Page 12 of Brutal Fae King (Dark Faevea King #1)

As soon as we walk back into the castle, I call over a nearby guard.

“Prepare one of the guest bedrooms for Ebelor,” I order.

“Yes, Sire.”

She looks up at me with that softer gaze. She’s been doing that since the carriage. I turn to her.

“Follow him to your new room,” I tell her. “We shall merely prepare it for tonight, but later on, we can change it around to your tastes.”

“Thank you…” She says quietly.

“If you’d come with me, Ma’am,” the guard says to her.

She nods and starts walking off behind him. As she leaves, Bruamin approaches me.

“Sire,” he says. “The witch is waiting in the West wing.”

“Ah, excellent.”

Finally. We’d best get this done as quickly as we can.

***

When I walk into the West wing, into the drawing-room, the witch stands, ethereal as always, in the center of the room. As I walk in, she turns and smiles lightly at me.

“My king… what makes you call me from my dimension?”

“I need a spell,” I say. “As soon as you can perform it.”

She cocks a slender eyebrow.

“Well, as always, it depends on what the spell is intended to do,” she says in her lilting tones. “And, of course, what you would pay for it.”

“I need a spell to bind me to the lost queen,” I say. “A psychic link, something that ties us together. She has agreed to marry me for the sake of the kingdom’s wellbeing—”

“I’m aware,” she replies.

“—and I want to ensure she won’t go back on our deal.”

“Think carefully before you demand another spell, My King,” the witch purrs. “She is aware of the dire straits. If she is wise, she won’t leave.”

“I know,” I say. “But I don’t trust her. I don’t trust she won’t leave as soon as she thinks the kingdom is safe, even if it’s not. I need to keep the kingdom safe.”

The witch cocks her head slowly.

“Is that truly the reason?” she asks slowly.

I glower at her.

“Yes,” I growl. “Do the spell.”

“As you wish, My King,” she says. “The cost is three years.”

Three?! Oh, damn…

But I suck a breath in.

“Fine. Do it.”

The witch glides over to me and extends her hand. I take it, and we shake once. A bolt of pain crashes through me. I cry out as I feel three years shaved off my lifespan. Once she releases my hand, I’m tingling from head to toe.

I stagger forward a step and brace myself on the wall. The witch smiles.

“In but a few moments, this room will have a spell within to bind the people psychically together at the utterance of the words: I do,” s he says. “As soon as both parties have spoken those words, they shall be forever bound.”

I nod. There’s a bead of sweat running down my brow. I summon the strength to stand straight again and mop it up with my hand.

“Very good. I’ll leave you to it.”

I leave the room as the witch begins to chant. Outside is Bruamin, scowling lightly at me.

“What?” I grunt.

“I do wish you wouldn’t buy spells so frivolously, Sire,” he pleads. “You know you have cost yourself several decades of life by now.”

“I know. Can you officiate for me, Bruamin? I know we always agreed you would.”

“Sire, listen!” he begs. “The girl was always going to stay! She knows what’s at stake!”

“ I can’t take that risk, Bruamin. Now, will you officiate my wedding or not?! ”

Bruamin sighs lightly. He nods.

“Thank you,” I sigh. “Now, can you fetch a guard to bring her back?”

He nods again. He starts to walk off, hesitates, and then looks over his shoulder:

“I truly hoped I’d be the one to end up officiating your wedding like we agreed when you were younger,” he says. “But not like this.”

“Frankly, Bruamin,” I reply. “I don’t like getting married under such circumstances either. Now go fetch the bride.”

***

“Wait, right now?!” s he gasps.

“Yes,” I reply. “That was our deal. As soon as I found someone to officiate, we’d be married.”

“Yes, but…”

“Bruamin will officiate,” I say. “He is my lord-in-waiting. He’s been here ever since I was a very small child—like a second father to me—so I trust he will do nicely.”

Her gaze softens just a little bit. She looks at Bruamin, and he bows his head at her.

“My queen,” he murmurs politely.

She still blinks, still bemused. She bows her head cordially back, then looks to me:

“I have to get married in this?!” s he demands. “I don’t even get a wedding dress? You’re a king! You should be able to get me a dress!”

I glare at her. She’s a smart one sometimes.

“I know what you’re doing, and there’s no point delaying it,” I growl at her. “You agreed that we would be married as soon as there was an officiant, and I’m not going to let you procrastinate. If you feel the need for a huge ceremony, complete with whatever dress takes your fancy, then we can have a ceremonial wedding later.”

I can see her grinding her teeth; I think she’s run out of excuses. I offer her my arm before she can think of any.

