Page 7

A Court of Threats and Ridiculousness

R oan never intended to be severed, so it was just as well that he was kissing the human that had been sent to be his wife instead of thrusting her back over the Limindhwer. Though, he never intended to be tethered either, not without a rigid plan and an equally averse-to-marriage partner. And yet.

The human’s lips tasted faintly of salt, heat from her breath flooding his mouth as he coaxed her into deepening faux affection.

Roan was accustomed to exotic tastes when his tongue found a fae’s skin.

There had been one whose kisses were as bright and tart as pomegranates and another from the winter court whose entire body stung his tongue with peppermint.

But when he pulled back from the human, the taste left on his lips wasn’t truly discernible, it was only special in that it was truly her .

Roan blinked, and she remained silent—a triumph. His father looked on with an indifference he’d been cultivating for years and then turned, robes trailing over the leaves as he went and the colors on the forest floor left doubly brilliant.

“You are enraptured by me, and we are ecstatic to be engaged,” Roan whispered in the human’s ear.

She jolted out of the doltish stare she’d been giving him and corrected into her natural glare.

The Autumn Court’s king had opened an eingress, and Roan looped her arm into his to lead her to it with another whispered command, “Smile.”

Her pointed face went soft, and those lips he’d taken took him back, looking even softer as they gently pulled upward at both corners.

Roan hadn’t fully believed Jynquil’s reported experience with humans, but perhaps he should have.

The princess of the Spring Court insisted humans were deceitful to their core, but Roan hadn’t thought himself lucky enough to acquire one that clever.

Yet the enamored, doll-like look his human had put on was wholly convincing, and it only brightened as they passed through the eingress and then the palace gates.

Of course the bailey was swarming with courtiers, great gods, and Roan had to fix his own face, replacing his wonder for pride as he walked his bride-to-be across the sweeping expanse of white stones.

His heart thumped as he caught the covert sneers on some of his least favorite courtiers, back prickling where his wings pummeled.

He would not allow them to slice through his skin.

No, weathering that kind of outburst on top of the courtiers’ condescension would be unbearable.

It was bad enough that Prince Roan, inheritor of the Autumn Throne, was reduced to marrying a human —they would not also see him throw a tantrum about it.

After their too-long trek under so many judgmental eyes, Roan was relieved to be met with the much more intimate banquet that had been laid out in the gathering hall.

Far fewer courtiers were invited within, and they were surrounded with the best that the realm had to offer.

Running the hall’s length, tables as long as fallen redwoods were covered in heady braised meats, pastries smelling of peppery sweetness and browned butter, and roasted gourds of every color.

The human sucked in a sharp breath and then let out a quiet if admirable sound as she gaped at the welcome dinner. He hoped she wouldn’t further embarrass him by acting like a pig rooting out truffles.

The king led them to the high table at the hall’s end, places set only for three.

They came to stand and look out on his father’s favorites, the most dutiful and restrained of the court, each waiting behind their own seats dotted about the hall.

Aunyx was amongst them, and Roan caught the shadow fae’s gaze.

His friend gave him the slightest reverent bow, and the prince snorted—ever proper, even now when he was the only fae in attendance who knew the truth of Roan’s intentions.

The king’s pale eyes swept over Roan to fall on the human as his voice carried throughout the hall. “The Autumn Court extends the warmest welcome to our human sojourner, the Lady of the Harvest Way…”

Roan felt his face blanch—he hadn’t gotten her name.

“Maewyn, Your Highness,” she said in one demure breath, bowing her head and bending her knees. Roan almost wrinkled his nose at the act, disappointed he wouldn’t get a chance to see his father’s horror at her defiant glare.

“The Lady Maewyn of the Harvest Way,” the king announced. “Your future queen.”

Polite applause pattered amongst the courtiers like papery leaves shivering under a gentle breeze, and the king swept a hand over the two as shadows crawled up the walls.

At Roan’s side, Maewyn tightened her grip on Roan’s elbow with the sudden darkness, but then the dancing motes blinked into life overhead and drifted downward to offer their luminous pulsing glow.

