“Where did you learn this?”
“I invented it.” She turns to me. “Your mouth is open again.”
I close it once more.
Approaching the table, I catch the king’s scent of soap andvanilla and male. Of all my expectations, I never thought he’d wear body oil. As I pour him a glass, I feel those eyes slide to me once more.
“You were shocked by my interaction with Lila,” he says, his voice warm and smooth like honeyed tea. Nodding, I circle the table to fill the other glass. He clears his throat. “You may answer.”
“I’m still learning the rules of decorum for House Reign, my king,” I say. “The House of Illusion is a great teacher.”
“But a strict one.”
I bow my head, heart pounding in my ears. If I confirm, he may find it disloyal. If I disagree, I am opposing the king of this land. It’s a verbal trap; one I refuse to step into. So I remain quiet as I pull the letter from my pocket and hand it to him.
“From my lady.”
The king raises his hand, and despite myself, I wince. He looks at me once more, lips twitching. “I’m going to lace a letter opener from my private office to here. No harm will come to you.”
He waits for my nod, then waves his fingers. A golden letter opener appears in his palm. He slits the envelope and scans the parchment before slipping it into his own pocket. The opener disappears, and he tilts his head. “You agree that the House of Illusion is strict despite their…alluring nature?”
“I—” My face heats. “I-I’m unsure.”
“You may answer truthfully. In my House, you can make your choices within reason, but you must own them.”
Lila places a cloudy pale drink beside his hand. He brings it to his lips and sips, attention never leaving me.
You must own them.My knees had hit the floor so forcibly that night.
King Maxian leans back in his chair. “Tell me your thoughts.”
Lila moves around the table, giving a small nod. Yet her optimism may only reflect years of building their precarious nighttime intimacy, like Briar with Kassandra.
Do not insult him with your slowness,Kassandra said. But shealso said,He thinks himself an intellectual. Perhaps I need to pose it as a question that only he can answer.
“You say in the House of Reign that we must own our choices. Yet the chief ability of Reign fae is control over others and our world. I feel I may be missing how those two are not contradictory.”
The king’s eyes brighten. He leans forward, and despite my best efforts, my body shivers with the rush of power, a thrumming in my very core.
“You find it ironic,” he muses.
“I find it interesting, my king.”
“Control is the most dangerous power to possess. It must only be used as a last resort—an ugly necessity.” He swallows his drink, staring at the table. “I was worried about a brawl breaking out on my very first day as king. Not only could that have harmed everyone in the room, but it would have shaken the confidence of the most powerful families in Amyria. That can’t happen.” He examines his glass, finger tapping on the table. “Uncertain nobles are scheming ones. That leads to fae and faeries dying.” He glances up. “Do you know of the Dark Rebellion?”
The grout was pink.
It was blood that had soaked into the floors during the Dark Rebellion.
“House of Death lost faith in Reign. Felt we had become too soft—and so they staged an uprising. The royal palace was a bloodbath for months,” he says.
A bloodbath. It smells like a bloodbath. It smells like fear.
“Until one day, all that remained were corpses and rubble and a few members of each House. It’s why the palace was rebuilt as a labyrinth. It’s why all the Houses have their own area of the maze, except for Death,” he says.
“Death accepted their banishment to the borderlands,” I respond.
“And why only one halfling representative is allowed in court.” King Maxian grimaces. “On coronation day, I became…alarmed. That history was top of mind. Training is one thing. Doing it is something else. You are still learning the decorum of Reign, and I am still learning to be king. We have both taken important oaths.”
