by Ella Fields
“That doesn’t mean they’ve been gone.” I’d seen them before.
“No,” Raiden agreed. “Just hiding, perhaps.”
In silence, we both pondered why that could be, and I felt my body lean into his. “My mother swore she saw one up close once.”
Raiden hummed. “Really? What did she say of the experience?”
“They’d been swimming, and she said she dragged Sarine back to the shore and they ran for their lives.”
“They would’ve been babes.”
I tried to remember if that’s what she’d said, but all I could see was the crystal blue of her eyes, and the way her heart sometimes shone in her smile. “Five and seven summers, I believe.” I cleared my throat. “It’s rumored they have teeth made of bones.”
“And tails made of human hair,” Raiden said.
“I should like to meet one, I think.”
He laughed, the sound quiet as it drifted over the pier and to the city dwellers behind us. “And what would you do if you did?”
“Ask some questions, I suppose.”
“What questions would you ask of her?”
“Or him,” I said.
“There are no mermen. That is but a rumor told in erotic tales.”
“There is. You cannot keep a species alive without reproduction.”
His hand became a furnace attached to my hip, his grip iron hot. “Well, now that’s true.” The words were rough. “So what would you ask him or her?”
“Where they’ve been. What they do all day and night long. Do they eat fish or flesh? Or both? Can they have a spellcaster give them legs? Do their tails change to—” I stopped when I found Raiden smiling down at me. “What?”
“Nothing. Keep going.”
I glared. “No. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, truly.” He brushed a thumb by my lip, and then sucked it. “Frosting. And I… well, I didn’t realize I’d enjoy hearing you talk so much.”
I felt my chest inflate, and then he directed us over the pier toward the main city street.
“What else enlivens you so?”
I kept my gaze forward and away from any of the city folk who recognized us and bowed. “Chocolate, horses, furbanes, my collection of daggers, novels, roses, steak stew, scalding bubble baths…” I paused. “I could go on.”
He encouraged me to as we approached the castle, fielding my lists with many of his own.
Horses, spiced chicken, sautéed mushrooms, sweetcakes, his childhood friends, wolves, training schedule, and chess.
“Wolves?” I asked, stepping around a slush pile of gunk oozing into a drain. “How in the darkness could you call a wolf a pet?”
“They’re not pets.” He nodded at the guards who opened the gates for us to enter. “They’re friends.”
“How do they fare in such a harsh climate?”
“They don’t live there,” he said, tugging me away from a couple who were laughing, even as they toppled to the ground, their glass goblets smashing into tiny glimmering, red-stained specks. “They live here along the border.”
That snapped my attention to him as I wondered how a sun prince of the south befriended the wolves of the northeast.
“There she is.”
I stilled outside the throne room doors at the sound of my father’s approaching voice. “Father.” I curtsied. “You’re looking very fine for seven hundred summers.”
His grin was dazzling, but his eyes made you pause and wonder if such bottomless depths held a soul within. Sometimes, I swore he did, but any proof was rare.
He patted my cheeks, then smacked a kiss atop my head, whispering low, “Your absence has not gone unnoticed.”
I refrained from tensing and turned to Raiden, who was watching my father with a carefully blank expression. He smiled when I gestured to him. “Raiden thought to show me some of the city I’d somehow missed.”
Raiden bowed. “Tyrelle.”
My father’s gaze sat heavy on Raiden for a moment, and then he broke into another grin and slapped him hard on the back. “Getting to know one another. Good. Ruling can be tiresome. Ruling together shall be difficult, especially if you cannot find ways to get along outside the bedroom.”
“Father,” I admonished.
He laughed. “Come, come.” He swung his arm to the throne room. “Dance and drink and retire when the moon does.”
We followed him into the throne room, where he took his seat upon the thorn-crusted gold dais that overlooked the crowds.
Bodies rocked by us—singing and dancing and lots of skin. The orchestra sat tucked in a far crevice of the room, their instruments gleaming under the firelight, and their music eddying through the walls to entertain partygoers in every space.
Raiden took my hand in his, and I laughed as he spun me around and then swung me into his chest. My hands slapped against it, and flushed, I absorbed the heat and the smooth texture of his skin into mine as I gazed up at him beneath my lashes.
“Your touch burns,” he said, so low as if he hadn’t meant to say it at all.
“And yours thaws,” I said, uncaring if anyone in the room heard me.
He tucked me close and hummed the haunting melody into my hair. Slowly, I pressed my cheek into his chest and hugged his lower back.
I’d never known what it was to be held before that. Never knew what it was to have someone hold you so tenderly that you feared you might just collapse into fragments of who you once were without their touch.
I looked up as the song changed, startled and confused, and let my eyes drift over the many faces in the room. “I need a drink.”
“I’ll get you one,” Raiden said. “Wait here.”
I backed up to the closest wall, staring at my father, who was rubbing his face in a female’s chest. Her husband stood beside her, unable to mask his displeasure.
I tore my gaze away and tried to search for Raiden. He was over by the outside doors, taking drinks from a server. A scream had his eyes flaring and moving to where I stood.
I closed mine, drew in a long inhale, and slowly reopened them in my father’s direction.
