Page 16 of Queen of Ever (Curse of Fate and Fae #2)

Chapter 16

Tarian

T he air in the meeting room was humid and stodgy, and the only breeze was provided by the puffs of hot air being released from the mouths of the councillors clustered around the table, hurling accusations at each other. Most of them baseless and pointless, giving even less purpose to my being there.

‘As we have been the ones who provided the majority of the intelligence, it’s only natural that we lead any offense,’ one of the Seelie lords said, though I didn’t catch who had actually spoken.

‘I don’t see a need for a leader of one court over another. We’re only talking about a bogus court. They are disorganised and weak. Any combined effort will do away with a rebellion in a day,’ came Taldore’s reply.

‘Seelie forces have more experience in quelling an uprising, given that we were actually successful in keeping our lessers in check last time they revolted.’

‘The Unseelie lands have higher numbers of lesser fae to deal with.’

The words faded out of my awareness again as my attention wandered. So it went, back and forth across the table as the High Council of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts battled it out in a war of words and allegations, with no clear agreement in sight. There was too much chest beating and cock slinging, each side trying to control the room and gain the upper hand. The festivities of the previous day had done nothing to force amity, whatever the intention had been. I wasn’t interested in their attempts to establish a pecking order, but it was best to just let them get it out of their system.

Even knowing this, I was impatient and bored. My gaze frequently drifted to the window, as though I might somehow catch a glimpse of Imogen by some mercy of fate. Stars knew, I saw her enough in the dark of my mind, where I turned the memory of last night over and over, admiring it like a precious stone. Each turn fanned my frustration as I waited for the talking to reach some sort of point, because the more I thought about it, the stronger the urge to go to her became. And after last night, I had hope, something I’d scarcely allowed myself to feel before. Hope there might be a way to convince her to give me another chance. I wasn’t going to fuck it up this time.

My foot jigged against the floor, caught in my restless energy as I waited for enough time to pass to call for a break. I needed to get out of that room. I needed to find her. I needed to make sure last night wouldn’t be written off as a lapse in judgement and self-control. There’d been too much of that in our history together—I wanted to tell her how much it had meant to me so there’d be no mistake.

And I wanted to do it again.

Hands slammed against the table, interrupting the more pleasant path of my thoughts and dragging me back to the present.

‘And how are we supposed to trust that? As far as I can see, the attack may very well have come from you. ’ It was one of the Seelie councillors hurling this accusation.

At the opposite end of the table, Solas opened his eyes, his attention returned to the room, drawn briefly by the activity. He was leaning on his hand, and his focus had been switching between vacantly staring at a spot on the wall or examining his nails for a good portion of the morning.

‘Oh yes, and then we’d turn right around and attack our own palace,’ drawled Vesryn, which explained why the Seelie councillor was becoming riled up. Ves loved meetings of the High Council. The game of it, plotting ways to pursue his interests by manoeuvring everyone else. Unlike Solas and I, he’d had his attention fixed within the room, sharp eyes dissecting his opponents as he tapped fingers against the tabletop, boot slung over one knee in affected carelessness. Now there was an edge of trouble in his smile as he provoked his challenger. ‘Listening to you feels like a terrible waste of eternity. Actually, I’m surprised to see you still on the Seelie council after your last little... embarrassment,’ he said. Whatever scandal he seemed to be referring to, the other male seemed to understand the reference. His face turned red.

‘I knew fae in Paveil,’ he spat. ‘Fae who were left in pieces, their bodies riddled with lead. I’ll not have this matter discussed with sarcasm , night crawler.’

‘Only because you don’t understand it, sun slave.’

The Seelie councillor raised his hands. With a sharp crack! he was launched through the air by the magic he’d bound himself to, the oath that would punish and prevent any acts of aggression. His body slammed into the wall before dropping to the floor in a groaning heap.

I sighed. This was just going to draw out the cock slinging longer.

