The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  “And getting ever more technical by the day.” She grinned. “So shall we go to Alverness and rectify that, then? I for one am keener on the sooner rather than later.”

  “How do you propose to explain the trip to your family?” he said lightly, mainly to give himself time to think.

  “I wasn’t proposing to explain anything at all to them,” she said airily, waving a hand. “The kineticar can suffer a convenient breakdown after the last train has left, or something.”

  Anticipation sparked through his veins, but he looked down at his hands, remembering how the lightning had twined around his wrists earlier. He wasn’t as subtle as he’d thought, because she murmured:

  “You won’t lose control. You’re the most controlled person I know.”

  “But if we aren’t at Stariel, there won’t be any failsafe if I do,” he pointed out.

  “You controlled it today.”

  “Only with Stariel’s help.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And…we cannot keep ignoring the scandal we’re creating.” The storms knew he didn’t want to think about it either, but Penharrow had reminded him that Hetta’s reputation could impact on her ability to successfully rule Stariel.

  Hetta didn’t say anything despite watching him intensely, and he was again afflicted with doubt about the subject.

  “I—” he began awkwardly, not knowing quite how to start but knowing that he couldn’t bear not to talk about it any longer.

  A perfunctory knock startled them both.

  The door opened barely a second later, and Lady Sybil stalked in. Hetta didn’t have time to get off the desk. Wyn was faster and managed to stand and put a few inches of space between them by the time Lady Sybil made it into his office.

  “Henrietta Valstar!”

  Hetta slid calmly off the desk. “Yes, Aunt?” she said sweetly. “Have you come to remind me to take my tea? How thoughtful of you.”

  “It’s not appropriate for you to be behind closed doors with a man!” Aunt Sybil pronounced in dramatic accents. She shot Wyn a dark look.

  “Oh, I know,” Hetta said cheerfully, but there was a martial gleam in her eyes.

  Wyn thought he’d better intervene, but before he could, Lady Sybil narrowed her eyes at Hetta and said shortly: “A royal courier is here for you.”

  10

  A Summons

  Even Aunt Sybil couldn’t conjure royal couriers out of thin air, but Hetta couldn’t help feeling like she’d done it on purpose nonetheless. It wasn’t as if she could’ve known Hetta was in here, given how she’d translocated into Wyn’s office, so her aunt must’ve come here hoping to catch them engaged in ‘inappropriate’ behaviour.

  “Thank you for alerting us, my lady,” Wyn said to Aunt Sybil with a polite smile.

  Aunt Sybil merely gave a stiff ‘hmmf’ and turned to Hetta. Hetta didn’t roll her eyes, but it was a near thing—Aunt Sybil didn’t know how to treat Wyn now that she knew his true rank, so she generally ignored him if she could. When she absolutely couldn’t avoid it, she grudgingly called him ‘my lord’. She couldn’t stomach ‘your highness’, but no amount of insisting that Wyn was fine with remaining simply ‘Wyn’ or ‘Mr Tempest’ could persuade her to abandon her strict notions of proper manners.

  “I’ll take you to the man,” she informed Hetta. She pivoted without waiting to see if they would follow, head held high.

  Wyn wasn’t at all dissuaded by her aunt’s cold shoulder. He kept gently chipping away with small talk as they walked, playing oblivious to her aunt’s rigid disapproval. He’d been doing this dance of reassuring normality for the last two months, to everyone, with mixed results. The staff, he’d won over completely. The villagers remained standoffish. Her family were split on the subject. And at this rate, it should only take approximately three thousand years to thaw my aunt out.

  Hetta trailed along after her aunt. Honestly, you’d think they lived in the dark ages. It was all so stupidly old-fashioned. And unfair, besides, given that I did far more with people in Meridon than I’ve done with Wyn. But she’d been far beneath anyone’s notice then, just another illusionist among the theatre crowd. The thought gave her a pang. If Stariel hadn’t chosen her, she’d still be back there with her old company, and not having to deal with her ridiculous relations and equally ridiculous societal expectations on top of fae and finances. And now royal couriers. Though surely Her Majesty wouldn’t trouble herself with idle gossip?

