Reckless Cruel Heirs

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Clinking arose from the end of the table opposite Nima and Iba. Gregor stood and tapped his fork against his wine goblet. “I want to propose a toast to the newly betrothed. Amara, it is my honor to welcome you into my family, and it will be an even greater honor to share the Farrow name with you soon.”

  I almost choked on my spit. Even if I were to marry Remo—which so wasn’t happening—I would never take his family name.

  Gregor raised his glass higher. “To two families becoming one.”

  I was tempted to keep my fists on the table to display how I felt about Gregor’s toast, but one look at Iba had my fingers clenching around my goblet and lifting it high.

  “Skies lend me strength,” Remo mumbled so low it sounded as though he were clearing his throat. He traded his knife for his golden goblet and raised it.

  “Ditto,” I said sweetly, knocking my glass so hard against his, wine sloshed over the rim and soaked the sleeve of his tunic.

  His fire steamed away the damp spot but failed to lift his thickening displeasure. After the toast, I turned my back on Remo and spoke exclusively with my grandfather, who explained the origin of toasting—a way to check if drinks were poisoned—before sharing tons of other fun human facts, which had my cousins leaning closer.

  Even though I was focused on Pappy, I couldn’t help but overhear pieces of Remo’s conversation with Shiloh, who sat on his other side. They mostly spoke about her bath products company, and how doing business with humans was so much easier than with faeries, which led them to talking about Earth, and did she miss living there?

  My bracelet vibrated with an incoming message: So?

  Joshua was relentless.

  ME: I’m in the middle of dinner.

  JOSH: Don’t forget, prinsisa. But in case you do . . .

  My stomach spasmed as though someone had just punched me.

  JOSH: I’ll remind you. ;)

  I quickly shut down our chat. How unfortunate that faerie bargains could be claimed from such a distance. I looked around the table. Now was as good a time as any to check Josh’s suspicions. Since Iba, Nima, Gregor, and Silas were here, most of the lucionaga in the kingdom were, too. Which meant the coast was somewhat clear.

  6

  The Little Brother

  Faelights bobbed like luminous raindrops around me as I made my way down the glass stairs and past the slender wooden pillars that supported the sides of the pavilion. I’d thankfully gotten rid of my guards, insisting I needed no escort to use the bathroom, which rose from the soft earth like a mushroom stalk, bearing most of the weight of the fan-shaped cap. I skirted the structure’s moss-coated walls, hoping no lucionaga lurked amidst the tall, jagged flowers ringing the fence of artfully crisscrossed stilts at the far end.

  Right as I peeked between the crisscrossed slats, a thin voice called out my name. I turned to find Remo’s ten-year-old brother trotting toward me, one hand held behind his back. Although he shared certain facial traits with Remo, like my fiancé’s straight nose and thick, low eyebrows, his coloring was entirely Silas’s.

  “What is it, Karsyn?”

  “My brother doesn’t like you. He’ll never like you.”

  One of my eyebrows jolted up. “And?” I stared impatiently toward the calimbors that stood like giant sentinels against the violet sky. I had minutes left before someone upstairs questioned my toilet break.

  “And I can’t let him ruin his life.”

  I gave the kid my full attention now. “Ruin his life? Because you think I want to marry your brother?” I flapped my hand to shoo him off. “Go back to the party, Karsyn, and mind your own business.”

  “I love my brother,” he said, advancing toward me.

  “Lucky Remo.”

  “And that’s why I need to do this.” He whipped a long dagger from behind his back and aimed it at my ribcage.

  My shoulders banged against wood as I caught the blade with my bare hands. Karsyn gave a hard shove, and the tip snagged my dress’s bodice. Smoke curled around my knuckles, and blood dribbled through my fingers.

  “Karsyn, put your dust away before I magnetize it!” I barely moved my lips as I yelled, afraid to inhale the wita. Although it wouldn’t kill me, breathing in too much would make me black out, and this was really not the moment to become unconscious.

  “My dust?” He laughed. The kid laughed. “I may be young but I’m not stupid, prinsisa. My dagger isn’t made of wita.”

