The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  “What could Gwendelfear possibly hope to gain from that? I’m sure DuskRose would much rather Wyn rule ThousandSpire than any of the other candidates on offer, and you said Princess Sunnika wants an alliance with Stariel. She knows what Wyn means to you. They wouldn’t harm him.”

  Marius’s calm logic steadied her. She took a deep breath. “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m being so featherbrained about it. I just—”

  “You love him,” he murmured.

  “Obviously.”

  He made a face.

  “It’s all right, I’m not going to start waxing lyrical about it.”

  That made him chuckle. He squeezed her knuckles and sat back. “Heavens forfend.”

  They fell into silence filled with the jingle of harnesses, the thrum of rain, and the clatter of traffic. Hetta brooded. Marius’s words had reassured her somewhat, but she couldn’t stop worrying at the puzzle pieces, trying to make them fit. She couldn’t make sense of Gwendelfear’s role in all this. If DuskRose had Wyn, why hadn’t they contacted her?

  She hadn’t reached any satisfying conclusions by the time they reached the hotel, but she’d thought of even more worries. What if Rakken and Catsmere found Wyn? He wouldn’t just agree to go to ThousandSpire without talking to her first, would he? What if they didn’t find him? What if they did but managed to re-ignite a fae war in the middle of Meridon in the attempt?

  I should never have let them leave without me, she thought furiously, though how I was supposed to make that happen, I don’t know.

  “Do you want me to wait up with you?” Marius asked. His complexion had taken on a greyish edge. The party had taken more out of him than she’d realised.

  She waved his concern away. “No. You may as well go to bed. At least one of us ought to be well rested.”

  After he’d left, she changed into her pyjamas and dressing gown and paced the edges of her hotel room. If she concentrated, she could almost pick out the faint traces of Wyn’s magic from that first morning before they’d left for the palace. I’m being ridiculously sappy, she reflected, but it didn’t stop her pausing by the window and breathing in, wondering if she was just imagining the hint of spice in the air. He had to be all right, didn’t he? She hugged herself, pressing her dressing gown against her skin and wishing miserably that it was Wyn holding her instead.

  It doesn’t make political sense for Gwendelfear to harm him, she reminded herself, trying to argue the anxiety into submission. But what if Gwendelfear wasn’t interested in politics? She had a very personal grudge against Wyn, since he was the one responsible for her imprisonment at Stariel.

  Fear shot through her like a bucket of ice water down her back. Oh gods. Princess Sunnika might see Wyn as more valuable as a live bargaining chip, but what if Gwendelfear wasn’t acting on her mistress’s instructions? What if the princess had no more idea than Hetta what was going on?

  She couldn’t bear it, this not knowing, and she cursed the twins again for running off without her. If only she could contact Sunnika somehow… Wait. She slid to a halt on the heels of that thought.

  Wyn had summoned his godparent. Gregory had summoned Gwendelfear. As she understood it, all a summons did was create a kind of resonance between two locations, which then allowed the person summoned—the summonee?—to build a portal, if they chose and the location wasn’t warded against translocation.

  She swallowed. “I summon thee, Princess Sunnika Meragii.” She repeated the name three times and waited, heart racing. Would the princess answer?

  “It is bad manners to summon royalty in such a fashion, Lord Valstar,” a low feminine voice said behind her. She spun to find Princess Sunnika standing next to the coffee table. The fae woman sighed. “But I suspect you did not know that.” Despite the fact that she couldn’t have had any time to prepare before she’d teleported, she was perfectly coiffed and composed. The sleek black waterfall of her hair was even threaded with tiny pink flowers that matched the colour of its tips. Had she come from some public appearance, or did she just live permanently in the fae equivalent of court dress?

  Hetta brushed the idle thought aside for more urgent concerns. “Do you know where Wyn is?” she asked in a rush.

  The princess frowned. “Prince—”

  “Don’t say his name,” Hetta hissed, flailing a hand at her. “Or you may invite a surprise fae monster visit from his sister.”