  “Why are we going to the west wing?” she asked as Aunt Sybil diverted abruptly in that direction. She’d expected the courier would be waiting somewhere near the entry hall, or possibly in her study, but the west wing lay near neither of these locations.

  “The courier is in the Sesquipedalian Lounge,” her aunt said shortly. The Sesquipedalian Lounge was so named owing to the peculiarities of Hetta’s great-great aunt, a traveller of some renown. That lady had mistakenly believed ‘sesquipedalian’ to mean ‘relating to sea creatures’, and since she’d had the word carved above the door into the room, no one had had the heart to enlighten her. It wasn’t a room where they normally received guests.

  Suspicion prickled and hardened into resignation when they entered the Sesquipedalian Lounge to find an ambush. The ambush consisted of not just the royal courier but a knot of bemused Valstars. I should’ve seen this coming. Aunt Sybil’s frustration with her errant niece had been growing, and she’d clearly decided to use the courier as an excuse to stage a confrontation. The poor courier; he had no idea what he’d walked into.

  Jack grimaced from behind the royal courier, who turned smartly at the sound of their entry. The courier was blond and pale-skinned—as so many Southerners were—and wore red livery, putting Hetta strongly in mind of a beagle. His gaze flicked first to Wyn, with more than just casual interest, and unease threaded through her before he turned his attention back to her.

  “Lord Valstar?”

  “Yes,” she said, trying to convey some degree of dignity despite the crowd of murmuring relatives. “What’s this about?”

  The courier bowed and extracted a very official document from his bag. “I am to see this delivered to your hands today, my lord.”

  Hetta held out her hands obediently. The envelope bore the queen’s crest and was sealed and stamped in glittering gold wax.

  “I will take my leave then, Lord Valstar,” the courier said.

  “Don’t you want to wait for my response?”

  He shook his head, polite but firm. “I was told it wouldn’t be necessary, and I must be getting on. Good day, Lord Valstar.” He made a beeline for the exit past the glass cases of sea shells.

  Hetta frowned down at the thick envelope. Had the queen ever written to her father? Perhaps she’s going to chide me for being tardy in swearing my allegiance. It was customary to swear fealty in person, but a trip to the South had had to wait on a hundred and one more urgent matters. She and Wyn had talked about trying to arrange it for later in the spring, after planting had finished.

  She looked up to see Aunt Sybil, Aunt Maude, her cousin Jack, her stepmother, and her two younger sisters all clustered about in anticipation. Aunt Sybil had done well for such a hasty gathering, though Grandmamma was missing.

  “I’m not sure this is any of your business at all,” she said to them dryly. “But since you’re all here anyway, we may as well find out together.” When no one spoke, she unsealed the envelope and pulled out the paper within. “It’s a summons,” she said after taking in its contents. “Queen Matilda wants me to present myself at an audience with her in a week’s time.” She met Wyn’s eyes. “And she wants me to bring you with me.”

  Wyn stilled, which meant he was as unsettled as she was.

  “Why does she want Wyn to go with you?” Jack wondered aloud. “How would she know anything about him?”

  Aunt Sybil sank down onto the nearest seat and clutched at her pearls. “The scandal has spread as far as Meridon, Henrietta!”

  “I’m sure Her Majesty has hear
d far worse scandals,” Hetta objected. “I know for a fact that there are lords in the North carrying on far worse activities than me. Why, Lord Orweslyn was found—”

  Aunt Sybil purpled and made a noise like a chicken being slaughtered. “Henrietta Isadore Valstar!”

  Wyn coughed and said mildly: “I fear I do not perfectly understand the laws that govern your relationship with the Crown. Does Queen Matilda truly pay such close attention to her subjects’ personal affairs? Does the North not retain some degree of independence?”

  “The South has no right to intervene in our affairs,” Jack said fiercely. Hetta’s lips curved. You could always count on Northern patriotism, in a pinch.