  I gaped down at the blade I was holding, my fear receding. Obviously, Karsyn wasn’t the sharpest adamans in the field if he thought he could kill me with a normal weapon. Jabbing my heart with metal would hurt but it wouldn’t end me.

  Ticked off now, I said, “You’re gonna be locked up, Karsyn.”

  “I don’t care. As long as you’re dead, I don’t care what happens to me.”

  I didn’t even think Remo hated me as much as this boy, but perhaps he did. Perhaps he’d sent his little brother after me. The fact that no lucionaga came to my rescue solidified this theory. I had screamed, hadn’t I?

  Grunting, I pushed hard on the dagger, trying to drive back the little brat. How had I let myself get cornered by a ten-year-old? The answer was that I hadn’t deemed him a threat. Stupid me. I tried to toss the blade sideways, but the kid’s arms were steel. Had Silas trained him or had Remo? Or maybe it was Faith herself. Maybe she had cutouts of my mother and me, and made her kids use them as target practice.

  Karsyn jerked his arms, managing to nick my breastbone and pierce skin.

  “Enough!” I screeched. I called forth my own dust and was about to slap it into the boy’s puckered face when something glimmered at the edge of my vision.

  Something shiny . . . and golden. Through the tendrils of smoke leaking from my chest, I made out what it was—an axe. If it was made of wita and came in contact with my open wound, I’d die.

  Instead of shoving through the fence of stilts at my back, or fashioning a shield with my own dust, my muscles seized. Karsyn’s brown eyes widened, which made me realize two things: it wasn’t his dust coming at me and whomever it belonged to wasn’t working with the kid. The axe chopped the dagger’s blade from its hilt, and the blood-soaked metal slid from my trembling hands, clattering noiselessly against the soft dirt at my feet.

  Karsyn’s brown hair fluttered as he whipped around. Remo was advancing toward us, his mouth moving. His words pinged off my eardrums without registering.

  Had he come to save me? I could hardly believe my fiancé’s desire for the crown exceeded his desire to rid the worlds of me, but he’d ruined his brother’s weapon, so perhaps it was stronger. Karsyn spun back toward me. He punched through the air, palm flat and sparkling.

  Shielding my punctured chest with my injured palms, I rocketed sideways, toward the wall of curved moss. His dust followed my trajectory. I tried to coax my own out, but the cut in my palms stung so harshly I couldn’t grasp the threads of my powers.

  What was the point in controlling every single element if they all went into hiding the minute I needed them? The bobbing faelights illuminating the dark space caught my attention. I summoned them, then sent them careering toward the villainous kid.

  “Karsyn!” Remo yelled in warning.

  The lit globes met their mark and bowled the boy over. Unfortunately, they didn’t smash into his ribbon of wita, and the noxious scent of it crept into my nostrils. I spread my fingers wider and pivoted, hugging the wall of moss to get my vital organs out of harm’s way.

  Come on, wita . . . I flexed my knuckles. Come on.

  My fingers burned. I hadn’t reached my dust, but at least, I’d gotten ahold of my kalini. I peeked over my shoulder to see where I was directing my flames only to realize no fire leaped out of my smarting palm.

  7

  The Filigree

  I stared at my left palm, then raised it and flipped it over.

  And over.

  Even though there wasn’t much sound, the world around me grew even more silent. I
no longer heard the heated whispers of the Farrow brothers or the tinkle of adamans petals beyond the barrier of stilts. All I heard were my softening breaths and cadenced heartbeats.

  Under the drying blood and thin wafts of smoke drifting from the zippering wound, a filigree design had appeared on my palm. The inky tracks of captive dust wrapped around the base of my fingers and coiled all the way up to my nail beds.

  I’d seized Karsyn’s dust.

  Or was it Remo’s?

  I finally looked up, meeting my fiancé’s agitated stare. He yelled something my buzzing ears failed to catch. Sobbing, Karsyn shook his bruised head, no longer the cruel little warrior who’d wanted to gas me out of existence.

