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He has reasons for keeping these things from me. Reasons I don’t understand, but suspect to be deeper than simply keeping me in the dark. Hmm. I almost snort at my inner pun.
Instead, eyes on his mouth, I voice a thought that rises up in me like the blaze of a sudden wildfire, “Why do you love me?”
There’s no hesitation in his reply. “The Universe made it so.”
A response I hear every time I ask. It never changes.
And somehow, it always stings.
5
APRIL
Inside of the sunshine palace, the walls don’t hold the same glow as they do on the outside. Still, there is no need for any other light-source in the Hall than the faintly gleaming walls themselves.
Dinner has come and gone already this First Wind and now, as the table is being cleared by the slaves, we all stand around in little pairs and groups, sipping on the last of our drinks. We are waiting for the parlour room to open to us, where we will warm by lit hearths and hit the harder drinks (graduating from mild wines that I have to pretend affect me too much to overindulge in), play card games and, for some of us, wander outside for strolls around the gardens.
I enjoy this time. It’s peaceful.
But my enjoyment has been soured this dinner.
Bluntly, it’s a fucking disaster.
Guests are visiting Princess Skye’s palace for the First Wind (Rain and Callie—minus their son Affay, but with their other, much older child, Angus—and Princess Nalla, who shot me eye-daggers all throughout the meal).
Princess Nalla is a problem in herself. She came with her husband, Rowlyn, and her very swollen belly stuck onto her finger-slim frame, but though almost two decades have passed, oh how she remembers me and my interference.
You see, Princess Nalla isthelitalf princess—the one Daein was in negotiations with to marry … and then he met me. And it all went to shit for their plans.
Still, she married into the dokkalf royal family all the same. Rowlyn is Daein’s brother and closer to the throne than Daein ever was. But that’s not enough to soothe the tension between Nalla and me. It’s not that Daein’s affections landed with me in the end and, quickly followed by his intentions. It’s theslightthat matters.
Litalves take these offences, these troubles, far more sensitively than dokkalves do. I offended her by interfering. And interfere, I did. I demanded Daein marry me, abandon his negotiations with the litalves for marriage, I demanded that he choose me.
And he did, in the end.
Nalla sees this as a grave slight against her and—most importantly—her pride.
Switching her political matrimony to Rowlyn makes no difference to how she will always feel about me. I suspect she wants something along the lines of my protection to falter so she can throw me into the Eternal Dance that still carries on in the High Court of the light lands, where humans—hundreds of them, all ages—are forever trapped in dances while the music plays, even when their legs snap and their feet bleed, and they hang on the brink of death. There’s no escape for those poor souls.
Yes, Nalla would throw me to that dance if she could. Only, I would stop dancing. Because I’m no true human.
Of course, no one knows that except me and the tall, broad-shouldered fae beside me, dressed in my favourite clothes, the ones that make my stomach flip and heart flutter. His formal suit. A high-collared, trimmed coat, silver threads embellishing the split of the collar that travels all the way down to the waistline of his breeches. To match his silver shoes, he wears the (now-unofficial) silver diadem atop his perfectly combed inky hair, looking ever the dark fae prince.
No matter the sadness in me, the misery that embraces my heart, or the fear I possess for my husband, when he looks like this—I swoon inside.
We stand by the marble statue of the litalf Queen at the far end of the Hall, some distance from the others. Neither of us speak, we simply watch in silence as our daughter picks at a very much alive plant, plucking away its smaller leaves and watching it (with blank eyes full of nothingness) as it shudders and whines, recoiling from her advances.
So much evil within her…
Daein and I don’t have to speak for our communication to move between us as I turn my cheek to Ensley and look up at him. His eyes, sharp like knives, flicker to me.
We see it in Ensley. The litalf side of her, revealed.
Litalves are the fae who torture for their enjoyment, inflict pain to feed their bored, duller moments. Dokkalves do it to fuel their bloodlust, appease their fury.
Ensley is seeming very much like a litalf in this moment, and though it doesn’t worry me too much, I find that the ache in my heart swells all the same.
Surrounded by monsters, forever.
