A third figure stood at their side, a man with dark hair and eyes that were the color of feyblood. He wore simpler clothing than the royals, fine but practical battle clothing, and a blade hung at each hip. His ears were pointed, but not as sharply as most Fey, making me wonder if perhaps he was mixed-blooded. He stood with his hands behind his back, watching us. He had a piercing stare. I could feel it digging into me from the moment I walked in the room.
“King Ezra and Queen Athalena,” one of the guards announced, as we approached, “I introduce the King of the House of Stone, Caduan Iero, and representative of the House of Wayward Winds, Ishqa Sai’Ess, and his wife, Ashmai, along with their traveling companions.”
We all dropped into bows. “It is an honor to be welcomed into your home,” Ishqa said.
We straightened. The guards had already disappeared, save for the slight echo of their footsteps down the hall. There was a long, brutally uncomfortable silence as Ezra and Athalena surveyed us.
Could any of us really blame them if they chose to skewer us where we stood? Maybe they would know who I was. It would be fair, by any measure, for them to take my life in exchange for all the ones my father took from them.
Athalena stood, slowly. Ezra followed.
And finally, a smile broke over Ezra’s face.
“It is a pleasure to have visitors of the old blood after so long,” he said, warmly. “Come. You must be hungry. Let us talk.”
The dinner table was incredibly ornate, with platters of every type of meat and vegetable, decadent sauces drizzled over artfully arranged plates. My mouth watered. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I’d eaten so well. Yet, there was a knot in my stomach where my hunger should be. While we all graciously accepted the Nirajans’ food, it remained largely untouched.
Our dinner was private, attended only by Ezra, Athalena, and the dark-haired man, who was introduced to us as Orin, Ezra’s half-brother and Niraja’s lead war-master. He barely spoke, aside from a terse greeting. But I couldn’t tell if I was imagining his uncomfortably long stares, ones that made me keep glancing down to make sure my tattoos were still hidden and disguise intact.
Pleasantries were brief. We barely made it past the first course before Caduan was telling them of the humans’ escalating attacks. He recounted each slaughter, first on the House of Stone, then upon the House of Reeds, and finally, upon Yithara. Ezra and Athalena were pale by the time he was done. For a long, long moment they did not speak. I watched their faces carefully.
“Horrible,” Athalena muttered, as if to herself. “Horrible.”
Ezra reached for her hand, but instead of taking it, her fingers curled into a fist. The two of them exchanged a glance, one leaden with a silent language only the two of them spoke. When we had first arrived, Ezra had seemed the picture of a noble Fey king, carefully controlled. But now, in the wordless conversation he was having with his wife, his face revealed a deep concern.
“We are the first, then, to bring you this information?” Ishqa asked. His voice seemed to pull Ezra from his trance, because when he looked back to us, his face was once again pleasantly calm.
“Of course you are,” he said, and despite his warm smile I did not miss the slight edge to his voice. “We have no contact with the Fey world. As your people had long ago decided.”
“Of course,” Ashraia said. “We didn’t mean to imply—”
“The world of humans is simply foreign and unfamiliar to us,” Ishqa cut in, smoothly. “Despite the extent of their destruction, we still do not know why the humans are targeting us, nor who they might strike next. You sit between the human world and the Fey. If anyone would have greater insight into this, we thought it would be you.” He bowed his head. “Respectfully.”
Ezra and Athalena exchanged another glance. That look confirmed what the first one had made me suspect. They did know something. I was certain of it.
“We’re sorry to disappoint you,” Ezra said, tersely. “This is all as much of a surprise to us as it is to you.”
I just watched Athalena, who sat there in noticeable silence with her jaw tight and eyes drawn to the table.
“Ezra—” she murmured.
But his arm shifted, as if he had placed his hand on her knee beneath the table, and she went silent
“Of course,” he said, “you are all welcome to stay here as long as you wish. Speak to our scholars, if you so desire, or simply rest before continuing on your journey.”
Something told me that Ezra’s scholars would have little more to tell us, either. My fingers curled into fists against the polished mahogany. I did not come this far for nothing.
“Do not lie to us,” I said.
I could feel Ishqa’s warning glance, even if I wouldn’t meet it.
Ezra’s brows lurched. “I wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“We took a great risk by coming here,” I said. “You must understand that. We didn’t defy a century of expectations just to be fed a mouthful of pretty food and pretty words and turned away.”
“Wife—” Ishqa started, and even in that one word I could hear the razored warning — stop, you idiot, right this second.
“Lives are in the balance,” I said. “The humans have proven that they will not stop. And you are foolish if you think they will not come for you after they—”
In one smooth movement, Ezra stood, his blue eyes suddenly cold as shattered ice. “They will come for us? You have the audacity to come to my kingdom, the very kingdom that your people tried to destroy out of nothing but your hatred and ignorance, and pretend to be concerned for our safety? Do not treat me as if I’m stupid. I was there, when the Fey Houses attempted to imprison and slaughter my people — my blood. My family is in a perilous position, perhaps the only kingdom despised by all, Fey and human alike. And I will not, I will never, allow the same fate to—” His voice broke, and he cut himself off abruptly. Athalena put her hand on his, and I watched Orin look to his brother, a faint wrinkle of concern between his brows.