He’d bent the female over his throne, and his hand was between her legs. “If you’re going to scowl, Marteen, I’ll give you something worth scowling over.”
Untucking himself from his pants, he then forced himself inside Marteen’s wife.
No one could stop him. No one would dare. They all knew the cost would be imminent death. Or far worse.
My spine felt as though it’d crack, and I looked away as Lady Quillion’s shrieks turned to moans of pleasure. Raiden’s gaze found mine, but I couldn’t read his. His shoulders were set, his hands whitening from his tight grip around the two goblets.
Bodies moved about, blocking my line of sight, excitement and disgust heavy in the air.
Wanting away from the static that was filling my head, I moved toward the doors that would lead to my bed chambers while searching for Raiden.
He was nowhere to be found.
“Where is Casilla?”
I didn’t dare open my eyes. Too shocked, too thrown, too sickened to my very soul.
The audacity to ask about her when I’d just spilled my innards before him… I had no words.
I almost didn’t answer him.
“You were not listening.”
The bars of his cage clanged as he rattled them, his voice loud enough to send the guards rushing in. “If you’ve hurt her. If you’ve so much as—”
I sat up, and his words ceased with a wave of my hand. “I tire of you. So much so”—I swept a bored glance over his frame—“I wonder what I ever saw in you in the first place.”
I motioned for the guards to leave as I rolled from the table, my bones feeling brittle from days of riding and magic use. My feet slapped against the ground, my nightgown flowing around and down to meet my ankles.
“If I’m here on account of your father being dead, then I wish I were the one who killed him.”
I stopped,
laughter bubbling deep inside before I let it roll through my body and exit my mouth. “Sleep well, Prince.”
“Wait,” he called, rattling his cage once more. “Damn it, wait!”
I stopped out of his line of sight. “Why should I?”
“When will it happen?”
I watched a rat scuttle across the floor. “I presume you mean your death?” It paused and peered back at me with tiny glowing eyes, then raced for a hole in the wall of a cell closest to the gates.
“Yes.”
“You already know the answer to that.” I left him and nodded at Azela. “Have someone find me should he have any more hallucinations.” After what’d happened to Berron, I’d forgotten to broach the subject with Truin and made a mental note to do so next time I saw her.
As I reached the corridor to my rooms, I trailed my fingers over the row of stained glass windows, feeling the cold bite into my skin. I welcomed it, letting it seep into my pores and rejuvenate that which was weary and defeated.
The doors opened with a thought, and I entered, making them close quietly when I saw the lord of the east sprawled over the sheets on his stomach.
I wasn’t in the mood to play, so I carefully slid beneath the duvet and rolled over. Watching the moon crawl across his wide back, I noticed the thick line of scars upon it ran parallel to one another, and the muscles that seemed to clench beneath them, even while he slept.
Sooner than I’d expected, thoughts of what could have been and what should never have been followed me into a restless sleep.
Tickled by the slight breeze, the engraved wooden sign squeaked on its hinges.
Cursed Pints appeared no different to the first and last time I’d entered the deceiving blackened with damp doors. I nodded to Ainx and Azela, indicating they were to stay on the rain-scented street.
The wood protested beneath my boots as I climbed the steps and crossed the thin porch, swinging the doors open. The interior was much the same, only this time, I wasn’t shocked by the white armchairs and chaises, the sparkling glassware and sitting tables, or the gleaming white expanse of the bar.
The bartender and owner, who I now knew was named Eli, dipped his head when he saw me. He approached wearing high-waisted slacks and a spotted black and white shirt with suspenders. His dark hair seemed to change shades of blue beneath the globes of light hanging from chandeliers in the ceiling.
I leaned against the wall by the door, thankful the bar was empty of patrons until after noon.
“Majesty,” he murmured, a careful gleam to his bright green eyes. “She is still where your guards left her in the basement, but I must ask if—”
“Has she been causing trouble?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly, but she’s—”
“Has she been asking for him?”
“Yes, though it’s odd,” he rushed out. I angled my head, allowing him to continue. “She eats all her meals and washes when permitted, but otherwise, she doesn’t really act as a prisoner should.”
I let that sit inside my mind, absorbing it slowly. The urge to discover more about this woman became a burn I wanted to soothe. “Interesting,” I said. “Where is the key?”
Eli’s brows lifted. “You wish to free her?”
I laughed. “Oh, no.” I crept closer and patted his arm. “I wish to imprison her in the darkness but not just yet.”
At that, Eli’s almost translucent skin paled even further. He swallowed, and I patted his arm again. “Key. Hurry it up.”
He scampered off behind the bar, and I meandered over the varnished wood floor to trail my fingers over the jeweled stones that sat on display on a crisp white shelf. I’d never been one for too much jewelry, but I did covet fine things.
A jingling sound snapped my attention from a sapphire stone.
I took the key from Eli, smiling at how he struggled to meet my gaze. “Much obliged.”
He nodded, backing up a step and bobbing his head. “If you need anything…”
“Where did you find the stones?”
