“If it is an insult to hold up a mirror and allow you to see your own reflection, perhaps you should question what the root cause of that truly is,” he said simply and cut her off before she could respond. “But I have not come to bicker about your actions. I have come to inform you of how they are being perceived.”
“The same way they are always perceived, I imagine,” the King replied easily, dabbing his mouth with a napkin and tossing it upon the table. “Evil, wicked, vile. It’s what you all think of us. It’s what you’ve always thought of us. Why should that change now?”
They were all speaking easily, calmly. The tone of the conversation was the same as it might be if three friends were casually discussing some mutual interest or current event. But I felt the undercurrent of emotion all the same. The tides washing over one another, vying for supremacy, roiling and raging. I closed my eyes, gripping my fork and knife until my knuckles turned white, taking deep, concentrated breaths to clear my mind, to push them out.
“You executed your son for a crime that occurred sixty years ago, for kidnapping a baby and for ending that baby’s life,” Lord Koa said, tone stiff. “And yet here she sits, dining with us, wearing your fashions, hale and whole. But not free, is she? You exiled Canis for capturing her but you’ve captured her yourself. You are hypocrites and murderers, the lot of you.”
Ursa’s fork clattered to her plate a moment before her chair was scraping against the onyx floor and she was rising to her feet, shards of obsidian already swirling around her wrists. The Court of Friends’ guards lurched forward, surrounding their lord but remaining a few feet away, awaiting his orders. The Bone Court’s own soldiers stepped forward as well and it appeared we had reached a standoff of sorts.
“I’ll remind you to watch your tone, Lord Koa,” the King spoke with a tone of authoritative warning.
But Lord Koa did not even look up at him. He reached across the table, plucking a strawberry from the platter of fruit before him. He held it aloft for a moment, examining it, turning it. Then I watched as, right before my very eyes, it grew plumper, redder, bigger. He bit into it and juice dribbled down his chin. He let the silence intensify for a moment before he spoke again.
“Right your wrongs, King Perseus,” Lord Koa said, those kind eyes becoming menacing as they flicked up to the King. “Send her home.”
The King’s lip curled. His jaw clenched as he leaned slowly forward, staring Lord Koa down from across the table. I had never seen two powerful Fae face off before but I knew in that moment that I had no desire to.
“The King’s actions are a response to politics beyond his control,” I said then, my tone measured, calm.
Lord Koa’s gaze flicked to me.
“With all due respect, Princess, you have not lived among us for long. You cannot comprehend the intricacies of our politics or—”
“I can comprehend the idea that a King cannot appear weak before his own court. That idea reigns supreme even in the mortal realm. He exiled his son, gave him every opportunity to stay away, to keep his life. So, when he returned, he gave him no choice. I know that my mother’s court has made moves against this one, moves that I imagine even you are not aware of Lord Koa, and the King has responded in kind. I may not be able to leave if I choose to but I am treated well and I am cared for. So before you try to use your righteous indignation to free me of this cage of my own making, please ask me if I want to leave.”
Lord Koa froze, his lips parted in surprise as he blinked at me. I could feel the King’s satisfaction as it seeped into my bones. I held my head high. If I was the heir to the Court of Peace and Pride, a princess as Lord Koa had called me, then I would act like it. Peace, I was learning. Pride, that was easy.
“You call me a princess,” I continued, leaning forward as I spoke. “So heed my instruction. You’ve made your attempt. You can leave with your head held high knowing that you tried. But I will remain here until my mother herself deigns to stoop so low as to collect me.”
Lord Koa sat back in his seat, eyes widening, jaw slackening at my sincerity. I felt a swell of pride inflate within me and couldn’t help my grin as I settled back in my seat, turning my attention back to the eggs piled on my plate. But that feeling of pride grew into approval and it warped and shifted until it wasn’t my own at all. Smile faltering, I searched for that feeling, rooting for its source, and found that fragment again. That deeply buried dark shard that I couldn’t identify, the one that had tugged back when pulled upon. Now it was invading me, spreading its own feelings into me.
Panic gripped me and I fought not to let it show as I pulled away from that fragment like wrenching my hand away from a nest of vipers. I schooled my features into an expression of the arrogant princess, as I had just masqueraded as before, and focused on my breakfast.
“Perhaps the Court of Blood and Bone is as persuasive as they say,” Lord Koa muttered, rising from his seat and throwing his napkin down on the table.
In four long strides, he had left the hall, his guards following close behind him. I watched them all go before I turned back to the King and Ursa.
“So much for attempted mediation,” I grumbled, poking into my eggs.
“That wasn’t mediation,” Ursa snapped, turning to her father. “That was an assault. The Court of Friends has just made their position clear. If it comes to war, father—”
“It will not,” the King snapped. “No one would be foolish enough to declare war on the Court of Peace and Pride. Particularly when the rest of the world doesn’t seem so inclined to understanding as Princess Dawnpaw here.”
I wrinkled my nose, finally understanding Ursa’s hatred of the title.
“Lord Koa is conceited, self-satisfied, and annoyingly virtuous,” the King said. “But he isn’t a fool. The Court of Friends wouldn’t dare make a move against us. None of his council members would agree to such a thing even if he attempted it. He’s harmless. The public opinion that he is alluding to, however…”
“You did the right thing, father,” Ursa assured him. “Canis circumvented exile.”
“He did,” the King agreed, lost in thought. “But I’m not so sure.”
Chapter twenty-four
An Evening Star
Aloneinmyroom,I searched for that fragment. I dug deep, searching through feelings I hadn’t felt in decades, sorting through the ignored trauma of my past, the pain of watching those around me age while I remained the same, the dawning of my understanding that I was truly different, truly other. The doubt, the ignorance, the fear of myself, of who I was. Tears streamed freely down my cheeks, my fingernails punctured half moon holes into my palms, my jaw ached. Even so, I searched.
Because I had to find it. I had to examine it again, to find a way through it, to figure out what it was and why it was a part of me, a part buried so deep there was no chance of extricating it. I had to understand why it felt like I had in the mortal plane, different, other, alien. It was within me but it wasn’t me. So who was it?
