Tale of the Heart Queen (Artefacts of Ouranos #4)

Chapter 5

C HAPTER 5

LOR

A LLUVION —T HE C RYSTAL P ALACE

I sit in my cell and wait. I’ve considered a thousand options to extricate myself from this stone box, but none of them make sense. Sure, I could use my magic to blast a hole through the wall, but I need to earn Cyan’s trust. The ark isn’t just lying around for anyone to find, and I’ll have to talk—or trick—him into revealing its location.

I’ve already lost an entire day languishing in this prison, and I try not to think about Nadir’s pallid face, but I see it every time I close my eyes. The way he appeared, teetering on the razor-fine edge of saving. Is he awake? Does he know what happened? Does he think I left him with Zerra ?

My heart squeezes with a physical pain that makes my bones feel too tight. I stare at the ring he gave me for my birthday and remember the promise of forever he made with it. I clutch my chest at the thought of losing him. I can’t do this. I can’t lose him. I just found him. I suck a deep breath in and then let it out, trying not to spiral into a pit heaped with regrets and self-loathing.

Left alone with my thoughts, I also can’t stop thinking about everyone back in Aphelion. My brother and sister. Amya. Mael. Even Gabriel. Gods, how I wish I could see them all. Wrap them in my arms and make sure they’re safe.

For the rest of the day, the only people who visit are tight-lipped guards, who drop off minimal amounts of water and some kind of thin fish stew swimming with tentacled morsels I don’t recognize before they disappear, pretending I don’t exist. A congealed bowl sits near my feet, abandoned after I sniffed it and nearly went cross-eyed.

“Please!” I scream with my hands gripped around the bars. “I need to see the king!”

I haven’t quite worked out what I’ll say should he grant me an audience, but I’m banking on the “everyone hates Rion” card and hope that he, too, has no love for the Aurora King. I’ll tell him part of the truth—that Rion captured me, and I escaped, but then I got lost, and that’s how I ended up on his doorstep.

It’s close enough to the truth to be believable. I hope.

“Please!” I scream. “Please!”

Is anyone listening? Maybe that female soldier with the fancy armor. She looked important and like someone who makes decisions about prisoners. She said the king would question me, but it seems like she’s forgotten about me.

Or maybe she hasn’t forgotten at all.

The way she hissed when she told me Serce’s granddaughter isn’t welcome here felt . . . personal? I recall the blistering rage in her eyes, and she might actually be using her time considering the best and most excruciating way to dice up my organs and string my head up onto a pike.

“Please! Someone!”

“Shut the fuck up!” shouts another inhabitant from his cell. “I’m trying to sleep!”

“Rude,” I say, and then I start shouting again.

Eventually, my voice gives out, and I slump against the stone wall as I slide to the floor, watching the sun set through the tiny high window. I can’t stay in here any longer waiting for Cyan to receive me. I crawl over to the bars and press my face between them, trying to gauge the number of prisoners trapped down here.

I didn’t want to resort to this, but it’s time to blow a hole through this dungeon. However, I refuse to hurt anyone in the process. If I listen carefully, I can hear the ocean’s thunder through the thick stone and decide the back wall makes the most sense.

Footsteps sound from the distance, echoing through the space. It’s time for what passes for dinner around here, I guess. I scramble back and curl up into a ball, uninterested in their slop, even though my stomach twists with hunger.

Once the guards leave, I’ll escape. Once I’m free, I’ll find another way to enter the palace. It means I won’t find the ark through diplomatic means, but at least I’ll be out of here and can start strategizing a new plan.

I scrunch my eyes as the steps approach but realize I don’t hear the sounds of carelessly dropped trays of food. Instead, the footsteps stop outside my cell, and my eyes peel open.

“I’ve been told you’ve been making quite the ruckus,” comes a deep voice.

There stands Cyan, the Alluvion King. I remember during the Sun Queen ball when he sat on his glass throne in an insouciant pose, possibly wishing he was anywhere but that over-the-top party masquerading as a glittering backdrop for the Tributes’ deaths.

That made two of us. Three if you count Nadir.

His skin is so pale it’s nearly blue, and a long fall of indigo hair covers his bare, sculpted shoulders. He wears nothing on his top half, showing off the planes of a chiseled stomach and chest, along with fitted shorts made of thin white material clinging to his thick thighs. Dark blue eyes peer at me with a mixture of curiosity and, maybe, a touch of amusement.

“Your Majesty,” I say, pushing the tangle of hair from my face. “I’ve been wanting to speak with you.”

I use the wall as leverage as I push myself to stand. I’ve barely slept or eaten for days, and my limbs tremble with hollow exhaustion.

“So you’ve made clear,” Cyan says as he scans me from head to toe. Next to him is the same female guard who threw me in here, standing curiously close to her king while giving me that same scathing look. “Please call me Cyan.”

“Why?” I ask, instantly on alert at this show of camaraderie.