“Come. Time to fulfill your end of the bargain.”

She sneers but links her arm through mine. I nod to Bruamin, and he moves ahead, opening the door for us. He walks to the other end of the room, and I start taking my new bride through. But the witch stays, smiling at us both.

“Wait,” my new bride hisses. “Why is the witch here?”

“She’s our official witness,” I answer.

We reach the front, and Bruamin starts speaking, running through the ceremony like he has done at his church so many times before. I’ve heard it many times—my parents always insisted that we showed our faces at every official event pertinent to the family. That involved every boring wedding that ever happened, no matter how removed the cousin or uncle might have been.

Instead, I watch her face. It’s odd. It keeps changing. There’s still a touch of a sneer on her face, but there’s some melancholic wondering in her expression. I wonder what she’s thinking.

Eventually, Bruamin asks me the question. I don’t hear it properly, but I look at him.

“I do,” I answer.

There’s a light glowing coming from the floor—the most subtle purple illuminance drawn in an ornate symbol on the floor, enclosing both me and my bride. I can only observe the symbol from the corner of my eyes. There are so many loops and twirls in the pattern that I cannot imagine how the witch might have drawn it in such a short period of time. I can see two separate threads winding mostly around themselves until the point where they meet and bind together. It’s like a large horseshoe around the pair of us.

Beautiful in its own way.

I flash a glance at her, but she stares right ahead, not looking back at me.

But she’s not looking at the floor, either. Good.

My lord-in-waiting nods at me, still understatedly sad, then looks to her:

“And do you, my lady, take the king to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

She sighs lightly.

“I do.”

The soft glow explodes into beams of illuminance, towers of purple light reaching from floor to ceiling. Ebelor screams. She tries to pull away, and I keep ahold of her arm to keep her from running away. It’s over in a moment.

“And thus,” the witch says in her lilting tones, “you are bound.”

The witch bows deeply, then walks backward, the wall melting into a patch of darkness behind her. She soon disappears.

Ebelor turns to me.

“What happened?! What did you do?! ”

“You agreed to marry me,” I say. “You agreed to be bound to me until death do us part. I just thought it would be prudent to have a safeguard in place that would force you to keep that promise. Something other than a piece of paper, that is.”

My wife pulls her arm away from mine, glaring at me.

“So… you cast a spell on me?” she demands. “What kind of spell?”

“The same as a legal marriage, really,” I answer. “You are now bound to me—not able to betray me to the enemy, leave without my knowing, and if you were to do these things—” “—death would then do us part.” My voice darkens.

She stares at me, mouth agape. Her head shakes lightly.

“It goes both ways,” I say. “If I were to betray or abandon you, I would also die. It’s the same deal as a marriage—if you obey your marriage vows, then you should be fine.”

I narrow my eyes at her.

“Of course,” I say. “If you were planning on obeying your marriage vows and not abandoning me in the middle of the night, My Queen, then there should be no issue.”

Her mouth closes, her teeth clenching and grinding together. I can see it in her face; she’s been foiled.

Thought so. You were going to run away in the middle of the night, weren’t you?

She finally finds her voice, albeit in choking, spluttering tones:

“You… YOU BASTARD!”

“You agreed to marry me,” I say. “All I’m doing is making sure you keep your promise.”

She stares at me, teeth still grinding. Her eyes fill with tears. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, but she says nothing. Then, she covers her face, bursts into tears, and dashes out of the room. There’s a second of silence. I can feel Bruamin’s gaze searing into me, the judgmental stare burning into the back of my skull.

I turn back to him, meeting his angry gaze and returning it.

“What?” I grunt. “There’s no use feeling sorry for her! You saw her! She would have broken her marriage vows and abandoned me, even if the kingdom would have perished because of it! Besides, she is now a queen. There ought to be no pity for her!”

Bruamin still stares at me, eyes narrowed.

“Yes, but… is this truly how this should have been handled?” he asks.

“Oh, I don’t have to listen to this!” I growl. “I am the king! You are the lord-in-waiting, and I am the king! Don’t forget your place!”

Bruamin just closes his eyes in disappointment. I seldom play that card, but I’m in no mood.

Even the hardest man in the world will crack when everyone in his life hates him so consistently, all the time. I can’t have another lecture from my old lord-in-waiting. I already know.

I turn and begin walking out of the room as well, leaving him standing there alone. As I walk through the corridor toward my own quarters, I pass hers. There’s sobbing coming from her closed door.

A thought intrudes: No woman should spend her wedding night sobbing like that.

I shake the thought away and continue on to my room.