With a roll of his icy eyes, Sorrell scoffed and shook his head.
You are calm, I reminded myself. You are serenity incarnate. You do not want to hurt, maim, punch, throttle, or ball kick anybody right now. Nope. Not even a little bit. Ball kicking wasn’t even that fun. Even when the guy—Sorrell—was a fucking jerkwad of the highest order.
Roan didn’t respond immediately, but Sorrell, apparently, was ready for action. Yippee. “Yes, please, let's bring the attention back to the Changeling. As much as I am loathe to admit it, I believe she is a voice of reason here. Why did you do this? What could have possibly led you to believe that announcing that she—of all Fae—was an ‘appropriate’ choice”—I narrowed my eyes when he lifted his hands and pantomimed quoting Roan’s own words against him— “for a fiancée? Or at the least, tell us why you would announce it to the entire fucking realm!”
Hello, my name is Sorrell and I hold the title of the most monumental asshole of the world. Was my eyeball twitching? I thought I could feel it twitching. That probably wasn’t a good thing, was it?
Roan snarled in frustration, jerking his hands from his burning hair to gesture to the room at large. “Cress needed—no, she needs—protection,” he said. “Not only from the Queens but from Tyr, and other members of the court like him. You saw it out there. You saw the way they looked at her. It was as though she’s nothing more than a feast that they can’t fucking wait to rip into. Without the announcement of our betrothal, she would have been taken by any number of high ranking court members. Damn the consequences.”
Wait, what? “Taken?” I blurted. “Taken how?” Hopefully to a nice tavern for a warm meal and good music?
Sorrell groaned as Orion finally stood and moved closer.
“I was helping her,” Roan said.
“No.” Sorrell shook his head. “You've done nothing more than paint a target on her back! All you wanted to do was stake your claim. Well, here it is, Roan! You’ve Gods damned staked it. Are you happy now?” Sorrell exploded, his chest pumping up and down as he stomped back and forth, pacing in his fury.
"I didn't think you cared about her," Orion said, watching him.
Sorrell made a very un-Sorrell sound—a choked growl of some sort—and turned, pacing away from our little group. “You both care about her, and I care about you,” he said. As he strode back and forth, I began to notice color filling his cheeks. He inhaled and exhaled in slow, steady waves as if trying to stave off the riled anger inside of him. Finally, when the color began to recede, he turned back to us and spoke again, in a much more smooth tone. “As much as I hate that she's even here in the Court of Frost with us, I cannot change it. Not now. The best thing to do is manage the damage her presence and Roan’s announcement has and will cause because make no mistake, this can only mean catastrophe.” The prince of the Court of Frost pointed an accusatory finger at me, and I felt like I'd just been caught eating vegetables by the nuns. “She is a walking disaster.”
I eyed him with irritation before sighing and facing Orion and Roan. They, at least, might give me more answers. “What did you mean by ‘taken’?” I asked again.
As soon as the question had left my mouth, an uncomfortable tension filled the room. Sorrell’s shoulders stiffened and he stopped dead in his tracks. Orion’s hand touched my arm, but it was Roan who answered.
“A high ranking member of the court could claim you as his consort,” he said quietly. “And as a common Fae—one without land, title, money, or even much power—you would have no choice. You would be his to do with what he wanted, for all intents and purposes, until he released you.”
Confused shock echoed throughout me. “How is that allowed?" I demanded.
"It’s tradition. This is the first time in history that there have been more Queens in a court than Kings. Fae are governed by tradition more than anything else. Regardless of whether or not they would agree with the custom, they would be helpless to do anything, especially if the court member who did the claiming was of high status. If Tyr, for example, attempted to claim you … there would be absolutely nothing they could do. Tyr is heir to the Court of Midnight. He is a future King. And even though, right now, the Queens have more authority, especially in the Court of Frost, to anger a future King is unwise.”
My mouth hung open. “But—”
Orion’s hand tightened on my arm. “Despite what Sorrell believes,” he said. “This is a good thing. You do not want Tyr or anyone else to claim you. Roan is trustworthy and honorable. You will be safe with him.” I lifted my eyes and met the dark swirling pits of his gaze. They were deeper than normal, spinning with the shadows that pervaded his presence, the sense of secrets and horrors I hadn’t yet uncovered from him tempting me. And also warning me.
Sorrell groaned, and I reluctantly peeled my eyes from Orion’s. "Look, this all comes down to one thing, Roan. Your mother. You know what she wants. Not only that, but you lied to both her and my mother to ensure she doesn’t get it. They are not merely our mothers. They are the power of the Court of Frost. They are our Queens.”
Silence fell like a bomb in the room as the implications of what Sorrell said were realized.
Roan had lied not just to his mother, but to his Queen, not to mention Sorrell's mother. I had to admit that neither of them seemed like women that would be okay finding out they had been lied to.
"It's not a lie if I go through with it," Roan replied quietly. My heart stuttered to a stop in my chest and then, just as quickly, it restarted and began working overtime. It raced, sprinted, roared through my veins as if it meant to bound off and escape all of this tension.
Go through with it? I thought. As in … actually marry me? I tried to picture it. Me, in a gown, walking up an aisle in a Temple of the Gods—wait, did Fae get married in the Temples?
Before I could ask, however, Sorrell shook his head. “You can't go through with it,” he said. “We are princes, we do not always get to choose our brides.” At first, I thought he was just being cruel—as he always was. But the last bit of his denial was said in a quieter tone, whispered with a small sliver of pain that belied his own reality. He’d said ‘we,’ I realized. It wasn’t just Roan he was denying. It was himself as well.
Roan, too, was quiet for a bit, as if his thoughts consumed him. “She needs someone at her side,” he finally said. “So, I can and I will go through with it, if that’s what it takes to protect her.”
My first thought: That is sooooo sweet. My second: Um … don’t I get a choice? I didn’t have time to voice those thoughts, however. Roan’s hair blazed as he looked at me, his eyes boring their way into my soul with a ferocity that made my pulse leap.
“Especially with the Feast of Beasts and the Run of the Gods,” he said slowly. “She can’t be entrusted to anyone else but the three of us.”
Entrusted, he said. Like I was something special. Someone special. Was my heart melting? I think it was.
But still, as if he just absolutely had to be contrary, Sorrell spoke up. “All you've succeeded in doing is drawing more attention to her, making more eyes watch her, thereby putting her in more danger,” he announced dismissively.