“Forever might be how long it takes me to find the talisman.” If there was anything that this exercise had taught me, it was that I was nowhere near controlling my power, let alone using it to best Maura. Until now, I had not even realized the strength of the players in the game.
“Then you’d best get started.”My eyes were closed, so I could not confirm if it was a breeze or his fingertips that skimmed across my knee.“A gate is always near.”
And a god is always watching.
I did not need to open my eyes to know that he was already gone.
CHAPTER 20
GARRICK
I was summonedto a royal audience. There was even an appointed time. The scarlet summons burned my leg where I’d shoved it in my pocket. I’d have torn it into a million tiny pieces without opening it if I did not think the messenger would report it back to the king.
My father knew that I hated him. But blatant disrespect would not be tolerated. It would be punished just to remind me that he could. Before, I’d only had to worry about my mother. Now he could inflict his wrath on Koryn or Isanara. Both could defend themselves. I would do everything in my power not to put them in a position where they had to.
At least the royal summons gave me a purpose. The fecund stasis of this place was slowly eating away at my sanity. I would not face the king unprepared. I’d avoided the lower levels of the castle since arriving. There were too many memories there. But the servants had always been the best source of information, and they were the only friends I had in Balar Shan. But I had one stop to make first.
I made it halfway to my mother’s room.
She had no window. I’d negotiated for a better place for her once, but she’d refused it. She said that she could enjoythe window in my room when she needed daylight. Really, she wanted to hide.
But I was used to the outside air on my face. I reached the courtyard that I’d passed through like a gauntlet the day I arrived in Balar Shan. I paused, taking deep breaths of the cold, clear air to sustain me before I descended deeper into the bowels of the fae stronghold.
But the cold was not the only thing that assaulted me. There were voices—many of them. A clear sign to go in the opposite direction. Until I heard the hiss.
The crunch of my feet in the thick snow was swallowed by the excited jabbering. My height gave me a clear view even before I reached them. They’d formed a circle, bold enough to keep her in but not to go any closer. There was not even enough space for her to spread her wings. Her head swiveled from side to side as she spun in place, snapping her jaws in the direction of one courtier then another. Her tail whipped to the side, slicing the fabric of a woman’s skirt. It could have drawn blood.
They thought they had her. But she was toying with them.
Gods save me from irrational females.
I shouldered my way between the two nearest males. “Isanara.”
The focus of the group shifted immediately. This had been going on for a while, then. They were lucky that Isanara had not tired of whatever game she was playing and taken a bite out of one of them.
She may be no larger than a dog, but she was also an unpredictable adolescent. But dragons had been gone for longer than any of these courtiers had been alive. Realistically, so had dogs.
“Welcome, Your Grace,” a female voice rose above all the others.
It took me a moment to assign it to the golden-haired woman on my left. She was extravagantly beautiful in the way that most fae were. Sparkling gems contrasted with her delicate features. Her hair was swept up into an intricate coiffure that followed the sharp lines of her cheekbones and emphasized the points of her ears.
Cayla, maybe. Or Caia? Her name did not matter.
“Go,” I said to the woman. I extended the command to the rest of the group, visually memorizing each of them. There were ten in total, including the woman and the matching male at her side. A brother, if my memory served me. “If the witch finds you harassing her familiar, punishment will be swift.” And deserved.
The woman reached into the depths of her gown. She opened her palm as she pulled it out, revealing a handful of coarse white crystals. Salt. “We are prepared.”
Isanara snapped her jaws at the woman’s hand. Her brother jerked her back just in time to keep her from losing a finger. The salt dissolved into the snow on the ground.
“Go,” I said again.
But even an inch from losing a finger or two, she was still smiling. The fae had not changed in my absence. Still just as arrogant. “The Winter Tithe is less than a moon away, Your Grace. I shall expect a dance.”
The invitation in her words could not have been clearer. Interesting. Not the woman—she aroused nothing but distaste and always had. But the fact that she courted my favor… why not Edmund, the trueborn prince? It was possible that the court viewed my father’s gifting of Koryn into my stewardship as a sign of royal favor. But any courtier with a brain would see that it was not that simple. Which said plenty about this woman. So did the fact that she was stupid enough to bait a dragon.
“Come, Cala,” her male counterpart said. “Save a dance for me, too,” her brother mock-whispered as he tugged her away. He added a wink over his shoulder.
My preferences were still well known, then.
