“My endurance is good,” I inform him. “I run pretty regularly.”
“We’ll see,” he says doubtfully, earning an eye roll from me.
He has me mirror a series of stretches, and when my limbs feel loose, we set off into a run around the castle grounds. Keeping up with Jace’s fae speed proves to be an immediate and impossible challenge. He zips back and forth like a bolt of lightning, running literal circles around me. He’s so quick I can barely detect his movements.
“Is speed your superpower?” I brace my hands on my knees and breathe hard—in through the nose and out through the mouth. He laughs, not even having broken a sweat. I pant and wipe at my slick brow, feeling pathetic.
“All fae are this fast. Faster, actually. I slowed my pace so you could keep up.”
“Are you serious? I’m screwed! You expect me to take on a species that is by nature ten times as fast and strong as me? I don’t stand a chance.”
“You need to change your mentality,” he tells me. “This is day one. This is a jumping-off point. You cannot get worse. You cannot get more unprepared. The only way this can go is up. And I will make sure you know what to expect in battle and how to defend yourself.”
I nod my head.
“Let’s go. No more breaks,” he says, breaking into a jog. I suck in a breath and chase after him.
Teawith the princess is nothing like I expected.
I figured I would sit across from Sorscha and her ladies, sipping tea out of pretty porcelain, gossiping about court members in a lavishly decorated setting.
The lavishly decorated setting part I got right. Sorscha’s chambers are double the size of mine, with sparkling marble floors and pillars. A polished silver partition with swirling patterns sections off the space from the giant bed. The arching, curtained windows reveal only the faintest sliver of daylight through the gaps in material.
Upon entering, I find a group of lifeless fae in various states of undress. My eyes land on a disheveled, silk-robed princess sprawled out on a salmon-colored settee, waving a tasseled fan with one hand and clutching her head in the other. Her feet dangle over Cece’s lap, whose pretty jade eyes are bloodshot and drooping. The top of her bodice is unlaced, showing ample amounts of cleavage.
Ilsa is seated on the floor beneath the princess, sleeping lightly, head lolling against the settee. The white blonde poker straight hair that skimmed her waist last night is shorn in jagged lines just below her delicately pointed ears. I notice a long lock strewn across the small coffee table among a mess of playing cards, spilled ale, gold coins, and uncut gems.
Sprawled across from the ladies in a high-backed chair is a worse-for-wear Kai. He dangles from his seat, a hand clutched over his mouth and chin as if fighting back nausea. His hair is mussed like someone ran their fingers through it, and his white shirt hangs fully unbuttoned, revealing a taut stomach stretched over a rippling six-pack. It’s hard to pry my eyes from that sight. Seated beside him is another male I don’t recognize. He tries to lift a teacup to his lips, but his hand trembles so badly that some of it spills over the side.
Oh my god.They’re hungover.
I press my lips together to keep from laughing. No one has noticed me enter the room.
“Good morning!” I crow.
The room gives a collective groan of agony. Ilsa’s doe eyes flyopen. The male in the chair beside me jolts forward, the entire contents of the tea spilling onto the likely priceless carpet.
“Fuck, Dover,” Kai moans, his eyes still closed. The princess makes an effort to sit up, then gives up, collapsing back into the cushions.
“Please don’t yell,” Cece whines, rubbing her temples.
“Oh, cousin.” The princess turns her head to offer me a small smile, her honey-colored curls spilling over the armrest. “Hello.”
Her voice lacks the musicality it had last night, but that’s no surprise, given the state I found them in.
“Come and sit.” She points to the plush ottoman nestled in between the settee and the male whose name I don’t know.
“Dover, move over,” the princess softly urges the stranger to my left.
“That rhymed,” says Ilsa, her voice dainty and deadpan.
Dover scoots his chair closer to Kai so that I have a bit more room in the circle.
I notice we’re short a female—Lady Marideth. As if reading my thoughts, Sorscha says, “She’s still asleep.”
“How was the rest of your evening?” I ask the princess knowingly.
As if in answer, a small white creature waddles through the cracked door to the adjoining suite and skitters across the floor, between the settee and chairs. Its top half is a chicken with wings, and its bottom half looks like that of a Pomeranian. But the oddest thing about it is that its neck is bedecked in freshwater pearls and ribbons. It squawks loudly, earning a bout of disgruntled moans from the group.
