The King of Faerie (Stariel Book 4)

by AJ Lancaster

  “Mainly we are going to try to get him to marry us,” Wyn admitted. “But, yes, we plan to appeal to him on that front also.” Though how I am to convince him to help out of the goodness of his heart, I know not. Especially knowing the High King had a potential history of antagonism with Valstars.

  Marius shot him a look. “You really want him to bring back the Iron Law?” He stiffened in alarm. “Did I…? Was that telepathy?”

  Wyn shrugged helplessly. “It may be only that I’m more predictable than I’d prefer.”

  Marius leaned down to pluck a few blades of grass, twisting them restlessly together. “And here I was plotting to throttle you as soon as I saw you again. How do you always manage to derail the topic of conversation from what one most wishes to speak to you about?”

  “You’re welcome to shout if it makes you feel better.”

  Marius slid him an irritated look. “Well, I would if I thought it might change anything. Bloody hell, Wyn.” He looked at his hands, bright stripes of colour appearing on his cheekbones. “I thought you had better judgement.”

  “Ah…this wasn’t exactly something we planned.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean! Hetta I expect recklessness from, but not you! You knew you weren’t free to marry her when you… Well, you knew. But apparently that made no difference whatsoever! And don’t give me platitudes about fae culture,” he added acerbically. “Because you’ve damned well been living in Prydein long enough to know what’s acceptable here and what’s not.”

  Wyn was relatively certain they were both recalling the same morning, when Marius had inadvertently caught Wyn in Hetta’s room in a state of undress. But Marius didn’t need to know that was the night the child had been conceived, nor that it had been their first night together. Despite Rakken’s teasing, Wyn was a little sentimental about that. It had been an enjoyable night.

  Marius winced and blushed a fiery red. “I did not want to know that!”

  And his shields had slipped. Wyn bolstered them again with an irritated jab at himself. When had he become so careless? Though he wasn’t exactly used to spending time with telepaths. Perhaps it was because his subconscious didn’t see Marius as a threat, and all his training had been designed to trigger against malicious influence. Or perhaps it is another sign of my fraying control.

  “Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “But I am not sorry for the child.”

  “I’m too young to be an uncle.” A pause. “You’re going to be a father. Hells.”

  Wyn swallowed, the phrasing somehow sliding through all his careful walls of emotional distance. A father. The word shouldn’t hold particularly warm connotations, given his own parentage, and yet…

  Marius took one look at him and laughed. “Breathe,” he instructed. He handed him the hipflask. “And have some whiskey.”

  Wyn did both. The shock of the liquor didn’t settle his emotions; rather, it seemed to knock something loose.

  “I’m going to be a father.” He thought of small wings beside his own, and his throat closed up on the words.

  “And this has only now occurred to you?” Marius said drily. He stared out into the darkening estate. Their conversation had taken them from afternoon to dusk. The sun’s dying rays lit the lake in brilliant lines of pink and gold.

  Wyn put his head in his hands and made an inarticulate sound.

  “How can I possibly be a good parent, given one of mine tried to kill me and the other not only abandoned me but ensorcelled her own children, presumably to make sure we couldn’t follow?”

  Marius huffed. “You’re being ridiculous. Do you think Hetta’s going to be a terrible parent, just because our father was?” There was a deep bitterness to the words.

  “I am being ridiculous.” Wyn swallowed. “I know I am. I just—” He put the hipflask down and looked at his hands with clinical interest. They were trembling. “I am so afraid of getting this wrong.” He closed his eyes and said the words that had sat like ice in the back of his mind ever since Rakken had forced him to acknowledge them. “I killed my own father.”

  Marius breathed out in a sudden rush, and Wyn felt a need to explain himself.

  “I knew what Stariel would do to him if I brought him here, given its alarm over Hetta’s kidnapping. And I brought him here. And I don’t regret it. And ever since…I thought I could control my fae side, but I can’t.” The panic spiked again, sharp.

  “I actually know quite a lot about hating your own nature and the futility of thinking you can change it.”

