Page 5

Three

KURAI

I stayed away from the sarai for three nights, hiding in one of the palace’s many opulent guest rooms that was given to me by the Royal Council for the duration of my visit. I would’ve stayed away even longer if I didn’t need the access to the sarai to complete my mission.

This was my chance to become a hero, like the Master Guardian had said. And for that, I had to show up in the sarai regularly for the Keepers and the guards to get used to my presence and hopefully stop paying attention to my actions.

I couldn’t keep hiding like a coward forever. On the fourth night since my last visit, I approached the heavily guarded gates of the sarai once again.

Sefri rushed to me the moment I stepped into the courtyard.

“Greetings, Joy Guardian. It’s been a while since your last visit.”

“Has it, really?” I feigned ignorance.

“It’d be the fourth night of your absence, I was beginning to fear you may be neglecting us,” she cooed innocently while ruthlessly dragging me down the rocky path of a guilt trip .

“I’ve been busy…um, with spells,” I cleared my throat, coughing up a lie, “with mastering some spells, that is.”

“Of course. The magic of Joy Guardians is legendary. I imagine it requires constant and diligent practice. We all here are very hopeful that you will create a miracle for our empty Vessel and fill her with joy.”

“Is she still… empty? ” I asked with a touch of very inconvenient concern as the memory of the sad golden-brown eyes floated in my mind’s vision.

“We’ve had very little progress with Ciana,” Sefri shook her head, looking crestfallen.

Ciana .

I did not ask for her name. But now I knew it anyway.

Sefri was an ambitious woman, driven to succeed in her task as the Joy Vessel Keeper. She believed that my goal was to help her with that, in which she was mistaken. Helping humans to assimilate was the excuse invented by the Master Guardian to get me free access to the sarai .

Grabbing her by the arm, I led her aside, away from the gate and the queen’s guards.

“I request a different task,” I said frankly. “I prefer to work with someone else.”

Sefri frowned with worry. “Did you find Joy Vessel Ciana too difficult? Does she have no hope?”

Difficult didn’t even begin to encompass the entire complexity of my feelings toward that woman.

I didn’t want to know her name, hoping that thinking about her simply as “that woman” would help me distance myself from her emotionally.

But I’d spent three days tossing and turning in my excessively luxurious bed, trying to chase the visions of her flitting smiles out of my head.

They were like night moths—delicate and fragile but inescapable.

“Um…on the contrary. I believe she’s well on the mend, so I can move on to someone else,” I lied again.

Sefri tilted her head, studying me closely .

“If you really think so, will you be willing to taste her joy?”

“Absolutely not,” I replied quickly.

She pursed her lips, catching on to my lies. “Well, if you refuse to do it, how can we be sure she is safe to connect with someone? After the fiasco with the poor Councilor Terent, I can’t risk disappointing another highborn.”

Of course, disappointing the highborn fae of the royal court was not why the humans had been brought here.

Queen Abeille granted me access to her precious sarai because the highly esteemed Master Guardian Arter humbly petitioned her for it.

He claimed that my presence was beneficial for the Joy Vessels’ successful transition to their new roles as the endless source of joy and pleasure for the members of the royal court.

Instead of setting off on a pilgrimage to the Temple of the First Priestess while enduring sandstorms and crowds of commoners to connect to our one true Source of Joy, the nobles now had a sarai full of humans to tap into their positive emotions whenever they needed a break from the stress of their palace lives.

On the surface, my job was to ensure the comfort of the Joy Vessels and the smooth performance of the spell in their harnesses.

My true mission, however, was to find a way to remove the humans from the sarai , from the City of Kalmena, and from Alveari Kingdom for good.

The second portal was scheduled to be opened in just over three weeks.

But instead of allowing the queen’s guards to bring more humans into our kingdom, the plan was to send those who were already here back through it.

The Watchers counted on me to be inside the queen’s sarai and open the gates when the time came.

As long as any humans resided in my world, their joy would forever remain a threat to our Source.

For that reason, they had no place here.

The proximity to one particular Joy Vessel, however, proved dangerously distracting to me.

“I can’t taste her joy,” I pointed at the golden strips around my arms, scrambling for an excuse. “Also, I’m not a member of the royal court. ”

The purpose of the strips I wore in the sarai was largely symbolic.

