“All right.” He left his tunic unbuttoned. There was only bare, muscled, golden skin beneath.
“Why this place?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from his chest.
“This was my favorite haunt as a boy.”
“Which was when?” I couldn’t stop the question from coming out.
He cut a glance in my direction. “A very long time ago.” He said it so quietly that it made me shift on my feet. A very long time ago indeed, if he’d been a boy during the War.
Well, I’d started down that road, so I ventured to ask, “Is Lucien all right? After last night, I mean.” He seemed back to his usual snide, irreverent self, but he’d vomited at the sight of that dying faerie. “He … didn’t react well.”
Tamlin shrugged, but his words were soft as he said, “Lucien … Lucien has endured things that make times like last night … difficult. Not just the scar and the eye—though I bet last night brought back memories of that, too.”
Tamlin rubbed at his neck, then met my stare. Such an ancient heaviness in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. “Lucien is the youngest son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court.” I straightened. “The youngest of seven brothers. The Autumn Court is … cutthroat. Beautiful, but his brothers see each other only as competition, since the strongest of them will inherit the title, not the eldest. It is the same throughout Prythian, at every court. Lucien never cared about it, never expected to be crowned High Lord, so he spent his youth doing everything a High Lord’s son probably shouldn’t: wandering the courts, making friends with the sons of other High Lords”—a faint gleam in Tamlin’s eyes at that—“and being with females who were a far cry from the nobility of the Autumn Court.” Tamlin paused for a moment, and I could almost feel the sorrow before he said, “Lucien fell in love with a faerie whom his father considered to be grossly inappropriate for someone of his bloodline. Lucien said he didn’t care that she wasn’t one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap into place soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father’s court to his scheming brothers.” A tight sigh. “His father had her put down. Executed, in front of Lucien, as his two eldest brothers held him and made him watch.”
My stomach turned, and I pushed a hand against my chest. I couldn’t imagine, couldn’t comprehend that sort of loss.
“Lucien left. He cursed his father, abandoned his title and the Autumn Court, and walked out. And without his title protecting him, his brothers thought to eliminate one more contender to the High Lord’s crown. Three of them went out to kill him; one came back.”
“Lucien … killed them?”
“He killed one,” Tamlin said. “I killed the other, as they had crossed into my territory, and I was now High Lord and could do what I wanted with trespassers threatening the peace of my lands.” A cold, brutal statement. “I claimed Lucien as my own—named him emissary, since he’d already made many friends across the courts and had always been good at talking to people, while I … can find it difficult. He’s been here ever since.”
“As emissary,” I began, “has he ever had dealings with his father? Or his brothers?”
“Yes. His father has never apologized, and his brothers are too frightened of me to risk harming him.” No arrogance in those words, just icy truth. “But he has never forgotten what they did to her, or what his brothers tried to do to him. Even if he pretends that he has.”
It didn’t quite excuse everything Lucien had said and done to me, but … I understood now. I could understand the walls and barriers he had no doubt constructed around himself. My chest was too tight, too small to fit the ache building in it. I looked at the pool of glittering starlight and let out a heavy breath. I needed to change the subject. “What would happen if I were to drink the water?”
Tamlin straightened a bit—then relaxed, as if glad to release that old sadness. “Legend claims you’d be happy until your last breath.” He added, “Perhaps we both need a glass.”
“I don’t think that entire pool would be enough for me,” I said, and he laughed.
“Two jokes in one day—a miracle sent from the Cauldron,” he said. I cracked a smile. He came a step closer, as if forcibly leaving behind the dark, sad stain of what had happened to Lucien, and the starlight danced in his eyes as he said, “What would be enough to make you happy?”
I blushed from my neck to the top of my head. “I—I don’t know.” It was true—I’d never given that sort of thing any thought beyond getting my sisters safely married off and having enough food for me and my father, and time to learn to paint.
