by Ella Fields
Ryle was lounging back in his chair, acting for all the world as though it were a miniature throne, his crown tipped haphazardly over his brow. “My winter queen,” he said with a softness that grazed like the tip of a knife.
Zad cursed, but he was ignored. Gesturing to the chair beside him, Ryle’s mouth curved. “You look dazzling.” Without taking his eyes off my chest while I lowered into my seat, he asked his brother, “Doesn’t she look good enough to eat, Zadicus?”
A screech sounded as Zad kicked his chair back, standing and heading our way.
Spreading my napkin over my lap, for something to concentrate on more than anything, I couldn’t help but look as the king raised a hand. “Come any closer, and before you even reach us, I’ll have given Audra another scar upon that sinful mouth of hers to match the others.”
Indeed, a serrated knife appeared in his clenched fist, his smile unmoving as though he wanted Zad to test him, and he’d delight in doing as he had threatened. There wasn’t any part of me that believed he wouldn’t.
Zad stopped and glared, his entire frame trembling with the fury burning in his eyes.
“Do have a care, my lord,” I said primly, reaching for what looked to be smoked fish cakes and depositing two on my plate. “We know how much I like my face.”
Ryle’s laughter poured out of him like an unexpected explosion, shocking everyone into complete silence.
Courtiers and warriors and even servants wore nervous smiles, and Ryle sniffed, wiping at his eyes before leaning close, his frothy blood-red shirt spilling onto the edge of the table. “It is a shame you are already married.”
It was his airy tone that made me set the plate down and give him my full attention. “And why is that?” It seemed like a different life, the one I’d almost had with Raiden, who, for better or worse, was my husband, unless he eventually agreed out of it.
Which he’d made stubbornly apparent would never happen.
I wondered if he knew I was gone and was now in Beldine. I was sure word had been sent to him by now. What he’d do with it was anyone’s guess—but likely nothing. I was no fool. I knew he held a deep affection for me, but I also knew that with me gone and possibly dead, the continent of Rosinthe would be his. And if he and I had always had one thing in common, it was greed.
“I have a feeling with you by my side, this long eternal life would never be dull.” And if there was something the Fae loathed most, it was boredom.
His long, eternal life. For although I would outlive generations, I was not immortal.
It felt as though that knife in his fist had sunk into my stomach. Zad. He was already hundreds of years old, if not older, and... I couldn’t look at him. Refused to remove my eyes from my plate. But I could feel him staring at me with an intensity that burned like knowing.
“Marriage is overrated,” I finally said. “Do trust me on that.”
Another laugh, this bout lower and huskier, but still capable of stalling conversation. Sitting back, Ryle dragged his thumb down the side of his knife, his eyes on his brother. “You were married once, I hear.”
“Once,” Zad grunted, sounding as though he were chewing with images of murder flashing in his mind.
“Did you ditch her for your mate?” Ryle dropped the knife. Reaching for a decanter of sour-scented wine, he poured some into his large goblet. “We really do have so much to catch up on.”
Zad’s nonanswer evoked a scowl, the decanter thumping back onto the table with enough force to knock the wine over its rim.
I stared at the dark red as it spread into the white table linen.
“Snow-haired one,” Ryle said, lifting his wine to his lips. Upon every finger were jeweled rings in varying gemstones.
Seated farther down the table, my cousin ripped his attention away from a brunette female wearing a tiara. A princess, I realized, recognizing who had to be her mother, a queen, at the other end of the table. “Your greatness?”
I scoffed, and Ryle’s fingers rubbed over his goblet, his eyes flitting my way with a gleam before he asked Adran, “This wife of Zadicus’s, or once wife.” He waved his free hand. “What is she like?”
“Ryle,” Zad said, both a plea and a threat.
Their gazes locked, and the king sighed, looking at my cousin. “I suppose it is rude to gossip about someone when they can hear you.” With a glance at my cousin that promised harm if he didn’t give him what he wanted, he said, “Later then.”