Solas had perked up a bit at this display of the blood truce in action, at least enough to cease dozing off in his hand. He must have sensed me looking at him, because his gaze slid to me.

‘Seems we could use a break,’ I said. This was as good a moment as any.

But the Seelie King’s gaze sharpened. ‘Do you have somewhere else to be?’

There was a spot between a particular pair of legs with my name all over it, but I was supposed to be on my best behaviour, so I didn’t say that.

‘Eochaid will be angry if we destroy one of the few intact rooms in this place. Let’s give everyone some time to cool off,’ was what I said instead.

‘Oh come on, I bet I could have got the one next to him too if you’d given me a few more minutes,’ Ves murmured. But I ignored him as Solas stood and stretched, signalling his agreement. I would have been first out the door if he hadn’t been half a room closer. Some of the life returned to his eyes as he fell into step beside me upon leaving the room, following me down a hallway.

‘You don’t have much stamina for someone who’s supposed to inherit the throne, do you? At least Imogen’s stay at the Summer Palace has allowed me to show her that not all fae rulers are incompetent.’

It seemed he’d been bored too long by listening to the councillors bickering, so now he’d turned to his favourite pastime.

I smirked, amused by the petty jab. ‘She didn’t seem to think I was incompetent last night.’ I couldn’t help but glance at him and had the satisfaction of watching the sneer slip from his face.

‘She’s Seelie and she’s under my protection,’ he spat.

I turned on him, forcing him to halt. ‘No, she’s under mine . She always has been. Crossing the Sunder never changed that, no matter how hard you’ve tried to make it otherwise. I’ll be watching every move you make around her, every word you speak to her, so you’d better keep your fucking hands off her if you want them to remain attached to your body. Her time with you is temporary. I’ll make sure of that.’

He folded his arms, assessing me with sly calculation. ‘And what sort of protection is that exactly? I’ve heard about her encounters with Moriana. What a sturdy guardian you must be, to fail to keep even your own mother from tormenting her. Forgive me for not shaking in my boots.’

The reminder shot through my composure, deflating the bravado that was so buoyed by my good mood and my confidence that Imogen loved me and was going to choose me. It had been easy to forget for a while that we were facing problems much bigger than whether or not she wanted to be with me. Which also reminded me that I was doing exactly what she’d asked me not to do right now. With some difficulty, I forced myself to take a breath, take a step back, settle the icy burn of magic ready to rise back into calm.

‘Thank you,’ I managed to choke out, hating that I had to say it. Play nice. Best behaviour . ‘For taking care of her when she ran.’ Because at the end of the day, he had given her a refuge when she was afraid. Now that I was more sure of her, I could at least acknowledge that.

If Solas’ eyebrows could have shot straight off the top of his head, they likely would have. At least I’d surprised him. ‘She’s my subject. She’s my responsibility.’

‘For now.’ I left it at that, and he had the good sense to let me walk off without trying to follow this time. Maybe I’d already provided enough novelty to keep him occupied for a while.

The weather outside was surly, keeping most of the courtiers hemmed into the least drafty parts of the old castle, where they shivered around card tables and begged those with a fire affinity to coax the flames higher, and those who could move air to turn the cold away. The oath keeping everyone from physically harming each other was necessary on days like this, to stave off the temptation to fight amongst themselves just for the entertainment. It wasn’t a good idea to keep any delegation of High Fae confined and unoccupied for long; they were too easily bored and prone to devising creatively cruel amusements.

The Seelie delegation seemed to be keeping themselves to the west of the castle, nearest their lodgings, where there was a set of underground chambers that weren’t overly exposed to the weather. Their eyes flickered to me as I entered the space, whispers chasing my progress through one gold-draped cavern into another, where a few fae who must have been of Solas’ line were entertaining their friends with tricks of illusion, sending tiny dragons scampering across the walls chasing dragonflies that seemed formed of glittering gemstones. It was here that I found Princess Marietta. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she approached before any of the others noticed an intruder among them.

‘Imogen?’ I asked when she was near enough to keep our voices low.

