Page 23
Chapter twenty-three
A Court of Conflict
T he Lord of the Court of Friends was visiting.
Ursa had stormed into my room the next morning and roused me from where I had fallen into a fitful sleep on the couch, a book of astronomy laid open across my lap. She had informed me of the noble visitor and demanded that I rise and dress for the occasion.
I questioned her thoroughly the whole time. Why was I expected? I wasn’t even of this court. She explained that word had spread far and wide of my stay here since her father had sent notice of it to the Court of Peace and Pride. I had become a bit of a wonder to the lords of the minor courts, a marvel to stare at and whisper about the implications of my being here.
“Why is he visiting?” I asked as a servant worked on my hair and another powdered my face with that shimmering substance Cass had used on me before, the one that left my natural skin tone but gave me a bit of a glow.
“The Court of Friends is always the one that reaches out first when it looks like there might be a conflict between courts,” Ursa explained in a tone of irritation without even looking up from her nails which she examined while leaning against the door frame of my bathing chamber. “They always think they can help both sides make amends, mediate the conflict before it turns into something bigger.”
“Something like a hostage situation?” I asked, turning back to her with a raised brow.
She frowned, slipping off of the wall to stand at her full height as if expecting me to lunge at her. I rolled my eyes and turned forward again for the servant working on my face. The royal family didn’t care for it when I mentioned the truth of my situation here, that I could not leave even if I wanted to. And her shields were up. They always were around me now. I wondered if it was mentally exhausting, locking your emotions away from someone who lived with you. But they still had that chink in them, the one I had carved away with a simple expression of love.
“I will not go begging for asylum,” I muttered and watched through the mirror as her shoulders visibly relaxed. “Why trade one prison for another? Particularly one I know nothing about. My only interest in leaving is if you agree to take me back to the mortal plane, back to my uncle.”
“We’ve been over why that’s impossible now, Seren,” Ursa reminded me with a sigh. “Now that the Court of Peace and Pride knows that you’re here, that you’re… alive, they would find you. Anyone could find you.”
I frowned. Every bit of information I learned about my kidnapping from infancy made bile rise in my gut. They had believed he had killed me, killed a baby, rather than taking me to live with my uncle. Lark had been so wicked that it was easy for the entire realm to believe he would commit infanticide. That explained the looks of fear and disgust he had received everywhere we went, the warnings of behavior Sophierial had issued to our group at the Court of Light and Life, and Cass’ declaration that the world thought the people of this court to be evil. I could see why. I wasn’t so certain myself that they weren’t.
“My uncle?” I asked.
“Protected,” she assured me. “By the wards that Lark placed over the university after he delivered you there. Alban and Ariadne, they could tear them down with their magic, easily. But that would be too much work just to get at your uncle. You, however…”
“I understand.”
“Princess Ursa,” a servant spoke then and Ursa whirled around with a growl, conjuring a dagger from thin air. The maid went wide eyed, backing away from her in terror. I didn’t recognize her, which meant that she was new, that she wasn’t aware of how greatly Ursa hated her title. “I—the King requests your presence, both of you.”
Ursa snapped and the dagger disappeared.
“Do not,” she said, her voice a low warning, ”call me princess.”
The servant nodded vehemently and then scurried away.
“Don’t be so prickly,” I chided, standing and brushing myself off.
I stared into the mirror for a moment in one final examination. This brown dress did not look so much like a burlap sack. It was a deep, dark chocolate with a sweeping train beneath a poufy tulle skirt which slimmed at the waist and rose in glittering applique to a halter around my neck. It was backless and cut low in the front, displaying my cleavage amidst the glittering jewels. My hair was a waterfall of honey around the sides of my face, down my bare back. My makeup was dark and heavily lined, just as Cass had made it before, the preferred style of the Bone Court. The appearance alone was a statement. I wore my family’s colors but I wore my captor’s face.
“Don’t be so vain,” Ursa snapped because I was still admiring myself in the mirror.
I turned, grinning, and strode toward her.
“Off to breakfast then?” I asked and she groaned before turning away and stalking toward the door to the hall.
