Page 19 of A Crown So Cursed (The Goldenchild Prophecy #5)

Chapter Thirteen

M álik’s bare feet padded furiously against the stone floor. Half-dressed, tunic discarded—or rather, hurled across the bedchamber—and his breeches haphazardly unlaced, he radiated a restlessness that Gwendolyn had never witnessed in him before. Not even on the eve of battle.

Moreover…they had been far more intimate than this, and far less dressed, but there was something innately vulnerable about him now, a temper that bespoke the depth of his love for her and the breadth of his terror over what his Shadow Court might now do.

He looked like a cornered creature—wild and threatened, still frighteningly powerful.

I am safe now; she wished to say, but she didn’t believe it would assuage him at the moment, nor would he believe it when there were Shadow Guards begging entrance to Tech Duinn.

“Málik,” she whispered, intending to go to him, to soothe him. She rose from the edge of the bed where she’d been sitting, her feet touching the cool stone floor, but before she could reach him, he spun about, eyes blustering like a storm-laden sky.

“They will not be merciful!” he said.

I am not worried; Gwendolyn longed to say, but she did not, because she could see his consternation, and did not wish to dismiss his concerns. “Did you expect she would do such a thing?”

“No!” he said, turning to pace again. “I did not! Though should have!”

He was getting angrier by the moment, but it was difficult to say at whom, because his voice carried a measure of self-contempt with no small amount of regret.

“That girl has always been...so ambitious—her parents even more so. Her mother once offered me her body for the promise of her daughter.”

Gwendolyn grimaced over the notion—a mother bedding a daughter’s intended?

“That is...revolting,” she said, and shook her head in disbelief.

In all her days, no matter how at odds she and her mother might have been, she could never have imagined Queen Eseld offering herself to one of Gwendolyn’s intendeds.

Málik’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “Such is the nature of the Fae Court. Ambition and desire blur the lines of propriety. And though it is sometimes said that all is fair in love and war, amidst this court, those things are wholly interchangeable.”

“I am not worried.”

He paused, his eyes meeting hers across the room. “You should be. I may keep you safe within these halls, but to keep you here eternally will make me a gaoler and no better than Locrinus. And if something should ever happen to me?—”

“It won’t,” Gwendolyn said.

She padded over to the wardrobe to retrieve the dragon-scaled book, deeming this the right time to show him. “Look,” she said, holding up the tome. “I have no fear of what the Rite of Blood will bring because I know the truth.”

He gazed at her in surprise.

“You found it?”

She nodded.

“Read it?”

She nodded again. “I am of the blood,” she said, smiling. “This tome holds our history—yours and mine, separate and combined.”

“So you know?”

“Not quite everything,” she allowed. “But given time, I will. For now, I know enough, and this book is a gift beyond measure. I will cherish it always, Málik. I will learn from it. And no matter that I do not look like Curcog, I will be her in more than spirit. Her memories will be mine.”

He nodded. “It was a wedding gift from my grandmother,” he said. “Though it will only reveal what transpired before that day.”

Gwendolyn smiled compassionately. “I could never measure the worth of this sacrifice—this precious, precious gift. It is almost as though she knew I would need it someday.”

“She did,” he said. “My grandmother was an oracle.” His expression turned faraway. “She had already had one failed escape, and her exile and imprisonment were too much to bear—but that is also why I fear keeping you imprisoned within Tech Duinn, Gwendolyn. It will diminish you eventually.”

“Whatever my fate, Málik, I will be grateful for the time with you, and I have the Druids and the Púca as well. This is not the same as what Locrinus did to me.”

He was silent for a moment.

“You understand that, don’t you? I have come here willingly, and I will stay here willingly, and whatever my fate, I shall embrace it.”

He nodded, seemingly a bit more appeased.

“Can’t we show this to them? Doesn’t it not prove everything?”

“No,” he said. “That tome will only reveal what it wishes to reveal. And even if it did, you would betray our true names and provide them with the means to compel us. No one can know you are truly Curcog—no one but those who already know. Esme, your father…” He trailed off.

“Yes, that is true,” Gwendolyn agreed, still thinking.

She knew her father had, for a good reason, introduced her to the court as Niamh of the Golden Hair, eschewing her true name, just as no one knew Málik’s, or Esme’s. Esme was not Esme. Her true name was Gráinne.

