He takes a single step toward the bed before I lash out. “I’m in no state to kill you or curse your bloodline—there's no need for such dramatics.”
Wiping a hand over my forehead, I let out a shaky breath at the cold sweat there, earned simply for sitting up. I must look pitiful, but thankfully my words stop his advance. Perhaps the Fates have decided I’ve endured enough torture, though I doubt the reprieve will last long.
I count three heartbeats, violent enough that I worry my ribs might break, before he speaks once more. “I’m not threatened by you, or the power you wield. I was going to stop you from getting up. There’s no need for you to overexert yourself when we’ve barely wrestled you from the grips of Elysium.”
Even with carefully restrained fury shaping every word coming out of his mouth, something has shifted in his tone, something curious that I can’t quite put my finger on. Thoughts clouded with anger and pain, I put the anomaly aside as I shake my head at him, pressing my back against the pillows until they support me more comfortably. The small action of sitting up has taken almost all my energy, and I find myself unable to pretend otherwise.
My gaze flits over the room once more, this time to distract myself from him. “You seem to have redecorated the dungeons. I suppose there wasn't enough of a Celestial feel down here, though with all the dust and grime I’m not sure white was the wisest choice, especially considering how fussy you all are.”
He steps back and then, haltingly, sits once more as though no amount of cushions will bring him comfort. When he doesn’t answer me and the silence stretches on between us, I’m forced to look at him, just to be sure he’s not drawing his sword to be done with me.
My friend Cerson, the Mother of the Elmswyrd Coven, once told me that the Fates carved the Unseelie high fae out ofmoonstones. Their looks were as perfectly alluring as those precious stones that charge with the energy of the lune, and witches couldn’t help but covet them both. It was nothing but idle gossip at the time but now it feels like a curse laid over me.
Looking at Prince Soren now, as he sits tense and serious in the corner of the room, crushes my very soul. If the Fates carved him, they did so to destroy me, a weapon of the cruelest design. I’ve spent decades honing and cultivating my skills only to be laid to waste in the lands I was driven from by my cursed fate. Worse still, I lay here languishing in my pain, and he witnessed the undoing of my mind and the healing of the damage I sustained.
My temper runs hot, and I scoff at the rigid way he's holding himself, as though he’s waiting to defend against an attack. The high fae truly have no idea how magic works if he thinks I could wield right now.
He ignores my spite but finally answers me. “These are the crown-consort chambers… by the Fates’ commands, they’re yours.”
Indignant, I shake my head at him. “I want no part in your games, Prince Soren. Perhaps with more rest I’ll be open to sparring with you again, but right now I find I have nothing left to give you.”
His mouth tightens, his vicious look growing wilder and more violent, and I prepare myself for a gruesome death at his hands. “Which elixir will aid your healing and remove the pain? If you believe nothing else I say, believe this—I won’t let you rest until you answer my question.”
My hand trembles as I lift it, the last remnants of the effects of the witcheswane still there, and then I shrug. “I suppose I'll never rest again then, because there isn't an elixir that can help this. You chose your weapon against Kharl’s army wisely, Prince Soren. There’s no cure or easing of it, only bearing it.”
His mouth tightens even further, a feat I didn't think was possible. There's no telling how many days I've lain in this bed. He's no longer in his armor, though his sword is secure on his belt, and there are no signs of witcheswane in this room.
“I’m not convinced this isn’t just an act of stubbornness. What assurances do you need to take an elixir to sleep while the last of your injuries heal?”
At the absolute gall of this prince, a chuckle wrenches out of my lips, a dry and mean sound. “Why are you so concerned with my pain now? If you were expecting me to wake up and continue offering you peace and neutrality, then I’m sorry to bear bad news, but I have none left to give you. Those creatures who murdered my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters, the babies and elderly, every last member of my coven, they took the last of my patience with them as their corpses burned. Kharl Balzog murdered them all, simply for the fate I was given to rescue this kingdom from the ignorance of your kind. High-fae arrogance turned you all away from your purpose and, because of that, I was dragged out of my forest, kicking and screaming, by the Fates. Now I return here to end the war only to be met with your contempt and obliviousness.”
My voice breaks, but I ignore it, too far gone in my anger not to unleash it on him, but he doesn’t move to stop me. “I accepted that my fate is unavoidable before I left the Golden Palace, but now I find myselffuriousonce more, so whatever punishments you have put aside for me, whatever trials and commands you have left to demand of me, I suggest you do so now, while I don’t have the strength to give you exactly what you deserve instead.”
There’s no denying it's a threat.
It’s the first time I’ve acted the way he expects a witch to, reckless and foolhardy in my pain, especially considering how weakened I am. Fury rolls off him like waves that break over me, but I’m unmoved by it, and him. The Fates have cursed me withthis male, but a fire has been ignited within me to be sure he finds my presence just as vexing, if only for now.
Instead of killing me or calling the guards to throw me back down in the dungeons for treason, he takes a seat once more, his back rigid as he seethes across the room at me. His gaze never leaves me, unflinching in his guard.
“Go back to sleep—the Fates know you need it. You can regale me with your promises of death when you’re no longer sweating through each word.”
When I wake again,the pain has lessened to an annoyance. I have a brief moment of confusion as I stare up at the white marble ceiling, crisp and clean and nothing like the roughly hewn stone of the healer’s quarters or the cavernous enclosure of the dungeons. Then I realize.
The castle of Yregar still stands.
The Fates’ pull is no longer dancing along the scar I brought back from the Fates War, a good sign that Prince Soren is no longer taking up his guilt-laden watch over me. Instead, the soft swish of a page turning in a book is the only sound to be heard in the otherwise silent room, as Airlie occupies herself.
As a high fae, the princess doesn't need to look at me to know I'm awake. The shift in my breathing is more than enough to alert her. One danger of spending too much time with the high fae is their swift knowledge of the rhythms of your body, thanks to their keen senses.
“Soren told me you weren’t happy to find him standing guard over you, and so I insisted he leave. I managed to kick him out for a while, but I’m sure the soldiers are all cursing my name forit. He’s been in the sparring rings forhours. Roan is worried he’ll kill someone.”
She has a dark yet mirthful sort of lilt in her voice, not quite smug but certainly satisfied. Whatever confrontation I missed during my recovery, she clearly got some of the justice she was hoping for when she let me out of the dungeons.
When I pull myself up into a sitting position, there's no rush to aid me this time, and a slow sigh ekes out of my chest. Airlie trusts me to know my own limits, or perhaps she's just not one to fuss after anyone who isn't her son. It’s a relief, and some of the sharp and sore edges inside me soften a little more.
Once I’ve found a comfortable position that doesn’t irritate my newly healed skin, I meet Airlie’s assessing gaze with a firm nod, one a soldier gives their commander in the depths of war to prove themselves. Airlie sits in the armchair looking every inch the high-fae princess that I’m sure her fussy mother ingrained into her, wearing an elegant and perfectly styled dress in the Celestial blue of her royal lineage, diamonds in her ears and around each of her wrists, and heeled, nightmarish boots trimmed with ribbons on her feet. With her hair curled where it falls over her shoulders and the smug smile tugging at her lips, she’s every inch a royal high fae of undoubtable standing.
I’m also quite sure she’s a loyal friend, one I’m lucky to have found in such an unwelcoming place.