‘You’re going to get her in trouble,’ she said, tracking who was glancing our way.

‘I can be discrete.’

‘This isn’t discrete. They’ll all be wondering what you’re doing here.’

‘Well right now they think I’m here to see you, so let’s keep this conversation short. Where is she?’

She hesitated, but not for long. ‘In her room. It’s two doors down from Solas’, in the royal corridor. She said she wanted to be alone.’

‘Thank you.’

I left her, quickly extracting myself from that nest of gossipers and curious eyes, making for a staircase. Several flights of stairs later, I was knocking on what I hoped was her door. What I knew was her door, if I concentrated on the pull I felt towards whatever was on the other side of it.

The door opened to reveal some sort of sitting room, and I caught a glimpse of a crackling fire and a table presenting what looked like the remains of lunch. And there she was, standing before me in a powder-blue robe, her hair unbound, blinking up in surprise. Though I wasn’t sure why she would be surprised. She must have expected to see me. I’d told her I was coming for her.

‘You’re here,’ she said.

‘I’m here.’

‘I didn’t think—’ she began, but I cut off the end of her sentence when I swept her up in my arms, pulling her tight against me, kissing her like the previous night had just continued and the daylight and the hours we’d spent apart had dissolved into nothing. Because it was nothing. The only thing that mattered was her.

I kicked the door shut behind us, but as I did she stiffened in my hold, breaking away with a gasp. I chased her lips, not caring for whatever had caught her attention. I would win it back. But then her hands were on my chest, pushing against me.

‘No,’ she said forcefully. My grasp slackened in surprise. She pulled out of my hands, stumbling backwards. I followed after a moment, provoked only to hunt what I wanted. She took a few more steps away, jabbing a finger at me. ‘No, no, no, no, we are not going to keep falling into bed together.’

‘Alright. No beds.’ I pursued her, matching her step for step until there was stone at her back and she had nowhere else to go. Pressing a hand either side of her head, I caged her in my arms. ‘How about a wall?’

She was flushed and wide-eyed, her breath an open-mouthed flutter. She bit her lip. Frowned. And ducked under my arm. I turned on her, but she was already out of reach, watching me with folded arms.

‘You are going to sit there.’ She poked a finger at a nearby chair. I arched a brow at her as she darted only close enough to steal a second chair and drag it across the room, where she promptly sat down and crossed her legs. ‘I am going to sit over here. And we are going to talk.’

‘All the way over there?’

‘Yes, all the way over here,’ she repeated, her cheeks glowing.

I supposed I should have been glad she didn’t trust herself around me, but it was hard to be glad of anything when she was so far away. ‘A bed would be a much more comfortable place to talk.’

She didn’t crack a smile. ‘Sit down, Tarian,’ she insisted, her voice firm.

I blew out a breath. Tried to cool my blood, waited for it to rush from places it seemed it was no longer needed. Did as I was told. ‘Alright, I’m sitting. Satisfied?’

‘No.’

‘You know what would help—’

‘Explain to me how the Unseelie Queen got a hold of my fiorainm,’ she said, cutting me off.

That was an effective erection killer. I sank a little lower in the chair as shame crawled up my neck and tried to choke me. I should have prepared for that question. How to say this? How to tell it all without changing the way she looked at me, making her see me as stupid and weak? She’d only just begun to forgive me. Could she love me if she knew I was a slave to the Unseelie Queen, that I was helpless before her? How could she when it meant I couldn’t protect her from the worst danger I’d put her in by binding us together? Then she’d know that I should have let her run for her life.

‘I’ll take your silence to mean it’s complicated and not that you’re refusing to answer the question,’ she prompted. She was tense, sitting on the edge of her seat like she was preparing to jump out of it. And her expression, always so open, so easy to read, told me of the tentative hope for an answer edged with fear that I’d let her down, and suddenly I was no longer thinking about what a confession would do to me. Because I’d hurt her, and she deserved my courage now.