  “It must be because you need royal permission to marry, Hetta,” Lady Phoebe said softly. She shrank as all eyes turned towards her. “I mean—that is…” She coloured. “When Henry and I married, we had to get royal consent because he was a lord.” Her eyes darted to Wyn. “That is…I mean… You do mean to marry him, don’t you?” She went bright pink. There was a rumble of general agreement from Hetta’s assorted relatives.

  Hetta glared at them. Royal permission. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she’d need it, and a sharp spear of indignation went through her. Why should other people get a say in her affairs?

  “Yes, you must stop shilly-shallying and send him away if you don’t plan to,” Aunt Sybil said, without looking at Wyn. “And if you’re both going to Meridon, I will have to accompany you as a chaperone,” she continued without pause.

  Hetta slid a look sideways at Wyn. He’d gone very fae, expression unreadable. Marriage. She loved him, but—and the ‘but’ was exactly the problem. But he wasn’t human, though he was trying so hard to be for her sake. But they’d only just freed him from the consequences of his last promise to marry someone. But how could she marry someone she hadn’t even been intimate with? A burble of laughter tried to force its way out. Aunt Sybil would not approve of that last thought.

  Her stifled laugh made Wyn raise an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head. But also, he hasn’t asked me to marry him, and it’s rather a blow to my ego, she silently admitted.

  She blew out a long breath. “Enough. I can’t think with you all staring at me. I’m going for a walk. Jack, Angus has given us some sheep. Go and organise to collect them,” she instructed, pulling the relevant letter from her pocket and handing it to her cousin.

  “Not the slateshire sheep?” His face lit up, followed swiftly by a scowl as he remembered who the sheep had come from.

  “The very same,” she said, stifling another laugh at how easily her cousin had been distracted from the subject at hand. “I think we should give them in to Hawking’s care, since his flocks were hit hardest last year, but use your own judgement.”

  She threw Wyn a very speaking look as she turned and marched out of the room.

  11

  Fire And Air

  It took some time to extract himself from the Valstars, and when he’d managed it, he found Hetta standing on the lakeshore of Starwater. Ducks quacked indignantly on its rough surface as the shadows deepened and the wind rose. In the distance, small boats from the village dotted the waters, heading for the shore. The location wasn’t surprising; since her lordship, she often sought refuge outside when her emotions were stirred.

  But she was angrier than he’d realised, because as he drew closer, she flung out her arms and let fire pour forth over the dark waters. Her pyromancy had likely come from the Valstars’ distant fae ancestor and—like most elemental magic—it could be fuelled by emotion. Heat shimmered in the air, creating a brief haze of steam that was swallowed up by the wind a moment later. There hadn’t been permanent ice on the lake for a week or so now, but the water temperature was still not much above freezing.

  “Sometimes I can’t believe my family!” Hetta threw a hand skywards. “Or the foolish rules that apply to the nobility.” Another spurt of fire for emphasis. He took the invitation without hesitation. His control of lightning might be haphazard, but air magic was a more familiar companion. He thought of the Spires clutching towards him and fed his fear into the magic, twining air around her fire and fluting it out to form little sheep. Hetta didn’t have fine control of her pyromancy—once it left her hands, if it caught, it became real fire uncontrolled by her magic—and Wyn couldn’t call fire from nothing, but they’d found that they could combine their magic this way. A matched pair, he thought, chest tight, as the fiery flock frolicked across the sky. Stormwinds, he wanted that.

  Hetta began to laugh at the display, and the fire abruptly abated. She kicked at a bit of gravel and watched it sink beneath the surface. “Gods knows what the locals will say about my pyrotechnics,” she said wryly. “Though I’ve quite given up on not causing talk. Maybe that can be my name in the history books: Lord Henrietta the Scandalous.” She turned back to him. “Dash it. I do have to get royal permission to marry. Sometimes I forget that the same rules don’t apply to me now I’m lord.”

  And here it was—the chance to ask the question he desperately wanted to ask, the one he hadn’t the right to. “I’m aware we’ve both been determinedly ignoring a certain question for some time now,” he said. “Your relatives are not very subtle.” He grimaced. “Nor are some of the staff.”