  That drew Wyn up short. “That is different. There’s nothing wrong with you, Marius, nothing that should be changed.”

  “And why should that apply to me and not to you?”

  Wyn glared moodily at his hands. “This isn’t about desires and wrong-headed mortal customs. I am…there is something dangerous in me, something capable of planning and executing murder.” Now that he’d acknowledged it, he could feel the urge to change forms lurking just beneath the surface, the prick of feathers under his skin.

  “You acted to save your and Hetta’s lives,” Marius said. “I’m not endorsing murder, but I don’t think self-defence counts, Wyn.”

  “I am more powerful now than I was then. More powerful than I should be, given my age.” Powerful enough that it affected the babe. He gave a bitter laugh. “I thought I could be human, for Hetta, but everything about this entire situation has driven home the fact that I am not. Hetta keeps suffering because of my nature.”

  “Well, she’d suffer less if you’d stop wallowing in self-pity about it.” Marius’s bluntness startled a laugh out of him. “Honestly, I think the only person afraid of what you might be capable of is you.”

  “I’ll try not to be insulted that you don’t think I am a fearsome fae warrior.”

  “Well, I have no idea about the warrior bit, but fearsome—no.” Marius paused. “Are you going to teach your child to hate themselves too?”

  41

  Household Management

  Hetta set down the phone with unnecessary firmness the next morning. Well, that went about as well as expected. She’d finally managed to get through to the palace; unfortunately, not before the queen had already heard about the leviathans from another source. Queen Matilda had also heard there was reason to doubt that Wyn would be in any position to offer any agreements with fae courts. At least the report of the leviathans hadn’t yet hit the newspapers, despite Marius’s persistent reporter’s presence. It was undoubtedly only a matter of time.

  The queen had wanted Hetta and Wyn to take the next train to Meridon to give a full explanation, not trusting the secureness of cross-country phone calls.

  “Well, at least I managed to put that off without actually refusing a direct royal order,” Hetta told the kitten that had crept into her office without her noticing. The half-catshee kittens registered as something like wyldfae against her senses, which Stariel generally considered a sort of background noise, unworthy of its notice.

  The kitten eyed her desk, wiggled its tail to build up momentum, and pounced. A second later, a purring black kitten was happily trying to nuzzle her with complete disregard for the stack of papers in front of her. Hetta petted it absently, wondering where exactly to begin the written report she’d promised instead of an in-person debrief—and that only because they were already due at the Meridon Ball and Hetta had made noises about having to attend the Conclave before then and that being summoned would interfere with the self-government agreed between the North and the Crown. The queen had made her general displeasure evident.

  “Well, good luck to them trying to ban you,” Hetta told the kitten, thinking of what Marius had told Wyn about his discussion with the earl. “I can’t even keep you out of my office.” But surely Queen Matilda wouldn’t be that foolish? Queen Matilda couldn’t magically eject fae from Prydein like Hetta could with Stariel, but magic wasn’t the only threat to the fae.

  Iron, she thought uneasily. Grandmamma’s anti-fae charms. Yarrow an
d whatever other herbs the bank manager’s wife used in that potion. Hetta couldn’t imagine Queen Tayarenn—or any other fae—reacting well if the Crown declared open season on fae.

  War.

  That was what Wyn feared, and she was beginning to think he was right to fear it, surreal as it sounded. Her hand slipped to her stomach. She’d stood for a long time in front of the mirror this morning, wondering if she was only imagining that it was subtly rounder.

  She didn’t check the colour of the heartstone, though she couldn’t stop herself from feeling for it beneath her clothing. Had she focused too much on the immediacy of the High King’s task and not enough on the problems of the mortal world? Lord Arran’s disgust as he shied from Gwendelfear rose once again in her mind’s eye. A hollow, queasy sensation swam around her innards. How could she persuade the Conclave that this was about so much more than whether they thought a woman a fit ruler?