Humans didn’t have such magic, he knew, so he forgave the way she reached out and let a mote land on the tip of her finger, eyes crossed as she brought the tiny orb to her nose to examine it.

After his father settled himself in the highest place of honor gazing out at the rest of the hall, Roan shifted the starry-eyed human into a seat as the rest of the fae took their places at the lower tables.

The dining chamber filled with quiet murmurs and the clink of wine-filled glasses, celebratory yet solemn.

“I half expected to meet a priestess at the end of this march,” Roan quipped, slipping in beside his bride-to-not-actually-be.

“A king does not break his bargains.” It was less a promise than a threat, his father’s voice now low enough to be private.

“As agreed, when your requests have been met, there will be a wedding. Allowing your bride to be clad in anything less than her heart’s desire would be a poor gift, after all.

” There was an almost kind bend to the king’s mouth as he nodded at the human. Well, that was new.

“Do you hear that, Pumpkin? Your demands are limitless. Ask for a gown sewn of maple leaf veins and silken starlight, and it shall be yours no matter how long it takes to craft.”

“Silken starlight?” Her gaze darted to the place on his chest where she’d failed to kill him.

“Or…something slightly more opaque.”

“And you will keep to your end of the bargain,” his father cut in. “The wedding will be held by Salen, regardless.”

“Salen?” Maewyn straightened in her seat. “In thirteen days?”

“Yes, but surely that is plenty of time.” Roan waved the impending holiday away, knowing she would be gone long before then.

Maewyn’s belly was full, her mind was overwhelmed, and the corners of her mouth ached. When Roan guided her down an empty hall, she finally let the brainless smile fall off her face and ripped her hands from his elbow to massage her jaw. He clicked his tongue, and she glared at him.

“Ah, there she is.” Roan smirked, and Maewyn’s full stomach somersaulted, though whether it was from a questionable tart or the taste of spiced cider his kiss left on her tongue, she wasn’t willing to consider.

She glared instead at the hall ahead, so like all the others in the palace with its grand ceilings and etched marble, though this one had only a lone door at its end.

Their march through the place had been a blur of gold and white after the feast, her attention on maintaining that mindless grin while scheming for an escape, but now that there weren’t guards and courtiers everywhere, there was only one place to go.

The chamber on the door’s other side was vast and swathed in the amber light of many candles, their glow flickering over honey maple walls carved with intricate patterns.

Great arches lay open to an encircling balcony on the far wall, the dome of each filled with stained glass in reds and oranges, and their velvet curtains pulled back so that the room smelled of earthy fallen leaves and the promise of rain.

Though it was an elegant and massive chamber, there were messes here and there distinguishing the room as private: a book left open on a settee, papers strewn over a desk, a game of chess half-played. And of course there was the bed in its center, sizable, opulent, and…singular.

There was a flutter at Maewyn’s side, and Roan’s coat was dropped to the floor, the fae stretching with arms overhead and mouth drawn into a yawn. She crossed her arms and cleared her throat.

Disdain fell back onto that pale, sharp face of his. “What?”

“Where am I supposed to sleep?”

Roan blinked about the vastness of the room then shrugged.

Maewyn’s throat rumbled with annoyance. “Isn’t it… indecent for the two of us, unwed, to share a bedroom?”

His nose wrinkled. “No? We are as good as wed in the eyes of the court, and what goes on within these walls is no one else’s concern as it is.”

“Well, I demand it as part of the wedding planning.”

“Ah, no.” He was unbuttoning his vest, not even looking at her.

“You said I can have whatever I want.” She’d not forgotten that but was disappointed to have to employ a demand so soon.

Roan slipped out of the vest and let it also fall to the floor. “Allow me to rephrase: you can have whatever I want you to want.” Then he tugged at his tunic and whipped it off over his head.

“Good gods, you’re a monster,” she breathed, turning swiftly from his display of flesh and marching to the open archways at the far end of the room.

“If you intend to throw yourself off the balcony, you will be sorely disappointed in the enchantment that only allows me to cross it,” he called after.

