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“That ‘rabble’ are the people who run this Palace!” I exclaimed. “They work hard and wait on you hand and foot. And instead of treating them with respect, you do everything you can to make their lives miserable and keep them ignorant!”
“Ignorant? Pray, Princess, whatever are you speaking of?” Lady Elgiana raised one elegant silver-white eyebrow at me, her expression coolly skeptical.
“I’m talking about the fact that Mordren has decided that the female children of the Lesser Fae no longer need to go to school,” I snapped. “He thinks it’s a waste of time since they’re only going to be ‘cleaning and mending and cooking for the rest of their lives.’” I looked directly at Mordren. “Those are your words. Do you deny you said them?”
“I most certainly do not,” he snarled. “Nor do I retract my words. Females—at least, Lesser Fae females—are too stupid for school. It’s a waste of resources to educate them.”
“How dare you make such a unilateral decision for a whole group of people you don’t even know?” I demanded. “Women are not second-class citizens and they are just as intelligent as men. A vagina and a brain are not mutually exclusive, you know!”
For a moment the whole High Table just sat there gaping at me. I guessed they weren’t used to feminist rants during dinner. Though honestly, people have the wrong idea about feminists. It’s not that we believe women are better than men—it’s that we believe we are equal to men and ought to have the same rights and opportunities in life. If that gets your britches in a knot, maybe you should stop and consider your world view.
As for why I was giving my opinion so loudly now, well—maybe I was trying to make up for lost time. It wasn’t lost on me that if I’d stood up for myself more in my marriage, it might not have ended the way it did. I had let Christopher walk all over me but I was damned if I would repeat my mistakes.
I thought that Mordren was going to shout at me some more and I could feel Sel and Krynn at my back, poised for action. They hadn’t gotten involved yet, but I knew they were waiting to jump in if things got ugly.
But to my surprise, the Lord Regent didn’t shout again. Instead, he took a deep breath and pasted an oily, obsequious smile on his face. Leaning across the table, he looked me directly in the eyes.
“My dear Princess, there’s no need for such histrionics,” he drawled. “You and I should be friends.”
When he said the word “friends” I heard a peculiar resonance in his tone that seemed to leave a lingering buzzing sound in my ears. And when I looked into his eyes, determined not to lose the staring contest I suddenly found myself in, I could have sworn that the bluish-purple depths were swirling around and around…
“My dear, don’t look too long into Lord Mordren’s eyes,” a soft voice said in my ear. It was Lady Nolana, murmuring discretely from the corner of her mouth.
At the same time, I felt a heavy hand fall on my shoulder—it was Seldarin, I realized. The big Fae gave my shoulder a warning squeeze.
Sel’s hand on my shoulder and Lady Nolana’s warning whisper seemed to break the strange trance I had started to fall into. I looked away from Mordren’s swirling eyes and lifted my chin.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t—” But my words ended in a coughing fit, because once again my throat was so dry.
“You poor thing!” Before I could stop her, Lady Elgiana reached for my goblet and filled it from a bottle of wine sitting right beside her. She pushed it back across the table to me with a look of melting sympathy. “Your fangs have come in but you’ve yet to have your first Quenching. You must be so thirsty.”
I started to take a gulp of the wine without thinking of it—anything to stop the coughing—but Krynn was suddenly leaning over my shoulder, his hand over the top of the goblet to keep me from taking a sip.
“No, my Lady!” His soft tenor voice was urgent. “You must not drink or eat anything that Lady Elgiana gives to you,” he murmured and handed me a new glass of water instead.
I gulped the water thirstily, glad to finally get my cough under control. But though I was now so full of liquids I was practically sloshing, my throat still felt terribly dry.
Rather than offending her, Krynn’s actions seemed to have amused Lady Elgiana. She threw back her head and laughed, her silver white hair swirling elegantly around her shoulders.
“What’s wrong, Krynn my pet?” she asked, giving him a knowing smile over my shoulder. “Are you afraid I’ll make your Lady’s desires worse? Don’t worry about that—I doubt anything could worsen the Thirst or the craving she no doubt feels for your blood.” She smirked at him. “And speaking of craving, how is your Needing lately? You haven’t visited me in such a long time and you know I miss you.”
“What I fear is that you’ll poison her,” Krynn said sternly, ignoring her other words. “I know your ways, Lady Elgiana.”
“Me, poison the Princess?” Her eyes widened in apparent shock. “How dare you say such a thing? Princess Lilliana is to be our ruler! The next Queen of the Midnight Court. How could you think I would ever hurt her?”
“Because I know well enough that you and Mordren want the power of the Midnight Throne for yourselves,” Krynn shot back.
“And you’ll do any fucking thing you can to get it,” Sel growled. “Including using your magic to try and bend her to your will,” he added, clearly speaking to Mordren.
“That’s enough of your filthy accusations—both of you!” Mordren snapped, glaring up at him and Krynn. Clearly he was irritated at being called out. “And enough of this dinner too—if you can call it that,” he added, curling his lip in disgust at the perfectly good bowl of soup in front of him. He rose abruptly from the table.
I frowned. Was the banquet over then? Just like that?
“Where do you think you’re going, Mordren?” Sel asked, a growl in his voice.
Mordren took a moment to wipe the corners of his mouth with elaborate gentility, using a corner of his pure white linen napkin. Then he dropped it deliberately in the soup and smirked at the two Fae standing behind me.
“It’s clear to me that the Princess cannot wait any longer—we must adjourn early. It’s time that we visited The Quenching Parlor.”