  It took her a long time to draft the report for Queen Matilda, and the sun had risen high in the sky by the time she finished. The kitten dozed in slanting rays of sunshine, tail twitching, but woke when she set down the pen and began unenthusiastically sifting through the papers that had accumulated in her absence: bills, invitations, journal subscriptions, letters, a quote for insulation. The only comfort was that Wyn would undoubtedly have an even larger pile, since the minutiae of the estate’s paperwork tended to go through him first.

  A soft knock on her door.

  “Come in.” She put down the pen.

  Marius teetered on the threshold as they considered each other. He looked tired, dark circles under his eyes, his skin a shade paler than usual. He’d never been good at hiding his emotions when upset, and they skittered across his face in quick succession: concern, hurt, embarrassment.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Hetta blurted. “I mean, I don’t exactly love the idea that you know what I’m thinking, but I’m not afraid of anything except perhaps embarrassment.” She tried to focus on the exercises Wyn had taught her. Stariel lay quiescent, thank all the little gods.

  His lips twisted wryly as he closed the door behind him. “I don’t exactly love that idea either, sister mine. All I can say is that I promise to try not to. Wyn told me what he knows about telepaths.”

  “Does it help?”

  He held out his hands helplessly. “I don’t know yet. Maybe. I’ll leave you if what happened yesterday happens again.”

  Can you read my mind now? Hetta wanted to ask but refrained. Paranoia wasn’t going to help either of them. “I’m sorry. We should’ve told you.”

  “Yes, you should. Though I understand Rakken is mostly to blame for that.” His expression darkened.

  “We chose to take his advice though, which I think now was a mistake. That’s on me.”

  All the anger burned out of him, his shoulders drooping. “Well, don’t do it again if I develop any other unexpected magical abilities.”

  She gave a weak laugh. “Stariel seems to think that’s a possibility—for the Valstars generally, not you specifically,” she hurried to add. “There’s more magic running through the estate now, and we’re all connected to it.”

  He ran a hand through his hair and sank down on the settee beneath the window. “Bloody hell. Not just Alex, then?” Alexandra had developed the Sight, with increasing strength over time. A fragment of amusement in his eyes. “Can you imagine the trouble we’ll have with Jack’s temper if he abruptly develops pyromancy?”

  A second kitten appeared—apparently from nowhere—and jumped up onto his lap, making him start. Had it slipped in when Marius opened the door? Hetta considered the one still on her desk. In theory she could track the movements of lowfae, but it required a strong effort on her part to convince Stariel they were worth it.

  “I’m beginning to think they can walk through walls,” she said wryly.

  The one on Marius’s lap leapt onto the window ledge, trotted its way along and began to climb up the drapes, complaining when Marius detached it claw by claw.

  “Think of them as practice,” he said with a smirk. “Kittens aren’t half as much trouble as babies.”

  “Don’t you start too.” There’d been quite enough slightly gleeful remarks on that subject from too many quarters.

  “Aunt Sybil?”

  “Grandmamma, actually. But no doubt Aunt Sybil will start on that too once she gets tired of moralising at me. Also, I’m not totally ignorant about what it all entails. I was fifteen when Laurel was born.”

  “Yes, and at boarding school.”

  “And you were away at university, so don’t pretend you have any more expertise than I do! Why are we even arguing about this?” She sat back with a huff. “It’s foolishness.”

  Marius’s grey eyes were penetrating. “This thing with the High King…it’s not just about the scandal, is it, or public sentiment about fae?” He grimaced. “Sorry. I don’t know if that was telepathy or not.” He petted the kitten mechanically. “Gods, I hate that I don’t know anymore.”

  She put her hands on the desk in front of her, examining her nails to avoid meeting her brother’s gaze. “No.” She explained the situation in a cool, steady tone that didn’t shake even when she ended with: “So, in effect, if we can’t sort out ThousandSpire and find the High King in the next week, no one will have to worry about me being an unmarried mother because I won’t be one.”

  There was a small, kittenish mew of protest. Hetta looked up. The kitten Marius had been holding spilled onto the floor as Marius crossed the distance between them, leaned down, and hugged her.

