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15

The morning of Lorelei’s nineteenth birthday, she had woken from her first-ever poisoning, her fever having finally subsided, to find that the world around her had turned far too loud and bright while she had been ill. As she’d lain in the bed she’d shared with her poisoner only two nights earlier, absorbing everything that had happened since then, she had felt as fragile as a crystal ballerina riddled with hairline cracks, ready to shatter at the lightest of touches.

But, oh, how she had danced that night at the glittering ball she’d hosted for the nobles of her court and every visiting foreign dignitary. Two hours after the public executions of her cousin and his co-conspirator, her lover, she’d been perfectly glamoured to hide her sickly pallor and the deep bruises beneath her eyes. Flanked by her ladies-in-waiting, she had laughed and danced for hours with fierce vivacity, sending a message to her court and to all the men greedy to steal her new kingdom from her:

I will never be defeated.

Lorelei had a goddess-gifted purpose for her life. She would fulfil it, no matter how many cracks formed beneath her surface.

… And no matter how terrifyingly clearly one man had finally seen beneath it.

She pushed all of that away as the tournament field took shape around them, leaving her and Gerard standing on soft grass, surrounded by far too few of their earlier competitors.

For once, there was no roar of applause from the watching crowd—only a deep, shocked silence as they all absorbed the unprecedented results of this trial.

Every year, one or two competitors did lose their lives in this tournament. But no challenge-based enchantments had ever been made permanent after a trial’s ending. Enchanted combatants had always been returned to the field to accept their defeat and join the audience for the rest of the tournament.

… Until now.

Including Lorelei and Gerard, six partnerships had survived from the original twenty pairs. That was all.

One no-longer-partnered dryad knelt, weeping helplessly, on the grass, her nails elongating into roots that tethered her to the ground as she shook, heedless of her audience. The other thirteen un-partnered competitors stood rigidly to attention before the tournament’s throne, as was proper, but their expressions were dazed and hollowed out by grief.

Oberon sat with his pale, long-fingered hands clenched tightly around the elaborately decorated arms of the throne, his eyes burning with rage.

Lorelei’s upper lip curled as she looked at him. “My, my, you poor dear. All that time you must have spent last night to come up with that nasty new trial, all for naught. You aren’t rid of me after all. What a terrible nuisance for you! And such a shame you had to torture so many innocents to do it.”

At her final words, there was a ripple of audible unrest from the watching crowd. Beside her, she felt Gerard’s big figure shift. She didn’t have to look to know that he was bracing for a fight … to defend her.

She put that thought away for later, too. For now, she shook her head pityingly at Oberon. “No doubt you forgot this tiny point of protocol in all the time you spent expelled from court for bad behavior, but it’s not a good idea to end the tournament too soon, before your audience is satisfied.”

“I’m not the one who’s forgotten the ways of this court,” Oberon snarled. “I am lord of this tournament!”

“Oh, I know,” Lorelei purred. “My mother named you lord of the Tournament of Leaves to represent her in her absence. She trusted you to ensure a fine entertainment for her court and kingdom, to turn the seasons properly in order … which is how I know that—regardless of any misunderstandings or deceptive appearances”—she waved at the far-too-empty field around her—“you would never truly be so cruel as to leave all those failed ones imprisoned in that greenhouse, enspelled and lost to us forevermore.

“You wouldn’t choose to disappoint my mother and our audience so badly for no reason but to spite me. Would you?”

His lean jaw worked as he glared at her. Her bright, confident smile only widened.

On the grass nearby, the dryad looked up with sudden, desperate hope. A vibrating silence hung over the field as hundreds of fae held their breath, waiting for his answer.

No one else here could speak to him so freely. No one else had the right or even the ability to try in this court full of ancient and magically bound hierarchies.

But Lorelei had lost her own place here long ago and gained a different kind of freedom. So she kept her expectant smile on her face … and beamed the silent message with all her might: Don’t make me kill you after all.

The temptation had never before felt quite so strong.

Lord Oberon had always been a fool in every way that mattered, but even he could apparently read the mood of the watching crowd. Slowly, reluctantly, he inclined his head. “How very perceptive of you, Sister. I am glad you were not deceived by appearances.” Releasing the right arm of his throne, he snapped his fingers impatiently at the line of nervously watching fae spellcasters. “It is, of course, my deepest pleasure to return our lost ones despite their disappointing failures, as a token of my personal mercy and appreciation for their hard work in the tournament thus far.”

Behind the other contestants, every lost partner shimmered into place on the grass, one by one. They were all shivering and shocked—Lorelei had to repress a shudder of her own, remembering that horrible, disorienting sensation—but at least they were there once more, back in their own natural forms.

Resounding cheers broke out from the watching crowd, ferocious with the intensity of relief. That mass jubilation roared over the tournament field as separated partners lunged to embrace each other, weeping and laughing.

Still, Oberon’s venomous focus remained on Lorelei. “Of course, everyone here understands that no such mercy would be expected or even desired for a warrior so proud as yourself. Isn’t that right?”

“Oh, Oberon,” she sighed. “When has anyone in my life ever pretended otherwise?”

Gerard’s searching gaze felt like a torch held much too close to her skin, uncomfortably hot and bright. Keeping her own gaze fixed on the less dangerous enemy before her, Lorelei tilted her head and batted her eyelashes sweetly. “So? When may we begin our next trial, please? Or had you not actually thought that far ahead, dear?”