His eyes flick toward Rooke, and Roan mutters under his breath, the crowd around Mercer’s seat thinning at his angry tone.
I hold out a hand to stop him as I stare around the room, my cold gaze shifting slowly over the household here, and my own arrogant high-fae mask slips into place. We have the attention of the entire room, though only those nearby can see the curl to Mercer’s lip as he baits me into a conflict.
“Only a handful of men lost, thanks to my strategy, the walls still standing because of my Fates-blessed mate, and the forest protecting your people, thanks to her sacrifice. It seems you owe us both quite a lot, Prince Mercer.”
A hush falls over the crowd, a thousand people in the room but with high-fae hearing none of them missed my words or the intent behind them. This isn’t how they were expecting the evening to play out—I never usually aim for the throat of any member of the Unseelie Court, but things have changed drastically.
The time for enduring petty games is over.
Prince Mercer is careful not to look at Rooke again. His eyebrows twitch downwards, uncertainty filtering into his stance before he inclines his head in the slightest of bows. “You have my gratitude for coming to the aid of Yrell when no one else would. We are in your debt, Your Highness. Your mercy isn’t a gift any within my household will forget, no matter how long the Fates bless us to serve this noble kingdom.”
Prince Mercer serves himself first, his bloodline second, and whoever will keep his goblet full of fairy wine third. He sides with me because I’m further up his list of priorities than my uncle is, not because I top it.
One of the servants carefully approaches me with a goblet, a cowering female with a fine tremble in her hand. Pausing to look her over before I accept the drink, I note bruising in the shape of fingerprints at her wrists that’s all too familiar to me after centuries of my uncle’s rule in Yris. The servant startles when I finally thank her, and scurries away.
Prince Mercer might be one of the better princes in the kingdom, but that doesn't mean he's a good male. I judge every royal on the condition and temperament of their staff. Mercer fails on all accounts. He may be lord of the entire territory and those within it, but he respects the high fae alone. The royals and nobles all stand around and smile happily at him, but the lower fae aren't so lucky.
One of the soldiers at his side swaggers closer, a goblet already in his hands as he comes to Mercer’s defense. Prince Matyr is Mercer’s cousin and an egocentric asshole at the best of times; he’s cunning and cutthroat and has no loyalty to anyone but himself. He reminds me of my uncle, an unforgivable sin.
He drawls to us both in a pompous tone, waving his goblet around though he’s sober. “I heard rumors from your soldiers of the skill your Fates-blessed mate has with a sword, Prince Soren. I was disappointed we didn’t get to witness it today! Might I suggest a friendly match between us? A display of the witch’s prowess against the skill of the high fae will surely lift the spirits of Yrell and the royal bloodlines within.”
Cold fury slips into my bloodstream as easily as poison from a witch’s barbed arrow, red bleeding into my vision at the gall of this spineless excuse of a male. Reed moves to block Rooke more fully from the crowd as Tyton ducks his head to relay Matyr’s words to her in a mocking tone. Roan’s eyes narrow as they meet mine, and every soldier of Yregar in attendance pulls themselves into a defensive stance as they prepare for the cost of Matyr’s game.
The royals of Yrell are oblivious to it all.
Mercer’s smile grows wider and one of his eyebrows tweaks up. “Prince Soren always has enjoyed the sports of war, why not? If the witch wishes to ingratiate herself to our people, then we should involve her in our fun and welcome her with open arms. Iwould never allow the future queen of our great kingdom to feel unwelcome.”
Mercer and Matyr both saw the effects of the witcheswane on Rooke, every eye of the household was on me as I carried her up the stairs. Rumors spread through the castle faster than a hoard of dragon riders on a dark hunt that her magic was drained from protecting Yrell and the action killed her. Half the royals were happy at such a prospect, the entire lot of them ungrateful banshee dung, but the soldiers felt differently.
They all know who saved them; without the witch they have been defenseless.
“Matyr is a pathetic excuse of a male, Rooke, don’t judge the rest of the high fae by his actions,” Tyton says in the common tongue with a sneer, pointedly speaking loud enough that there’s no denying his taunts are for the entire room. “He sat inside the inner wall and avoided the bloodshed today. Now he wishes to dispel the rumors of his weakness by fighting someone who did act and bears the price.”
Reed scoffs and shakes his head. “The only thing he’s proving is just how spineless he truly is. Shameful.”
Matyr's face sets in a sneer, and some of the high fae surrounding us whisper behind the backs of their hands as a cacophony of gossip begins to build. The opinion of this crowd isn’t yet made, arguments made for Rooke just as fervently as those against her. I’m too blinded by the furious haze at the murmurs around me to see Rooke’s approach, but the tug of the Fates in my chest and the soft footsteps of her worn leather boots demand my attention. Reed shadows her, almost stomping in his tension, but Rooke looks at Mercer serenely.
She meets my eye with a respectful bow before she turns to Matyr. “I accept your challenge. What are the terms?"
Mercer’s eyebrows rise higher, his smirk widening as he lets out a gleeful sound. The asshole is probably already three orfour goblets of fairy wine into the festivities, and that lapse in judgment may end his life tonight.
Matyr scoffs at Rooke. “There are no terms in sparring. We fight until someone…wins.”
He rolls the word around on his tongue as though it’s a distasteful substitute for the one he truly means; my Fates-blessed mate dead at his hand. His gaze flicks over her stature, smaller than the high fae, and the hands ravaged at the defense of his city with a smirk dancing at the corners of his lips. I curse the Fates that she’s not at full strength and wielding her sword the way she did at Yregar. I'd tell her to hack off the male's head and be done with it.
With a scowl, I meet her gaze, but she doesn’t relent, and I’m forced to accept her judgment on this. If she says she can fight, then she can, and if she falters, I’ll kill Matyr and be done with the entire evening.
Rooke’s finally mouth twitches into a lopsided smile, more of a grimace than anything else. “Every sparring match should have terms, or else you'll find yourself bleeding at the end of my sword. Are we using blunted instruments or are you trusting me to hold myself back from the killing blow?”
Roan chuckles at my side, and I don't try to fight my own smirk at her confidence, a thunderous look overtaking Matyr’s expression as his hand moves to rest on the pommel of his sword. His fingers tighten over the jewel inlaid amongst the filigree there, the weapon crafted for show first and use second.
Matyr clearly loses his wits as he hisses, “I'll hold myself back from breaking the Fates with your death, witch, and when you submit, you will kneel at Prince Mercer’s feet to beg him for his mercy for daring to enter Yrell with silver eyes in your head."
Whatever happens in the dual, his breaths are numbered.
Roan offers Rooke his own sword, but she shakes her head curtly and reaches up to unclasp her cloak from her shoulders.Reed holds out a hand to take it from her, tucking the fur-lined fabric over his arm. The robes she wears are the set from Airlie, the fabric crossing in complicated patterns over her chest and banding around her arms, a small slit running from wrist to elbow.
When she extends her arm, there’s a brief pop of light, and then her sword appears in her damaged hand, gasps ringing out around the room at her casual proficiency in magic. If I wasn't already intimately aware of just how tired Rooke is, the fact that she rolls her eyes would be marker enough. Her patience with us all is well and truly thin.