Gold represented the Joy and those who served it.

It did little against the magic of our tendrils, unlike the iron clips that the Joy Vessel Keepers were required to wear.

The Nerifir iron in the clips incapacitated their magic, making it impossible to connect to the Joy Vessels.

Sefri steepled her fingers, tilting her head in thought.

“You’re here by the special permission of the queen, Joy Guardian. Surely, Her Majesty will make an exception and allow for your connection to Joy Vessel Ciana. I will personally petition her, emphasizing the necessity to assess the Joy Vessel’s potential.”

Sefri’s petition to the queen would most likely be granted. As someone who’d played a large part in creating the harness, it made sense to allow me to test it on a human.

Except that I could never allow that to happen.

I could not pollute my emotions with those of humans and break the vow I’d upheld for a hundred years. My sole mission in life, my sole purpose, was to serve and protect our one true Joy.

But I also couldn’t risk losing the access to the sarai , not when the Master Guardian counted on me.

“What if this Joy Vessel will never be ready?” I asked Sefri.

She got a hold of my arm, steering me ever so subtly to the same place where I’d left Ciana three nights ago.

“We need to keep faith, Joy Guardian. Sooner or later, she’ll come around and be like everyone else.

Meanwhile, we’re exploring other options to keep our Joy Vessels permanently happy, but I believe we’re on the right track with this one for now.

She spoke to you once, didn’t she? I haven’t seen her talk to anyone since.

Whatever you started with her is working.

You just need to keep going. Make her joyful again. Please, do your best to cheer her up.”

My Joy Vessel was sitting in the same spot where I’d left her the last time.

My?

Did I just think of her as mine?

Dread tied my guts into knots. But as if cursed, my gaze traveled straight to her the moment I turned around a hedge and onto the path that led to the bench by the round fountain with a fish sculpture in the middle.

The woman cast a quick glance in my direction, then turned away, pretending she didn’t see me. What game was she playing, acting as if she hadn’t noticed me?

Probably the same game I played, pretending that I didn’t care about her, that I hadn’t spent days dreaming about her, and that just a glimpse of her honey-brown eyes made the world seem like a better place.

“Good evening, Sweet One.” I approached her.

“Oh, hi there,” she said casually, glancing up as if she’d just noticed me. She smoothed her hands down her skirt. Her long pink braids were draped over her shoulders and down her chest, hiding her breasts. “I didn’t think you’d be back after you ran away so quickly the last time.”

I had run. And I should be running again. But I couldn’t even stop and analyze my feelings objectively because my thoughts were filled only with her. I just knew that the strongest feeling I had was the all-consuming need to have her in my field of vision at all times.

I slid my gaze down her face, indulgently refreshing her every feature in my memory. Alarm needled through my heart at the sight of the bruise on her cheek.

“It’s not healing,” I rasped, my throat tightening with worry.

She jerkily raised her hand to the injury, her smile slipping away.

“It is,” she assured me. “We just don’t heal as quickly as you guys. The Keepers have been nervous about it too. They said that on a fae, it’d be long gone by now. But for me, it'll still take a few days. It’s normal.”

Nothing about a woman’s bruised skin was normal when someone had clearly injured her. I just prayed whoever did it had already died a torturous death.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, knowing that I shouldn’t. It was not for me to know and not for me to avenge.

“My husband,” she said softly, and my knees gave in.

I plopped on the bench next to her.

“Were you forced to marry him?”

“No.” She sighed so deeply, as if the weight of the entire world pressed on her fragile shoulders. “I married for love.” She exhaled a humorless laugh. “I was so madly, head-over-heels in love with him.”

Compassion rose in me. Love was the curse no one could fight.

“Do you still love him?”

“Not anymore. But for the longest time, I did. Even after he’d already shown me how unworthy of my love he really was.” She gave me one of her shy smiles. “You must think me crazy. Or stupid. Or both.”

I shook my head. “Love has claimed souls and lives of men and women much stronger than you. One doesn’t choose to be afflicted by it.”

“You talk about love like it’s a disease.”

“How is it not? Like an illness, it weakens even the strongest of men. Except that unlike an illness, even if gone, love can still ravage one’s mind with torment. I’ve heard about people who perished because of love.”