  Princess Sunnika’s eyebrows went up. “Very well.” She pursed her lips and considered the hotel room, lip curling in sudden distaste. “But I see he is not the only royal stormdancer you are keeping company with.” Her eyes narrowed and her stance shifted, tensing. “Have you taken sides, Lord Valstar? I am a shadowcat; you cannot hope to ambush me.” She scanned the room as if expecting just that.

  “I haven’t taken any sides,” Hetta said impatiently. “And the others aren’t here right now anyway. Never mind them. What have you done with Wyn?”

  The princess’s confusion seemed genuine. “You are accusing me of…?”

  “Gwendelfear. You sent her to follow us. Do you know where she is now? What she’s been doing?”

  “It is also poor manners to accuse members of other courts of spying,” Princess Sunnika said bluntly.

  “Worse manners than sending the spies themselves?”

  The princess’s lips curved very slightly. “Obviously.”

  Obviously! If one more fae said that to her, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions. “Well, bad manners or not, do you know why Gwendelfear was with Wyn? And where they are now?”

  A slight frown marred Princess Sunnika’s brow.

  “You don’t know anything about it, do you?” Hetta guessed, impatient for answers. “But she’s your spy, isn’t she? If she’s hurt Wyn, then I am very much holding the Court of Dusken Roses responsible. There will be no agreements between Stariel and DuskRose. You’ll owe me.” Hetta wasn’t at all sure that was how fae debts worked, but she didn’t care.

  Princess Sunnika pursed her lips and looked as if she was about to speak. Anger flashed in her dark eyes, but in the end she shook her head and disappeared, leaving only the faintest trace of beeswax and cherries.

  Well, that had gone fantastically, hadn’t it? Hetta slumped onto the sofa, fighting the urge to laugh. Or cry. She wasn’t sure. Did I just threaten a foreign nation? Possibly she ought to worry about that, but she’d reached her quota of worry for the day. Princess Sunnika could jockey with Queen Matilda for Most Offended By Ill-Mannered Northern Lords.

  I suppose there’s nothing to do but wait now for Rakken and Catsmere to return. If they return. She drew patterns along the armrest, sighed, and got to her feet again. Maybe she could work off this restless anxiety by pacing the hotel’s hallways. Maybe then she could sleep. It would be sensible to try to sleep.

  There was a very faint popping noise. Hetta whirled, to find an extremely angry Princess Sunnika standing in front of the mantelpiece, gripping Wyn’s arm.

  Her eyes blazed with anger. “DuskRose owes you no debt, Lord Valstar,” she said, and disappeared.

  38

  Soap And Politics

  Wyn had seen Hetta in a lot of heightened emotional states over the years, but he’d never before seen her burst into tears out of sheer, helpless relief. Something splintered in his chest, and he shook off the disorientation of the teleport and closed the gap between them.

  “Oh, my love,” he murmured, gathering her to his chest even though he was still reeling from the sudden change in his circumstances. She was warm and soft and safe, and the closeness began to thaw the bone-deep chill of the past few days.

  She made an angry gurgle and clutched at his shirt, and he knew she was furious at herself for crying.

  “I’m all right,” he told her, stroking her hair. “My ego is very bruised, but I’m all right, Hetta.” It tore at him, to be the cause of her anxiety. He tightened his arms around her, nuzzling the top of her head
. “And I’m here now.” Stormwinds, did he owe Sunnika yet another favour for that? She hadn’t bargained, merely appearing and transporting him away before he’d had time to speak. He put the fleeting thought aside—it could wait.

  Hetta’s hands found the half-healed wound.

  “You’re not all right.” Her voice quavered. “Show me!” she demanded, fingers flying to his shirt buttons. He didn’t resist as she undid the buttons one by one, tugging his shirt away, and he obediently lifted his arms to let her peel off his undershirt. To his relief, the wound didn’t start bleeding again as the material was removed. Thank the stormwinds it had scabbed over properly at last.

  The task steadied Hetta, and she dashed her tears away impatiently. He lifted a hand to cup her cheek, the knot of anxiety in him unwinding as he drank in the sight of her, whole and unharmed.

