A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 2

Blood stained the round marble table before us, a puddle of dark gore that reflected the sconces’ light. The copper tang was faint, but still toyed with my nose, lathering the back of my throat with its lingering taint.

And the red liquid seeped from a package, small enough to hold a ring, which waited on the table’s centre for my arrival. And all I could do was look at it. I was vaguely aware of Erix’s presence behind me. Althea waited patiently beside her parents, Queen Lyra and King Thallan Cedarfall, who had given me nothing but painful looks of sympathy since I arrived.

There were others in the council room, old and young. Some dressed in similarly decorated uniforms to Gyah whilst others wore the outfits that marked them as serving staff.

I had an audience, one who flinched as my wild, winter winds ripped at the outer walls of the castle and caused the glass windows to rattle in their frames, like bones in a casket.

“Read. It. Again,” I demanded, although my words were broken as I forced them out. All the while, I didn’t remove my eyes from the bloodied package.

Althea cleared her throat, the rustle of parchment audible over the deathly silent room, then proceeded to read the letter for the third time.

“King Robin Icethorn, if you so desire the return of your father, then, in good faith, I will ensure it happens. However, without the exchange of my son’s murderer, you can expect your father to be returned to you in pieces. Little by little, bit by bit–”

“That is quite enough,” Queen Lyra snapped, slapping a jewelled hand upon the table. “We have heard the tyrant’s threats multiple times. Hearing them aloud again will not change them.”

I raised my storm-filled eyes and rested them upon the Cedarfall queen.

“Does it make you uncomfortable? Or perhaps it’s the bloodied fingertip sitting within that package that’s making you uneasy?” I swept my gaze across them all, fearful that if I moved a muscle I’d explode with power. “Can any of you imagine how I feel? Standing here alongside you all instead of leaving for Oakstorm to take my father from Doran myself. Weeks wasted, and for what?”

“I cannot allow a civil war to start over one man.” Queen Lyra knew she had misspoken the moment the words left her mouth.

“Doran didn’t seem concerned with such issues when he sent his hordes of gryvern into Icethorn land to slay my family. He wants war, let me give it to him,” I snapped.

“May I be the one to remind you, Robin, that you have no numbers. No army who hold your banner,” Queen Lyra replied coolly. “By all means act with haste and retrieve him yourself, but in the meantime, we will continue to petition for your father’s release without the need for bloodshed.”

I heard Lyra, but that didn’t mean I agreed. There wasn’t room for rational thought in my head, not as I looked back to the blood-soaked package Doran had sent.

“And how’s that working for you so far?”

Erix’s anchoring touch landed on my shoulder.

“I understand you are angry.” She ignored my question.

“Angry?” The air of the room plummeted in temperature. I barely noticed the gasp of the serving staff as they dismissed themselves from the room, unable to stand the magic’s unnatural cold. “I’m more than angry . What lingers inside of me is pure fury, Lyra. Perhaps I don’t need an army, not with the Icethorn power.”

“Perhaps not,” Lyra added. “But destroying Doran will only lead you down a path of more problems. He has no children to take his mantle.”

“Is this why you hesitate? Because Doran hasn’t got an heir left alive to take over the Oakstorm power? My father is the only family I have left and I’m not going to let that monster take him from me. He has taken enough.”

“You are right,” Erix said, forcing me to look at him. “But so is Lyra. We must act with caution.”

I pried my eyes off the bloodied gift that King Doran had sent alongside his letter; I could not fathom returning my attention to it. The idea made my stomach twist, the room shifting beneath my feet.

“There must be something else we can do,” Althea said, mimicking her mother’s regal voice. “Robin should not have to sit and wait for Doran to have an excuse to send yet another threat. This one is more than enough.”

“We are exhausting as many political pathways as we can. What do you suggest we do, daughter?” Queen Lyra said, tone almost defeated.

Althea’s stare flickered to the man standing behind me for a moment long enough to understand.

Defence rose up in me like the very flames Althea could control.

“No,” I gasped, looking between Erix and Althea. “No, I refuse.”

“Little bird, it is okay.” Erix stepped forward, towering at my side as he said, “There is one more thing that we can do. I will go to Doran.”

No one spoke. No one else refused him. I watched and waited for Althea or her parents to tell Erix that his idea was stupid and for him to stand back in line. But they didn’t.

“I said no.” My heart thundered in my chest, threatening to crack free of my ribs.

“Doran wants me. He has already promised Robin’s father’s return in exchange for my arrival. So, I will go. It was only ever a matter of time before he got his hands on me anyway.”

“Erix.” I grabbed him harshly, trying to spin him around to look at me, but he was as firm as a rock in the middle of a ravine. “You can’t leave me. I… I need you – I forbid it.”

All of a sudden, my hold on the icy magic slipped through my fingers. The sky beyond the arched windows lightened as the threatening clouds dispersed. The deathly chill faltered until I felt hot enough to claw the shirt from my back.

“No, you do not.” Erix’s reply was detached and cold. I could see his desire to look me in the eyes, but he fought to keep his stare anywhere else. “Doran is a deranged man. This is the only way for you to get your father back and I cannot continue to stand in the way of that.”

