Karwyn’s blond brows pinched together. “Why would I do such a thing? We are to be wedded soon.”
Rhay avoided his piercing stare as he forced himself not to glance at his closet, his voice still low. “You must have noticed that Amira is…under the weather. I think a little rest in her family’s estate would do wonders.” And then maybe Karwyn would see it was better if Amira never came back.
Shaking his head, Karwyn’s lips pressed together. “I am disappointed. In the past week, you’ve managed to avoid the subject of my treacherous fiancée. I thought you had moved on from this…friendshipwith her.”
“I’m only thinking of you,” Rhay hastily added, still whispering. “There’s no need to rush the wedding now that you’ve been selected for the contest. I know that you don’t love her…” Rhay noticed some lint on his sparkling blouse and dusted it off. His blouse fell open with the movement, revealing his bronze skin. When Rhay looked up again, he caught Karwyn’s eyes lingering on him.
Clearing his throat, Karwyn tilted his chin up. “Even if I do not love her, I have signed a blood contract and made a deal with her brother. I cannot turn my back on the agreement on a whim. Caelo knows how much I want to avoid this pointless marriage, especially now that—” Karwyn stopped.
Rhay furrowed his brows. He had noticed that something had shifted in Karwyn’s mood, but he had thought that it was due to his selection.
“What are you planning? And does it have anything to do with the rumours?” Rhay asked, curious now. He had heard gossip about a guest hiding in the palace. There was no chance that Karwyn had taken a lover.
Karwyn looked utterly annoyed by Rhay’s questions. “I do not entertain rumours, Rhay, and I thought you did not either, considering the rumours I have heard about you. The advisor who is good for nothing but drinking himself under the table.” Karwyn moved closer, his turquoise eyes glinting dangerously. “I do not appreciate your questions. If you want real answers, you will have to be my advisor once and for all.”
The coldness of his friend’s tone made Rhay break his stare. Karwyn scoffed and moved away from the door. “Take your time to think things over. I know you can be quite…slow.”
Closing the door, Rhay’s shoulders lowered, and a pained sigh escaped his lips.
“Such a great friend you have there.” Amira’s mocking tone made him turn to face her. Rhay hoped she hadn’t heard his suggestion to Karwyn.
Taking her in, he tried to read her emotions to see how much she had heard. But his search hit a wall. She was using the trick he had taught her back when they had been friends. Now he had lost the privilege to read her.
If she had heard, Rhay was sure Amira would be back to yelling at him. He couldn’t let Amira lose herself to the drug. But most of all, he couldn’t let himself be forced into choosing between Amira and Karwyn.
“See you at the party,” Rhay said as he opened the door, wanting to shut her out too.
Amira stepped into the hallway, a flickering light in her eyes. Her body was shaking so much, Rhay worried that a drift of wind could knock her over. A tiny part of him was shouting at himself to finally have the talk they should have had long ago.
Instead, Rhay removed a bright rainbow flask from his shiny trousers and closed the door on Amira’s desperate eyes.
Talking things out was for well-functioning fae, and he and Amira were anything but.
Chapter3
Lora
“Again,” Karwyn sneered, rising from the velvet, blood-red chair. Lora’s hands were balled into fists as she met his annoyed gaze. She leaned back against the cedar wall, exhaustion making her limbs heavy. Karwyn had been here for hours. Did the King of Turosian have no other commitments? She supposed getting his promised powers was his top priority.
“I’m tired,” Lora complained, forcing herself not to shrink back as her so-calledcousinwalked up to her. She’d never get used to that look in his eyes. They shared the same turquoise eye colour, but she hoped her own would never mirror his.
Karwyn stopped inches from her face. “I am running out of patience, little cousin. I have not seen even a flicker of a flame from you.” His gaze dropped to her clenched fist. “Do you wish to be sent back to the dungeon?”
Lora clenched her jaw, keeping still. Picturing the dark, stuffy dungeon made bile rise in her throat. Being surrounded by that much almandine with no escape had quickly become one of her many nightmares. She still remembered the feeling of the almandine cell restricting her powers, every breath heavy as her magic was pushed down so far that she couldn’t reach it.
She knew he was bluffing. Karwyn had set up this room for her in the palace soon after she had signed the blood contract. Away from the influence of almandine, Lora could feel the contract more clearly, like a thin sheet of ice under her skin—always there to remind her that she was trapped.
Her room was a pretty prison. It was spacious for its studio set-up and had its own bathroom, but she wasn’t allowed to leave, and the only person she’d seen was her psychopathiccousin—the word turned her stomach. Sometimes she caught sight of the back of the head of one of the guards standing outside her door, but that was it. Karwyn had permanently locked her windows, the indigo curtains spelled to remain drawn shut.
“You wouldn’t,” Lora replied, lifting her chin. “What good would it do to have me back in an almandine cell? I definitely won’t show any of my fire there.” It was the main reason she wasn’t in that forsaken cell anymore. Karwyn needed her to train, to match his power level during the ritual that would merge their powers and most likely kill her in the process as it would drain her life source.
Karwyn had remained vague about when the ritual was going to take place, but with the High King Contest still a few months away, Lora assumed she’d be forced to train for a while. At least it gave her a tiny chance of finding a way out before the contest at the end of the year. Lora had counted the nights in her head, so she knew it must be early October now.
“I could give you a time-out. Merely a few hours to teach you a lesson.” Karwyn’s grin made her shudder, and she felt a wave of electricity building inside her—a strangely familiar feeling now. “Or better yet, how about I send my human contact back to your little home in that dump you call a town?”
“Youcan’t,” Lora snapped. “You signed the contract too. My family is off limits.” He had threatened to go after her family if she didn’t sign the contract. Now that she had, he couldn’t harm them and he couldn’t release another virus on Earth. Unless she broke the agreement, then her family was doomed and her mother would die.
Karwyn stared at her as if he was displeased that she remembered. Warmth built in her blood as her veins pulsed. It had been over a week since she’d last talked to her family, and even longer for her best friend Maja. Did they think she was dead? Did her brother think she’d abandoned them for good?
