the coin he was already holding.
I hugged my own arms.
“The coin,” he explained, “was the neutral currency used to pay one of the five assassins who had attacked us in the tavern. The mixed metal. The silver shortage. The specific way it pointed back to Winter Court.”
He set it on the coffee table. It landed with a small metallic clink between the pushed-aside objects.
His hair was more disheveled than usual, falling slightly over his eyes.
Now that he was close enough, I realized he looked tired.
Not the surface tired of a long day. The kind that had been accumulating for weeks.
He was staring at the coin as if staring at it hard enough would make it point somewhere else.
Not to point at the one brother who had actually treated him like family.
I hugged my arms tighter.
“Why do you think Mallas wants you dead?” Maelor asked.
Caelan looked up at him.
The silence stretched long enough that I thought he wouldn't answer. Or maybe he didn't know how to.
Then he looked down at the table. “Hard to say. Everyone wants me dead either because they're afraid of me or afraid of what I'd become.”
We let that settle.
“He's bastard-born. That could be a motive,” Riven said from the kitchen.
“Killing Luceris would make more sense,” Maelor said. “But even with Luceris gone, Mallas has no right to the throne due to his heritage.”
“I meant jealousy,” Riven clarified.
We looked at Caelan.
“I was treated poorly,” Caelan said, raising his brow. “Hardly anything to be jealous of.”
We all nodded.
Caelan huffed a small breath of disbelief, clearly offended.
“The rumors about your loss of control at Mirror Lake and Sera being the trigger,” Maelor said. “That was Mallas.”
Caelan nodded. “The starwardens in Winter Court would have seen it. He knew what happened that night. He knew I was with Sera.”
“What about the rumors in Verdant about Twilight rebelling?” I said. “What would be the point of that?”
Everyone looked at me, likely wondering how I knew about it.
“What?” I crossed my arms. “Your spy is Xander. You think he doesn't report to me?”
Maelor muttered something about criminals and loyalty.
“Fair point,” Caelan said. “And yes. The timing is too suspicious, though I'm still working out the reason.”
“Treason makes you killable,” Riven said.
“You're thinking he's making Caelan look like a traitor to justify removing him,” Maelor said.
“But you'd need a trial before you can off a prince,” I said. “Besides, there were attempts before the rumors started.”
Caelan shook his head. “Mallas can't kill me directly. Fae law doesn't allow royals to kill their own. An executioner must do it.”
I shut my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temples as if that might produce an answer.
Riven appeared from the kitchen and set a cup of tea on the table in front of me without comment. He pulled a chair back and sat.
“I feel like we're missing something important,” I said, and took a sip and muttered a thank you to Riven.
He nodded once.
“I feel like I'm missing something important too,” Maelor said, eyes making a slow sweep of Riven.
By eighth bell, we had nothing.
I had been fighting sleep for the last twenty minutes with diminishing success. My chin had found Maelor's shoulder somewhere around the third attempt at a theory. He let me. He didn't comment on it either, which was its own kind of kindness.
“So what's the plan?” he said, not moving. “He's already in Twilight. You have dinner with him tomorrow.”
“That's the trap,” Caelan said.
I lifted my head. “How?”
“I sent word to Crown with evidence of Mallas's attempts. The king should at least send for an arrest.”
“You're certain the king would respond?” I said carefully. “He sent you to the borders when Primoria was at war.”
I had significant doubts about whether he cared about Caelan's wellbeing, and I chose not to say that part.
Caelan didn't falter. “He has to. Even if he doesn't love me, I'm still a prince. This is treason.”
The plan was straightforward. Caelan would have dinner with Mallas as arranged and trust that the king would send an arrest in time. I would stay in the cottage. Riven would stay with me. Maelor would manage the delegation and keep Mallas's soldiers visible and contained.
And if the arrest didn't come in time, Caelan would have to arrest his own brother in his own hall.
Riven and Maelor filed out first.
Riven was going to escort Caelan back to the estate with Maelor before coming back.
The cottage door settled behind them.
Caelan was still in the dining chair across the coffee table. Neither of us had moved to end the quiet.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked.
He studied me.
“He's your brother,” I said.
His eyes fixed on the coin still on the table for a moment.
“I'm sure.” He didn't look at me when he said it.
He looked worn. But he was still sitting straight out of habit. If you looked closely, you could see where the pieces had been leaving.
We both stood and made for the door, stopping just before it.
“Are you okay?” I asked before I realized I was asking.
The distance shifted. I wasn't sure who moved first.
“No.” His gaze came up. “Are you?”
The alcohol had cleared during the planning and Riven's tea. I was thinking clearly, and I hated that I still wanted to pull him in and kiss him. The urge to do something, anything, to make him look less like this clawed at the inside of my chest. I dug my nails into my palm.
“No,” I admitted.
Silence stretched. The heavy ones that had unspoken words waiting inside it.
“When this is all over,” he started. “There's a place in the south—“
“I was thinking about staying.”
Something moved across his face. Dangerously close to hope.
“In the wildlands,” I continued. “In Thalvarn.”
His eyes softened slightly, the hope settling into something quieter.
“Thalvarn,” he repeated.
“Yes.” I looked at him. “And living in this cottage, if that’s okay.”
“What changed your mind?” His eyes moved once to the door where the others had gone.
I thought about how to explain it without saying too much. Without saying what it actually was, which was that south was never a destination so much as a direction I had pointed myself toward when I didn't know what else to do.
“Growth, I suppose,” I said.
He looked at me for a long moment. Then nodded.
“Then stay.”
“Thank you.”
Neither of us made a move toward the door. With each passing second, the pull toward him became harder to bear. Then he turned to leave.
I watched him go.
He didn’t look back.
I took a shuddering breath and closed the door.