I followed and we made our way, together, to the dining hall set at the other end. We entered to find that the King was already seated, leaning back in his chair at the head of the table, sipping on some amber colored liquid that I thought it might be too early in the morning for. Across from him, on the opposite end of the long table, sat a man dressed head to toe in an immaculately embellished emerald tunic, matching wide legged pants, and green leather loafers. He was dark-skinned and wore a simple cap atop his bald head. He lowered his head in a sort of half-bow that they expected lords of minor courts to give the royalty of the upper courts. I blinked for a moment before I realized I was one of them as well.
Ursa settled into the seat beside her father. I sat beside the visitor as I had been instructed. He turned to smile at me as I settled in and I beamed right back at him. He was ancient, I could tell that just from his eyes, but his skin was smooth and unwrinkled, his body straight and not stooping. He appeared to be in his early thirties but his eyes held whispers of a millennium. Kind, bright eyes. The sort of eyes one might convince themselves to trust.
“Seren Dawnpaw,” he said with a voice as thick as honey. I cringed at the name but did not correct him. Ren Belling was dead, it seemed, and rising from her ashes was Seren Dawnpaw, more Fae than mortal. “I am Lord Koa Oaksky from the Court of Friends. It’s a wonder to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine,” I replied with a smile, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“You must have quite the tale. Would it be too imposing to ask you to regale us with it?”
The food arrived then. Plates upon plates of buttered biscuits, assortments of jams, fruit from all over the realm, piles of eggs and sausage. My mouth watered at the sight of it but I let my gaze wander to the King. He let down his shield only a fraction to send a feeling my way. Approval. I could answer this question.
“I’m afraid it’s a rather boring story as far as I know,” I told him. “I was raised by my mortal uncle, my father’s brother, at a university. I grew up studying the stars and the cosmos, knowing what I was but never really wondering what it meant. I thought I—well, I believed myself to have been abandoned.”
Lord Koa’s eyes widened just a fraction.
“It must have been quite a shock to learn the truth,” he said.
I grit my teeth and stared down at my plate, remembering that feeling, the utter betrayal.
“Yes,” I agreed. “It was.”
“The Bone Court has sent a clear message that kidnapping is an indefensible crime,” the King bellowed then, reminding us all of his presence, his authority here.
“By executing its heirs,” Lord Koa said and the dining hall fell into a tense silence.
I could feel the emotions being held at bay. These were very powerful Fae. Each of them had a shield around the cores of their souls but their surface emotions were readable and they were rampaging in a way that was nearly overwhelming. Anger and frustration from the Bone Court, disgust and dismay from Lord Koa. It rose and swirled, rising to a breaking point, as I closed my eyes and waited for someone to speak, hoping it would diffuse the tension.
“And holding hostages,” Lord Koa added with a pointed glance in my direction.
“If you traveled all this way just to insult us—” Ursa snapped but Lord Koa held up a finger and she fell into an enraged silence.
“If it is an insult to hold up a mirror and allow you to see your own reflection, perhaps you should question what the root cause of that truly is,” he said simply and cut her off before she could respond. “But I have not come to bicker about your actions. I have come to inform you of how they are being perceived.”
“The same way they are always perceived, I imagine,” the King replied easily, dabbing his mouth with a napkin and tossing it upon the table. “Evil, wicked, vile. It’s what you all think of us. It’s what you’ve always thought of us. Why should that change now?”
They were all speaking easily, calmly. The tone of the conversation was the same as it might be if three friends were casually discussing some mutual interest or current event. But I felt the undercurrent of emotion all the same. The tides washing over one another, vying for supremacy, roiling and raging. I closed my eyes, gripping my fork and knife until my knuckles turned white, taking deep, concentrated breaths to clear my mind, to push them out.
“You executed your son for a crime that occurred sixty years ago, for kidnapping a baby and for ending that baby’s life,” Lord Koa said, tone stiff. “And yet here she sits, dining with us, wearing your fashions, hale and whole. But not free, is she? You exiled Canis for capturing her but you’ve captured her yourself. You are hypocrites and murderers, the lot of you.”
