Page 19

Chapter nineteen

A Royal Mess

I stared at that glass of water for hours. I stared at it while sitting, I stared at it while standing, I closed my eyes and envisioned it. I waved my hands around, wiggled my fingers, tried different facial expressions. Nothing. Not even a slight shake enough to stir the water inside. Mentally drained and physically exhausted, I collapsed on the bed, closing my eyes and finally allowing the thoughts I had been fighting against all day to filter in.

Lark was being sentenced today. I had to be at the hearing. Would he be aware of what I knew now? Would his father or Cass have warned him of my fury? Would he even feel guilty for what he had done, for lying to me all this time? Did any of it matter?

My servants arrived not long before the court was to be assembled, before the time that the King had commanded my presence. They washed me and dressed me in a long brown dress. It was plain and unembellished, thick and slightly itchy. The true garb of a prisoner. But I made no complaints as they shrouded me in the uncomfortable fabric and piled my blonde hair atop my head. When they tried to dust me with makeup, however, I turned them down and they merely strode away, leaving me to ruminate in peace until I marched to my kidnapper’s doom.

I didn’t know the woman who came to get me but I recognized the facial features. Dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, the glowing power of a royal Fae, and that insidious black.

“Ursa,” I guessed the moment she appeared on my threshold.

Her lips quirked up into a grin that simultaneously told me I had been right and reminded me of her siblings. I looked away quickly, turning back to shut my door as I stepped out into the hall with a would-be murderer. I couldn’t even summon the energy to fear her as we strode forward together.

“My reputation proceeds me,” she said, amused.

“Something like that.”

“He told you I tried to kill him, didn’t he? Did father tell you he’s a liar?”

“Cass actually told me you tried to kill him. But don’t worry. I know she’s a liar too.”

Ursa snorted.

“She trips all over herself trying to follow in his footsteps,” Ursa told me, the cruel condescension clear in her tone.

“And you?” I asked, raising a brow in her direction. “Who do you follow?”

She grinned again.

“Never mind,” I said. “You’d probably just lie to me.”

“You’re better equipped for this place than I thought, Mortal.”

I am now, I thought but I kept my mouth shut as we reached a massive set of double doors and the guards on either side pushed them open. I expected to emerge at the end of the hall, facing the throne and the man upon it. I expected to be able to merge into the back of the crowd, unseen. But we had entered from the front, through doors directly behind the throne, where all eyes were directed.

Everyone was already gathered and I became very aware of three things at once. One, the King had provided me with a time later than the true start of court so that I could make this dramatic entrance at his behest. He was grinning from ear to ear as the onlookers, the entire gathered court, stared at me in a mixture of shock and awe. Two, that I was wearing my family’s colors, Court of Peace and Pride colors. And three, that a very familiar intense gaze was burning into me from where I stood on the dais.

Lark was standing directly in front of his father, his wrists still bound in the magic-suppressing chains which they had captured him in. His eyes were darker than usual, bruised a deep purple around the sockets. He had a cut on his bottom lip that looked fresh. It dripped bright red onto the black onyx floor below. Nearby, Rook kneeled on the cold floor, his hands bound behind him in the same chains, his face gaunt and haunted.

I tried not to think about how Rook had saved me from falling off a cliff or how much I had worried for him in those weeks he had to stay away from the court we all took refuge in. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes and I turned away from the kneeling Fae.

“Father,” a familiar voice gasped.

I did my best not to look at Casseiopia but I couldn’t help it. Her dress was a shimmer of black diamonds when she lurched forward, toward the dais, toward me, and was blocked by her sister. Ursa was there in a flash, holding her back with a lip curled in disgust. Cass looked from her to her father, her eyes wide, pleading, as a tendril of hair fell down the side of her face in a dark curl.

“Silence,” the King commanded and the hall obeyed. He rapped his fingers against the arm of his throne, gaze narrowing in examination of his son, the traitor.

