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I stare at her. “Really?”
Could she have seen Adar in the water? Or some other Fae? The thought chills me. Adar is good but that doesn’t mean that any other Fae lurking in those waters would be. The Lesser Fae of the lake proved to be nasty, wicked creatures more than once, making Mina sick and then attacking me in the water.
If she did, then—
Lily gasps and stops.
The old woman whispers something under her breath.
A shadow looms over me and I stumble to a halt, my thoughts shattering to pieces as I realize who is standing in front of me.
“Still wandering outside the palace without a proper chaperon, I see,” Prince Iason sneers. “And yet I proposed to you like a fool. You’ve probably been with men before, haven’t you? The supposedly virginal Princess Selina of Kyrene.”
“How dare you?” I whisper, in too much of a shock to register much more than his words and sneering face, his guards behind him. “I’m with my cousin and one more woman. I’m not alone.”
“Not this time.” He cocks his head to the side. “But earlier you were. See, I had you watched.”
My heart stops. “You did what?”
“Had you followed out of the town and into the woods. Went in right after you left.”
My blood turns to ice. “Iason—”
“And guess what we found? A merman. A good catch for our nets.”
The world spins around me. I led them to Adar?Oh Gods…
“Tied him up, dragged him to the palace. The people gathered to spit on him. A Fae creature. One has to wonder how you missed him with all your visits there. Or did you?”
No, no, no…
“Is he your lover? Can he even fuck?” He observes me with mock interest. “Half-animal, half-dead… I didn’t expect to you fall so low, princess… A cursed Fae. You really couldn’t do better than that?”
“You have it all wrong,” I whisper, my chest crushed.
Adar is not my lover. He’s the love of my life.
“And yet this…” He shakes the merman bracelet in his fist in front of my face. “This makes me think otherwise. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? He’ll be executed. He will be crushed into the dust.” He drops the bracelet, grinds his boot over it. “Like this.”
“You really think tokens are what matters in love?” I whisper, even as I wince at the crunching sound, at this twist of reality.
“I want the tokens I gave you back,” he says. “I hereby withdraw my proposal to you, Princess, and let my men be my witnesses.”
I want to laugh. “I told you I didn’t want to marry you.” I take off the bracelet, lift the pendant off my chest and let them fall in the dirt. “Good thing you’re here to take this junk before I threw it away.”
He curses, bends to retrieve them. “This isn’t over.”
“Of course not,” I whisper. My mind is racing, thoughts stumbling over one another. He can’t accuse me of sleeping with Adar. Anyone would laugh at him. Adar is a merman, a wounded one at that. I doubt the palace would let it even come to that.
But Adar… how can I get him out of the dungeons, how can I take care of him when he’s thrown in a cell far from water, far from me?
On the other hand… maybe Iason made his first big mistake by bringing Adar to the palace.
Bringing him tome. This is my territory, my kingdom, my palace. This is my home, not Iason’s. I have a few allies, I have some power still.
And for the man I love, I’ll use all my favors up. I don’t care what it might cost.
As Iason and his men turn and walk away, I pick up the crushed bracelet. The charm is twisted, the tail split into two. I cradle it to my chest, willing my tears not to fall. Tokens are not what matters in love, I repeat to myself, but this was a token giveninlove, in the name of love, and what doesn’t matter is if it’s crushed or not.
