“Where are my Knights?”
“Here,” Lyrena said from behind me. At the window. Planning some sort of escape route? “Cyara is with Percival and Diana,” she added.
I took a step back, keeping both females in my sights.
“How long?” I asked Lyrena.
“Only a few minutes,” she answered. “I came up here to tell Cyara what happened. Lady Elayne arrived just ahead of me, demanding an audience with you.”
“Requesting,” Elayne corrected, her voice calm but firm.
Lyrena ignored her. I could have kissed her perfect golden face. “I will not leave until commanded.”
I clenched my teeth to keep from chewing my bottom lip. I was in no shape for this conversation. I’d nearly disappeared into nothingness forever, for Ancestors-sake.
Fuck the Ancestors.
Right.
But maybe it was a reminder, too. Without Arran, with me still learning to control my power… we were the only ones who knew the full truth of the succubus. Isolde, Lyrena, and Cyara did as well, but they were not rulers. They were not terrestrials. No one here would listen to them. And Morgyn probably knew more than either Arran or I, but she wasn’t doing anything in her precious, neutral Avalon.
I’d been debating how to tell Elayne and Pant, how to ask for their help. Trying to judge if I would weaken my position by asking rather than demanding. I was so bad at strategy. I needed my Brutal Prince.
Instead, I had his mother.
That was something, I supposed.
“Go. Rest, eat, and then relieve Cyara of guard duty,” I ordered Lyrena. “She’s been stuck with Percival all day. I would not be surprised if she’d stabbed him in the eyeball with one of her sewing needles.”
Lyrena laughed aloud at that, her golden tooth flashing as she passed me. By the time she reached Elayne, the smile had hardened into something different. A smile still, but one of challenge and promise. A surge of warmth filled my chest.
I did not bother trying to encase it in ice. That stupid strategy had failed spectacularly.
I should have squared my shoulders, shoved my ass into a chair, and met Elayne like the queen I supposedly was. But I was just too fucking tired to manage it. Instead, I unfastened the belt with my scabbards, slinging them onto the trunk at the foot of the bed while I scrubbed my hand over my face.
“I thought you would be better at hiding your feelings. You are an elemental,” Elayne said from her throne.
I’d seen my own mother sit on the throne for twenty-five years. I’d stopped being impressed by it decades ago.
I sighed heavily, working on the harness that held my rapiers across my back next. “What do you know of elementals?”
The wood creaked as she shifted in the chair. “Before Arthur’s birth was prophesied, there was every reason to believe Arran might one day become the terrestrial heir. I educated myself accordingly.”
“How industrious of you.”
Elayne chuckled softly. Not quietly enough for me to miss.
Weapons gone, I turned to face her, planting one hand on each hip. Exhaustion surely lined every feature and muscle, but I let her see it. I was so tired of playing games. The terrestrial court was supposed to be about strength. Well, here I was—strong, facing my problems, minutes after I’d lost my sanity and nearly myself.
Arran’s mother was not smiling any longer. She appraised me openly. Probably the most honest expression I’d seen on her face since arriving. Maybe that was the true difference between the elemental and terrestrial courts. Here, they tried and failed to hide their feelings. At least in Baylaur, we knew how to lie.
A small sigh and then pity in her eyes.
My throat threatened to close with emotion. I ordered it to remain open.
“You have enemies here, Your Majesty,” Elayne said.
Truth. I could read it in her face easily. But it wasn’t her warning that struck me.
