Page 18

Chapter

Fourteen

I t’s a realm-wide assertion that horses are evil. They are villains trapped inside equine bodies, just waiting for the chance to rule and eat everyone’s face. This one in particular seems to be the leader of the herd.

“Is he the boss of the horses?” I ask Nash, who has risked riding with me once again. This time, I’ve securely braided my hair to avoid mishaps.

“What makes you say that?” Nash asks. He presses his body against mine, an intimate reminder of everything he did last night. A shiver runs up my spine. These knights still treat me like I’m fragile. They tiptoe around, not taking what they want or giving me what I need.

I know it’s not conventional to be involved with four males, and brothers at that.

But if they forced me to choose between them, I would have to walk away.

Choosing would be like breaking my heart into four pieces.

I don’t believe there are any documented fairy tales with this relationship dynamic, which makes sense, because everyone knows I don’t conform to any norms.

“Daphne?” Nash drawls as Hart and Malachi lead their own villainous creatures over.

“Yes?”

“Why do you think Damion is the boss?”

I snort. “The name screams a beast from Blazes. Plus, he looked at me.”

“That’s your gauge, Calamity?” Hart asks with a side-eye at me. “His name and that he looked at you?”

“Of course, not just that. He’s always at the front. That screams leader.”

Nash’s hand snakes beneath the heavy cloak he wrapped me up in, flattening it against my stomach. “The leader of a herd of horses is almost always a mare.”

“A girl?”

“That’s right.”

Maybe they aren’t evil after all. They are progressive creatures who understand the fairer sex is better suited to leadership roles.

In a society where kings rule and queens take their place at the male’s side, the horses understand that if they don’t keep the females sweet, they will die out. Maybe I’m a horse.

A large white bird swoops high in the sky, casting a shadow against the blinding sun. I shield my eyes with my hand to watch it dance in the warm breeze, as if flirting with the orb that brings light and hope every diurnal.

“Where do you think the sun goes at night? Does it take a break? Like sleeping after a hard twelve turns? Is it friends with the moon? Are they sisters of the realm in an endless dance, never to meet? Perhaps the sun is female and the moon male, and they are lovers destined to always be apart?”

Hart shakes his head as Nash chuckles. “Calamity, you are taunting the celestial entities by contemplating their existence.”

I huff as I straighten my spine. “If you don’t know the answer, just say so. No need to be nasty.”

Nash tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. It must have tugged free from the braid. “There are many schools of thought. Some assert that they rotate around the world, and on the other side is another realm that experiences the opposite of wherever we are in the cycle.”

“Another realm?” I whisper. “That seems far-fetched.”

“To answer your questions, you would need to consider what is beyond the Sapphire Ocean.”

“Like the edge of the realm? Surely, we would slide off the edge into nothingness?”

“Or perhaps our world is a sphere.”

I snort. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s something many scholars have asserted their theories about. But so far, nobody has proved anything either way.”

“I can say with absolute certainty and zero book smarts we are not on a giant rotating ball. The notion is completely absurd.”

Speaking of big brains, we’ve left Gwyneth to run interference back at the castle.

The Stirlings paid for a rotation of three guards, and my sister has taken up residence in Malachi’s chambers.

It’s the only way I would leave my sister without our protection.

Charming will think twice before crossing the knights, and if he thinks about it a third time and takes his chances, my sister will introduce him to her sharpest tool—her wit.

The last time we rode to their father’s castle, we took the beach route, followed by some damp tunnels. This diurnal, we are riding in through the golden gates so I can inspect the blinding white of the castle walls, topped with golden turrets that kiss the cerulean sky.

I twist my head left and right, trying to take in their childhood home and where they will eventually return to rule over their kingdom. People wave at them in the streets, while children giggle and dart ahead. They certainly get a different greeting here.

“Why is everyone terrified of you back at the Hallowed Palace?”

Theo, whose horse takes great pleasure in nipping Hart’s steed’s ass, pulls up to our left. “We employ a menacing persona to ward off unnecessary advances and challenges. If we act deranged, people avoid us.”

“That makes sense, and accounts for why you cut a lock of my hair off when we met.”

Theo smirks. “Nope, I just wanted a lock of your hair.”

“Which you still have?”

He taps his chest. “Always carry it with me.”

“No need to act—you are actually unhinged.”