  Something loosened in her chest all at once, a taut rubber band snapping free. Her eyes prickled. She rubbed at them angrily with the back of her hand; she wasn’t going to burst into tears yet again! But the unexpected compassion of her brother’s reaction took her off-guard. She’d feared he might think losing the pregnancy would be the best outcome.

  “Of course I’m not going to tell you that might be for the best, not if you want it! Credit me with some degree of empathy!” He closed his eyes. “You didn’t say that aloud, did you?”

  “No.” She smiled despite herself. Wyn had been right; he was still Marius.

  “Sorry.” He took a deep breath, hands spasming at his sides. “So…I’ll join Ivy in sorting through the library then, see if I can find anything to give you extra leverage on the High King. Gregory can damn well make himself useful too.” He grimaced. “Unless there’s anything else I can do to help?”

  He looked about as helpless as she felt, but it made her feel strangely better. The kitten meowed up at him, trying to claw up his trousers, and he picked it up distractedly.

  “I think more information wouldn’t do any harm, if there’s any to be found. Though I’m hoping Irokoi might be more helpful on that front as well, if Rakken can get the compulsion out of him properly.”

  As if her mention had summoned him, the door swung open, and Marius went rigid. Hetta turned, though her land-sense meant it wasn’t a surprise to see Rakken standing there. It was a surprise to see how tired he looked, his features carved with exhaustion, bones pricking sharply at his skin. More of his feathers had grown back since the last time she’d seen them, but his wings were still far from complete. Rakken usually gave off a slightly careless energy, but for the first time his appearance conveyed more distracted unkemptness than artful dishevelment.

  He also seemed extremely angry. The reason for this became clear when he spoke, the emerald inferno of his gaze fixed on Marius.

  “I require your assistance, Marius Valstar.”

  Marius withdrew to the opposite side of the room, holding the kitten like a shield. An ineffective shield, mostly because the kitten took one look at Rakken and slithered out of Marius’s grasp with a mew. Marius said nothing. It took a lot to make Marius truly angry as opposed to mildly annoyed, but Rakken seemed to have managed it.

  Rakken made an impatient sound. “The compulsion is a living spell that regrows even as I prune it. I need some�
��mechanism to halt the growth long enough for me to unroot it. Your experiments.”

  What was Rakken talking about?

  “Oh, so you need to use my energies for your own purposes again, is that it?”

  Hetta had never heard Marius sound so cold.

  Rakken’s eyes flashed. “It is your sister who will benefit from this, ultimately. And isn’t help with this what you wanted from me? I am not tame, Marius Valstar, and I will not apologise.”

  Grey eyes clashed with green, the atmosphere sharp enough to cut. Hetta gave a delicate cough.

  “What experiments, Marius?”

  Marius broke away from his glaring, sagging back against the wall. “I’ve been experimenting with improving the anti-fae charms Grandmamma made.” He told her about his minor successes with glamour and lowfae in Knoxbridge. “I wanted to see if I could make something that would help protect people from compulsion, but I didn’t get very far. Someone refused to help.”

  Hetta wasn’t sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, Marius was right—given all the trouble they’d had with Aroset, and especially knowing she’d been compelling the general public, if the wing worshippers were any evidence, it only made sense to investigate anything that might give people more protection against her manipulations. But on the other… She thought of Queen Matilda’s suspicion, the earl’s inquiry, and, oddly, the nessan glittering in the lake without the linesmen being the wiser.

  Rakken shifted, looking irritable. “This is wasting time.”

  Marius ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it into further disarray. “I want your promise you’ll support Hetta and Wyn’s marriage, if you take ThousandSpire’s throne. And Catmere’s. And don’t tell me you can’t make promises on her behalf.”

  Rakken raised a cool eyebrow. “Very well then, Marius Valstar. You have my word—and my twin’s.”

  Hetta looked between the two of them, feeling as if she’d walked into the middle of something she didn’t understand, even though technically both of them had walked into her study. But before she could ask for clarification, Rakken had gestured ironically at the door. “Shall we, then?”