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I let my head fall to his shoulder. “You are not tolerated by House Sekundär, Tait. In all those blustering words, you ought to know, you’ve now become a piece of it. Now, come. He is not jesting that he will scour the palace, shouting Erik’s name, if he has the slightest inclination my mother has need of anything.”
40
The Heartwalker
The glamour king and queen were discovered by Alistair before they ever found Erik. Mira was offered a private chamber.
After a polite thanks to the steward, she took my hand and whispered, “Do I sleep alone, Hearttalker?”
“Depends. Why do you not say my given name?”
“What do you mean?” She tilted her head. “Wait, have I been misspeaking your name all this time? Gods, you must forgive me, what is it I should call you?”
“You’re going to drive me to madness, you know that?”
Mira gripped the front of my tunic, drawing my mouth close to hers. “But what a delightful journey it will be.”
I’d always resided in the palace, even when Erik and I avoided each other as if we both suffered from a wretched case of pustules. On the level below the king’s, a wing was made up of a fine sitting room, bedchamber, separate washroom, and an entrance to a cove on the opposing side of Erik’s.
Harald’s old rooms. Before the war with the earth fae, I’d slept in the cooking rooms near the ovens. I’d not minded, not really. The cooks were not so stern and often let me eat the sweet buns that had been overbaked.
One old sod, who’d long since met the gods, would even tap the mop in a certain pattern if Harald approached, giving me opportunity to hide.
When the wars ended, I made quick work of destroying any remnant of Harald Songtaker in the wing and stacked the shelves with parchment of the romantic folklore of the seas and simple furnishings my dead father would despise. He was not the Ever King, but Harald craved the power of the crown and made it known through his fine things.
“Feels as though a mystery has been solved,” Mira said once we stepped into the sitting room. “I’ve always wondered what your private chambers looked like, how they revealed things about you.”
She brushed her fingertips over one of the long wooden shelves with the colorful spines of leather tomes, then glanced from the sparse, hardly gaudy chair near a plain table with a candlestick to the sofa bench in front of the inglenook.
“It’s as pleasant as I imagined.”
I rolled my eyes. “Liar.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I encircled her waist with one arm. “Speak true, Vicious. Are you or are you not currently planning every way you might add a bit of color here or a matching rug there? Maybe a lively vase with precariously arranged blooms from the gardens.”
A tinge of red heated through Mira’s cheeks. She lifted her chin. “It’s offensive how little you understand me.”
I kissed her through a grin. “I’ll try harder.”
“See that you do.”
We took the moment of respite to wash and change clothes. Alistair did not seem stunned when I requested gowns and hairbrushes for Mira’s use to be brought to my chambers.
Within the next chime a gaggle of women arrived with new gowns, simple dresses, even a satin robe.
“Lord Heartwalker.” Alistair sniffed in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back, his rotund belly adding a violent strain to the buttons of his doublet. “The king has ordered a feast to honor your return and the visiting king and queen. You’re expected at the seventh chime.”
I finished looping a silver ring through the lobe of my ear and gave the steward a nod. “Fine. And you know I’m not a lord, Alistair.”
The man blustered. “A title deserving to few. The former king’s brother held such a title because of his direct bloodline to the Ever King. As I said, it is a title few deserve. And, if I may say so, only one in Harald’s bloodline deserves the honor.”
The steward did not give me an opportunity to retort before he turned on his heel and strode away, nose in the air.
When we arrived downstairs, the table in the dining hall was set for no less than twenty. Much of the Ever Crew joined, as did Sewell, Gavyn, Celine, and Stormbringer. By the time I entered, Mira at my side, the crewmen were already deep in their cups, casting more than one playful insult at one another.
Two chairs were open beside the glamour king and queen. When the king met my stare, then tipped his horn with a nod, a knot eased in my chest. No doubt the man did not delight in another man come to take his girl, but as Mira insisted, he seemed obliged to stand aside so long as his daughter was at peace.