Trumpets blast in the air, and I slap my hands over my ears, forgetting that riding on Damion alters my center of gravity. Luckily, Nash has become more schooled in keeping me safe, and clutches my waist to keep me seated and upright.

“Is there any need for the deafening doorbell?” I shout.

They dampen as we head into the dark tunnel and emerge into a bustling courtyard.

The knights steer the horses into the stables, where a pair of smiling blond-haired boys rush forward to grab the reins, like they’ve done this a thousand times.

Malachi jumps off his horse, and Nash grasps my hips and lifts me into his waiting arms.

“I have a worry,” I tell Malachi, who smiles at me like I am his entire world.

“What in the realm would the great and mysterious Daphne worry about?”

“Staying alive,” Hart supplies.

“Not murdering folks,” Theo adds.

I scowl at them both. “Both things, actually. Did I already share my worry?”

“No,” Nash says. “But now I’m curious.”

“Well, the one and only time I have ever met your father, I seduced, stabbed, and stole.”

“You are a triple S threat,” Malachi says, like it’s something to be proud of.

“Our father barely remembers his own name on a good diurnal,” Hart says. “He will have been up the skirts of many a maiden since you. Don’t think you are special or memorable.”

“That’s not what you said last night.” I beam at him. He can’t pull off this uncaring act anymore, not after the way he kissed me, or the deep dark hunger I’ve spied banked in his eyes every turn since.

Hart tilts his head like he’s trying to recall. “What about it? All I recall is you tucked into bed next to Theo after Nash bathed your unconscious ass like a babe.”

“Naked. Orgasms. Kisses,” I supply.

“Wrong. You were wearing boots.” Nash grins.

“That’s true. But I distinctly remember Hart’s words?—”

Hart snaps his gaze to me just as we pause at a set of huge wooden double doors. “That you look devastating when coming undone? Not a lie, Calamity. Now, if you don’t want to be treated as weak, I suggest you walk into the great hall on your own two feet.”

I hadn’t even noticed Malachi was still carrying me.

I tap his arm, and he lets me down with a sigh, my booted feet hitting the stone floor with an audible click.

These are flat boots, made of a soft hind that fit snuggly and don’t endanger my very existence.

I don’t know where Theo found them, but they fit me perfectly.

I still have the cloak wrapped over my shoulders, concealing my calf-length blue cotton dress.

It is not the fashion of princesses, but it is the fashion of a female who doesn’t negotiate excess material with ease.

I have never seen the point of flouncy fluffy skirts, other than perhaps to protect your floof from floundering princely hands.

“Ready?” Theo asks as he and Hart flank my left, and Malachi and Nash do the same on my right.

“Yup. I don’t have any weapons or poison, so everyone is safe.”

“Don’t say that,” Hart grumbles. “You could find chaos in an empty room.”

“It’s a gift,” I agree with a grin. With a theatrical flourish, they swing open the grand doors, and we sweep into the great hall like characters bursting onto a stage, eager for an encore. Their father looms on his throne—a regal figure looking as if he were carved from stone.

While the long table is full of delicious-looking food, Arthur sits alone with an empty plate in front of him, looking unkempt and uninterested in the bounty before him.

Perhaps even a king, despite his formidable stature, needs a moment to recover from nocturnal escapades with the fair maiden of the diurnal.

I know I was starving at dawn, which I blame on the orgasms, but maybe that was just a fluke?

Hmm. Perhaps I will have to try another night of orgasms to test my hypothesis.

Then, if I’m still starving, I will know for sure.

Arthur leans forward, and I marvel at the fact his heavy crown doesn’t budge. Is it glued on? Spelled? Enquiring minds need to know. “What have I done to warrant my failed offspring visiting me?”

He doesn’t even see me, like I am invisible.

This realm is incredibly sexist. Before now, I hadn’t considered that fairy tales primarily focus on males achieving their life goals, rather than the reverse.

The females are there to fix them, like Belle; to prove their kiss is so superior it can break an eternal slumber spell (hello Aurora); and of course, my personal favorite, Prince Poopfloof with his never-ending quest for his Cinderella, she with the foot size no one else possesses.

He proclaims he will only marry her. No one else will suffice.

It screams elitist, but we all know it’s a cover for the fact he’s the realm’s biggest mellow who sticks his sausage where it’s not wanted.

