Page 20 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

We were rolling into Albiyn's Mercury District.

I had never been through the gate since the district was nearly a city unto itself.

Albiyn's wealthiest merchants, their fortunes far exceeding those of even the most influential nobles, paid a hefty price to the crown for the privilege of ruling themselves. They even managed their own city gate.

The Royal Guard, of course, maintained control of the gate leading into Albiyn proper, so it surprised me that Io's carriage simply rolled past with no more than a few words passed between the guards and the driver.

Gold, I realized as I glanced back at him. I had not missed his expensive, well-tailored clothes on our first meeting. As I considered, I wondered for the first time if I had been wrong when I assumed he was not part of the Radune emissaries.

"Are you here for the Trade Summit?" I asked, as I continued to stare out the window at the darkened tree-lined street beyond. The air from the open carriage window seemed to have cleared my mind of some of the effects of the whiskey and wine.

I slid back into my seat. I could see very little in the moonlit darkness, aside from the many tall stone walls that surrounded the merchant's houses. Walls inside walls inside walls—as though they were afraid of something even though the world as we knew it had seen peace for thousands of years.

"Among other things," he said, straightening his already very neat lapel.

"What other things?" I asked, a bit rudely.

He smiled. "You are full of questions aren't you?"

I shrugged, but my curiosity had been stoked to life. The possibility...the suitors...could he be here for that? "So you're with the emissaries from Radune then?" I asked carefully.

"Not exactly."

I gave him a frustrated look.

"I came ahead with a few of my friends. To take care of some business in the city."

I tried to decide if he might be some lord of Nightfall, but that seemed unlikely.

He had no guards trailing him, no retinue of servants standing by to be at his beck and call.

And Nightfall never sent their nobles to Windemere for the Trade Summit.

Betrothal though? It was a wild thought, and I knew it might only be the alcohol that allowed the possibility to enter my mind.

"But you'll participate in the negotiations—at the castle?" I asked, trying to keep my tone disinterested.

"I will be expected to," he said, as though he would have preferred doing anything but that.

"Are you...," I tried again, doing a terrible job of looking like the question was off-hand. "Is the party from Radune here for the marriage negotiations...for the queen?"

He laughed as though the thought was ridiculous, "No, absolutely not," he said.

And it was fair. It was unthinkable to imagine a fae in a marriage alliance with the Queen of the Godsgrass Kingdom.

When the laughter died away, he studied me, narrowing his eyes. I immediately tried to remember my words. Had I given something away about who I was?

"You seem to be very knowledgeable about the summit," he said. It wasn't a question, but I shrugged in answer. Would common people not even know the barest details about the annual trade event?

"I listen," I said.

"So, tell me, Sera, what is someone who is not a courtesan doing spending so much time in a brothel, that the women there threaten to cut someone's balls off just for having the nerve to inquire about her?"

It was my turn to laugh. I covered my mouth trying to decide which one would be most likely to make that kind of threat. They all would—and would no doubt follow through on it, but...

"Anetta?" I asked.

"Is she the little blonde who bounces around behind the bar?"

"That's her," I said, feeling my heart warm at the protectiveness she always showed me.

The carriage jostled as we turned off the wide avenue. I saw a tall stone pillar pass by on the right as we clattered through an open gate and then trees passing by the window.

I looked out, startled to see so many of them. It was an entire forest inside the city. I knew the Mercury District was large, but I never realized there was enough space inside for an entire forest.

The trees ended, or rather, the drive opened onto a clearing. I could see more of them marching off into the distance surrounding a large, sloping grass lawn.

We pulled in front of a stately gray stone manor with wide windows filled with soft golden light.

Io didn't wait for a servant. He opened the door and hopped out, turning back to lend me a hand.

I took it, once again feeling that charge of what I had come to realize must be his magic. I had to resist the urge to curl my fingers in his and squeeze, as if I could wring more of that pleasant feeling out of his skin.

He released my hand as I stepped out. My legs were still a bit wobbly and my head just the faintest bit loopy, but I felt most of the effects of the alcohol had worn off. I never stayed intoxicated for very long.

