AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I smiled despite the sadness wreathing me. “My courtiers could use your clever set downs.”
“Your courtiers can hardly believe you’ve appointed a servant to your Royal Council.” She pursed her lips at the teacup.
“You aren’t a servant. You’re my friend. And a very worthy Knight of the Round Table,” I corrected her.
Another flutter of wings. Then they eased down her back. I appreciated the sight of them, delicate and beautiful. Whole. Each white feather shimmered with iridescence like the inside of a seashell.
I let myself admire them as we sipped our tea in silence. The bitter tang on my tongue was tinged with just a hint of sweetness—the cocoa flavoring Cyara magically managed to source from the terrestrial kingdom year-round. I opened my mouth to ask her about it—
“You left out the shadowvein.” The delicious tea suddenly burned in my throat.
Cyara blinked at me over the rim of her teacup. “I assumed because you were Joined that you would not want it any longer.”
Ancestors.
I hadn’t thought about it at all.
I’d never needed to. Cyara had dutifully added it to my tea every day since I’d emerged from the water gardens.
Before then… I slammed closed the golden gates on those memories. Nightmares.
“I… I don’t…” Shit. Shit. Shit. I was a stuttering idiot. Thank the Ancestors that Arran wasn’t here. What would Arran think? Would he want…
It doesn’t matter what he wants. It is my body.
“Veyka,” Cyara said steadily. She didn’t mistakenly use my title, and I knew it was because in that moment, she spoke to me female to female rather than subject to ruler. “Would you like me to continue adding the shadowvein to your daily tea?”
I stared down at the brown liquid, already going cold in my cup. My fingers gripped it hard enough that my knuckles matched the delicate porcelain. The tug in my chest, the bond that tethered me to Arran, tightened and pulled.
A reminder. While this was my decision, he deserved to at least know about it.
But talking about something as intimate as a family, children—we barely even knew how to talk to each other, given all that had happened.
My hand was shaking as I set down the teacup.
Control.I had to keep control.
I had no power over the mating bond, no power over the magic inside of me, but I could control this.
I chanted it over and over again.Control, control, control.
“Yes, please,” I said to Cyara. She spared me the agony of having to see her expression and turned away to brew a fresh pot.
15
ARRAN
Feasts were boring.
I’d been to more of them since coming to Baylaur than the entire three hundred years of my immortal life before that.
In the terrestrial kingdom, where the weather was cold and food scarcer because of it, meals were shared by practicality. A central dining hall was easier to keep warm than individual rooms. Food went further when served communally. Brawls often broke out. Our kind was not particularly well suited to close quarters even if necessity demanded it. But fighting was entertainment in a kingdom where brute strength was the only currency that mattered.
In the elemental kingdom, they valued entertainment of a different sort.
As we watched, dozens of scantily clad males and females entered the throne room. Music floated in on a warm wind that had their clever garments lifting to reveal tantalizing glimpses of breast and thigh.
Beside me, Veyka watched the dancers silently, little more than a wraith.