Adran nodded, reaching for his wine.
“Free them,” Zad demanded, sudden and sharp.
Gasps bled into the air. Ryle’s brows knitted in feigned confusion. “I do beg your pardon.”
I cut into my food, eating quickly in case I lost the chance.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve no need to imprison them, so set them free.”
“Ah,” Ryle said, “but I do. Are they not betrayers? You and I had an agreement. Your friends and I, however, most definitely did not.”
That meant Kash, Dace, and Landen were here—and locked up.
“They did not betray you.”
“They left, did they not?”
Zad didn’t blink, his stare so cold, his imposing body so eerily still, I made myself blink twice to be sure it was him. “They were free to come and go as they so pleased, which, some years ago, is what we’d always done.”
“If you believe I am to trust that half-truth, you and your friends,” he spat the word, “will be more than sorry.”
“Why are they here?” I dared to ask.
Eyes, down each table, fell upon me, including that of the king.
“Why are they here?” Ryle asked as though I were a child who’d inquired about the rotation of the sun and moon.
I said nothing else and sipped some water.
Ryle eyed me over his goblet, guzzling wine with a loud slurp. Lowering it to the table, he said, “You know nothing of our little bargain, do you?” With his brow arched, he chuckled at Zad. “You must have spent all your time together in other, much less informative ways.”
“Audra,” Zad cautioned.
I ignored him, waiting expectantly while still gazing at the king.
With a pointed look down the table to the wings behind the throne, Ryle sighed. “It was an exceedingly long time ago, so you’ll have to forgive me if my memory is not quite up to the task of remembering.”
Zad was silent, and I watched his brother watch him, noticed every twitch of his lips, the changing flecks in his eyes and the shifting clench of his jaw. Oh, how he so obviously loathed him with a vehemence that would have Zadicus dead with just a look if it were possible.
“Our father had passed, and as it so often happens, the person responsible for that, if they are of the same heart, inherits the crown.”
I’d known he’d killed his father, knew why too, and tried not to allow any of it to trick me into giving a shit.
Silence permeated, everyone eager to hear a tale I was sure they all knew. Though I was certain they’d not heard it from the king himself and with his sibling, the true heir, in attendance.
“I wasn’t sure it would work, of course,” Ryle admitted. “Being I am the bastard child of a whore who gave me up as soon as she realized I’d be of no use in serving her desire for a better life.” His eyes flickered, a humorous breath departing him. “She is dead now. I made sure of it the second she came knocking after news of our father’s demise.”
Cold-blooded to the point of believing he was just with every abominable action... I stared at my half-eaten food, recognizing that trait all too well.
“All at once, the land came to me,” he said as though in a trance now. “Like a river trying to find a different home, it was both too much and too little. Powerful in a way I thought would surely kill me, and it very well almost did.” I looked at Zad, who was staring at me, then I looked away. “But I survived.” Ryle winked at me. “I’m far too stubborn to be defeated by that which I wanted most.”
&nb
sp; “And what you wanted most... power,” I said as if piecing a puzzle together.
“Wrong.” He gestured to me with his goblet. “Though it is a comfort I adore, what I wanted most was what no one thought I deserved.”
“Status,” I said. “Respect.” Fear.
“Amongst other things,” he muttered, his eyes darkening, the gold almost swallowed. I knew then he was done with me digging too close to his insecurities. “Anyway, so your beloved was in quite a state.” He smiled, the memory clearly pleasing to him. “Tearing at the furniture and making all sorts of lovely threats.”
“You did kill his father.”
“Our father,” he corrected, swallowing wine and setting down his goblet. “But you’re right, yes. And as the true heir, I knew it was only a matter of time after my father’s body was wholly absorbed by the land until Zadicus might make his move.”
I did not look at the male being discussed, though I itched to. “You exiled him?”
A rich bark of laughter. “Nothing of the sort,” he spewed. “No, I challenged him, and like a mutt with his tail tucked between his legs, he fled.”