“Shut up!” I screamed at him, looking around the room at the cowards who could hardly hold my eye contact. “One of you say something. Someone tell him that he is wrong. Command him to stay.”

“Do you want your father back or not, Robin?” Queen Lyra’s words lashed into me like a whip of boiling fire.

The room was silent as the shock settled like ash upon us all. No one was brave enough to be the first person to speak, until Althea broke their cowardly silence. “What my mother means is it’s Erix’s choice, not ours to make for him. Stupid as it may be.”

I could’ve laughed, but not as a result of happiness. Delusion. “It’s suicidal, not stupid.”

“Erix knows the choices he must make, and the effects those choices will have.” Queen Lyra looked almost sad as she settled her eyes on my guard. “It has been a long path keeping you from him thus far, Erix. This is your decision to make, and yours alone. You came to me for sanctuary from him all those years ago. I gave you my word. I will only break that word if you are the one to make this sacrifice.”

I had to place my hands upon the table to stop myself from falling in disbelief. My knees buckled.

“It is the only way.” Erix held his chin high, his chest jutted out. And yet, when I looked at him, I saw a man struggling. As though his demeanour was calm, but a different emotion inside of him wanted out. My worry was confirmed when the atmosphere shifted. One moment Erix was calm, subdued, and then his fists shook as he clenched them at his sides. “I have thought nonstop about this since I took Tarron’s life. It was only a matter of time before Doran used his leverage over us. I cannot stand in the way and be the cause of Robin losing the last family he has.”

“Don’t speak on my behalf.” I mirrored his tension, hissing through gritted teeth. Anxiety rocked through my body, making even the dull light through the windows too intense to see. I just needed a moment, to allow myself a second to truly work out the impossible puzzle that had been put in front of me. I pinched my eyes closed and focused on breathing.

Someone’s hand found my shoulder and held it. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know it was Erix, whose touch was almost etched into my being at this point. I would know his hand and its print for all of eternity.

Think Robin, think.

It was hard to do anything but picture the bloodied part of my father upon the table. This was only the beginning, that much was clear. If we didn’t respond to Doran’s letter with our own then he’d continue sending threats. And when would they stop coming? When my father was dead, when there were no more body parts left to cut and carve to send to me?

Time was not on our side, it never had been.

“I want to speak with him,” I finally said, looking back over the crowd. “Let me negotiate my father’s return. It is the last thing we’ve not tried. No matter what Tarron did to me, he was still Doran’s last living relative. Just as my father is mine. I’m not saying what Doran is doing is right, but in a warped sense it is justified. I want to speak with him myself before I allow anyone to make a sacrifice on my behalf.”

Erix flinched at my comment.

“He may not come peacefully,” Althea warned, flexing her fingers at her sides as though she stretched, ready for a fight.

“I don’t expect him to,” I replied, jaw clenching. “I’ll be ready to greet him no matter how he arrives.”

Erix turned his back to the room, facing me with an expression of pure terror, eyes wide, the usual bright silver now a dark storm cloud that mirrored the one I harboured within. Both his hands gripped my arms as if I would simply slip away from him. “Please, Doran is dangerous. More than you could imagine. Allow me to do this for you. I will go and save any more unnecessary timewasting.”

“Why?” I whispered. “Why would you throw away your life for the sake of my father?”

I waited for him to admit his feelings, as though I longed to hear them aloud. I wished to hear how he felt for me in the hope it would conjure the same reaction inside of me. For me to feel anything but the deep, terrifying numbness that had clawed into my soul the moment my father’s life became threatened at the hands of the Oakstorm Court.

“Because I am dangerous too. You saw what I did to Tarron, what happens when I lose control.”

“That isn’t an excuse, Erix.”

He took a deep breath in, steeling his silver eyes. “You deserve the chance of normality.” His response caught me off guard. “Do not question me again. Please, just let me do this. I deserve what is to come.”

There it was. The truth that glimmered in his eyes. Guilt had eaten away at Erix, a silent assassin, devouring him from within. I could see through his false confidence as though his mask had slipped.

I sighed, longing to reach for his face and pull it down upon mine. But I stayed rigid to the spot, unable to give Erix the solace he longed for.

“Queen Lyra,” I said as the void opened within me, hungry and emotionless. Erix dropped his stare to the floor, released my arms and stepped aside, defeated. “I would like to invite Doran for a conversation between two kings. Let me speak with him before anyone makes choices they will regret.” I spared Erix a glance, offering my next words to him. “My decision is final.”

Althea smiled, pride glittering in her eyes. “Demanded like the king you are, Robin.”

I expected someone, anything, to refuse me, to tell me that my hope for an audience with Doran was wasted effort. No one did.

He may be dangerous, but so was I.

Queen Lyra nodded, silently gesturing to the decorated, aged soldier at her side. “There is one place where Doran would be foolish to bring violence. If you are certain you want to meet him then we shall do so on neutral ground. We shall send our invitation to Doran, with my seal of approval.”

“Where is this place?” I asked, body trembling with adrenaline.

“Welhaven,” Queen Lyra said, gaze fixed to me, pride etched into her expression matching that of her daughter. “Altar’s blessed resting grounds.”