  “Hetta,” he said.

  “You need washing and bandaging,” she said, taking a firmer grip on herself as she frowned at his abdomen. “Why do I have to spend so much time patching you up?”

  “Hetta,” he repeated, and she looked up. The grey of her irises was pale as willow catkins. “I love you.”

  She gave a watery smile. “I love you too, but you’re trying to distract me.”

  “Yes.” He leaned down and brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Is it working?”

  “No,” she said. “Come into the bathroom and distract me there while I clean this. And tell me where in the nine heavens you’ve been.”

  She took him by the arm and steered him towards her bathroom, a luxury his own hotel room had lacked. His shared the use of the common bathroom with the rooms on the rest of his corridor.

  “You’re still wearing the dismae,” she said quietly once he was seated on the lip of the heavy claw-footed bathtub.

  “Yes, and they’ve caused me no small amount of trouble,” he admitted, while she filled the sink with warm water.

  She looked tired, he thought, wishing he could smooth the fatigue away. Was that only because of worry for him, or had something worse occurred in his absence? He caught her free hand with his, tangling their fingers. Even the foot of space between them seemed like too much distance, and he had an overwhelming urge to close it, to fold his arms around her and simply breathe in the steady reassurance of her nearness.

  She squeezed his hand briefly but disentangled herself so that she could wring out the cloth. When she began to dab away the old blood, it stung only a little in places. Without his magic, his sense of smell and touch seemed sharpened. The roughened texture of the wet cloth against his skin was magnified, more intimate. He rested his hands loosely on the cool ceramic of the bath, the solidity reassuring. I am here; Hetta is safe. The transition had been too rapid for easy adjustment.

  When she’d washed the blood away, the wound cut an angry red slash of thinly healed skin from his hip to his shoulder. Hetta glared down at it, as if convinced it was somehow worse than it looked.

  “Was this from three nights ago?”

  “You heard of my adventures with the nightwyrm, then?”

  Her lips softened. “Wyn, a blind man would’ve noticed the path of destruction that creature tore through the palace.”

  Wyn grimaced. “Yes. Precisely how angry have I made your monarch?” He could smell the faint daphne of her perfume, and it made him acutely conscious of his own dishevelled state, an unpleasant reminder of iron and blood and the tunnel beneath the earth.

  Hetta sighed and wrung the cloth out, little plink-plinks hitting the basin. “She’s not happy with either of us. I’ve had her queensguard following me not very subtly around town for the last three days.” She rested the pads of her fingers on his stomach, and little butterflies stirred in response. “Exactly how bad was this, Wyn, if it’s still like this three nights later?” She traced the length of the wound without touching it. Her hands did not stop there, skimming up to frame his face. It was an unusual perspective, having to look up rather than down to meet her eyes as she kissed him. Her mouth was full of worry, and he brought his arms around to nestle at her waist. Yes, said the clawing need inside. This. It was the first time he’d kissed her without being simultaneously aware of the signature of her magic, but it added a new dimension rather than subtracting one. This was pure Hetta, warm and fervent, and tasting very faintly of lemonade.

  Her eyes were the colour of thunderstorms when she released him.

  “I take it you missed me too?” he said.

  “Quite desperately,” she murmured, stroking her thumbs over his cheekbones. “I feel like I have five thousand or so things I need to tell you, but the first one is that you’re not allowed to get yourself injured by any more fae monsters.”

  “I shall endeavour to obey that command.”

  “Good. See that you do,” she said shortly. Her eyes were still red-rimmed as her gaze dragged back to the mark of the nightwyrm’s attack. “What happened?”

  An echo of that night’s terror whispered down his spine. “The nightwyrm hurt me worse than I realised.” He brought a hand to his shoulder, probing the newly healed skin. It was tender, but that was all. It still shouldn’t have taken three days to close over, not with my new powers. The dismae had much to answer for. “I forgot what someone once told me: their claws and fangs are so sharp it’s possible to take a death-wound but not know it until it’s too late.” He told her, a little sheepishly, about losing consciousness on top of a building adorned with stone statues of sea creatures.

