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“Respect? Ha! What a joke! You don’t deserve respect. Not when you choseherover my Lucia and concocted this lie about Lucia siding with a Conjurite to get rid of her!” He pointed a finger at me.
My jaw dropped.
“How could you?” Carlin asked, talking for the first time. Her words trembled like she wanted to cry, and my heart went out to her. No matter how evil Lucia had been, Carlin had lost a daughter. “If you’d just kept her in your life… Instead, you chose ahumanover her.”
She glared at me, spitting the word as if it was a curse word. Baut scowled at me.
They hated me. That much was clear. Not because of Lucia’s death, which I was to blame for, but because of who I was.
“You have no say over my choices,” Ren said. He wasn’t getting angry with them; he wasn’t shouting back at them.
It was impressive. I would have lost my calm a long time ago.
“You can’t be with her,” Carlin said.
“I can do as I please.”
“You’re putting everyone in danger,” she insisted. “The prophecy is clear.”
We all froze and stared at her.
“You know about the prophecy?” I asked in a thin voice.
Ren glanced at me. “Carlin is a priestess. She has access to the Goddess Terra and the prophecies that are foretold.”
“Priestess,” Nylah said, not without reverence. I wouldn’t have talked to her that way after how they’d barged in, but everyone was being painfully polite. “What did you see? Please, share with us, so that we may be enlightened.”
“I’m not helpingyou,” Carlin said. “You’re more powerful than I am. If you don’t know…” She shook her head in disgust. “But I will tell you this.” She looked at Ren. “If you allow this cretin to rule, it will bring the world as we know it to destruction.”
This wasn’t the first time I was referred to as a creatin, and I didn’t appreciate it.
I wanted to say as much, but Nylah tightened her grip on my arm.
“We have nothing more to say,” Ren said. “I am saddened by your loss. I know the pain of losing a loved one.” I could see on his face that he really meant it; he was sorry that Lucia’s parents had suffered, even if it had been Lucia’s fault. “There is nothing more I can do for you. I must ask you to leave.”
“This isn’t over, Rainier,” Baut said. A steely determination replaced his anger. “I won’t let this go. You can’t take action and expect to leave everyone in your wake to be pleased with what you do. The choices you make as king will create enemies. And you’ve made an enemy out of me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ren said, and again, I knew how honest he was being. “I hoped we could put this nasty business behind us.”
After all, Baut and Carlin, as hurt as they were about their daughter, didn’t have a foot to stand on. Lucia had betrayed Rainier and planned his death. She would have been executed had she not been killed.
But Ren was a kind Fae, and he wanted to give them pardon. They hadn’t played a role in it all.
Baut shook his head. “You’ll be sorry when I wage war against you.”
“Careful, Baut. You’re dangerously close to the edge.”
“Do I look like I don’t know what I’m saying? Half the kingdom is on my side. Do you think they’ll trust you, now that you chose a human to rule by your side?”
“A human who will bring certain destruction to the Fae lands,” Carlin added.
Ren shook his head, and his anger flared up inside him. “I am still king. If you wage war against me, it’s treason, and I will have to treat you and anyone that follows you as hostile.”
“Treat me however you like. Nothing can be worse than ripping our daughter away from us. This is war, Ren. It’s not over.”
“How dare you threaten me?” Ren hissed. His voice was bitter, his eyes so light they were almost white. “Guards!”
Guards burst into the room, ready to obey the King’s orders.