All attention went to the king. All but Lark’s. His gaze bore into me until it forced me to meet it. The emotion in those dark eyes hit me like a punch to the gut. I sucked in a quick gasp. The torturous pain he was in, the deep well of sorrow he was feeling, the hopelessness, the despair. He wanted me to know it. He wanted me to feel it. He didn’t look away. Even when I schooled my features into a glare to convey as much hatred as I could, even when I looked at him like I had never known him and never wanted to again. He held my gaze, firm and strong and full of meaning

“Canis Morningstar,” the King cried out into the silence, “you were banished for a term of one hundred years sixty years ago. And yet you’re back.”

Lark did not respond and behind him, kneeling on the ground, Rook hung his head.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

At that, Lark’s gaze finally turned away from mine, his eyes narrowing, jaw setting, lips thinning, as he faced his father.

“Nothing that I haven’t said before,” he growled so lowly that the onlookers were leaning forward so that they could hear him.

My heart threatened to beat straight through my chest but I fought to maintain my composure as the sound of his voice ricocheted around my heart.

“You have nothing to offer in your own defense?” The King asked and I could hear the hint of surprise in his tone. Maybe he was so used to arguing with his son that the possibility of Lark going to his fate without a fight was more stunning to him than anything he could possibly say instead.

“I have plenty to offer,” Lark answered. “But none could penetrate your sheer determination not to believe me.”

The King’s lip twitched in annoyance.

“Try,” the King barked.

My gaze snapped to the man on the throne. He was radiating anger, white-hot rage at his son’s disobedience, at his impertinence. But there was something else just beneath that fury. A desperate affection. He was a father, this was his son. He was giving Lark a chance to justify his actions, to save himself. And it was only infuriating him more that the man wasn’t taking it.

“I made my arguments against exile when you passed your last sentence. I told you why I did what I did. I told you my justifications. You chose not to hear them,” Lark said and I felt rage burning inside me at the casual nature in which he was discussing my kidnapping. “I imagine this time will be much of the same but, if you’re so insistent, I’ll tell you. I came back because a full grown and heavily armed minotaur fell through a hole in the sky of the mortal realm. I came back because my sister showed up and tried to kill me. I came back because things are changing in our plane, things that the mortals are noticing, things that impact all of us. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to ignore the signs like everyone else.”

A grave silence met his words as the entire hall fell quiet. Then they whispered among themselves and I could hear the questions, understand the confusion, even from where I stood beside the King. Minotaurs? Murders? Mortals?

“Damned, indeed,” the King replied with a sigh. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Canis Morningstar, you are aware of the punishment for circumventing banishment.”

“Death,” Lark answered and the whispers stopped.

I couldn’t breathe. My gaze snapped to Lark’s to find that he was already looking my way. That sorrow from before intensified a thousandfold. Execution. That was the punishment for his return home. He had known that. He had known the punishment was death and he had saved me anyway, had used his magic to protect me knowing that they could trace him from it, to find him and bring him here to face trial, to die.

Why would he do that? Why would the man who kidnapped me almost sixty years ago go to such trouble to save me now?

I blinked and looked away, to Cass who was weeping on the onyx floor, to Rook who had visibly paled as he awaited his own death sentence. No. I didn’t want this. I would never forgive them, any of them, for what they did, for what they hid from me. But I didn’t want them to die. I didn’t want them to be executed.

“Kill me,” Lark said then and my gaze snapped back to him, though he was looking at his father now, hands raised, imploring. “But do not kill Rook. He was just following orders, serving as my protection as you assigned him to centuries ago. Do not punish him for my insolence.”

The King looked from his son to Rook and back. He frowned deeply, eyes widening as he took in the boy pleading for his friend’s life before him. His son. A man he had loved for centuries. And now he was considering killing him. Because he had to. Because it was the law. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to push the feelings away.

They were strong, thrumming into me and against me from every angle. Anguish, sorrow, dread, fury, desperation. No one was happy about this. No one was pleased. Even Ursa’s lips were set in a grim line. This was a family tragedy. This was an unforgivable choice. And yet…

“Canis Morningstar, I hereby sentence you to death,” the King announced with a heavy voice and Cass collapsed with a horrific wail, “for the crime of circumventing exile. You will be hung in the courtyard tomorrow morning at sunrise.”