Some warriors, the wolves, stiffened and glared down at their plates.
Deathly quiet, Zad’s laughter rumbled like an incoming storm, growing louder until it suddenly broke with his lethal words. “You act as though my sparing your life was an insult.”
“Oh, because it was.” Ryle glowered. “Because you thought, if it came to it, that you would win.” The echoing silence was rather telling, and judging by the way Ryle shifted in his seat, he was well aware of it. “You’re a coward who thinks himself wiser than the fates, hiding amongst mortals and half breeds under the guise of protecting something that never needed, never asked, never so much as desired your protection.”
My eyes shot to Zad, who was gazing at his brother with something that looked a lot like regret. Regret for what? Did he wish he’d killed him? I wished he had. For then, none of us would be in this predicament.
Zadicus was Ryle’s greatest envy and threat, and Ryle was Zad’s undeserved weakness. I tucked that information away.
Many things would have turned out a lot different if he’d not been such a coward and did what was necessary to secure his right to his land.
But he wasn’t a coward.
He was a creature born of those with little morality and a lot of cruelty, yet somehow, he’d still found it within himself to walk away. Somehow, he’d held a scrap of love for an undeserving brother who’d never even think to pay him the same kindness.
And that love had cost him, their land and people, and myself dearly.
I wasn’t sure if he was the stupidest son of a bitch alive or the strongest I’d ever known.
“So you took his wings,” I said when the air grew too stale with barely leashed ire. “Why?”
Ryle stared at me, and for a moment, I thought he might backhand me again with that raw power emanating from him. “It is said that those with wings lose their soul if they are cleaved from their bodies.” Looking back at Zad, Ryle said, “I wanted to see if that were nothing but fable, but most of all, I did not think he’d give them up.”
People shifted in their seats, some daring to eat as the two brothers stared one another down from either end of the food-laden table.
“He did,” Ryle said, followed by a harsh laugh. “Practically bent over and handed me the blade himself. I’d come looking for him, you see. The idea he’d run from me, that he thought I might be happy to let him live out his days in a continent we’d mocked, thinking I would not see him as a threat... well,” he waved an indignant hand, “it was just all so preposterous that I had to pay him a little visit. And what should I find when I arrive, but a lord with land of his own. Tell us, brother...” Ryle grinned. “How did you end up a prince playing as a lord? I’ve often wondered.”
Zad drank deep from a granite goblet, his eyes like fire as he dropped it to the table. “None of your business.”
“No?” Ryle pouted, then looked at the guard behind him. “Fetch Dace Arrown and hang him from the rafters by his unglamoured ears.”
Zad cursed, and Ryle halted the guard. With a remorse-filled glance my way, Zad then eyed his plate. “We were there only a month or two when some of King Henderson’s men discovered our encampment in the woods. But instead of dragging us to the castle, the king came to me, and we brokered a deal.”
Ryle rubbed his hands together. “This is Audra’s grandfather, is it not?”
Zad nodded, and I sat still as stone, both in awe of what I was discovering and wrapped in a cold blanket of bitterness for how I’d had to find out. “He’d been having trouble with too many of our kind leaving Beldine after our father died. The young were going missing, mortals were being slaughtered or forced to partake in dancing and riddle contests until they perished, but he knew to kill us would mean making an example he could not afford to make.”
“For I would have cut him down like the swine he and his son were,” Ryle dragged out.
Zad looked as though he’d protest, but continued, “He gave me lands in the east, where most of the trouble took place, with the promise of more should things improve.”
“And he knew what you were?” a queen, soft-spoken and unnamed, said with a look of astonishment. “What you are?”
“Indeed,” Zad said, still focused on his plate. “Things improved. I accrued more land I did not want but knew better than to refuse, and unless Henderson needed help with other dire situations, I was left to live in peace.”
“Perfect.” Ryle dropped a clenched fist on the table with exuberant excitement. “Just perfect. Until I found you, of course.”
