KORYN
“Is it always this busy?”
We’d gone up to the presence chamber before either of us could find reason not to. With every upward step, the unease in my stomach grew. This had seemed like a brilliant idea when I lay in bed, Isanara snoring through her adorable little nostrils. But the reality was less bright and shiny. The presence chamber was a public space, and, other than the corridors, the first one I’d entered willingly.
“Yes. Courtiers congregate here in hopes that the king or queen will grace them with their presence,” Garrick said, his eyes roving over the presence chamber. It wasn’t as packed as the day of my pseudo-escape, but nearly.
Garrick hid it better, but I could see the signs of his discomfort. There was the tick in his jaw, where I imagined pressing my tongue. And the—fuck. No.
I’d suppressed my desires for centuries. Over the years, I’d taken only a few lovers, male or female, and never for more than a single night. But between the Seven Gates, Garrick had taught me what a true connection could feel like. Then the Dark God had awakened what I’d tried to suffocate inside of myself since our arrival in Balar Shan.
I did not have time for this. If I could deny my power control of my body, I could deny my body control of my mind. The murmuring horde, growing in volume as they slowly noticed Garrick and me standing by the open doors, should have been distraction enough.
I reached back into my memory. I was raised to be a lady, or at least, the equivalent of one. There was no human nobility. No king. Velora’s human lands had once been a republic, before all forms of government broke down. The closest thing that remained were the priestesses and priests in the temples.
But my father had made a fortune selling fae artifacts in the first few decades after the curse, before humanity realized they were doomed to extinction. I’d watched many parties from the balcony of the manor house where I’d grown up, never old enough to join. By the time I was, my sisters were gone. Janessa dead. Rylynn holed up in her room.
The memories hurt. Four hundred years was not enough to dull them, apparently. But at least now they could be useful.
“Walk me on a circuit of the room,” I said. I didn’t have to look to know that Garrick’s brows rose. I knew his reactions like they were my own. Maybe better; I’d seen them more.
“The pedestals are on the perimeter,” I pointed out. And the pedestals, Garrick had explained on our way up, were where the fae king put his treasures on display.
“So are several groups of courtiers,” Garrick observed. He seemed about as excited about the prospect of interacting with them as I was.
“They’ll move,” I said. I hoped.
“Or we’ll have to talk to them.”
“Or I could freeze their mouths shut.”
A familiar smirk tugged at the corner of Garrick’s mouth as he offered me his arm.
I’d missed that smirk. Balar Shan had stolen it.
I had played my part in it, too. I understood why he’d betrayed me, yet I refused to forgive him. He’d been willing to risk everything to save his mother, his family. Including his own life. There were only two ways out of the Seven Gates. Triumph or death.
Hadn’t I made the same decision when I shoved Kyrelle out of the way? Hadn’t I spent three hundred years doing the same? I’d betrayed my coven to protect my family. In some ways, it was a more grievous betrayal because I’d consciously turned my back on my coven, whom I owed allegiance above all else. But when Garrick had made the bargain to save his mother, I had not existed for him. I was just a witch.
I could not cope with this now, in a room full of fae courtiers who wanted to kill me. I took his proffered arm, determined to ignore the thick, corded muscle that I could feel even through the quilted sleeve of his surcoat.
“Most of them have very little magic left,” Garrick said quietly as we started our circuit.
“They don’t need magic to stab me.” I observed several hands dropping to weapons that might be ornamental. Or not. I did not want to find out.
“They will have to get through me.”
“Can you compel them all out of our way?”
“I can,” he said, his eyes roving over the cluster nearest to us. I was too busy blinking up at him in surprise to consider them. Was Garrick truly that powerful? “But eventually one of them will figure out what is going on. Particularly my siblings.”
All three of them were here, I noted. Edmund and his guards stood at attention near the set of doors that must lead to the royal quarters. Alize spoke with a knot of women near the entrance, but in the opposite direction from what we’d taken. Margeaux stood by herself, near the center of the room. Close to the dais and the thrones.
“Because they are more powerful?” Than you? I wanted to add. Or just the rest of the courtiers?
“Yes,” Garrick said, which only answered the first question. “And because they know what a thought feels like when I plant it in their minds.” He paused, the color in his cheek shifting. Not quite embarrassment at the memory, but some strong emotion that he had to actively work to suppress. “Our childhoods were not amiable.”
I nodded. “And now?”
