Go me.
When I reached my parents, Nima who hadn’t spoken a single word since her arrival, broke away from Iba and clutched my elbow. “I need a minute with my daughter.” She towed me away from the men and the Cauldron spitting up glittery tendrils of smoke, her fingers cool and firm. When we were far from prying ears, she threaded a fugitive tendril of hair back into my braided crown. “Why?”
One tiny, loaded word.
“Because Iba asked this of me.”
“Why would he ask you to . . . to . . .?” One of her eyes spasmed from the mixture of worry and annoyance she was surely trying to contain before the clouds she’d called forth ripped.
I placed my hand over hers. “It’s okay, Nima.”
“Okay? How is it okay that you’re being forced to tie your essence with a boy you don’t love?” Her eye twitched again, her thick black lashes flapping. “You don’t love him, do you,abiwoojin?”
“Skies, no.”
Lightning slit the sky, this time cleaving the steel clouds. Raindrops fell in droves, clapping the flat copper roof like mallets.
“But it’s just an engagement, Nima, not a wedding.”
Her eyes darted toward Iba, who watched us steadily, even though he was discussing something with Gregor and Remo.
“Did you marry the man you were engaged to?” I whispered just as Faith stomped toward us, curly red hair bouncing violently against her shoulders.
“I object,” she bellowed over the deafening cacophony of my mother’s anguish, “and I’m guessing you do too, Catori.”
Nima schooled her features back into her sovereign’s mask. “I might not befondof the union, but I trust our king’s judgment, as should you.”
Faith set her hands on her waist, crinkling the emerald satin of her floor-length gown. “The king is yourhusband. Of course you’d trust his judgment.”
Nima seemed to grow a few inches taller than the full head she already had on Faith. “Everything my husband does, he does for Neverra.”
“Well, I don’t want my son marrying into a family of murderers.” Spittle flew from Faith’s mouth, smacked Nima’s chin.
“Murderers?” Nima growled. “Because your family’s so much better? Would you like a list of the fae and humans your father snuffed out?”
“How dare you compare what he does to what you did! My father punishes criminals.” Faith poked Nima’s collarbone, right under Stella’s captive dust. “You killed my mother! An innocent!”
“Your mother wasnotinnocent. When are you going to take off those ridiculous rose-colored goggles of yours and see her for the viper she was?”
“Stop lying.”
“I never lied.” Nima balled her hands into tight fists. “Besides, you didn’t even like her!”
“That’s not the point!”
I grabbed one of Nima’s fists, trying to pry her fingers apart, but they seemed fashioned from steel. I beseeched Iba with a frantic look, and he soared toward us, Silas in tow. Thedracawound his hands around his wife’s biceps and eased her away.
“Daughter, please behave.” Although Gregor’s tone was dulcet, it was sharp. “Now, can we please get on with this union? I wouldn’t want the Cauldron to grow bored and disappear.”
Faith narrowed her eyes on her father. “We wouldn’t want that,” she hissed, tearing her arms from Silas. “But I won’t stand here and watch my son defile Mom’s memory by tying himself to this harlot.” She flicked her chin to me.
I jerked back. Harlot? I’d never even dated a boy, much less slept with one.
Iba shoved in front of Nima and got in Faith’s face. “How dare you disrespect my daughter! She’s never done anything to you.”
Silas’s nostrils flared as though he were about to shift back into his dragon form. “Faith, please apologize.”
His wife’s mouth remained cemented shut.
