Chapter 32
KAELERON
Imoved another stack of reports, these ones bound in a brown leather folder inscribed with the name Belkarthen and the coat of arms, setting them aside and pulling the reports from Wraith Wood closer instead. I was not in the mood to deal with business from Belkarthen today.
The black card a messenger had deposited on my desk attempted to snare my attention again, but I kept it fixed on the reports, determined to get through half of them before I took a break for dinner.
I had already sent a servant to request Saphira’s presence, and I was damned if I was going to let court business keep me from her again. She would never forgive me.
The door of my office burst open and I glanced up to find my sister filling the doorway, the shadows that wafted from her shoulders a sure sign that I was not the only one who had received an invitation from Ereborne this day.
“I believe I am not due a report from you today.” I signed the bottom of another request for aid to be sent to Wraith Wood, and scribbled a note on another piece of paper.
I would need to head there myself to see why the crops were failing in the woods.
This was the third time they had asked for grains to be sent to them.
Enough magic had been created at Beltane to sustain all the lands of the Shadow Court, so there was only one possible reason the crops at Wraith Wood were consistently failing.
Someone was tampering with the land there.
Possibly the goblins. I had several reports from the local guards that there had been disagreements between the fae and the goblins over the use of certain areas of the woods.
I would not put it past them to temporarily poison the land to drive the fae out of their territory.
Jenavyr had not moved.
I glanced at her again. “If this is about the ball, we must go.”
That dreadful black card tempted my gaze towards it. I somehow managed to keep it fixed on the papers before me instead.
“Nyr ill’aeth ky’aethena.”
I froze halfway through signing my name on the next document.
Swallowed hard.
Saphira had not been asleep.
She had heard me.
I straightened, meeting my sister’s steely gaze.
She had heard me and she had asked my sister about it.
I bit back a curse.
Was nothing going to go right today?
It made me want to deny Saphira’s request to accompany Chase, Morden and myself on the planned visit to the Hunt Pack lands.
What if I took her there and those fae came for her?
I slid a look at the invitation that felt like a portent and tried to shake off that feeling that had struck me the moment a servant had delivered it to me.
“What did you say to her?” Shadows gathered behind me as I curled my fingers into fists, as I imagined the damage my sister could have done by telling Saphira what I had said, or perhaps my little wolf would be pleased? Or perhaps she would flee. I was not ready to find out. Not yet.
She had not run from me last night, despite the graze I had discovered on her arm, wrought by my own shadows as she had attempted to wake me from that nightmare.
She had not seen me for the weak, useless male some part of me still believed myself to be.
She had listened with an open mind, and a warm heart, and had seen things I had been blind to all these centuries.
My mother’s sacrifice had indeed been a gift. A cherished one. And rather than live as she had wanted me to, I had wrought suffering at every turn, had focused with all my iron will on becoming a male so unlike my father that the very sister before me had told me she could no longer recognise me.
But that look she levelled on me now said she could glimpse that boy I had once been, witnessing him in the words I had foolishly and recklessly whispered to Saphira.
“Do not worry, brother. I did not tell her what it really meant.” Vyr stepped into the room, closed the door behind her and stilled, and then she turned towards me, clearly satisfied that no one was in the vicinity and we could talk unguarded about this.
The glint in her eyes warned she was going to enjoy this conversation she intended to subject me to.
“But I must know, my dearest brother… why are you calling Saphira your little mate?”
I waved her away and turned my gaze on the papers before me.
“She must have imagined it, or perhaps she dreamed it. I know she has been studying ancient fae, attempting to decipher it. Perhaps she read it in the library and has no knowledge of what it means. I have no reason to call Saphira my mate.”
Jenavyr walked right up to the other side of my desk and folded her arms over her chest. “You expect me to believe that?”
I shrugged. “Believe it or do not believe it. It is all I have to say on the matter.”
I signed another document and set it on the pile, and began reading the one that had been beneath it. A request for stone and wood to build a new home and store in Feyran. I signed it and placed it on the pile. Jenavyr lingered still.
