AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ostara faked offense with her hand to her chest. “Iwasfaking it!”
Her expression fell as she realized what she’d said.
Her statement made me take in the court once more. Most everyone had vanished, slipping away to go about their daily business. I would have bet good money that a few of the dryads were entertaining a Seelie man. They really seemed to like the one guy.
I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone here respected me as they should. Was it just Ostara on her high horse who couldn’t look at me as an equal? Or was it everyone here?
“You’re a bore,” Tal said dryly.
I spun, offended, only to find his narrow-eyed glare on Ostara.
“This is why you never rose in rank in the old Seelie court. You might have been a friend to the king and queen, but you had no real power among them because you couldn’t adapt to anything.”
Ostara puffed up only to deflate. She threw her hands in the air dramatically. “You’re right, even if I don’t want to hear it. I was an amazing diplomat, but something happened to my head. The way I see the world has changed for the worse, and it is increasingly difficult to see anyone with any kind of goodness.”
“That…that sounds like trauma.” I recalled how I’d lost myself in the drink before meeting Cerri. “You’re coping mechanism is prickly defensiveness. I understand after all we’ve been through, but I will ask you to do better for this future court.”
“You will offer me no respite for my disadvantages?” She gave me wide, sad eyes. “Even though you tell me that I carry invisible wounds, you would ask me tobuck up?”
Tal put a hand on Ostara’s shoulder. “We cannot take the scars of our pasts into the future if we let them fester. It is good to remember so that we can avoid those same pitfalls, but the negativity will infect the court for years to come and sour it from the inside. All of us are working on being better.”
In a puff of white fabric, Ostara dropped to sit on the floor and pout. Her gaze remained low and distant like she was working through something internal. Finally, she sighed and looked up at us. A soft yet shaky smile reached her lips.
“You may have a point.”
Tal puffed up ever so slightly. “Of course, I do. There’s a reason Cerridwen keeps me around, and it’s not for my stunning looks.”
“No, that’s me.” I jerked my thumb at myself proudly.
“He’s correct. I am here to be the brains he’s missing.” Tal slapped me on the back and walked off.
I spun. “Hey! I have a brain.”
But he just waved over his shoulder and vanished deeper into the castle. The insult was brotherly, something I hadn’t quite expected. I certainly hadn’t expected to smile so widely.
Not too long ago, I would have been posted up at a bar outside of town. I would have been staring down the bottom of a whiskey bottle, wondering why I could stillfeel. I no longer craved the drink. Instead, I craved the voluptuous woman who’d vanished deep into the castle.
While I wanted to seek her out, I knew that I had soldiers to train. Instead, I glanced down at the beast still lingering at my hip and asked him to go check on my queen. The beast gave a nod and galloped off, phasing through walls in the process.
20
CERRI
My one-track mind plagued me with thoughts of things best done in a bedroom, behind locked doors. I wondered, as I stirred the potion, if screams could be heard past my bedroom walls here. I thought, as I poured the potion into a series of little jars, about Rhoan’s heat along my thighs and up my waist.
How much more of him would I need before I was satisfied? When would I feel as though I’d experienced all I could before facing Beryl? I couldn’t put this off forever. She needed to be stopped so that my court—and my sanity—would remain intact.
Once the potion was finished, I braced myself. A Sluagh beast watched me from the floor. I met his eyes and said:
“What? I can’t make others be my test subjects. I have to try the first potion myself.”
He continued to stare at me silently. I wished I could read the look in his animal eyes, but the beast’s thoughts remained a mystery to me.
I gave a half-shrug. “Okay, so I have an investment in making sure this potion works. So what?”
If I’d done this correctly, the nightmares flowing to me from the seed in Beryl’s court should stop. I would be able to sleep peacefully for the first time in a long while. Personal investment was always a great innovator, because once I knew this worked, I would take it down to the sleeping fae and use it to relieve their nightmares, too.
Even now, I could hear them screaming and fighting for their lives in their sleep. Perhaps it was because my tower stood over top of the sleeping fae, but they did seem unnaturally loud. At least I knew that I wouldn’t wake them with tonight’s…activities.
