Other than the crackle of the fire, silence pervades the room as we play. For a beginner, her careful moves of measured risk aren’t too bad and tell me a lot about the way she thinks.
Skin glowing in the firelight, she picks up a silver and emerald goblet, waving it in the air. “I have questions and they’re not about hnefatafl.”
The wine has clearly taken effect. “Oh?” I say, affecting a disinterested voice as I watch muscles ripple along her throat as she drinks.
She huffs a breath. “So, can I ask them?”
“You can ask, and I may even answer.” Despite my harsh words, my lips curve, a small electric pulse buzzing over my skin.
She glances at my hound asleep on the hearth. “You speak to Balor and Jinn as though they understand you. Can they answer back?”
A laugh chokes out of me. “No. But they’re fae creatures, so they do comprehend most things, sometimes even my thoughts.”
I capture her third piece, laying it next to the board.
She grimaces. “What have humans done to deserve your low opinion?”
“You may turn out to be an exception, Lara, but your people remind me of the fodden, Unseelie creatures who are content to live underground and wait for prey to pass by so they can drag them under the earth. Motivated only by their hunger, they’re too stupid to better their lot. Their cruelty is base and unthinking.”
“That’s harsh. Most humans do actually strive to improve things and not just for themselves. And what about your kind? Is cruelty justifiable just because the fae are open about it? Because you rarely bother to hide it?”
“I think perhaps, yes.”
“That’s rubbish. And what about the Merits? Like humans, they’ve gone mad for technology and social approval. Are they as dumb as the fodden, too?”
“Without a doubt.” With a smirk, I surround her king, slipping my fourth man into place. “The Merits ignore nature while clambering to be popular, and meanwhile their land dies around them. So stupid.”
She raises a brow, then whips the king off the board and holds it to her chest. “And I suppose you’re better than all of us because you don’t care what anyone thinks about you?”
“Yes. I won,” I say, “Return the king.”
“Never,” she says, grinning like a fierce child at battle play. “Tell me something about the curse or about what it’s like to have the poison in your veins, and then I might give him back.”
Raking fingers through my hair, I release a long breath, the chair creaking as I lean back heavily against it. “The curse began with Prince Gadriel over four hundred years ago, and I am the thirteenth Black Blood heir. Some heirs’ lives are short, some long. Some find their fated mate and she reverses the poison. Then they become king, dooming their oldest son to repeat the same fate, and on it goes.”
“How will you know who your mate is? Does she already live here in your court?”
“No. She is a stranger to me. But it has been foretold I’ll find her underneath the Crystalline Oak, which is where I journey to each month at full moon. Each queen bears a different mark, a symbol, so I will know her when she comes. Even so, some heirs did not find their mate in time, or rejected her and the poison killed them. If I have a choice, that is my preference.”
“To die?”
“Death is preferable than chaining my sons and grandsons to Aer’s selfish whims forever. As you can tell,” I nod at the king concealed in her fist, “I don’t like losing.”
“So, what will you do with your queen when she arrives? Marry her immediately?”
“No.” Slowly I meet her gaze. “I’ll kill her.”
Disappointment clear on her face, she shakes her head and rises slowly. The chair scrapes. The candle flames gutter.
“I think I’ll leave you to your murderous thoughts, then,” she says, the gold in my falcons’ feathers sparkling around her neck as the air vibrates with my annoyance. “Thanks for teaching me the game.”
Watching her straight back glide toward the exit, I tamp down my rage. Courtiers never dare to leave without my dismissal. Never. I could peel the skin from her discourteous body with one word. With two, I could pull her heart through her pink lips. Three words and her brain would explode to mush inside her foolish skull.
But I don’t speak any of those vicious, hateful things. When she reaches the main door, I say one powerless word, “Wait.”
She freezes, then pivots around.
I trace her expression—plain and serious, no hint of the fae tricks or ruses I’m used to seeing glimmering on a lover’s face, only freckles framed by my falcons’ feathers. I don’t understand her appeal, yet nonetheless I am mesmerized.
As I inspect her, she holds my gaze calmly.
Finally, I ask, “Why would you risk yourself for the moss elves?” My fingers press into the air symbol engraved on my cup.
I cannot fathom why she, a tiny human girl with nothing to gain, would put her life in peril for lower faeries. She’s a puzzle I can’t figure out, no matter which way I turn it.
She smiles. “Someone like you wouldn’t understand.”
I blink and draw a painful breath.
“Goodnight,” she says, and pushes through the dark filigree doors before I can summon a reply.
My limbs slow and heavy, I guzzle water, and then prepare for bed. When my head hits the pillows, my gaze lands on the checkered board, the rune shapes moving like liquid metal over the pieces, and I realize two equally disturbing things.
One: In my mind before, I compared her to a fae lover as though it were an inevitable outcome.
And two: She’s stolen my king.
Chapter 16
THE PRINCE’S CHAMBERS
Lara
I wake the next morning and squint sleepily around my room, surprised, as I am every day, not to be snuggled in my brightly colored, second-story bedroom back at home, surrounded by music and film posters and overlooking the noisy skate park.
Yep. I’m still stuck in Faery, and as usual I’ve slept in. But something is different. The room is brighter.
A cobalt sky is visible through the high rectangular window, delicate patterns of light and shadow dancing on my walls. And there’s a new table, intricately carved with flowers and butterflies, that appears to be made from an old tree stump. It definitely wasn’t there when I went to sleep last night. On it rests a wooden hnefatafl board, the figures decorated with gold runes sparkling against baked-clay backgrounds, and the central piece is conspicuously missing.
I can fix that. I quickly retrieve Ever’s king from where it lies under my pillow, shoot out of bed, and place it in the throne space smack bang in the middle of the board.
How did I not hear someone enter my room last night and deliver these things while I slept? Was I drugged? Under a spell? Whatever the answer, Ever has to be behind their mysterious appearance, and because today is my one day off from gardening in the week, I’m going to confront him and find out what he’s up to.
I throw on my navy woolen tunic and soft leggings and head to the servants’ shared bathing room. Washing my hands at a citrine crystal sink, out of the corner of my eye I notice Magret enter—thankfully, she’s alone.