I saw a wide stone fountain with a carved fish at its top. It was lovely, a painstakingly detailed work of art. The way the water coursed off it made it look like it was moving in midair.

Io noticed my gaze. "The house belongs to Master Juriae, of the free city of Radune. He's overly fond of fish—for some unfathomable reason."

My heart tripped in my chest. I knew Master Juriae. I had met him at every Trade Summit since my majority when I had finally been permitted to attend the feasts. We'd even danced together the year before.

"Is...is the master at home?" I asked, and I knew I did not hide the apprehension well.

"He is not." He gave me a curious look. "I came ahead, remember. There are only three of us here. And I would imagine the other two are still out in the city somewhere."

He must have believed I was nervous to meet the master. As the human governor of a city in the heart of the fae kingdom, Juriae Duraehr was nearly legendary, even in the southern continent.

Io made no mention of my discomfort though, and after exchanging a few words with the elderly driver who sat atop the box, he motioned me up the stairs leading to a set of black polished double doors.

As we mounted the steps, I felt his hand—only the barest of touches at my back, as though he sought to catch me if I fell.

And then the doors opened inward, floating on a gentle breeze that stirred the little hairs around my face.

"Did you do that?" I asked, turning to meet his gaze.

He wore the barest hint of a smile and shrugged, almost boyishly, as though embarrassed. But that was impossible. I didn't think he was even capable of such a self-effacing emotion.

He led me through the foyer, a stunning room of dark, gleaming wood and marble. Beautiful ancient looking furniture with wildly scrolling feet and inlaid flourishes, under paintings of seascapes and fishes and night skies with colorful auroras.

I turned in a circle as my eyes took in the beautiful house around us. I had never seen anything like it. The palace I was accustomed to was gilded opulence and grandeur, but the manor house was striking in its boldness, warmth, and style.

A sweeping marble staircase with near-ebony wood banisters led to the second floor, where a circular balcony ran around the entire room under a domed roof of colored glass.

A massive cut-crystal chandelier hung from the center of the dome. Its light cast colorful prisms across the white walls.

There were little pieces of art everywhere.

A statue of a satyr dancing to the tune of a realistic siren playing the lute.

Another that looked like some kind of metallic crystals growing from an obsidian plinth.

A glass case of delicate-looking silver moonflower vines coiled into the shape of a snake.

A tall, gracefully flowing blown glass vase of the most enchanting shade of blue—

I nearly gasped as I realized what I was looking at. "Withian glass?" I asked, not taking my eyes from the vase. It nearly glowed, as though lit from within by some internal magic. Beneath the glass lay a myriad of whorls and eddies, like smoke in arrested motion just below the surface.

"It is," Io said, stepping from behind me to pick it up.

"Be careful!" I gasped, reaching out as though to catch it in case he dropped it.

He chuckled. "It's only Withian glass." But he gingerly set the slender vase back on the table, scooting it back from the edge after another dark look from me.

"Only Withian glass?" I said, aghast. It was rare and priceless, absolutely irreplaceable. My uncle had broken the last collection of it that was known to exist in Windemere while in a rage over the Artaxian's refusal to sell him a horse.

"Fair point, but I only meant it’s not fragile. It takes a lot of force to break," he added.

"I know," I said, thinking of all that delicate powdery glass that had lined the hall after Markus picked up my mother’s vases, one by one, and smashed them onto the tiles of the floor.

I stood there, shaking with rage after the first. I ran through the glass to stop him after the second. And I watched him smash the third while on my hands and knees with blood pouring from my nose.

That had been the moment some creature of rage woke within me.

I still remembered sitting in my chair at dinner that night with those colorful little shards of glass embedded in my fingertips.

Every time I wanted to cry about my mother's vases, I would push against those shards and punish myself for the weakness.

And I prayed, for in those days, I had not yet come to realize that the gods were dead. But I prayed that night to the Dagda, that I would find a way to shove those shards of glass into Markus' eyes and blind him. So that I could peel his skin from his body while he lay writhing in the darkness.

I had only been eleven.

"Do you mean to imply that you've broken Withian glass, Sera?" Io asked, pulling me from my thoughts.