Esmeray cleared her throat, breaking Merrick’s trance before his inner thoughts got too scandalous. “Sparrow, meet Merrick and Laurent–and Lenna, the Oracle.”
Sparrow’s blue eyes danced over each of them as Esmeray rounded off introductions. It was a bit awkward seeing as Merrick tried to kill her an hour ago. He almost touched his ringto ask Laurent if he knew what the actual fuck was going on but remembered Esmeray held Keerian’s ring and would also hear what he was saying.
That would be annoying.
Lenna clambered up the steps to shake Sparrow’s hand, still half out of breath from waning, and Sparrow bowed to her–which made Lenna extremely uncomfortable by the shift in her body language. “Oracle.” Sparrow reverently squeezed Lenna’s hand. “Thank you so much for coming. It means the world to Esmeray.” Struck silent by the customary welcome she had yet to truly experience, Lenna let out a squeaky ‘thank you’ before shooting a warning glance at Merrick–he was the only one who had yet to move from their arrival point in Sparrow’s garden.
“Let’s get inside, we have lot to discuss,” Esmeray said with a pointed look at the female. Sparrow rolled her big blue eyes before grabbing the Queen’s hand and half dragging her through the threshold, gesturing for them to follow her.
Merrick looked from Lenna to Laurent who were both still warily standing on the small front porch. “Well, fuck, this will be interesting,” he ground out as he stalked towards the bright pink door and the uncertainty beyond.
Chapter twenty-seven
Lenna
TheinteriorofSparrow’shome was just as vividly eccentric as the front garden. Lenna only had a split second to take in the turquoise walls of the entryway, where paintings in mismatched frames depicted beasties frolicking through artsy landscapes, before Sparrow led them into a cozily lit living room. Lamps of varying shapes, colors, and sizes perched on small wooden tables or dangled across the ceiling with overlapping chains, all lit by a magic that bathed the room in a gloriously pure radiance–so unlike the haunting amber torches in the Obsidian Palace, or the somber, grey hued light of the Doortan Manor.
A large purple couch sprawled across one full wall of the living room, cornering up to a fireplace surrounded by a tiled mosaic of pink birds with long, stick-like legs. Inset shelves lined the walls around the mantle, filled to the brim with books and odd plants that snuggled up in a colorful array of ceramic pots.
Lenna soaked it all in. The house seemed socheery. If she had her way in the Doortan Manor, Lenna believed she would’ve decorated it similarly to Sparrow’s home. The Queen that plopped onto the plushy couch looked a bit out of place–even though she seemed to relax as Sparrow chattered animatedly to Merrick and Laurent, her handswaving around as she told them a lively story of how she procured certain rare plants and helped them grow and thrive with her magic.
Esmeray sat quietly, her eyes darting between the two males sitting precariously on small poufs by the intricate stained-glass window on the opposite wall of the couch. Merrick had his wings out slightly, his legs awkwardly crossed as he tried to figure out how to balance himself and the extra wing weight on the slowly sinking floor pillow. Laurent kept his regal, unruffled posture–as if he sat on poufs all the time–his legs straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, his red robe from the Obsidian Palace unwrinkled and smoothly tucked around his knees.
Esmeray delicately cleared her throat as Sparrow ended one story and launched into another without taking a breath. Sparrow twisted to the Queen and crinkled her nose as if to say “whoops,” remembering the reason Esmeray bought them all here. Declaring that she would go make everyone some tea, she stood quickly, the fabric of her silky pink dress swishing around her hips as she departed.
Esmeray sat up straighter, shifting her wings now that Sparrow wasn’t sitting on the couch next to her. Her green eyes, bemused as she let Sparrow chat, were now glinting with determination.
“Let’s talk about the obvious first,” Esmeray started. Laurent and Merrick swapped a glance before the latter nodded.
Esmeray launched into a quick backstory that Lenna knew was more for her benefit than the two males that had been there the night Esmeray and Keerian became soul tied. “I knew, in a way, from the moment I met him, that Keerian was my mate. It was then that I realized fate may want me to be Queen on High, something I never considered before.”
Lenna raised an eyebrow at that, and even Merrick and Laurent seemed taken aback by the unfurling story.