  “Really? Do they drop hints at you?” She shook her head. “No, I’m not getting distracted. Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

  He held up his hands defensively. “You cannot blame this on my evasiveness alone—you’ve been equally avoiding the subject.”

  “You’re still avoiding the subject.” She folded her arms. “Marriage,” she said, dropping the word like a stone. “Specifically, of us.” A shag emerged from the waters and flapped its way, dripping, onto a tree branch overhanging the lake. The sound was unnaturally loud in the stillness between them.

  “I agree with your family that we cannot keep on as we are,” he said. Penharrow and the Conclave’s censure would only be the start, as the rumours about them spread more and more widely, damaging Hetta’s reputation. Nonsensical as it was, it mattered, here in the Mortal Realm, and he’d been unforgivably careless to let himself forget that, risking hurt to Hetta and the Valstars. “And I think you do as well.”

  No wonder she’d been so angry; she disliked being forced into things, and she’d been forced into so many of them, of late. Was it only that dislike that had stopped her from broaching the subject before now, or was it something more serious? “And I can see why they disapprove of us, as a pairing. After all—what would I bring to such a match except trouble?” Had she been thinking that—weighing up his murderous relations and fae nature and deciding it wasn’t worth the cost? He could not blame her, especially in light of today’s events.

  “Trouble,” she repeated flatly. “Is that why you haven’t declared yourself?” Colour bloomed in her cheeks. She was embarrassed, and it threw him. Why in the high wind’s eddies would she be embarrassed about this?

  Oh. Oh. He was an idiot, and the sudden relief of knowing it made him laugh.

  “Wyn, this is serious!” Her eyes flashed.

  “Oh, I am sorry, my love. I’m a fool. I never considered the Prydinian custom, that it is the male’s job to do the asking. I didn’t mean to make you doubt me.” He wrapped his arms around her, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. It didn’t satisfy his craving for closeness. “Of course I want to marry you, Hetta,” he reassured her. If only want was all that mattered here.

  She wasn’t reassured. She stepped back, forcing him to loosen his arms, and looked up at him, her eyes dark. “Don’t try that fae trick on me. I hear what you’re not saying.”

  He sighed. Of course he wouldn’t get that past her. “It’s not only a matter of my own heart. If Aroset has inherited the Spires, it’s very probable that she’ll try her best to harm me and anything I hold dear. This morning—that may have been her, trying to do exactly that. It is unfair to bind my fate to yours with that looming over us.�
�� His conscience wouldn’t let him soar over all the reasons she shouldn’t want to marry him, even though he would have liked very much to skirt them in favour of emphasising all the advantages of doing so. The only issue was that there was so very much less in the latter column than the former. “Sunnika, also, will try to manipulate you through me if she can.”

  “Yes, but she wants Stariel to think favourably of DuskRose,” Hetta pointed out. “Which means she’s unlikely to ask you for anything too terrible—like this morning, for instance. I don’t like her summoning you without warning, but she could’ve asked for something much more sinister than information about ThousandSpire.”

  “The next thing she asks of me may not be so. And what of Aroset?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t see how us marrying would put me in any more or less danger than I’m in now. Aroset already knows you care about me, and we’re not even pretending we’re not together anymore. Or at least, not very well,” she amended. In theory, the relationship between them was only known to her family. In reality, the Valstars were gossips, and Wyn doubted even the most isolated of the hill shepherds had not heard some part of the news.

  Her gaze was iron. “Are you going to threaten to leave again for my own good?” There was a warning in the grey of her eyes. I won’t forgive you if you leave, she’d said once, but it had morphed into a different truth over the last few months, unspoken but acknowledged: We’re past that now. I won’t forgive you if you take it back.

  He took a deep breath, met her eyes. “No,” he said. “I will not do that.” But, oh, how the achingly vulnerable truth of that commitment terrified him.

  Her fierce expression softened. “Well, good. Because I won’t accept half-measures. Not anymore.” She tilted her head. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”