“Hmm,” he said, not stepping away. “What about the ringing of bluebells? Or a ribbon of sunshine? Or a garland of moonlight?” He grinned wickedly.
High Lord of Prythian indeed. High Lord of Foolery was more like it. And he knew—he knew I’d say no, that I’d squirm a bit from merely being alone with him.
No. I wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of embarrassing me. I’d had enough of that lately, enough of … of that girl encased in ice and bitterness. So I gave him a sweet smile, doing my best to pretend that my stomach wasn’t flipping over itself. “A swim sounds delightful.”
I didn’t allow myself room for second-guessing. And I took no small amount of pride in the fact that my fingers didn’t tremble once as I removed my boots, then unbuttoned my tunic and pants and shucked them onto the grass. My undergarments were modest enough that I wasn’t showing much, but I still looked straight at him as I stood on the grassy bank. The air was warm and mild, and a soft breeze kissed its way across my bare stomach.
Slowly, so slowly, his eyes roved down, then up. As if he were studying every inch, every curve of me. And even though I wore my ivory underthings, that gaze alone stripped me bare.
His eyes met mine and he gave me a lazy smile before removing his clothes. Button by button. I could have sworn the gleam in his eyes turned hungry and feral—enough so that I had to look anywhere but at his face.
I let myself indulge in the glimpse of a broad chest, arms corded with muscle, and long, strong legs before I walked right into that pool. He wasn’t built like Isaac, whose body had very much still been in that gangly place between boy and man. No—Tamlin’s glorious body was honed by centuries of fighting and brutality.
The liquid was delightfully warm, and I strode in until it was deep enough to swim out a few strokes and casually tread in place. Not water, but something smoother, thicker. Not oil, but something purer, thinner. Like being wrapped in warm silk. I was so busy savoring the tug of my fingers through the silvery substance that I didn’t notice him until he was treading beside me.
“Who taught you to swim?” he asked, and dunked his head under the surface. When he came up, he was grinning, sparkling streams of starlight running along the contours of his mask.
I didn’t go under, didn’t quite know if he’d been joking about the water making me mirthful if I drank it. “When I was twelve, I watched the village children swimming at a pond and figured it out myself.”
It had been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, and I’d swallowed half the pond in the process, but I’d gotten the gist of it, managed to conquer my blind panic and terror and trust myself. Knowing how to swim had seemed like a vital ability—one that might someday mean the difference between life and death. I’d never expected it would lead to this, though.
He went under again, and when he emerged, he ran a hand through his golden hair. “How did your father lose his fortune?”
“How’d you know about that?”
Tamlin snorted. “I don’t think born peasants have your kind of diction.”
Some part of me wanted to come up with a comment about snobbery, but … well, he was right, and I couldn’t blame him for being a skilled observer.
“My father was called the Prince of Merchants,” I said plainly, treading that silky, strange water. I hardly had to put any effort into it—the water was so warm, so light, that it felt as if I were floating in air, ev
ery ache in my body oozing away into nothing. “But that title, which he’d inherited from his father, and his father before that, was a lie. We were just a good name that masked three generations of bad debts. My father had been trying to find a way to ease those debts for years, and when he found an opportunity to pay them off, he took it, regardless of the risks.” I swallowed. “Eight years ago, he amassed our wealth on three ships to sail to Bharat for invaluable spices and cloth.”
Tamlin frowned. “Risky indeed. Those waters are a death trap, unless you go the long way.”
“Well, he didn’t go the long way. It would have taken too much time, and our creditors were breathing down his neck. So he risked sending the ships directly to Bharat. They never reached Bharat’s shores.” I tipped my hair back in the water, clearing the memory of my father’s face the day that news arrived of the sinking. “When the ships sank, the creditors circled him like wolves. They ripped him apart until there was nothing left of him but a broken name and a few gold pieces to purchase that cottage. I was eleven. My father … he just stopped trying after that.” I couldn’t bring myself to mention that final, ugly moment when that other creditor had come with his cronies to wreck my father’s leg.
