by Jack Whitney
Her brows raised. “Sedate me?”
“You want to no longer be in charge of this kingdom’s security?” he growled, getting to his feet. “I tire of your games, sister. I have done nothing but try and protect you from yourself. If you would just… behave. Your duties to this throne can be stripped to nothing more than the hand of the king at banquet. I implore you. Sit in your dresses and keep your mouth shut.”
“Or what?” she almost mocked. “What will you do? I just told you. You cannot hurt me.”
“No,” he agreed, eyes flickering over her figure again. “But if you’d like your sister to remain oblivious—”
The raven shrieked off her shoulder as she lunged at him.
Her hands curled around his throat and she shoved him onto the floor. Her knees sat on his hands over his waist. “If you dare touch her—”
Blue flames engulfed her hands. She made herself stay there for as long as she could stand it, willing him to burn and burn her to the point that she could not feel her hand any longer. But the flames wrapped themselves down his body and curled around her legs, and she was forced backwards.
She fell on her back, but pushed herself up to a seat immediately, shaking the agony of the blisters on her hands and thighs. Her eyes pricked tears, but they did not fall as the chills ran down her spine, and she did a double-take at the look of satisfaction on his face.
“What happened to you?” she whispered. “What wronged you? You were not like this. We used to love one another, play, fight, laugh… And now… now you’re nothing more than a monster undeserving of his crown. You promised me. You promised to be better than them.”
He straightened the collar on his shirt and shifted the weight on his feet before beginning to tug at his sleeves. “It is your choice, sister,” he said in a level tone.
Her jaw clenched, and she swallowed hard, feeling her nostrils flare just slightly at his threat. “Don’t touch her,” she pleaded. “Don’t you dare.”
“Then I suggest—” he took two steps forward, and his hand wrapped around her jaw “—you get on your knees.”
Her hands trembled, and she noticed as the noise of the room silenced to a ringing. Her pull on the birds let go, and they flew out the window… all but her raven, who sat on the windowsill with its back to her as she was forced up onto her knees.
She’d have rather been burned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
IT WAS TWICE more in the month before the next Council meeting that she was forced into his study and given the choice of he taking her on her knees or he taking Nyssa.
She would protect her sister at any cost.
Both mornings on which Lex found her lying atop her covers, she argued with her about what he was doing.
“Lex, please. There is nothing we can do,” Aydra hissed at her on the second morning.
“There is,” Lex argued. “Do you think the people would stand it if they knew what he was doing to you—”
“The people love him,” Aydra interjected. “They think he is fair, that he takes care of them, merciful… they think him to be perfect. The greatest of the Promised Kings so far.”
“Do you believe Dorian and Nyssa would stand for this?”
“I will not be dragging them into it,” Aydra argued. “This is my fight. They cannot know anything about it.”
“And Draven?”
Aydra almost balked. “What about him?”
“You two—”
“Had sex?” Aydra said incredulously. “I have sex with a lot of people. Draven is no different from any other.”
She knew it was a lie. But she wasn’t sure why it was a lie or what made it any different from her other conquests.
Aydra’s ankles healed within a few days of her going and dangling them in her mother’s waters. She would stare at the tree she’d been born beneath in silence, it’s great white limbs pouring out into the sky high high above her. She didn’t normally adorn the Throne Room where their mother’s tree was unless they were receiving formal guests. They’d only truly used it once since Aydra’s being crowned six years earlier. It was a sacred place, not to be taken as just another room in the castle.
As she sat there, she would daydream about all the times she’d visited her mother in the past, the time when she’d walked into the Throne Room at the age of ten and found her mother sitting at the base of the tree. And in her arms were two infants. Arbina was singing a song to them, a song Aydra had never been taught the words to.
The infants had barely stirred, and Arbina had smiled up at Aydra, the beauty of her features lighting up in the sunlight glittering off her skin.
“Hello, my daughter,” she’d cooed at Aydra. “Would you like to meet your brother and sister?”
Being ten, and having not ever seen an infant before, Aydra was weary of the small beings in Arbina’s arms. But Arbina stood from the roots of her tree and took the small marble walkway to cross the space between them.
“Sit down in the chair,” Arbina told her with a nod towards what was then Zoria’s throne.
Aydra sat down, and Arbina stepped forward and placed one of the infants in her arms. Red hair stood stark against the small child’s pale skin. Aydra cradled the child against her, careful with its head.
“This is Nyssari,” Arbina informed her. “Your sister.”
Aydra looked up at the other child against Arbina’s chest. Its thick black hair was wavy on its head. “Is that my brother?” Aydra asked.
“Dorian is his name,” Arbina answered.
“What are their surnames?” Aydra had wondered.
Arbina sighed and bounced Dorian in her arms a moment. “I’m not yet sure. Such will be determined upon their markings.”
“Will she be marked like me?” Aydra asked.
“Her mark will be determined by her actions. Like your mark was determined by the raven who chose you, hers will be by the creature that chooses her.”
Aydra stared down at the redheaded infant in her arms. The child yawned, and Aydra felt herself smiling at her dear sister, chest swelling with a pride she was unfamiliar with. “I’ll protect her,” she promised.