“Do you have other business you wish to discuss?” I spared her a glance as I summoned more motes of magic in the air, stirring them and drawing them down closer to me so I could read the documents more easily.
It was growing late already, and I still had a stack of papers to make it through before I could dine, and I would not be late.
“You know if you allowed it, Saphira might be good for you. She might bring back the brother I dearly miss.”
I huffed as I sat back in my leather chair, shadows restlessly twining around the legs of it as her words struck me and that black card on my desk mocked me.
“You speak as if I am vastly different to the male who raised you, who has sacrificed so much so you would be safe, and happy. Is all I have done not yet enough, Jenavyr? Must you speak to me as if you have been cared for by a stranger, a male you do not know, and you speak of bringing back this ghost from my past… No, you speak of Saphira bringing him back when you know that even if that were to happen—”
“I am sorry.” She lowered her head, her hands balling at her sides as she stared at her boots.
She shook her head and lifted it, meeting my gaze, hers filled with pain that was but a single muted thread of what thundered inside me, raging like a storm as I thought of all I stood to lose.
She leaned towards me, her brows furrowing as she lifted a hand towards me, as if she wanted to hold me, as if she felt I was breaking, and I stared at her, letting her see that I was not broken yet, and I never would be.
She set back on her heels. “I am sorry. I should not have said such things. I just… it is good to see you laugh and smile. It is good to see this court changing, becoming… becoming more as it once was.”
Back when our father had been king.
She craved that, but it would never be. While I would in time open the borders of my court to those outside it, everyone who entered it would undergo strict documentation checks and would need to provide information about their intentions in my court.
I would not allow a true open border as our father had.
To do so would be to extend an invitation to my enemies and request them to come claim my head.
And Vyr’s head with it.
And the heads of all I cared about.
I would never let that happen.
I glanced at the card on my desk.
An invitation that felt ominous, more dangerous than the storm that had brought Morden to my door and had been the catalyst for Saphira leaving me.
My sister wanted the boy she recalled from her childhood back, but I could never be that male again, no matter what happened. I was who I needed to be. The court needed me strong, they needed a leader, and a protector, not the daydreaming lad I had been.
And right now, the court needed me to attend a ball.
One I was dreading.
But one I could not put off.
All the unseelie courts would be in attendance, and I was expected to be there to represent mine and show my obeisance to my high king, despite how little I enjoyed such spectacles.
The sour look Vyr gave the invitation conveyed her dislike of what was about to happen.
Neither of us enjoyed this kind of thing, and neither of us had a choice in the matter.
We both had a duty to perform.
Other members of my court had no such problems with being invited to a grand ball at Ereborne.
I had tried to escape that dreaded invitation with a walk around the garden soon after it had arrived, only to find excited lords and ladies buzzing and fluttering around me, all atwitter with news of the invites they too had received.
To them, it was recognition, it was a chance to meet their high king and gain his favour.
To me, it felt like I was walking to my doom.
“What is wrong, brother?” Jenavyr said softly, her voice a bare whisper as I continued to stare at that black card.
“The timing,” I muttered and pushed back, leaning into my chair again as my gaze lifted to her face.
She stared down at the invitation, worry lining her face, and then her silver eyes slowly met mine.
I shook my head and glanced at the card.
“The high king’s men have only just returned to Ereborne from the Wastes.
Strange that he would decide to announce a surprise ball upon their return. ”
“You believe he is up to something.” She studied the card.
I did not believe he was.
I dreaded that he was.
The timing of this invitation and ball was too suspicious to ignore, as was the request regarding attire. The high king knew. He knew and he had issued this invite as a test. I was sure of it.
“Kael, I am sure it will not be so bad and if you would just speak with her, she will—” Vyr cut off as a knock sounded at the door.
“Um… Kael?” Saphira’s voice curled around me, rousing warmth that struggled to ward off the chill settling in my veins and my heart.