  “The Natural History Museum,” she identified. “Honestly, only you would be embarrassed to lose consciousness after nearly taking a death-wound from a gargantuan fae monster.” Her eyes flashed, and he wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed at him or the nightwyrm, but her hands were gentle as she smoothed over the wound again. “Well, you’re not bleeding, at least, but I can’t help but feel this should still be bandaged.” She made as if to move to find such materials then and there, and he silently mourned the loss of her touch.

  “You may swaddle me in bandages if you wish, but I would like to wash first.” He wrinkled his nose. “My accommodation these last few days has been somewhat sub par.”

  Hetta paused. “All right,” she said after a moment. Her eyes met his, a dare in them, and she leaned past him and turned on the taps to the tub. “You can wash and explain where you’ve been at the same time.”

  His pulse quickened, and conflicting thoughts flashed through him between heartbeats. He wasn’t an idiot; he knew where this was likely to go. He might not agree with certain mortal rules of proper behaviour, but he knew very well what they were, and the consequences for Hetta of breaking them. Was it really fair to entangle her fate with his, when stormcrows knew what Aroset might send for him next now she was queen? His chest tightened, thinking Aroset wasn’t the only queen to consider. It might be best for Stariel if he distanced himself from Hetta to try to cool the mortal queen’s wrath.

  But there was vulnerability in Hetta’s red-rimmed eyes, as if she feared he’d disappear once out of her sight. He recognised the match for his own crushing need for reassurance, for closeness. Perhaps he could’ve denied his own need, but it wasn’t in him to deny hers. And he wanted… Stormcrows, he didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew it had nothing to do with any mortal notion of propriety. Desire pulsed through him, jagged and raw as lightning. Though considerably less painful.

  “That seems a very…practical suggestion,” he said slowly, quirking an eyebrow at her. She didn’t look away. He wasn’t body-shy—the fae had little use for modesty—but this was different. Not shyness, but anticipation.

  Her chin tilted upwards in unconscious challenge. “Yes, I thought so too.”

  “Excuse me, then.” He stood, and the generously sized bathroom shrank as they contemplated each other. He could feel the weight of Hetta’s gaze as he divested himself of the rest of his clothes and climbed into the tub. The sound of water filling the tub was nearly louder than his own heartbeat. A sigh of pleasure escaped h
im at the feel of the water on his skin, almost but not quite too hot to bear. I’d begun to think I’d never be warm again.

  The tub had only a few inches of water in it, and he leaned back against the far end, out of the way of the running taps.

  “Well?” he said to Hetta. “Are you going to check me over for further injuries?”

  She laughed, throaty and delighted. “I should know better than to dare you by now, shouldn’t I?” she reflected ruefully. “You always did like to try to shock me.”

  “This was your idea,” he said mildly, hunting for the soap. He paused to grin at her. “Are you regretting it?”

  “Not even slightly. Tell me about Gwendelfear.”

  He began to work up a lather as he told her about the lesser fae and the underground maintenance tunnel. “I suppose I must’ve presented too much of a temptation, unconscious and bound.” He frowned down at the dismae. “I cannot truly blame her for her grudge against me. I did compel her and hold her prisoner. Though I’m glad I didn’t have to promise her anything in exchange for my release.” Hetta didn’t say anything, and he tilted his head to find her tracing his soap-strokes with her eyes. “Hetta?”

  She started. “What?”

  He chuckled. “You are doing my vanity a world of good. Did you promise Princess Sunnika anything for returning me?”

  “Oh, um, no. No, I didn’t.” Red bloomed in her cheeks. What had she been imagining? He himself was suffering from some very vivid imaginings that involved both of them in this tub. “In fact, I told her she’d owe me a debt if DuskRose was responsible for your absence, but I’m surprised it worked,” she said to the ceiling, her voice breathier than usual.

  He frowned. “Perhaps Sunnika is trying out mortal politics? Magically enforced obligations aren’t the only ones.”