But there would be no throwing, the breath drawn out of her at the sight beyond the arches.

The night sky twinkled with starlight over a forest of trees like darkened jewels blending into the blackness of the horizon.

In that moment, she could barely recall the dull dustiness of Goulmead’s flat fields.

The rhythmic trill of crickets rose to meet her as she continued to the balcony’s edge.

Directly below, a dozen courtyards were laid out, just as vast and covered in the shadows of night, but Maewyn could still make out the thick hedges separating garden rows from decorative spaces.

This was a bit more like home, like that place she came from, yet it pulsed with magic that beckoned for her to explore the crops being grown there.

“Someone may attempt to kill you.”

Maewyn started, Roan suddenly beside her. His form was clad in a plain white tunic and loose pants, looking, well, not at all normal , not with that face and those pointed ears, but nearly.

“You’re betrothed to a prince, after all,” he went on a little lower, “so that is why you must stay here in the night, when the worst plans are hatched. And there is no better view in Tenhaef anyway.”

“Tenhaef?”

“The autumn corner of the fae realm. You know, this place I lord over? No one could magic up a better sight than right here on this balcony, so you can’t possibly convince me you don’t like it.” Roan smirked, and the smugness crawled over every handsome, obnoxious line of his face.

“It’s beautiful,” she quipped. “But plenty of beautiful things are wholly unlikable.”

“Well, you’re staring at my lands like you’re in love.” He leaned against the marble railing and rested his chin in his hand, and any fear Maewyn might have had at sharing his bedroom was immediately doused by the lazy adoration that spilled from his eyes as he gazed out at the realm.

Well, then, that settled where she would sleep, and she turned swiftly away from the railing.

“What are you doing?”

Maewyn slipped out of her shoes on the way to the bed and pulled back the topmost linen, a beautiful if thin fabric that shimmered like spun gold. “I’m exhausted.” The next blanket was thicker but filled with an airy softness, and then there was a third, plush and begging her to crawl beneath.

“That’s my bed.”

Maewyn shrugged as she climbed into it, but she couldn’t scowl this time, not with the softness that enveloped her. She was instantly ruined for straw mattresses forever.

Roan strode over to the bed’s other side, candlelight dancing over his form. He hulked there, unspeaking for once, and she took a moment to appreciate the shape of him, his looser garments revealing much more skin, then snuffed that thought out.

“ Our bed is plenty big enough,” she said, pulling the blankets up to her chin, unable to fend off a genuine grin.

Roan stared her down, jaw taut, then grabbed his side of the linens and tore them back. Gaze smoldering with a fire that she’d just extinguished, he climbed in.

Maewyn’s grin unwittingly grew in return.

Roan fell with a huff onto his back, inexplicably finding a way to be uncomfortable in the coziest bed on earth.

Maewyn shrugged against the softness, eyes closing until there was a loud clap beside her.

The candles all snuffed out at once under Roan’s command, briefly filling the room with the pleasant smell of woodsy smoke.

The chamber fell into darkness, and then the moon’s gentle glow filtered in through the arches.

Gods, it was just perfect.

“Tomorrow you will find a way to sever this bind, and then a doorway back into the human realm.”

Perfect except for the angry fae in bed with her, demanding she fix all his problems.

“Why in your realm or mine is this my responsibility?” she groused.

“Because it was always your responsibility to get yourself home,” he snapped back as if she’d agreed.

Maewyn sighed deeply. “I doubt very much I can do that in a single day. Maybe not even in thirteen.”

“Then you are doomed to become the next queen of the Autumn Court, and you will be lost to your home forever, not that your family or people will care.”

Despite the sarcastic bend to his voice, Maewyn had noted that there was no current queen, an omen she thought rather grim. She swallowed hard and gripped the linens a little tighter. Roan muttered something unintelligible then, and she grunted, “What was that?”

“But I am sorry,” he snapped as if it were a terrible pain to have to repeat himself. He huffed out a sigh, seeming to struggle as he removed the terseness from his voice. “It is unfortunate that you have been displaced.”

Maewyn nodded only to herself. Perhaps not that unfortunate .