Zad’s jaw stiffened, but he nodded.
“I challenged him,” the king said. “I said we were to end this now and get it over with, but he refused. He stated, rather emphatically, that he had no desire to kill me and become the High King of Beldine. So,” Ryle said, sitting straighter now. “I decided I’d bargain with him to prove that were true.”
“But you cannot lie,” I blurted, hating that he’d taken something from him when it hadn’t been necessary.
Ryle tutted, patting my hand with mock sympathy. “Foolish Audra, you should already know that those who cannot lie are the masters of deceit.”
I withdrew my hand, Zad staring at where his brother’s still laid over the table.
“His wings for his freedom, and I promised to never go in search of him in any way again if he never came in search of me.” With a thundering smack of his hands on the table that bounced grapes and cheese from the trays, he declared, “Which is why, because we now find ourselves in need of his services, I had to lure him with bait upon a hook.” His jewel-bedecked fingers crawled over the table toward me. “Here, fishy, fishy,” he whispered.
I looked up at those monstrous wings, knowing Zad was watching me, and wondered what it might have felt like to have your limbs, a part of who you were, extracted from you with such brutality.
They were a sign, a message written in dried blood, brittle bone, and decaying muscle, to any who thought to usurp him.
“Sometimes,” the king said, contemplative as he too gazed at them. “I give them a stroke, a tickle, a little nudge to say hello.”
But I saw something else within those cleverly wrapped words, and I knew Zad already had to be aware. Ryle resented them. Yet another thing his pureblood brother had been born with, that many noble males had, and he had not.
I couldn’t wrangle my horror quick enough, and Ryle chuckled. “We are nothing if not magic-enhanced monsters, else there’d be no tales to spin to your putrid ilk.” He clapped his hands. “Thanks to your behavior and entertaining us so thoroughly, dear brother, you may have one of your friends released.”
Zad’s brows lowered. “One?”
“That’s what I said, so choose.”
He stood, violence rolling off him with such ease, such alarming speed, that even I stiffened in my seat. “Both, Ryle. Now.”
Ryle only smiled, saying to his guard. “Release the one that fell in love with another half breed and show him to his own room. He can entertain us on the morrow.”
Even I, who knew the male so little, knew Kash would never divulge something so personal, not even with a dagger pressed to his throat. He’d rather die, and perhaps, gladly.
The king stood, Zad too, but as the latter approached, the king clucked his tongue.
Then I was whisked away on a cloud of rapidly growing dust that threatened to heave the food I’d eaten.
I slumped to the floor inside my rooms, alone and disorientated as though I’d never left.
Later that evening, mere hours before the sun was due to rise, I listened to the sounds of debauchery. Screams, laughter, and music flowed inside the windows.
Now was as good a time as any, I thought, heading for the door. I had to figure out what room Kash was in and see if I could make him convince Zad to end this madness already.
But I almost tripped over a figure lying upon the floor outside my rooms.
He wasn’t asleep. His hands were tucked behind his head, eyes steadfast on the ceiling, seeming deep in thought.
“Good to see you doing your best to get me home.” I stepped over him.
He caught my ankle, then me around the waist as he stood and I teetered.
The rough pads of his fingers skated over the bare skin of my stomach and back. My body was pulled toward his by his hands and that needle-sharp need that resided inside me. Shivering, I pressed my palms upon the clean cotton shirt covering his chest. It was light, almost sheer, giving a glimpse at the muscled, tantalizing depths of him beneath. “I find myself wondering,” he said, so delicate and hoarse, “if you can forgive me.”
Foolishly, I met his eyes, felt my heart shake inside my chest, and clutched his shirt. “We both know I can’t.”
“You can.” Panic danced within his golden orbs, his luscious lips parting. “One day.”
I could do nothing but stare as I wondered if that were true.
“Kiss me then,” he murmured, hands smoothing up my back to cup my nape. “Kiss me like you hate me, and I’ll leave you be.”