Eli looked over at them, scratching his hairless chin. “They are from The Edges, Majesty. Would you like one? Take your pick. I can package it—”
I raised my hand. “No. That’s quite all right.” My interest in them sagged and died. I swept past him to the hall on the right side of the bar, shadows swallowing me until I’d reached the last door on the end.
It was made of iron, probably to better protect the gallons of wine, spirits, lager, and goddesses knew what else. I pressed the key against the hole and heard the mechanism unlatch, metal grinding over metal, and then a poof of air.
Undoubtedly heavy, I waved a hand to open it. Dust and flecks of paint powdered the air as it slammed into the wall. I moved over the small landing to the stairs and descended, tucking the key inside a hidden pocket of my emerald velvet gown.
I waited until I’d reached the bottom where a small lantern swayed before I closed the door. Barrels and baskets and crates were stacked in every corner and against every wall of the room. I moved to the center where a cage, smaller than the one her beloved was kept in, sat square.
She didn’t so much as glance up as the heels of my boots struggled to clack over the dusty floor. “You finally decided to visit.” Her voice was sweet. Deceptive in the way it was both gentle and fierce.
“Casilla,” I said, feeling the name roll over the edge of my tongue. “Sweet, stupid Casilla.”
She said nothing, didn’t even move as I prowled closer.
Her homespun skirts were in dirty tatters, torn around the hem. As was her peasant white blouse, its ruffles and pearl buttons brushed with brown. Her red hair was still luminous, but the roots and curls were lathered in oil.
Peering around, I motioned for an empty drum, catching and flipping it as I took a seat before her. “I’m afraid I’ve been busy.”
Her slim shoulders stiffened, and I knew it was there, screaming to tear out of her. The question of her beloved’s well-being.
My hand curled into the softness of my skirts as my elbows rested upon my knees. “How are you finding the accommodations?”
“I could use a proper bath and some new clothes, but other than that, it beats slaving away in the miner’s kitchens each day.”
The insolence.
I bent forward and dragged a nail down the metal enclosure. “How about when you talk to me, you do me the courtesy of looking at me?” I tapped at the cage with my nail. It rattled. The loud noise, the small display of what I could do, tipped her head up, her gray eyes flaring wide. “I am, after all, your queen.”
“I serve no queen.” Her eyes simmered as her pink, cracked lips tightened. “I am one of the exiled.”
I laughed, low and controlled. “Darling,” I tutted. “Do you not realize that those of The Edges are still under royal jurisdiction? It predominantly houses criminals who were given one last chance to show they deserve their miserable excuse for a life, and the partners and children of said criminals.” I pursed my lips. “So, what are you? A criminal? Or the spawn of one?”
A small tilt to her lips, and then her eyes were sparking as they grazed my face. “Everybody knows that the only true criminal in this kingdom is you.”
I stood, the drum cracking against the concrete as wind curtained my hair, billowing my skirts and swallowing Casilla within its breath-stealing grasp.
She gasped, her hands clawing at her throat. “Less chitchat, more business.” I made her stand, smiling as she stumbled to her soiled bare feet. “Whatever gave you the idea you could marry an exiled king? My husband, to be precise.”
I released her, and she fell like a sack of grain, hitting her head on the side of the cage.
She winced, patting the back of her head, blood coming away on her palm. “He’s not your husband. He was never supposed to be your husband.”
“Really now?” I grabbed the cage. “How curious. Please tell me why you think this.” My tone oozed sugar while I tried to kill her where she stood
with my gaze alone.
“He never loved you, which was made obvious before you exiled him.” She stood on trembling legs, doing her best to show she wasn’t in pain. “In any case, you threw him away. You can’t just expect him to spend the rest of his life alone.”
“I had no such notions, stupid girl. But sharing a bed with another female is one thing while vowing to them is another thing entirely. It’s treason. You lot were warned to keep your distance when the guards brought him in.”
“Yeah, well many of your soldiers don’t have a lot of love for you either. Only fear and hatred,” she spat. “You might want to do something about that.”
“You little…” I slammed her into the side of the cage, keeping her suspended there with rage alone as her legs swung and kicked for purchase on the ground.
“You’re crazy,” she wheezed. “Why would you think he’d ever love you in the first place?”
“Oh, now you’re just goading me.” My lips twitched. I gathered whatever was in the pail nearest me, likely her own excrement, and sent it sailing for her face.
Her eyes and mouth shut as what looked and smelled like urine splashed over her nose and lips. I dropped her, and she fell to the hard ground with a crack, then I forced her mouth open and sent her own bodily fluids inside it.
She screamed, sputtering and coughing until I’d made sure every drop from the pail was now on a nice little journey to her stomach.
“Everyone in that dust-covered cesspit knew he was off-limits. Even you, my stupid little traitor. So tell me, or I’ll end you right now. What exactly made you think you could go against me?”
She was too busy choking to answer, so I leaned against the metal bars and inspected my nails, fearing I might have chipped one when I’d tapped it against them earlier. Thankfully, it was fine. When she stopped wheezing, I began pacing in slow strides around her.
Around and around, until she eventually gave up on tracking my movements and stared up at the swaying lantern above her head, her face damp and her hair dripping. “Do you really want to know?”