To my surprise, his wings were no longer visible. He wasn’t alone, either.
At the table sat three other fae, each strikingly different from the last.
Nearest sat a stocky man, golden light tangled in his tousled waves. It caught on his tawny brown skin, turning him into something sunlit and effortless.
He ate like no one was watching, shovelling food with the zeal of a man who lived in his appetite.
Beside him, a woman dissected her plate with precise distaste. Her white hair fell in waves over one side of her face, framing skin that glowed like cocoa in firelight.
She didn’t look at me, she assessed me. She was tallying weaknesses, not meeting a guest. There was no posturing to her presence. It was woven into her stillness.
Compared to them, I was a ghost walking through a painting. I didn’t belong. And I didn’t dare forget it.
Varyth inclined his head with formal ease. “Allow me to introduce some members of my court.” He gestured to the sandy-haired man, who looked up with a mouthful of food and grinned at me, unbothered by the bits that escaped onto his plate.
“Hey,” he mumbled around a bite.
“Disgusting, Darian,” the white-haired woman muttered.
Darian swallowed before firing back. “Why don’t you try it sometime, Shaelith? Might sweeten that sour face.”
I couldn’t help a scoff, and Shaelith’s attention snapped to me. For a breath—just a breath—her mouth twitched.
Varyth appeared unbothered by the exchange. “Dariandralis, my second in command,” he said, inclining his head toward the man.
“Fuck, no one calls me Dariandralis except Varyth. It’s Darian.” And then he smiled. Properly.
Gods help me. This man had been forged to be loved. It was the kind of smile that didn’t just sit on his lips but crinkled at the corners of his eyes.
Varyth didn’t so much as blink in response.
“Shaelith, our Keeper of Secrets.” He gestured to the white-haired woman, who offered me a curt nod. “And Cindrissian, Master of Interrogations,” he added, nodding to the man across from them.
I glanced over to him. Gods, he wasn’t carved from shadow. He was what shadow dreamed of becoming.
Elegant, but not soft. Every inch of him radiated restraint, as though he was built to vanish and reappear just behind your last thought.
But it was his face that truly unsettled me.
High, slashing cheekbones framed a jaw that looked capable of cutting through glass, his features hewn with an unnatural, striking precision. His skin was pale, not in the way of the sickly or the fragile, but of moonlight cast over a battlefield. His hair, ink-black and just wild enough to suggest he didn’t care to tame it, framed his face in tousled waves.
And then there were his eyes.
Crimson. Glowing. Like blood made conscious.
Even the air near him seemed to wait for permission to move.
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to.
I felt it anyway, like I’d already been peeled open, sifted through, and filed away.
A flicker of movement, his head tilted. A smirk ghosted across his mouth. “Curious.”
A cold weight settled at the base of my neck as I forced myself to look away.
Varyth gestured to theempty seat between him and Cindrissian. “Sit.”
I paused for only a moment before I slid into the chair, my posture guarded, back straight.