She carried the book back to the bed and sat for a moment, nibbling at her lower lip, trying to think of some other way to use the book.

What if there could be a witness she trusted to whom she could show the book? Who would it be? Only Esme, she determined. But Esme wasn’t here.

She trusted the Druids, but the Fair Folk did not…and she would give them yet another reason to dispose of them. Sighing, Gwendolyn closed the book, her fingers brushing the cover as she considered more possibilities. “If not this way, how do we convince the court?”

Málik’s sigh was deep. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as he contemplated their limited options. “Knowing and proving are two different things,” he said. “The Rite demands more than words.”

“Blood?” she said.

“There is another way.”

“What?”

“Manifestation.”

“So if I could somehow change myself?”

“Without artifice,” he said. “A glamour will only work on mortals.”

Considering that, her Gwendolyn’s fingers found and pushed at her canines, as though by sheer force of will, she could coerce them into forming. But of course, nothing happened.

No matter how she wished to, she couldn’t change her appearance at will.

She was still, as previously determined, as mortal as Loc—the age lines forming about her eyes could attest to that. Málik was right. Words and actions were not the same.

He sauntered to the bed, his fingers finding the thorny cloak that Gwendolyn had worn, tracing the sharp points—as though he, too, were thinking the same.

But how ludicrous that she considered plucking out every thorn and establishing them in her mouth.

How silly a thought, but how desperate she was…

“They will not rest until Lirael has claimed what she believes is owed to her.”

“Well…is it owed to her?”

Málik’s eyes flashed. “How can you ask such a thing?”

“I only wondered if?—”

“I promised her nothing,” he assured. “My heart belongs to you, Gwendolyn.” He came to her then, reaching for her hand, his touch gentle despite the turmoil in his eyes.

“I swear to you, no words of love or commitment were ever exchanged between us. Lirael may have coveted the crown, but it was never hers to claim.” Gwendolyn nodded as he knelt before her, taking both her hands in his.

Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at their fingers entwined.

The contrast between his pale, almost luminescent skin and her sun-kissed complexion was stark in the dim light of his room—still more evidence of her mortality…that the sun could burn her delicate, mortal flesh. Even her skin could die…

“I haven’t any clue how to prove myself,” she confessed at last.

His gaze snapped to hers, his ice-blue eyes softening. “I blame my?—”

She saw regret in his eyes. “Don’t,” she said, and she reached out, her fingers touching his beautiful lips. “We will find a way,” she whispered. “I did not come all this way for naught.”

He swallowed, inclining toward her, his lips unerringly finding hers, and bestowing a slow, gentle kiss. Gwendolyn’s lips parted with a soft moan, and their tongues danced together…until she withdrew.

“What of my father?” she pressed. “Can he speak for me?”

Málik shook his head. “Manannán mac Lir is not welcome here, though even if he could traverse the Veil, there is no one who will accept his word when it was his scheming that exiled us to this place.”

Gwendolyn’s hand fell away, a frown creasing her brow, the heaviness of their predicament settling over her like a heavy cloak, suffocating in its weight. She turned her face, and Málik drew her up from the bed, turning her about and wrapping his arms around her waist.

Sighing, Gwendolyn leaned back into his embrace as he nuzzled the soft skin of her neck, his warm breath sending shiver after shiver down her spine.

“Do you feel that?” he asked, and his meaning was not lost to her.

How could she not?—forsooth. It took her back to another time, before her uncle’s house in Chysauster…

before the raid on his village…when Málik held a blade to the small of her back, pressing with intent.

A thrilling blend of danger and desire had coursed through her, even as now.

Even despite this situation, she felt an answering warmth between her thighs. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. She nodded, pressing herself back against his arousal.

“I have been this way since the moment I laid eyes on your beautiful face. So, it seems… not even the court’s challenge may diminish my hunger for you, love…”

“Málik…”

“I would so much prefer putting this beast to use…”

Gwendolyn purred. “We can,” she said. “Put it to use…worry about this later?” It was more a question than a suggestion.

Gwendolyn didn’t wish to confess how desperate she was to feel him atop her, inside her—to know the consummation of so many years spent apart, melded into a single moment of pure, unbridled bliss.

His lips touched her ear, his whisper ragged with desire.