  Thoughts of his brother’s fate were surely careening around Remo’s mind. Would I have Karsyn condemned to death? After all, the proof of his attack was inscribed on my hand. And on my chest. Even though the cut would heal, a pale scar would remain for a few hours. Possibly, days, depending on the metal he’d attacked me with.

  “Amara?” Remo spoke my name so loudly I blinked. “Are you okay?”

  I frowned. “Like you actually care.”

  “Can you put your loathing for me on hold for a second? I need to understand what happened down here. Why were you and my brother fighting?”

  “Fighting?” I gave a bark of laughter. “You mean, why did your brother just try to assassinate me?”

  Remo flinched.

  “Sh-she said she w-was going to k-kill you.” Karsyn picked up one of the fiery globes that had hit him and flung it back into the air. “I was just pr-protecting you.” He picked up another faelight and squeezed it between his shaky fingers like a stress ball.

  I gaped at the boy, at his reddened eyes and tear-slicked cheeks. Was he kidding me? Was he really putting the blame on me? Little lupa turd. “Why don’t you tell your brother the truth before I call over your father and ask him to read my mind? Or yours?”

  Karsyn blanched.

  “Karsyn.” Remo sounded his brother’s name without shifting his lips. “The truth.”

  “You said you hated her.”

  So much white appeared around Remo’s irises that I thought he might pull a muscle. “I didn’t ask you what I said; I asked you what you did.”

  He squeezed the faelight so hard it separated into two smaller gummy orbs that drifted out of his hands and up into the air, highlighting his already fading shiners. “You shouldn’t have to marry her.”

  “Did you try killing her? Yes or no?”

  “If I say yes, will you gas me, Remo, or will you ask Dad to do it?”

  “No one’s gassing anyone right now.”

  The brothers looked long and hard at each other before Karsyn finally admitted, “Yeah. I was trying to kill her. And I don’t regret it. I just regret that you came and ruined it all.”

  “Tell me how you really feel,” I mumbled.

  Remo’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell. And then he clasped his lids shut as though he couldn’t stomach the sight of his brother. “Go home, Karsyn.”

  My shoulders jerked back. “Shouldn’t I have a say in where the kid goes?”

  Remo snapped his gaze to me, his forehead scrunched in an emotion I had never spotted on him before . . . despair. “Have mercy.”

  “Mercy?” I laughed a tad bitterly. “Your brother tried to kill me, Remo.” I gestured to my chest.

  Remo winced as though a sword were slicing through him. “And he will be dealt with.”

  Had it been anyone else, I suspected the lucionaga would’ve let me pick the person’s fate, but this was personal. Still, I didn’t fully trust Remo to deal with it.

  “Your brother admitted he’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

  “I know, Amara. I heard. I saw. But he’s just a kid. Please. I’ll do anything.”

  “Anything?” Anything was a dangerous word in our world. “Even strike a bargain with me over your brother’s fate?”

  His jaw hardened in time with the rest of his body. “Yes.”

  “Remo, you don’t want to owe a Wood,” Karsyn said.

  “Shut up. Prinsisa, do we have a deal?”

  Without hesitation, I said, “We do.” I was going to kill two quila with one arrow: I would force Remo to sever our engagement, which in turn, would make the Cauldron lock him out of Neverra . . . for good. “Speak the words, Remo.”

  “Words are unnecessary. I already agreed.”

  He was right; I’d felt a little stitch form between our bodies when he’d said yes. Nothing uncomfortable. More like a strand that linked us, that I could pluck once the time was right. “I still want to hear you say them.”

  His jaw worked. “You shouldn’t kick a man when he’s already down.”

  I wanted to savor my little victory over his outsized ego, however petty that made me. “Speak. Them.” Perhaps he’d never kicked me when I was down, but he’d always stared and did nothing. Indifference was just as cruel.

  If looks could kill, his would’ve turned me into flickering dust motes. “I fucking owe you, Trifecta. Are we done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Karsyn, home. Now. We’ll talk as soon as this dinner is over.”

  The ten-year-old pursed his lips as though he’d bitten down on a tart gladeberry. Casting one last hateful look my way, he threaded himself between the stilts and soared upward, toward his home at the top of one of the calimbors.

