Page 5

To his surprise, she laughed. “I’ve heard worse.” She didn’t so much as take umbrage at the insult, letting it roll off her feathers.

She was used to this, he realized.

Rydekar wondered who’d dared denigrate her before. More importantly, he wondered why he wanted to crush their skulls in his grip. Given the fact that he’d been so quick to spew curses at her, he could hardly blame those who’d come before him.

Reason be damned. He’d kill anyone who dared treat her as anything less than what she was—Mab’s granddaughter.

If she didn’t have the respect of the folk, he had no use for her.

“Get out of my woods, Rydekar. You’re on seelie land, and you’re not welcome. I’ll gladly drag you myself.” She sounded tired now. Fed up with him for taking up her time.

As though she had aught else to do here. He grinned, imagining what she might have planned for the rest of the night. Sniffing mushrooms? “Unlikely, but I’d enjoy your attempt.”

Her hazel eyes burned bright. He could clearly sense it—she imagined freezing him in place and extracting every dram of pain and agony from his mind. Her fantasy would remain in her imagination. Unlike hers, his mind was warded against intrusions.

Rissa was unprepared, untrained, undisciplined. Everything he despised.

But she also was the one person who could rise to take the crown of the seelie world. Her father had disappeared. There was no one else alive in the line of Mab. No one with seelie blood. All fae needed her to find some form of courage and nobility.

He tried using reason. “You must know Antheos’s army is already on seelie territory. Every day, they take another town, another village at your western border, encountering no true resistance. They’re marching on the kingdom of Denarhelm first because you’re vulnerable. It’s easy pickings. I could claim it tomorrow if I so wish.”

“There is nokingdomof Denarhelm,” she repeated, stubborn to the last. “The thirteen courts have ruled independently since the days of Queen Una.”

Accurate enough. The seelie kingdom had long been divided into minor courts. The last high queen ruling over them all left the throne vacant. Perhaps for valid reasons at the time, but almost two thousand years later, the world had changed. A wind of blood and iron had blown through the continent for some time, and now war was upon the fae lands.

Rydekar had long looked north, watchful, perhaps even hopeful. Seelie were known to be creatures of wisdom and honor. He’d believed they’d do the right thing: ally to strengthen themselves.

Instead, he’d heard that King Titus, the one child of Mab still alive, had left his Court of Sunlight. Mere months later, his only child, Serissa, disappeared too.

Rydekar’s best trackers hunted both. His knights only found the daughter.

He took their action as a personal betrayal. So much selfishness, narrow-mindedness, and careless disregard for their duties was a disgrace.

Rydekar tried to remain as calm as he could manage to be. He needed this conversation to go well. He needed her to follow him. He needed her to step into the role the Fates had paved for her. “A divided kingdom without a leader is weak. If you do not rise now, you will fall. You will fail.” He took one step forward to close the distance between them again, and leaned in. “You will all die without my kindness, little girl.”

Rydekar generally concealed the extent of the power he held in his grasp. Not only could he control the minds of others, he was also strong enough to affect the elements around him. Right now, he was letting her feel every single bit of his strength.

He expected her to falter, shiver, drop her gaze to the ground, like the flock of gentry buzzing around him. If she recognized his strength, she was more likely to accept his protection.

She surprised him again. “Kindness?” Rissa snorted. “Why did no one think to tell me you had any?”

She wasn’t weak at all.

Just selfish.

“I have none. You will beg nonetheless.”

I just may, in his dreams. And in my nightmares.

Rydekar blinked, and took a step back.

Her thoughts.

He could feel her thoughts, as clearly as if they’d come out of her mouth, though her lips had remained stubbornly closed.

He looked down and realized he’d taken her hand, closing his fingers over the small wrist.

He didn’t like it, but a mental link wasn’t unheard of. They were both descendants of Mab, and though she didn’t seem to care one way or the other, they were the seelie and unseelie monarch by bloodright. Both sides of the same coin.