Ezra let out a breath, collected himself, and looked back to us. “So I ask you not to sit there and tell me how I should protect my family. Trust that I am very well aware of which weapons are drawn at my back, whether they are held by humans, or held by you.”
Beside me, Ishqa leaned forward. I could already imagine the words that would come out of his mouth next, smooth as butter and sweet as honey, the product of decades of training in politics.
But he did not get the chance to speak, because Caduan did first.
“I know as well as you do,” he said, “how it feels to have your people targeted. I have none left to fight for. And I would not wish that upon Niraja, just as I would not wish it upon any other House. I do not know what my word is worth as the King of a nation of nineteen people and a pile of ruin. But I am certain that one day, the House of Stone will rise again. And when it does, if you help us here, I offer you our alliance for life.” He extended his hand across the table, palm up. “Exile be damned, it would be yours.”
I forgot to breathe.
The blood of a king could forge an unbreakable bond. It was an incredible offer, and one that was rarely given. My father had forged only one unbreakable alliance in his reign, and even that, he did under great duress.
Ishqa, Ashraia, and Siobhan were all looking at Caduan as if he was absolutely insane. Even Ezra seemed to be questioning it. Orin looked abjectly confused. Only Athalena seemed to be considering it, her mouth serious and downturned.
Still, something about his offer seemed to put Ezra at ease, if only slightly.
“Your generosity is… kind. But that does not change the fact that we cannot help you, even if we wished to. We know nothing more than you do.” He lowered slowly into his chair again, returning to his glass of wine. “And so, King Iero, today your blood can remain unspilled. But your offer is appreciated, and I would like more than anyone for our Houses to live in harmony.”
It wasn’t enough.
But before any
of us could press further, the door squealed open, and a little blur of eggshell blue bolted into the room.
“Zora! You’re not supposed to be—” Athalena’s scolding was interrupted by an oof as the child launched herself into Athalena’s lap. The little girl was perhaps no older than five summers, squirming to regard us with big, curious brown eyes. Her dark hair was styled in what were likely once-perfect ringlets, now messy and fallen. The little girl’s ears, I noticed, were mostly rounded, and short like a human’s, with only the faintest point.
“I apologize,” Athalena said, to us. “Our daughter is quite social.”
“Zora,” Ezra muttered, sternly, “we said that you must stay in your room.”
His eyes flicked from us, to his daughter, clearly tense for reasons I didn’t quite understand. I noticed, too, that Orin had shifted forward in his chair, watching us more carefully.
“I have a son that age,” Ishqa said, with a wry smile that held none of his typical practiced polish. “Trust me, I understand it.”
“Come now,” Ezra muttered, to his daughter. “Time to return to bed.”
The girl had no interest in such a prospect. She watched me, wide-eyed. Despite myself, a smile tugged at my lips.
This, I knew, was wrong — the intermingling of Fey and human blood was a travesty, only a shade away from beastiality. But this child didn’t look wrong. She looked… normal. Loved.
Ezra turned to us, oddly tense. “I apologize, but I must be getting my daughter back to bed. Our hospitality still stands. You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, speak to our scholars, and make use of our archives. But I’m afraid we have nothing more to offer you.”
“Perhaps we could meet—” Ishqa started, but Ezra was already rising, his daughter in his arms.
“I don’t believe we have anything further to discuss.”
He didn’t look back as he strode to the door. The child waved goodbye to us over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold, leaving us sitting at the table in silence.
Chapter Fifty-One
Max
Zeryth’s celebration ball managed to be even worse than I expected. I hated the Orders’ functions well enough, but engagements thrown by the crown or by high-ranking nobles made those balls look like drunken pub parties. At least by this point in the Orders’ annual ball, the drama had already begun, and it usually came in the form of someone yelling, someone crying, someone slowly removing someone else’s clothes in the corner, or, most frequently, all of those things at once. Wielders, after all, tended to fall a bit far from “subtle.” If nothing else, it made things interesting.
This? This just set my teeth on edge.
Long ago, I had attended many of these parties. They were always refined and tasteful, the decor beautiful but never gaudy, the music skilled but never loud, the insults cutting but always hidden between polite words. Now, one look at this party told me that Zeryth’s hand was involved. The tasteful, opulent decor of traditional Crown parties was here, yes — pedestals adorned with relics and statues, impeccably neat bouquets of flowers, lanterns with flames hidden within orbs of crystal stained glass. But overlaying all of it was a new, distinctly-Zeryth flavor of decor. White roses and ribbons hung down from the ceiling, suspended above us with magic. Between them were little lights that twinkled like stars.
And there, in the center of it all, was a shimmering conjuring of the sun and the moon, so enormous that it nestled perfectly in the curve of the domed ceiling.
Ugh.
I could imagine Zeryth walking in here five hours ago, looking around at the nobility-approved decor selected by the royal planners, and saying, “This is terrific and all, but do you know what I think this really needs…?”