Arbina had smiled at her, and then reached out to stroke Aydra’s cheek. “You will.”
Her raven landed on her arm.
Aydra snapped back to the reality of the present with a shake of her head.
The sheen on the white tree caught her eye from the sun, and she smiled as the great Aenean Orel circled the room above her. The hairs on Aydra’s arm stood, and she felt another energy appear behind her. She sighed into the familiar energy, but didn’t move from the spot she sat on.
“Hello, mother.”
The wind of someone walking around her pulsed through her hair. A soft touch grazed her arm, and she looked up over her shoulder to see her mother’s corporeal form: Arbina Promregis Amaris.
She was the most beautiful woman Aydra swore she would ever see. As tall as Aydra, but thinner, less shapely. She always wore a thin white dress over her pale skin, belted with golden rope at her waist. Her white-blonde hair was usually pulled back away from her face, but today, its loose curls laid long to her waist. Widened blue-green eyes stared down her thin nose at Aydra’s sitting figure, her high, sharp cheeks intimidating on her long thin face. Her full lips rose upwards at the corners, and she gave Aydra a short nod.
“Hello, my daughter,” she said in her sing-song voice.
The appearance of her made Aydra’s breath shorten, emotion bubbling to the surface as she felt so small beside her. Arbina sat down at Aydra’s side and began playing with Aydra’s hair.
“What bothers you, my child?” Arbina asked.
Aydra didn’t know where to start. She sighed and stared out at the golden sun over the ocean, contemplating the stresses on her mind. “I think I am failing my sister,” she chose. “I have been so consumed with trying to be a protector and guardian of this realm, I’ve neglected my first duty. I have not taught her as much as she needs to k
now. Not a fraction of what Zoria had taught me by the time she—”
“Zoria was an overachiever,” Arbina interjected. “Her idea of fun was riding out and dining in the Village.”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
Arbina’s brow raised at her. “You can’t tell me such would bring you joy, my dear. I know you better. You crave adventure. Danger. Not sitting on a throne and dealing with petty crimes and Dreamer squabbles.” She paused and looked her daughter up and down. “This kingdom flourishes. Your people do not know famine or no more danger than a single Infi walking among them for only a few weeks. The most danger to ever come to them is when the Venari show. These people have grown weak living in such peace.”
Aydra frowned. “What is wrong with living in peace?”
“Nothing,” Arbina said as she turned back to playing in Aydra’s hair. “It is about time after so many years of our squabbles that the people take rest.”
Aydra paused a moment and stared out at the beach. Hairs and a chill grew on her skin as Arbina played in her hair, and her eyes began to drift. But Draven’s face came to the front of her mind, imagining he playing with her hair instead of Arbina, and she began to fumble with her hands.
“Why did you and Duarb become enemies?” she finally asked.
Arbina paused and stared at her. “Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason…” Aydra lied. “I just… I was hurt in their realm a few weeks ago. They took me in. Helped me heal. I knew no terror or felt no hostility from them. After everything I was taught growing up—”
“Duarb is a liar,” Arbina cut in, yanking at Aydra’s hair. “He tried to seduce me. Enslave me and tell me his children were so much more superior to my own. His children are no different from he. They are manipulative. Cursed. Treacherous. They’ll say and do anything to get you to think they are anything more than a group of rebel mercenaries. The ones they call Venari are full of such vile miscreants, even more so than their shifting brothers they’ve entitled the Infi.” A huff of amusement left her lips. “Venari King,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes. “Such a title given to them simply to appease their aggression. Make them think they have a say here in this world.”
Aydra’s eyes narrowed back at her mother. “I don’t think that’s true,” she argued.
Arbina dropped Aydra’s hair and balked at her. “Are you calling your mother a liar?”
“I am not. But… I think these people have grown from what you knew them as, what they used to be. What Duarb used to be.”
Arbina reached out and pushed Aydra’s hair from her face, cupping her cheek in her hand. “My dear, sweet, daughter… how do you think you came by those injuries in the first place? Did you think it was by chance?”
Aydra’s stomach knotted at the way her mother looked at her, and she started to back her way out of the pool. “I think you’re wrong.”
Arbina’s jaw tightened, and she rose to tower over Aydra, eyes blazing with a fury Aydra had not seen before. Just as Aydra thought her mother would snap at her, the fury in her gaze relaxed, and Arbina leaned down to give her a kiss on her forehead.
“Vigilance, my daughter,” she told her. “Do not turn your back on them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE NEXT THE Council came to Magnice made Aydra’s body nauseous. She met the Council with her siblings the night before as she always did. Ash had come early this time, and he’d joined her in her bed that night, but she never found her end.
Every time he would kiss her, all she could see was Draven’s face.
And she hated him for it.
Lex met her in her room that morning as Aydra got dressed, kicking Ash out to his own room. Aydra was throwing clothes from her closet to the bed when Lex threw a grape at her back.
“What’s your problem?” Lex grunted.
Aydra glared at her over her shoulder. “I’m fine,” she insisted.
“Something tells me you should have used the Venari King’s gift last night,” Lex mumbled.
