Destined for the Fae King (Courts of Faery #3)

Chapter 35

W aiting is agony. Though I try to spend every moment with the other women to escape my thoughts, my mind keeps trapping me in one nightmare after another. What if Lysandir’s vision of fire meant death? What if I marry the king because Lysandir dies in this battle, and divulging the truth could have prevented it? Being married and bound to his brother while Lysandir lived would be a torment, but he would be alive. And life… Life offers possibility, whereas in death there are none.

It’s that nightmare, the worries and what-ifs, that have me clinging to Lysandir’s ring almost constantly. It’s the first thing I reach for when I open my eyes in the morning and the thing I’m clutching when I close them at night.

It’s stayed warm. So far.

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” Grace’s gaze dips to where I clutch the ring against my chest.

I quickly tuck it back under the neckline of my dress.

“Nervous habit,” I reply. It’s true, if new.

“Uh huh.” She looks unconvinced. We’ve become closer the last few days. Actually, all of us have. I even found myself enjoying Katherine’s company yesterday, much to my own shock, not that I’m anywhere near comfortable enough to share my secrets with her like I have with Grace, Alex, and Adeline. Admittedly, they all learned them somewhat by accident after I stumbled upon their own secrets, but the knowledge of each other’s that we keep has drawn us tighter.

I did finally give Grace a few more of the details she so desperately craved, though not about the ring. No one knows about that, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

“A family heirloom?” Gabriella asks. She’s seated across from us and had been reading, though the book must not be that engaging, since apparently she’s spent more time watching us that diving into the pages.

Rain this afternoon forced us out of the courtyard and inside to a large and lavish sitting room just outside the circle of our quarters. Still safe, according to our many guards, including Tharin. I’m not really sure when he sleeps because he’s always watching over me these days. Even now, he lingers across the room playing a chess-like game with another guard.

“Something like that,” I say.

Gabriella lifts her arm, making the bangles around her wrist clink together. “These were my abuela’s. I feel better when I wear them.” Now that she mentions it, she has been wearing those every day lately. “It’s the same for you, yes?”

I force a smile. “Yeah.”

Tharin leaps from his seat, knocking over the game board and sending pieces clattering across the floor. Other guards snap to attention.

The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise. “What is it?” I demand, pushing to my feet. “What’s happening? ”

Elaine, who has been half dozing in her high-back chair is suddenly alert, the spear clutched tight. Grace grabs my hand, grasping it tightly. Alex all but leaps a table to get to us.

The double doors to the room burst open, swinging wildly on their hinges to slam into the walls with a loud crack.

I jump at the noise, my brain scrambling to recognize the figures that stalk through the doors in golden armor. The one at the front is the most imposing of them all, his muscular form accentuated and given a sharp edge by the hard points of his armor that rise like little flames through his shoulders, gloves, and even his boots. The king has lost his helmet somewhere along the way, and his hair is a wild mess, sweat-dampened bits clinging to his cheeks while the rest of it hangs free. It’s not enough to conceal the hilt of the sword strapped across his back. Another two shorter ones hang sheathed at his sides.

Bits of dark red paint sections of his armor, but it’s not intentional like the glowing flame on his breastplate.

Blood. He’s covered in splatters and mists of drying blood.

A feral, almost possessive gleam shines in his eyes as he stalks forward, taking us in one after another, and I fight the urge to flinch under his piercing assessment. The easy-going male who watched me dance those weeks ago, who danced with me, who sat with me under the willow, is long gone, replaced instead by this fearsome warrior straight out of a nightmare.

God help me if I truly have to marry this man.

“My ladies,” he croons. “Safe and waiting for my return.”

A dark brown bag marred with darker stains is clutched in one fist, and he holds it up. “I return with gifts, of course.”

But the chill creeping down my spine says they’re not the kind we want .

“Vasilius!” My heart leaps at the sound of Lysandir’s voice. He’s here. He’s safe!

The prince shoves between golden-clad warriors to reach the king. He’s removed his helm too, holding it in one arm. The stains on his golden armor—though fewer than on his brother’s—have my chest clenching tight. Lysandir appears healthy and whole on the outside, but inside? I nearly whimper, considering the toll he’s had to endure.

“Don’t,” Lysandir implores.

But Vasilius ignores him, his attention never leaving the lot of us who cling to one another. “The Unseelie will think twice before they touch what is mine again, or I’ll add the rest of them to my collection.”

He upends the bag, sending its contents spilling out onto the rug at his feet.

Lysandir freezes, his wide-eyed gaze snapping from his brother, to the ground, then to me. A thousand words pass between us silently in that moment, but one is louder than all the rest. “Don’t.”

It’s a weird thing about humanity. We have to look at the car crash on the side of the road as we drive by. We cling to stories of natural disasters and bloody conflicts. We search out the worst of things just to confirm its really as bad as we think it is.

Maybe that’s why I can help tearing my attention from Lysandir to glance at the floor. To understand why Katherine screams, why Gabriella invokes God, why Grace’s hand in mine nearly crushes it, or why Zoe gags and turns away.

The strange assortment of things doesn’t register at first. Brown and curled. Sharp and twisting. Small and pointed. They are bits and pieces of a puzzle my mind cannot piece together.

Until it does. All at once.

Horns. Antlers. Bits of fur. Teeth. Shards of bone .

Trophies from the dead. From the Unseelie the king has slaughtered in our name. And there are dozens of them. Hundreds.

“My son,” Elaine gasps. “What have you done?”