AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I took his arm, though everything in me screamed that he wasn’t to be trusted. That he would stab me the moment I turned my back.
I didn’t bother forcing a smile as we swam to the front table.
Rainn, Shay, and Tor watched, and though I knew they had once counted Cormac amongst their friends, it seemed there were limits to what they were willing to tolerate.
We’d agreed to avoid each other, but touching Cormac felt wrong. I looked away from my mates as Cormac steered me toward the end of the table.
The Mer-King found it easier to sit in a chair than a bench, and the servers hastened to fill his cup.
I’d already eaten, and my appetite had been soured by the undine gossiping loudly enough for me to hear every word.
I took my seat, knitting my hands together on my lap and staring at the empty place setting in front of me.
I knew all of King Irvine’s favored by sight, if not by their faces but by the torques they wore around their throats. Even after Irvine’s death, they hadn’t removed their collars woven from silver fishing wire and embued with Irvine’s magic.
The doors to the dining hall opened, and something in the water changed. The Twilight lake I knew squirmed and hid, tucking its playful currents away and growing eerily still. Every fae in the hall sat up as Elaine appeared, her face set in a benevolent and welcoming mask.
Elaine and I had not been close. Namely because she spent her time surrounded by courtiers, planning balls, and simpering with the masses. I had nothing against her, though the same couldn’t have been said when I was a child—angry for being made to attend functions like an accessory.
King Irvine and Elaine had been a scandal when they’d debuted. Elaine had given birth to Liam, pregnant by her Shíorghrá, who had died of a wasting sickness before the babe was born. At the time, it was thought that Irvine would never take the throne, so who he married hadn’t mattered much.
My mother had attended their wedding, but Irvine’s wife had always existed on the periphery. Guilt swelled in my chest, filling it like a pufferfish. I hadn’t even thought of Elaine and how she had lost a husband, regardless of my thoughts of my uncle.
Elaine drifted through the hall, offering the seated undine a wave and a smile, greeting several fae by name and taking their hands.
She approached the head table, holding her dress above her ankles as she danced up the steps to the platform. She ignored me entirely, greeting Rainn, Shay, and Tor with a welcoming smile and a hand on her heart, and she beamed at each of them.
“Welcome to Cruinn. It is an honor to have you.” Elaine bowed her head. A guard pulled out a chair beside Tor, and Elaine drifted around the table before settling in the chair next to the kelpie. “Tell me, is the Reeds as beautiful as the stories say?” Elaine laid her hand on my mate’s upper arm. “I’ve heard it's like fireflies against the night sky.”
I wanted Tor to shake off her hand, to bare his teeth, the way I’d seen his equine form do, but instead, his brow ticked with something akin to confusion.
“You could say that.” Tor conceded. “Cruinn is also very beautiful. Now that we can see it.”
Elaine tittered. “Ah, yes. The abyss.” She reached for a glass and held it up. One of her guards swept forward and poured her wine. “You were at the coral fields when the Mer came to attack. Do you know what happened to the abyss, Prince Tormalugh?”
Tor shook his head, and though I expected his gaze to dart to mine, he kept his eyes on Elaine. “I couldn’t say.” His voice was bone dry even under water.
“Wine?” Cormac murmured.
I was startled, realizing I had been staring across the table. “I wouldn’t trust any drink you poured for me.”
Cormac ignored my insult and poured himself a glass. “The bubble charm is such an ingenious invention; at least the undine are good for something.”
“Merfolk prefer to use glamours,” I told him. “Undine have their own skills.”
Cormac hummed, eying me speculatively. “And what would you say your skills are, Maeve Cruinn?” Cormac lifted a brow. “You haven’t made the Migration, not entirely.”
“Who’s fault it that?” I narrowed my eyes.
Cormac snorted, lifting his cup and hiding his smile behind the rim. “Did you know that was the first time my mother told me she was proud of me? After I revealed how many undine died on the Frosted Sands.”
I said nothing.
“If Lady Bloodtide could see me now, sitting amongst the undine with a plate of food and a guest suite, she’d whip me.” Cormac chuffed another laugh.
“Your mother loved you very much,” I said through stiff lips as I remembered the way Lady Bloodtide had thrown herself on his unconscious body.
Cormac lifted a shoulder and let it drop in a shrug. “I have no doubt she loved me, but she loved me as an extension of herself, not a person with my own mind.”