“I want nothing to remind me of him,” Aydra spat.
Lex frowned and sat up in the bed. “Weeks ago, you told me he made you feel things you didn’t know how to take. Now he’s arriving on our doorstep this morning and suddenly you want nothing to do with him?”
Aydra sighed and willed her core to relax. She pulled out one of her less formal dresses and held it against her. “It’s not like that.”
“Explain it to me.”
“My brother has Belwarks watching my every move. Whatever is between the Venari and I… it is too new to risk him being thrown in chains over.”
“So you would allow him to think you feel nothing? That you hate him more than usual?”
“I would.”
Lex paused and gave her a once over. “Is that why you’ve been wearing his shirt to sleep every night?”
Aydra’s jaw tightened and she glared at Lex’s smirking face. “It smells like the forest and it’s comfortable. Shut up.”
Aydra had Lex meet Draven instead of her to retrieve her horse upon his arrival. Aydra filled her day as she normally did before meetings— on the beach. Only this time, she invited the Scindo Creek Ambassador’s daughter and personal Belwark guard to join her.
The Dreamer, Jannah, told Aydra stories of her people, of the traders that came through who Aydra now knew were of the Honest people. Jannah’s touch radiated on her skin when she would laugh with her. Her blonde hair fell over her pointed ears, and when the sun decided to begin its setting journey, Aydra found herself between Jannah’s Belwark, and Jannah herself.
But the images her mind had been plagued with the night before entered her mind as she was graced between them. And this time, she didn’t push him out.
She allowed the fantasy of Draven being with her to live in her head, allowing her subconscious to find her end, no matter how much it hurt her chest that it was not actually he between her legs.
Jannah was dripping with her finish when she kissed Aydra again, and Aydra slipped from between she and the Belwark, urging Jannah atop his extended length. She watched as he filled her, and then she stood to put her dress back on.
“I have to go,” she told them softly, crouching down at their side once more. She kissed Jannah hard, followed by the Belwark. As she pulled back, her eyes met his, and she whispered, “Finish her grandly, Belwark,” to him.
She cursed Draven’s stupid face under her breath as she made her way back to the castle.
It wasn’t a dress that Aydra chose for the meeting that day. It was a black long jumpsuit that hung off her shoulders. A wide belt hugged her waist, thick black tulle flaring out over her backside beneath it. The jumpsuit featured tightened fabric that clung to her arms and legs. The tulle cape billowed behind her and tickled the floor as she walked. She gave her hair a fluff and placed the crown on her head just as Lex entered the room.
“Oh, this is my favorite,” Lex mused as she watched Aydra push her ring on her finger.
Aydra smiled at her over her shoulder. “Are we late yet?”
“Early, actually,” Lex told her.
The apprehensive look Lex gave her then made Aydra’s stomach knot. She picked her shoes off the floor and shook her head at her friend.
“Don’t,” Aydra warned.
“I said nothing,” Lex argued.
“You were thinking it.”
Lex huffed amusedly under her breath and leaned against the poster of the bed. “Watching you torture yourself is more amusing than I thought it would be.”
Aydra threw a shoe at her face.
The Council had yet to sit upon Aydra’s entering the room. She was met by a startled silence, followed by the low bows of the people around the room. Dorian swept to her side upon seeing her, and he escorted her to her chair.
“I cannot believe how early you are,” he muttered to her. “Thought you would have still been cleaning yourself up after the beach.”
Aydra’s eyes flickered to the g
uests that had accompanied her earlier in the day, and she gave Jannah a nod. “It was a good day—”
Words ceased in her throat upon finding the darkened eyes of the one she’d been avoiding all day. She drew a jagged breath and allowed her eyes only a moment to take his his figure leaning against the stone, the sage green of his low cut tunic and tight of the pants he wore searing into her memory for later. His crown of thick hair splayed over his shoulders as he pretended to be interested in whatever it was the Ambassador was saying to him.
“—Drae?”
The sound of Dorian’s voice made her do a double-take out of her stare. “Hm?”
“I asked if you were okay,” Dorian continued.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
The doors opened once more, and Rhaif filed into the room, causing every person standing to bow upon his passing. Dorian squeezed her arm and excused himself to his normal place, standing at the back of the room, when Rhaif came around the corner.
Aydra felt her lips purse upon his coming up to her. Rhaif paused just beside her and gave her a full once over.
“Something you’d like to say before we get started?” she mumbled.
His gaze met hers, and he whispered, “This one I like,” in her ear.
Her jaw tightened, and she took her seat without another glance at him.
She was thankful the meeting was a short one.
They spoke of the Infi being banished in the streets, the expected crop of the wool for the winter— one of the Ambassadors had brought a sample of it for them to approve of. Rhaif declared the wool scratchy, not as soft as in previous years. Aydra rolled her eyes and insisted the wool was perfect, not wanting the Ambassador to feel as though his hard work had been for nothing.
But it was the way that Draven’s eyes kept flickering to her that made her chest red, her face heated. The confusion in his gaze made her heart constrict. She wanted to tell him what was going on, why she was avoiding him…
The moment the meeting was adjourned, she slipped from the Chamber through the servants tunnels.