“No,” Nash snaps. “We are here to question our parentage.”

The few servants in the room doing Idols knows what, stop in their quest to rid the spotless room of imaginary dust to await the realm’s latest gossip.

“Everyone out,” Arthur snarls.

They scurry from the room, casting us curious glances before closing the doors and sealing us inside. Arthur’s eyes focus on me. “I said leave us. I have no use for maidens until sundown.”

“She is with us,” Hart says as he folds his arms.

Arthur tilts his head. “So she is your chosen damsel, Hart? You have not saved her, nor played the dragon.” It hurts my heart that he doesn’t even glance at Theo as he discusses the murder of one of his sons.

If they are even his, which remains to be seen.

I haven’t forgotten the torture inflicted on Hart at the hands of this man, and the wedge he tried to drive between them so he wouldn’t hesitate to slay Theo.

“No, she is with all of us,” Theo snarls. “No one is dying this diurnal.”

I’m sure lots of folks will die this diurnal. It’s a silly notion to declare they won’t, even if he is a terrifying dragon. Dragons don’t defeat death.

“All of you? So she’s taken to all of your beds, and now you squabble over a girl. Have I taught you nothing? Bind her, impregnate her, then move on. Once you have fulfilled your duties, you can take as many of them into your bed as you wish.”

Malachi sighs but doesn’t argue. You can’t explain to a man with the emotional awareness of a troll (not the sweet kind who want your fingernail clippings to cross the bridge, but the grumpy ones who want your firstborn) that all of them have feelings for me, and I, in return, am falling for them.

“You are a disgrace to the narrative,” I mutter.

Arthur tilts his head. “Have we met?”

“Nope, unless you were that unknown man down at the pond last annus in Strongfair. It was midnight, and I couldn’t see him, but he sure talked shit like you.”

There was no man. It was a witch, and she was sad that her curses lasted less than a tempo, no matter how hard she tried. We brainstormed and ultimately decided she should change jobs and become a healer. I’m basically a life coach.

I scan the painted ceiling in an effort to not look Arthur in the eyes and trigger his memory. It’s a familiar scene; one of a dragon stalking toward a restrained damsel, and an armoured knight defending her.

“Are you our biological father?” Hart growls.

“I really hope not,” I mutter so low the king misses it.

Arthur throws his head back and laughs. “Of course I am your father. It is I who watched your mothers birth you into this world, who provided for you and guided you.”

Something odd tightens in my chest. I’ve felt it before, but never really understood it until this moment. Arthur is being untruthful to his sons and to his storyline.

“You’re lying,” Nash guesses.

“I have bent the rules, but only for the good of the kingdom,” he offers.

Ah, this old chestnut. I did evil things, but I promise they were for good reasons.

“Explain,” Nash demands.

Arthur opens his arms wide in a welcoming arc. “Stay for the feast, and tomorrow we shall dine and discuss all that has been and all that will be.”

Stay? Oh no, that wasn’t part of the plan. We were meant to pump him for all the information we could get, then scoot from the castle before nightfall like a bunch of Cinderellas escaping the ball.

“Fine, but I want the truth,” Nash says. He grabs my hand and drags me out of the great hall. The door slams closed behind us, and I glance over my shoulder. One, two, three. Yup, got them all.

“Why did you do that?” I whisper. “I distinctly remember you saying we would be back for the evening meal so I could stock up on sausage.”

He laughs under his breath. “We will stay tonight. It wasn’t the plan, but now it is.”

“I am not good with unplanned changes. I like to map out where my next sausage is coming from and how I will receive it. Don’t fool me into thinking that your father is going to just host us this evening. He has devious written all over him.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following.” They want to get attacked or whatever Arthur is planning?

“Tonight he shows his hand, and tomorrow we cut it off. Whatever he is planning will help us navigate this tangled web of lies.”

I blink at Nash. “That is so smart.”

“Thank you.”

The brothers yank me down a hallway. “Where are we going?”

“Our chambers, and to find you a dress for the evening.”

Ugh, me and dresses and feasts? Have we learned nothing? Nope? Okay. Well then, whatever happens is on their heads, because we are taunting the Idols like it’s a sport. Pity I’ve never been good at sports. They have rules. I can barely remember the rules, let alone follow them.