“No!” Cass was screaming, clinging to Ursa’s legs, tears streaming freely down her porcelain cheeks. “No, father, please! Don’t do this! Don’t do this! No!”

Ursa leaned down and whispered something before gripping Cass under the arm and hauling her to her feet.

“Lark,” Rook said quietly.

The warrior Fae had finally looked up, his wide, wet eyes on his friend. Lark gave one solemn nod as the guards stepped forward to lead him away.

“Father, stop this!” Cass was screaming again, clawing against Ursa to get to the King. “You can stop this, please!”

But the King’s jaw was set as he watched his son being taken from the room in chains, the crowd of onlookers parting as he went, courtiers and courtesans from places I didn’t know, places I had never heard of. They watched with wide eyes, slacked jaws, as their prince was led away to await his execution.

Lark didn’t look back. Not once.

I stared into the back of his head as hard as I could but he disappeared beyond the pillars and was gone. The others began to file out quietly, blinking away the shock of the events that had just transpired and moving along automatically, putting as much distance between themselves and the grieving royal family as they could. Cass was still wailing, still begging for her brother’s life. Rook was being unshackled. He stared down at the chains as they fell away with cold, dead eyes.

“Come,” the King whispered under his breath as he passed me on his way toward the doors behind us. “Now.”

Ursa was busy with her sister. Rook was surrounded by guards. I just turned my back on all of them and followed the King through the doors from which I had entered. I didn’t dare to stop to catch my breath until I made it all the way back to my room.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks but they were hidden in the dark of the hall as I walked swiftly down it. I wiped them away with a shaky hand as I opened my door and plunged inside. Shutting it tightly behind me, I crossed the room until I was standing in the center, pacing back and forth at the foot of the enormous bed. I clutched my stomach, bent over slightly, chest heaving. A sob escaped me, wracking my body as I shook with silent grief. My knees buckled and I slumped to the carpet, shuddering as the whimpers I was fighting to hold at bay escaped in desperate clusters.

I should be glad. This was justice served. The man who had stolen me from my mother when I was only an infant, the man who had determined my fate in a way he had no right to do, the man who had lied to me for weeks, who had kept secrets from me while claiming we were friends. He was going to be executed for his crimes. After sixty years, my kidnapper was seeing justice.

But the words he had spoken gave me pause.

I made my arguments against exile when you passed your last sentence. I told you why I did what I did. I told you my justifications. You chose not to hear them.

Justifications.

He’d had his reasons for stealing me away. He’d had excuses. Did it matter what they were? Could anything make up for what he’d done? Even if they could, they didn’t make up for the lies he told for six weeks, the way he didn’t tell me who I was the moment he knew.

I hated him but I ached for him. I hated him in the way that you could only hate someone you had loved.

But what right did I have to claim I’d ever loved him? I didn’t even know him. We had only just met. But there was something there, something that even I couldn’t define. Everything felt bigger when I was around him. Emotions were stronger, colors were more vibrant, power was more evident. So maybe I had never had a choice. My uncle used to always talk about fate. That sometimes there were bigger things in store for us and sometimes we just wanted to believe there was. That was what astrology was about, the small science, the people who looked up at the stars and believed they foretold their future. Because they needed to feel that they had a future.

Lark was my past but he also felt like my future. I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t define the connection between us but it was there and now, losing him, it felt like losing a part of myself too. A part I should hate. A part I should revile and want to be rid of. But I didn’t. Because that part kept me alive. That part made life bigger, brighter, more vibrant. And that part was dying.

I screamed then, unable to contain my emotions any longer, sinking into the carpet in a puddle of sorrow and despair as Cass had done in court only moments ago.

So I screamed and screamed and, when I was done, when my face was wet with tears and my voice was hoarse and there was nothing else in me to break, that glass of water, the one that the King had told me to move, it shattered into a million pieces.