I was not the only one who noticed it. As guests entered the room, every one of them cast little glances up at the ceiling. An undercurrent of uncomfortable snickers hung in the entryway.
Nobility knew. They always knew, when something didn’t belong.
Those were the same sounds they would make at my mother at these parties, just low enough that they could pretend they were being subtle and just loud enough to ensure they weren’t. Disgusting.
“General Farlione.”
A hand clapped my shoulder. I stiffened and resisted the urged to slap it away. A doughy, mustachioed face grinned at me. The man was ten years older than he had been when I last saw him, but no less obnoxious.
“Congratulations on your victory, General. I always knew you were headed for big things. Two of Ara’s greatest wars, now, ended thanks to you.” He lifted his mostly-empty wine glass — surely not his first, despite the early hour. “Your father would have been proud.”
I made a noncommittal noise and looked for escape.
“Of course, it is a shame…” The man’s voice lowered — poorly — as he leaned towards me conspiratorially. “A bit of a waste, isn’t it? Such a great victory for a nameless king. Did you know his mother was a whore?”
Amazing. They hated Zeryth for all the wrong things.
“Actually, Lord Quinlan,” I said, “some might say the only good thing about Aldris is that he doesn’t come from—”
I was interrupted as an arm delicately slid around mine. “There you are. I thought you would have skipped.”
I turned. Whatever barbed words I’d been preparing left me all at once.
Ascended above. That woman did know how to make an entrance.
Tisaanah wore a gown unlike anything that I’d ever seen before. It was deep red — of course — and accented with gold embroidery, which lined the double-breasted bodice that resembled the cut of a military jacket. The shoulders were sharp, and the sleeves open, exposing burgundy silk gloves that reached her elbows. A thick gold belt cinched her waist, and below it the dress fell to a layered skirt that gradually darkened to black. It was open in the front, revealing heeled, polished boots that laced to her knees.
I cocked an eyebrow. Tisaanah gave me a sweet smile.
What a show-off.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she purred. “But we are late for a very important meeting.”
My eyebrows arched in exaggerated surprise. “Ascended, you’re right, it does seem like the right time to be late for a very important meeting.” I gave Quinlan a tight smile. “It was a pleasure, sir.”
We didn’t give him time to say anything more. Tisaanah and I strode across the ballroom, her arm casually resting over mine.
“You were about to say something very rude to that man,” she said.
“You couldn’t even hear me.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did.”
She smiled at me — a real smile, not the delicate act she had given Quinlan. I wondered if she realized how much the intensity of it outshone her performances. Combined with the rest of her appearance tonight, that smile made her look as if she could conquer worlds.
I caught a glimpse of the two of us in one of the long mirrors on the other side of the room, and realized that we complimented each other perfectly. I wore a double-breasted military jacket, rendered in dark violet, with red and gold in the trim and at the cuffs. Her outfit looked as if it could be the brighter, more feminine mate to mine.
Damn. She really thought of everything.
Her eyes met mine in the mirror.
“You are staring. Do you like my dress?”
“I don’t know. It’s a bit conventional.” I glanced at a nobleman who wasn’t even bothering to hide his rubbernecking. “Surprised you didn’t go for something a little more attention-grabbing.”
“You know me. So shy.”
She batted her eyelashes, and I rolled my eyes.
The truth was, every set of eyes slid towards her, some in subtle glances, some in outright stares. Tisaanah soaked up their attention, but those looks made my jaw clench.
This was different from the Orders’ ball. That night, she had dressed to show off her scars an
d force members of the Orders to acknowledge the brutality of what had happened to her. Tonight? Tonight she dressed to appear powerful, playing off the whispers of what people had said about her — about us — in the wake of the battle. And yes, there was some admiration in these looks. But there was also fear and petty judgement.
This, after all, was high society. And while even the most snobbish members of the Orders could begrudgingly admire skill no matter where it came from, high society feared what was different and judged what they deemed to be inferior. And there was nothing they hated more than someone who “didn’t know their place.”
I hear she was a slave, they’d whisper. A whore, even. Can you imagine? A whore girl serving our beggar king? How funny. How fitting…
We passed one such whisper in the crowd, just loud enough to hear, and despite myself I stopped short, giving the couple a glare so sharp it almost brought flames to my fingertips.
“Excuse us,” I said, “we didn’t quite catch that. Care to repeat yourself?”
The couple stared at us, wide eyed. I wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to let it go until I felt Tisaanah give my arm a gentle tug.
“Max,” she murmured, a gentle warning in her voice. I gave the couple a withering stare and turned away.
“You’re the reason they get to be at this ridiculous party,” I muttered. “They should be thanking you.”
“There have always been people who saw me as less. And there always will be.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“When does right matter?”
“You deserve better.”
That was always the thing, those three words. You deserve better. Tisaanah had always deserved better, because she was better than all of them. Better than the people at this party, better than Zeryth Aldris, better than the bastard who had nearly killed her. Better than every last one of them.
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