  I sighed, sensing too much time had passed and my family would wonder where I’d gone. Operation check-if-prison-portal-exists would need to be postponed till the end of the meal. I composed a quick message to Josh to wait another Neverrian hour.

  “Prinsisa?” Remo’s voice jolted my gaze away from the holographic texts. Why hadn’t he flitted back to the dining room yet?

  I vanquished my conversation with Josh out of existence with the swipe of a finger. “What?”

  He stared at the stubby shadow spilling from his tall body and darkening the ground between his shifting boots. “You need to change.” A blush mottled his jaw. “Your dress.” Keeping his gaze averted, he gestured briskly toward me. “And your hand.”

  I glanced down and found that the stretchy purple bodice was torn and had retracted, displaying more of my breasts than the skimpy red bikini Giya had gifted me for my seventeenth birthday.

  I raised my Infinity and swiped through my digital wardrobe until I found the outfit I’d been about to change into to ford through the field of adamans—a black bodysuit made of flexible carbon scales that was impenetrable like armor but flexible like spandex. Neenee Lily had developed the fabric for Daneelies who desired clothing suited for their amphibian lifestyle. Nima and I had become the proud owners of the very first edition.

  Once my body was cloaked in the compressive material, I exchanged my strappy sandals for knee-high boots, then searched through my closet for a pair of gloves but found I owned none. “You can stop blushing now, Remo.”

  “I wasn’t blushing.”

  I smiled, enjoying his discomfort immensely.

  “You forgot the gloves.” His voice was a low growl.

  “I don’t own any.”

  Remo swiped through his Infinity furiously, then slashed through the beam emanating from the bangle. A pair of black leather gloves materialized on his hands. He plucked them off and tossed them at me.

  “I won’t be returning your brother’s dust for a long long time. Perhaps forever. So people are bound to notice my new tattoo.”

  He squeezed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Just hide it tonight. Please?”

  Something occurred to me then. “Wait. Did I confiscate his wita or yours?”

  His gold eyes snapped open, and his hand slid off his face. “Mine? Why would you think it was mine?”

  “Because you sent yours at me too.”

  “To stop you from being skewered. Now put on the damn gloves.”

  “I thought you were trying to help your brother.”

  “Wouldn’t expect
you to think anything but the worst of me.”

  “Have you ever given me a reason to think otherwise?”

  He held my gaze, and I held his, playing a game of tug-of-war with our eyes. When I was younger, shyer, I might’ve looked away first, but I was no longer the introverted little fae Remo Farrow got a kick out of intimidating.

  “I pity the man who will stand at your side the next time the Cauldron appears.” His tone was as abrasive as the stone wall beneath the moss. And with that, he backed away, soaring around the heavy pillar and through the gap between the stilts.

  I ran his words through my mind, feeling my eyebrows dip and rise, before dipping again. Didn’t he think he’d be the man standing at my side? Did he sense I would use my gajoï to kick him out of the kingdom?

  Slowly, I put on the gloves, the material molding around my fingers, adjusting to their narrowness and shorter lengths, then circled around the bathroom just as Aylen and Shiloh appeared at the bottom of the glass staircase. Both stopped chatting at the sight of me.

  “You’ve changed out of your dress,” my great aunt remarked.

  “Sauce stain.”

  Shiloh arched a brow. “That your fire couldn’t remove?”

  I let them assume changing out of my purple garb was my way of showing Neverra what I thought of my engagement. “Surprisingly, yes. I’ll see you upstairs.”

  When Shiloh’s nose twitched, probably catching a residual whiff of dust on the air, I sidestepped them, then slalomed around the hovering faelights and up the flight of stairs. Silence settled over the guests when I landed in the dining room.

  “Snagged my skirt on one of the stilts,” I told my aunt Lily.

  Her dark, expressive eyebrows writhed. I’ll fix it for you tomorrow, she signed.

  I was tempted to tell my aunt not to waste her time, but instead, I smiled and said, “Great,” and conversations resumed.

  I felt Nima’s black eyes on me. Pert smile pasted on my lips, I looked up. She inclined her head to the side and mouthed, Are you okay?