“Did you not tell my guards that you are Serce’s granddaughter?”

The female guard scowls and then spits on the floor, her eyes darkening with rage. I frown at her before swinging my gaze to Cyan.

“I did. I was hoping that would get your attention.”

“So it’s true?” Cyan asks.

“It’s true—” interrupts the female guard, her voice laced with poison. “Look at her.”

Cyan raises a hand. “Linden, please. Allow the girl to speak.”

Linden bristles, sealing her lips shut like they’re rusted hinges, but not before she pins me with another caustic look that attempts to melt me into the floor. I make a mental note to keep my distance.

“I am Serce’s granddaughter,” I say and hold my breath.

Cyan squints, attempting to assess me through the dimness of the dungeon. Maybe he should consider adding a few more lights. Perhaps a pallet to sleep on and food that doesn’t taste like sweaty socks spiced with rotting garbage.

He shakes his head.

“I don’t see it,” he says, lifting a hand to scratch his chin.

“Excuse me?” I reply.

“I see your grandfather,” he says, and that makes me blink.

Linden’s olive skin turns bright red. She’s squeezing her lips together so hard, I’m surprised she hasn’t sliced them off with her teeth.

“Yes,” I breathe. “I am also Wolf’s granddaughter.”

Something about those words hangs in the air, like a smoke signal curling against a blue sky on a clear day .

“I’ll kill her!” Linden says, finally losing control of her emotions as she draws the blade from her hip.

“You will not,” Cyan says, lifting a hand and looking down at her with a pointed glare. “At least not until we understand why she’s here.”

Cyan turns back to me with a gleam in his eyes, and I swallow down my nervousness. Maybe revealing who I am was a mistake. But how else was I supposed to get close to him? At least he finally showed up and I wasn’t forced to resort to more drastic measures.

“Open it,” Cyan says to a guard who waits in the shadows. “I won’t restrain you,” he says, addressing me. “Provided you’re willing to cooperate as my guest.”

He presses a large hand to his pale, carved chest and gives me the same pointed look.

“Sure,” I say. “I didn’t come here to cause trouble.”

I mean . . . that’s sort of true.

Any trouble I’m here to cause is completely against my will. So that counts, right?

The guard opens my cell door, and then Cyan and Linden turn as the king beckons me to follow. I do as he says as two more guards bring up our rear.

Guest, indeed.

We head up the same stairs I was dragged down earlier. Cyan and Linden speak in low voices, their bodies still weirdly close, his hand resting on her lower back, but I can’t parse out their conversation.

When we enter the brightly lit palace, Cyan stops to address me. “Come, dinner is waiting. ”

He says it cordially as if I truly am an invited guest, but I’m not about to forget how he told Linden that she couldn’t kill me for now .

I eye him with suspicion, but his half-cocked smile doesn’t waver. Linden, on the other hand, keeps throwing me looks as dirty as the water we used to clean the sheets in Nostraza.

“Okay,” I say before he nods and then continues walking, his bare feet quiet against the smooth floors.

We pass through a set of arched glass doors out onto a large balcony with a white pergola decorated with strips of sheer white fabric blowing in the breeze. The ocean stretches before us, crystal blue and sparkling. The sea in Aphelion had been stunning, but there’s something extra about this ocean. A technicolor quality in the hue and the way the waves roll over one another like I’m watching a painting spring to life.

In the middle of the balcony is a long white table covered in white dishes filled with an array of colorful food.

Cyan takes his seat at the far end while Linden sits to his left.

“Ah, you’re here,” comes a breezy voice, and a moment later, another High Fae female approaches. Her skin is a deep, rich brown and her hair is a long fall of turquoise curls. She’s wearing a sheer blue robe that molds to her body—I can see her dark nipples through the fabric—and a small pair of white bottoms on her lower half. As she walks, the slit in her robe reveals a length of her smooth leg that shimmers in the light.

“Anemone,” Cyan says to the woman, his tone warm. “Come have dinner with us. Our guest has arrived.”

She stops, places a hand on her hip, and scans me up and down. “So this is her?” she asks. There’s no menace in her expression, but there is something calculated in it.

“Yes,” Linden says, gritting her teeth. “This is the filth that dared to darken our doorstep.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, finally having enough of her attitude. “What exactly is your problem with me? I know we haven’t met before.”

Linden’s green eyes flash, a snarl ripping from her throat.

“Linden,” Anemone chides. “Let’s not be rude to our guest.”

Anemone then moves down the length of the table, dragging her fingertips along the surface until she reaches Cyan and drops into his lap. Immediately, his hand finds her bare thigh.

“I will not deign to have dinner with her ,” Linden hisses.

“What did I do?” I demand, officially sick of this shit.

“Lor,” Cyan says, his tone light. “I think it’s time you are properly introduced to my second-in-command.”

“Okay?”

“Linden is the former princess of The Woodlands, and I believe that makes her . . . your great-aunt.”