‘I gave it to her,’ I said. I’d not mince words. She should know it all.

Imogen inhaled sharply. ‘But… why?’

‘Because she has mine.’

Her expression cleared, mouth falling open in a soft ‘oh.’ Her eyes weren’t focused on me now and I had the sense she was going back, reliving moments, piecing together the past with this new knowledge. ‘That explains a lot.’

A heavy silence fell. I waited for her to process the ramifications, to realise the danger she was in and that she wanted nothing more to do with me.

‘So, when she used my name, and I was forced to obey her… she can do that to you too?’

I simply nodded, choking on a lifetime of memories, of cruelty and helplessness, of being unable to fight back.

‘After the Hunt Ball… when she was so awful to me, and you just sat there…’

‘She likes to ruin things,’ I muttered, folding forwards to lean my elbows on my knees, gaze turning to glare at the floor. ‘Especially things that are important to me. Directing her attention has been my only real defence for a long time.’

‘Which was why you were so pissed with Ves for bringing me to Beltane.’ She sighed, and when I glanced up at her she was mirroring my posture. ‘Who else knows?’

‘No one. Just you now. Arun did, but…’ I cleared my throat as my voice grew thick.

‘Is he alright?’ she asked, clearly catching the emotion.

‘No. He was killed in the attack on the Unseelie Palace.’ My shoulders slumped lower as grief settled on them.

‘Oh Tarian.’ Her voice was hushed, soft, followed by her footsteps. Her hands touched my shoulders, hesitant and light. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She drew close and I shuddered in the embrace of her warmth, her concern, leaning my head against her stomach and wrapping my arms around her waist. It was impossible and entirely natural to soften there, to let the grief rise to the surface in the certainty that she would hold it.

‘He saved my life,’ I breathed into her, like it was a secret I was trusting her to keep. ‘And he died for it.’

She drew fingers through my hair as I told her about it, about the explosion, about the death, about finding Arun’s blank-faced stare and being unable to touch him because I hadn’t wanted the turmoil of my magic to destroy him. I told her how he’d been more than just my personal guard, how I’d relied on his guidance ever since I was young. Told her what he’d meant to me. It was strangely easy to talk like this, with my gaze on the ground and her hands caressing me, letting me know she was listening, that she cared. It felt... good.

‘It sounds like he wouldn’t have regretted his choice,’ she said when I ran out of words. ‘It sounds like he loved you.’

Again, a silence fell. I breathed her in and imagined how good it would be to always be able to hold her like this, openly and whenever I wanted. To not be afraid of who would be watching, of who would be waiting to use the way I felt for her against me. To not be afraid that her bond with me would destroy her.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the queen before you gave me your name,’ I said finally. ‘It was... unbelievably stupid.’

‘It was,’ she agreed. ‘But I forgive you.’ I drew back, looked up at her. She was smiling. ‘I thought you did it because you wanted a way around the prophesy.’ The smile slipped away as something else seemed to occur to her, and I hated to see it go. ‘You’ve no idea how stupid I felt. I thought you’d just manipulated me to get my name in the first place and you’d gone to betray me at the first chance you got.’

‘I can see why it looked that way. But I left you that morning because I wanted to fight to keep you. I wanted to do right by you after what I’d put you through. But it just made things worse.’

‘Yeah, it did.’ A pause. She smoothed my hair back from my forehead. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d broken your engagement?’

Hadn’t I told her that? Maybe not. ‘I’ve had a long list of things to tell you. Hadn’t got there yet.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘That should have been near the top.’

‘Why? Were you jealous?’ I asked, smirking, filled with a fierce satisfaction at the idea.

‘About as jealous as you were when you thought I was going to marry Solas.’

‘I doubt that. You’d be disturbed if you knew the many creative ways I’ve imagined killing him since you arrived yesterday.’

The worry lines I knew so well carved themselves between her brows. ‘You being in here is going to cause trouble, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe. But I don’t care.’