Ursa’s fork clattered to her plate a moment before her chair was scraping against the onyx floor and she was rising to her feet, shards of obsidian already swirling around her wrists. The Court of Friends’ guards lurched forward, surrounding their lord but remaining a few feet away, awaiting his orders. The Bone Court’s own soldiers stepped forward as well and it appeared we had reached a standoff of sorts.
“I’ll remind you to watch your tone, Lord Koa,” the King spoke with a tone of authoritative warning.
But Lord Koa did not even look up at him. He reached across the table, plucking a strawberry from the platter of fruit before him. He held it aloft for a moment, examining it, turning it. Then I watched as, right before my very eyes, it grew plumper, redder, bigger. He bit into it and juice dribbled down his chin. He let the silence intensify for a moment before he spoke again.
“Right your wrongs, King Perseus,” Lord Koa said, those kind eyes becoming menacing as they flicked up to the King. “Send her home.”
The King’s lip curled. His jaw clenched as he leaned slowly forward, staring Lord Koa down from across the table. I had never seen two powerful Fae face off before but I knew in that moment that I had no desire to.
“The King’s actions are a response to politics beyond his control,” I said then, my tone measured, calm.
Lord Koa’s gaze flicked to me.
“With all due respect, Princess, you have not lived among us for long. You cannot comprehend the intricacies of our politics or—”
“I can comprehend the idea that a King cannot appear weak before his own court. That idea reigns supreme even in the mortal realm. He exiled his son, gave him every opportunity to stay away, to keep his life. So, when he returned, he gave him no choice. I know that my mother’s court has made moves against this one, moves that I imagine even you are not aware of Lord Koa, and the King has responded in kind. I may not be able to leave if I choose to but I am treated well and I am cared for. So before you try to use your righteous indignation to free me of this cage of my own making, please ask me if I want to leave.”
Lord Koa froze, his lips parted in surprise as he blinked at me. I could feel the King’s satisfaction as it seeped into my bones. I held my head high. If I was the heir to the Court of Peace and Pride, a princess as Lord Koa had called me, then I would act like it. Peace, I was learning. Pride, that was easy.
“You call me a princess,” I continued, leaning forward as I spoke. “So heed my instruction. You’ve made your attempt. You can leave with your head held high knowing that you tried. But I will remain here until my mother herself deigns to stoop so low as to collect me.”
Lord Koa sat back in his seat, eyes widening, jaw slackening at my sincerity. I felt a swell of pride inflate within me and couldn’t help my grin as I settled back in my seat, turning my attention back to the eggs piled on my plate. But that feeling of pride grew into approval and it warped and shifted until it wasn’t my own at all. Smile faltering, I searched for that feeling, rooting for its source, and found that fragment again. That deeply buried dark shard that I couldn’t identify, the one that had tugged back when pulled upon. Now it was invading me, spreading its own feelings into me.
Panic gripped me and I fought not to let it show as I pulled away from that fragment like wrenching my hand away from a nest of vipers. I schooled my features into an expression of the arrogant princess, as I had just masqueraded as before, and focused on my breakfast.
“Perhaps the Court of Blood and Bone is as persuasive as they say,” Lord Koa muttered, rising from his seat and throwing his napkin down on the table.
In four long strides, he had left the hall, his guards following close behind him. I watched them all go before I turned back to the King and Ursa.
“So much for attempted mediation,” I grumbled, poking into my eggs.
“That wasn’t mediation,” Ursa snapped, turning to her father. “That was an assault. The Court of Friends has just made their position clear. If it comes to war, father—”
“It will not,” the King snapped. “No one would be foolish enough to declare war on the Court of Peace and Pride. Particularly when the rest of the world doesn’t seem so inclined to understanding as Princess Dawnpaw here.”
I wrinkled my nose, finally understanding Ursa’s hatred of the title.
“Lord Koa is conceited, self-satisfied, and annoyingly virtuous,” the King said. “But he isn’t a fool. The Court of Friends wouldn’t dare make a move against us. None of his council members would agree to such a thing even if he attempted it. He’s harmless. The public opinion that he is alluding to, however…”
“You did the right thing, father,” Ursa assured him. “Canis circumvented exile.”
“He did,” the King agreed, lost in thought. “But I’m not so sure.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23 (Reading here)
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38