“That’s when you started hunting?”
“No; even though we moved to the cottage, it took almost three years for the money to entirely run out,” I said. “I started hunting when I was fourteen.”
His eyes twinkled—no trace of the warrior forced to accept a High Lord’s burden. “And here you are. What else did you figure out for yourself?”
Maybe it was the enchanted pool, or maybe it was the genuine interest behind the question, but I smiled and told him about those years in the woods.
Tired but surprisingly content from a few hours of swimming and eating and lounging in the glen, I eyed Lucien as we rode back to the manor that afternoon. We were crossing a broad meadow of new spring grass when he caught me glancing at him for the tenth time, and I braced myself as he fell back from Tamlin’s side.
The metal eye narrowed on me while the other remained wary, unimpressed. “Yes?”
That was enough to persuade me not to say anything about his past. I would hate pity, too. And he didn’t know me—not well enough to warrant anything but resentment if I brought it up, even if it weighed on me to know it, to grieve for him.
I waited until Tamlin was far enough ahead that even his High Fae hearing might not pick up on my words. “I never got to thank you for your advice with the Suriel.”
Lucien tensed. “Oh?”
I looked ahead at the easy way Tamlin rode, the horse utterly unbothered by his mighty rider. “If you still want me dead,” I said, “you might have to try a bit harder.”
Lucien loosed a breath. “That’s not what I intended.” I gave him a long look. “I wouldn’t shed any tears,” he amended. I knew it was true. “But what happened to you—”
“I was joking,” I said, and gave him a little smile.
“You can’t possibly forgive me that easily for sending you into danger.”
“No. And part of me would like nothing more than to wallop you for your lack of warning about the Suriel. But I understand: I’m a human who killed your friend, who now lives in your house, and you have to deal with me. I understand,” I said again.
He was quiet for long enough that I thought he wouldn’t reply. Just as I was about to move ahead, he spoke. “Tam told me that your first shot was to save the Suriel’s life. Not your own.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
The look he gave me was more contemplative than any he’d given me before. “I know far too many High Fae and lesser faeries who wouldn’t have seen it that way—or bothered.” He reached for something at his side and tossed it to me. I had to fight to stay in the saddle as I fumbled for it—a jeweled hunting knife.
“I heard you scream,” he said as I examined the blade in my hands. I’d never held one so finely crafted, so perfectly balanced. “And I hesitated. Not long, but I hesitated before I came running. Even though Tam got there in time, I still broke my word in those seconds I waited.” He jerked his chin at the knife. “It’s yours. Don’t bury it in my back, please.”
Chapter 19
The next morning, my paint and supplies arrived from wherever Tamlin or the servants had dug them up, but before Tamlin let me see them, he brought me down hall after hall until we were in a wing of the house I’d never been to, even in my nocturnal exploring. I knew where we were going without his having to say. The marble floors shone so brightly that they had to have been freshly mopped, and that rose-scented breeze floated in through the opened windows. All this—he’d done this for me. As if I would have cared about cobwebs or dust.
When he paused before a set of wooden doors, the slight smile he gave me was enough to make me blurt, “Why do anything—anything this kind?”
The smile faltered. “It’s been a long time since there was anyone here who appreciated these things. I like seeing them used again.” Especially when there was such blood and death in every other part of his life.
He opened the gallery doors, and the breath was knocked from me.
The pale wooden floors gleamed in the clean, bright light pouring in from the windows. The room was empty save for a few large chairs and benches for viewing the … the …
I barely registered moving into the long gallery, one hand absentmindedly wrapping around my throat as I looked up at the paintings.
So many, so different, yet all arranged to flow together seamlessly … Such different views and snippets and angles of the world. Pastorals, portraits, still lifes … each a story and an experience, each a voice shouting or whispering or singing about what that moment, that feeling, had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed. Some had been painted through eyes like mine, artists who saw in colors and shapes I understood. Some showcased colors I had not considered; these had a bend to the world that told me a different set of eyes had painted them. A portal into the mind of a creature so unlike me, and yet … and yet I looked at its work and understood, and felt, and cared.