‘There are a lot of things you don’t care about that are pretty important, so that doesn’t reassure me.’

‘I’m not afraid of Solas.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’ve already been caught up in more than my fair share of drama since I arrived. I don’t want to be the centre of some other scandal when we don’t even know how long we’re all going to be stuck here.’

I watched her closely, trying to read her, to understand what she was saying. Tried to keep my disappointment from showing when I figured it out. ‘You don’t want anyone to know about this.’

‘Not really, no. Not if it means we get swept up in a hurricane of gossip and Solas gets bent out of shape. I’m already embarrassing him by rejecting him. He’s going to feel like he needs to do something to save face and prove he’s still in control if we try to rekindle our relationship right under his nose. And what will the queen do if she hears about it?’

Well, that I cared about. ‘Use it to her advantage,’ I grudgingly admitted. I took her hands, threaded my fingers through hers. I wanted to tell her a half-truth to reassure her, to see her smile again. But I didn’t. ‘I’ll gladly take on Solas, but I don’t know how to keep you safe from Moriana.’

‘Then I think this, us, needs to be kept a secret.’ Her tone was firm. She wasn’t asking for my opinion on this decision. ‘At least until the conclave is over and we aren’t stuck here anymore.’

Secret. So pandering to Solas and pretending he was still going to be taking her back to the Summer Palace. The idea made me grind my molars together. ‘Alright,’ was the only word I managed to get out in response, even as my fingers curled possessively against her skin. I hated the idea. I hated that I didn’t have a better one yet.

Slipping onto my lap, she laid her head against my chest with a sigh. It thawed my frustration almost immediately. ‘And what will we do after the conclave is over?’

I cradled her to me, unsure how to respond. Because if I had to give an honest answer, I’d have to tell her that she was safer at the Summer Court, and I didn’t want to tell her that. I wanted to keep holding her. ‘I don’t know,’ I said finally.

‘Are you sure it’s worth it?’ The words came out small, quiet. Her face still turned away. ‘Do you really choose me despite all the problems it’ll bring you?’

I frowned. Drew her back so I could look her in the eyes. ‘Of course. I already have.’

I was rewarded when that sunshine smile returned to her face. ‘You have?’

‘Imogen, I made that choice when I took you to bed. I thought you were the one who didn’t know what you were getting yourself into.’

‘But you never said so.’

‘I thought it was obvious.’

‘No!’ She smacked a hand lightly against my chest. ‘It wasn’t. If you’d been more open with me, I might never have run. I thought you might have regretted tying yourself to me and you were just trying to make the best of a bad situation.’

Cupping her jaw with my hand, I searched her penetrating, vibrant gaze. ‘Then let me make this perfectly clear. You know I can’t lie, so look at me as I say this and know how much I mean it. I choose you. I choose you over the numbness and the isolation and the restraint that was my life until you stumbled into it. Fuck that stupid prophecy.’

She looked like she was weighing each word as she listened to me speak them, and when I was done, she kissed me fiercely. I wound my arms around her, drawing her closer, but she straightened before I could get too carried away, pulling back, and her expression showed her thoughts were not where mine had been.

‘You know, I’d really like to speak to the oracle who foretold this prophecy that’s caused us so much trouble,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how telling the future works, but I’m not convinced they got it right. When my magic woke and I hurt you, it felt so wrong that I almost vomited. How am I supposed to be your downfall?’

‘I don’t like the idea of trying to see Dhrigada,’ I replied. ‘She lives in a sort of realm between realms. The only way to access it is by portal, and they’re monitored. If we went there together, it’d be reported both to Solas and Moriana. That, and I don’t trust her.’ Imogen chewed her lip, staring at the wall as she thought. I let her think. I liked holding her like this, my fingers tracing secrets against her back.

‘Haddock is an oracle,’ she said slowly, immediately souring my mood. ‘He helped me with my fiorainm. Do you think he could help with this?’

I heaved a sigh of resignation. ‘Yes. Haddock could probably help.’