“I met Keerian a couple months before the first full moon celebration of summer last year. We kept running into each other around the Opal Palace.” Esmeray swallowed. “Adara noticed, but didn’t say much to me since our relationship had become so strained over the last couple years. She wanted to be Queen on High. Adara said it was her entire life’s purpose. The night Keerian and I realized we were mates… Iknewthat she would wait until we cemented the soul tie to kill Keerian in order to take me out. I panicked…and grabbed him.” Merrick grunted. Laurent only nodded.
Both males hung on to her every word.
Esmeray shifted in her seat, and Lenna again saw the look of torment flash in her eyes. But Esmeray continued, telling them how she waned Keerian here. How Sparrow, her childhood best friend and the only being she truly trusted, welcomed them in with open arms, demanded they stay here as Keerian and Esmeray navigated the first few days of being a newly mated couple.
“Sparrow has…well, let’s call them acquaintances, that fed her information on what was going on back at the Opal Palace after Keerian and I escaped. The reports were that Adara was acting out of character, to the point where she was a danger to be around. She’d stopped going to council meetings, and was holed up in her chambers, refusing to eat and lashing out at any visitors. I feared this was an escalation towards volatile behaviors since she’d lost the title of Queen on High, and that she would begin plotting how to take it back. A couple years ago, she found a spell book that contained knowledge on forbidden fae spells, and she’s been using them to the point that the spells are consuming her life.”
“We were quietly notified of the spell book by your father,” Laurent said carefully. “Though I do not believe the general public is aware of her fascination with spell work.”
“They aren’t,” Esmeray growled. “My parents originally saw Adara’s interest with the spell book as trivial–harmless. They never thought she’d actuallycastany spells, so they never told their council, and the knowledge of what Adara was doing was hidden. I’m honestly surprised my father warned his King’s Guard about it. But the small spells she’s tried before are nothing compared to what she is attempting now. She’s found a spell that can either break a soul tie, or transfermysoul tie with Keerian toherself.”
“How can she do that?” Laurent questioned, his dark brows furrowed. In the light of the living room, his silver earrings glinted–as if they too were listening to the conversation.
Esmeray shrugged. “We don’t know. There was only one instance when I was able to see the spell written down on a separate piece of parchment. But it’s in a runic language from thousands of years ago. Sparrow only knew a few words from her studies of ancient history, but with the way the runes strung together, we concluded Adara was either trying to fully break my soul tie or transfer it.”
Merrick shook his head. “I don’t know anything about fae spells, but Adara is only half fae, how is she able to accurately cast any of them?”
“Sheispowerful, even though she’s leagues below me, but I embraced my gargoyle side, leaned into it, and she tried her best to ignore hers. In some ways, I think her justbelievingshe is a full blooded fae gave her a better ability to wield the spells in the book, but even that’s a guess.”
“So, you figured out Adara was trying to break your soul tie, or somehow transfer your soul tie soshe could, what? Be mated to Keerian?”
Esmeray clenched her jaw. “Keerian and I knew we had to go back sooner, rather than later, to tell my parents what exactly Adara was trying to use those spells for. I thought that would be the end of it,” the Queen admitted glumly. “Adara would be stopped before she could proceed with the spell, and my parents would punish her. Which would leave me to take up the crown with Keerian at my side after my parent’s time on the throne was up in a hundred years. They would step down. I would step up.” Her voice shook. Sparrow slid quietly back into the room, gently setting a pretty porcelain teacup on the low table in front of Esmeray, giving Merrick a venomous glare that seemed to say, “play nice or else.”
Esmeray’s voice faded softly, as if she was talking only to herself, “Keerian and I were wary of Adara’s lust for power, and after we left the meeting, my parents discreetly ordered Adara to be confined to her rooms while they found a translator for the spell book. They needed proof to condemn her for casting spells, though they still wanted to believe she was only interested from an academic standpoint–that she wasn’t doing something illegal. To them, Adara was the daughter who never stepped a toe out of line, who always held herself to an impossibly high standard of right and wrong. This seemed out of character. So, for them to come to terms with the fact that she was planning on committing a heinous crime… It was tough.”
