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I slid my eyes to her. I wasn’t bothered by her familiar use of my name; the female was eight hundred years old, for Ancestors’ sake. But the implication in her voice… I could not quite read it.

I knew she couldn’t see any lust burning in my eyes, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t read the signs emanating from my body. Somehow, I didn’t think that Roksana was judging me for my attraction to Arran. Fucking was a daily pastime more popular than reading in the elemental court.

But I still couldn’t read the fathoms in her dark eyes. She shifted her gaze away from me, toward the full courtyard. By sundown, every courtyard in the goldstone palace would be a mass of writhing bodies.

As she turned, a spark of silver caught my eye. Threaded among her dark black braids, there was indeed the evidence of aging so rare among our kind. It was sharply visible against the deep brown of her skin. How long had it been there—worse, what did it mean?

“You accepted my invitation for dinner,” Roksana said.

“I did.”

“I was surprised, after all of this time.”

I kept myself from biting my lip, from revealing too much. “The arrival of the Brutal Prince has changed many things.”

It was the best I could settle on.

Roksana’s eyes traveled across the courtyard, snagging on Arran. He stood on the opposite corner, drawing me in and then pushing me away like we were two magnets in constant rotation.

“Indeed it has,” the matron said quietly.

But her eyes were not on Arran any longer, but another terrestrial.

Gwen—not at my side, or hovering guarding the rear—but coming to stand before me, to address me formally. The same way that Gawayn had that day when he joined his brothers, to beseech me about the missing children.

A deep sense of foreboding sputtered to life in my belly, spreading steadily through my chest and into my limbs. I was vaguely aware of Arran, moving now, navigating the perimeter of the courtyard in my direction. Roksana was gone. I stood alone—as Gwen dropped to her knee before me.

This couldn’t be good.

49

ARRAN

I realized what was happening as soon as Gwen fell to her knee.

Damn it all, she should have discussed it with me. She should have done it in private. She should have told Veyka what was coming.

“Your Majesty,” Guinevere began. “I was not the first of my family to train for the Offering. For many thousands of years, our strongest have been put forward for the throne of Annwyn, only to fail.”

To die brutally, my mind filled in as I skirted around curious onlookers.

My beast started to growl—not with desire, but menace. When had my presence here become so usual and expected that courtiers stopped jumping out of my way? I needed to remind them why I was called the Brutal Prince—but not now.

Now I had to get to Veyka before she said something damning.

“My father’s table has stood in the halls of my ancestral home for seven thousand years, awaiting the worthy heir. Its stone is mined from the sacred ores of the Spine and blessed with the magic of the terrestrial kingdom. Flown into the Effren Valley by the strength of no less than fifty terrestrial wings.”

As if summoned by her words, those fifty beating wings came into view, silhouetted against the blazing sun. But the round table blotted out the sun itself. Only for a moment—but a moment was all it took for the grandeur and importance of the moment to be cemented.

The courtyard cleared as the elemental courtiers realized what was happening. The airborne terrestrials were lowering the mighty stone table into the center of the courtyard.

The sound of the pale gray stone hitting the rich orange-red goldstone tiles jolted Veyka enough that her jaw popped closed. Her knuckles were white around her aural, her eyes pinned to Gwen, refusing to look at the table.

“It was to be offered to my betrothed,” Gwen said steadily.

I waited for a quiver of her chin or a flash in her eyes. But she was cool and composed as ever as she lowered her head to Veyka. “As I have pledged myself to your service, I offer it to you now, Veyka Pendragon. Queen of the Elemental Fae and soon to be High Queen of Annwyn.”

Gwen’s chin may be still, but Veyka’s was not. She understood the significance of this moment. From the glint in her blue eyes, the tick at one corner, I could guess that the legendary round table had made it into the lore of the elemental kingdom. For Gwen to gift it, to pass it out of her family line, meant she found Veyka worthy.