“I never knew,” Tamlin said from behind me, “that humans were capable of …” He trailed off as I turned, the hand I’d put on my throat sliding down to my chest, where my heart roared with a fierce sort of joy and grief and overwhelming humility—humility before that magnificent art.
He stood by the doors, head cocked in that animalistic way, the words still lost on his tongue.
I wiped at my damp cheeks. “It’s …” Perfect, wonderful, beyond my wildest imaginings didn’t cover it. I kept my hand over my heart. “Thank you,” I said. It was all I could find to show him what these paintings—to be allowed into this room—meant.
“Come here whenever you want.”
I smiled at him, hardly able to contain the brightness in my heart. His returning smile was tentative but shining, and then he left me to admire the gallery at my own leisure.
I stayed for hours—stayed until I was drunk on the art, until I was dizzy with hunger and wandered out to find food.
After lunch, Alis showed me to an empty room on the first floor with a table full of canvases of various sizes, brushes whose wooden handles gleamed in the perfect, clear light, and paints—so, so many paints, beyond the four basic ones I’d hoped for, that the breath was knocked from me again.
And when Alis was gone and the room was quiet and waiting and utterly mine …
Then I began to paint.
Weeks passed, the days melting together. I painted and painted, most of it awful and useless.
I never let anyone see it, no matter how much Tamlin prodded and Lucien smirked at my paint-splattered clothes; I never felt satisfied that my work matched the images burning in my mind. Often I painted from dawn until dusk, sometimes in that room, sometimes out in the garden. Occasionally I’d take a break to explore the Spring lands with Tamlin as my guide, coming back with fresh ideas that
had me leaping out of bed the next morning to sketch or scribble down the scenes or colors as I’d glimpsed them.
But there were the days when Tamlin was called away to face the latest threat to his borders, and even painting couldn’t distract me until he returned, covered in blood that wasn’t his own, sometimes in his beast form, sometimes as the High Lord. He never gave me details, and I didn’t presume to ask about them; his safe return was enough.
Around the manor itself, there was no sign of creatures like the naga or the Bogge, but I stayed well away from the western woods, even though I painted them often enough from memory. And though my dreams continued to be plagued by the deaths I’d witnessed, the deaths I’d caused, and that horrible pale woman ripping me to shreds—all watched over by a shadow I could never quite glimpse—I slowly stopped being so afraid. Stay with the High Lord. You will be safe. So I did.
The Spring Court was a land of rolling green hills and lush forests and clear, bottomless lakes. Magic didn’t just abound in the bumps and the hollows—it grew there. Try as I might to paint it, I could never capture it—the feel of it. So sometimes I dared to paint the High Lord, who rode at my side when we wandered his grounds on lazy days—the High Lord, whom I was happy to talk to or spend hours in comfortable silence with.
It was probably the lulling of magic that clouded my thoughts, and I didn’t think of my family until I passed the outer hedge wall one morning, scouting for a new spot to paint. A breeze from the south ruffled my hair—fresh and warm. Spring was now dawning on the mortal world.
My family, glamoured, cared for, safe, still had no idea where I was. The mortal world … it had moved on without me, as if I had never existed. A whisper of a miserable life—gone, unremembered by anyone whom I’d known or cared for.
I didn’t paint, nor did I go riding with Tamlin that day. Instead, I sat before a blank canvas, no colors at all in my mind.
No one would remember me back home—I was as good as dead to them. And Tamlin had let me forget them. Maybe the paints had even been a distraction—a way to get me to stop complaining, to stop being a pain in his ass about wanting to see my family. Or maybe they were a distraction from whatever was happening with the blight and Prythian. I’d stopped asking, just as the Suriel had ordered—like a stupid, useless, obedient human.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Page 16