Esmeray hummed, “I don’t have a drop of water magic in me.”
“Does Adara?”
“Yes, she does, and if we weren’t twins…my mother’s virtue would have been called into question.” Esmeray waved her hand in the air, and two bottles of wine appeared with a soft thump in the grass between them. She took one and ripped the cork out with her sharp canine. Merrick stared at the wine bottle.
“Is that an illusionist thing? You can just conjure up alcohol?”
Esmeray smirked, “I can open pockets in our realm–I don’t know any use for that other than a magical type of storage. But it takes the edge off the strain of me not wielding my full powers just carrying around a few invisible bottles of wine for a couple hours. I put them in there before we left Sparrow’s house.” Her pale skin seemed to glow under the stars as she tilted her head up, and Merrick began understanding why Keerian had fallen in love with her so quickly. She was stunninglygorgeous in a wicked and dark way, but much more complex than the roles she played at the Opal and Obsidian Palaces.
They sat in a comfortable silence as the minutes passed.
“I never spoke to you while you were Princess of the Opal Palace.” Merrick hadn’t ever said a word to her. All of the elite warriors–Keerian included–had been expressly ordered by their King to never associate with either Princess.
“I was a real peach back then,” Esmeray said sarcastically, raising the bottle to her lips and taking a swig.
Merrick laughed, grabbing the bottle of wine from her as she let out a screech of indignation. He chugged it for a beat before handing it back.
“I was a spoiled Princess with no real friends except my sister for the first decade of my life. Honestly, I blame Sparrow–after her family came to court, she and I really started causing trouble.”
“Sparrow was at court? I never saw her,” Merrick stuttered. Esmeray must have caught how quickly the words tumbled out of his mouth because she gave him a smug grin.
“She was, but by the time my father put together the King’s Guard you were on, she’d already moved to Florra. Court life wasn’t the life she wanted to live.” Esmeray sighed and leaned back, her tattooed arm bracing her as she took another generous swig of wine. “To be honest, it’s not the life I wanted, either.”
Merrick understood that all too well. His father had dumped him at the Obsidian Palace gates, leaving him to either pass the grueling training to become a warrior or die trying.
He turned to Esmeray to tell her that he sympathized, when Esmeray launched to her feet, the abrupt move making the wine bottle clatter and roll off the lip of the waterfall. Merrick paid no attention to the alcohol falling to the watery depths as Esmeray flared her wings and let out a snarl to the dark tree line at their backs.
Chapter thirty-two
Esmeray
Iwonderedhowlongit would take Adara’s cronies to track me down. I put on a grand enough performance at the Obsidian Palace to royally piss her off, and I was honestly a little disappointed it took this much time for her spies to catch up. Flying over Florra, I knew she would figure out where I was staying. She seemed to have eyes and ears in every city these days, tracking my every move.
“What’s–what’s going on?” Merrick hissed, narrowing his eyes and scrambling to his feet, unclipping two jagged daggers from his belt.
I could hear them now, slowly creeping through the trees. Their scent had wafted over me moments ago when I tasted the tang of arrogance–and something sharp and dark.
“Adara sent me a little present,” I whispered to him, my fae senses counting the bodies as they began sliding between the trees into my enhanced sight.
Merrick cursed at my side, and his fingers must have touched the ring that connected him to Laurent, letting him know what was happening, because I felt Keerian’s ring heat between my breasts. I only smiled as the first three gargoyles came into view.
This is only the beginning of my retribution for you–for us. I let Keerian’s face enter my mind–his warm, moss-green eyes, his rough brown beard with those lightning bolts of red running through it, his square jaw…the way he smiled at me and kissed me, long and deep, on the patio of Sparrow’s home. How he bent me over that rock and fucked me senseless–the same rock where I just finished fashioning my nails into throat slitting daggers.
I took a step closer.
Seven more gargoyles slinked out from the trees, confirmation I had chosen my spot well. They couldn’t have flown in at us because the forest was too dense. The waterfall I chose was perfect for Adara’s cronies thinking they caught us off guard with nowhere to flee. But unluckily for them, they discredited my fae senses–the roiling of the air being pushed off the waterfall alerted me to their presence far faster. And I had just taught Merrick a fun battle tactic they would never see coming.
The gargoyles formed a single line, shoulder to shoulder, drawing their swords in sync. The one in the middle stepped forward. “The Queen of Nothing–” he started.
I cut him off.
“Yuck. Did you know, I wasn’t privy to the conversation where Adara decided my new title would be Queen ofNothing? If I had, I would’ve chosen a much cooler name for my exile. But, you know how she is…so uncreative.” I cut Merrick a look that I hoped he read as ‘stay out of my way.’
The soldier ignored me. “Queen Adara has sent us to collect you to await judgement for the heinous murders of the Oracle, King Scottrell,and Queen Elera.”
“Well, that’s going to be a problem,” I purred lightly, inspecting the gleam of my newly sharpened nails in the faint moonlight. “There’s only ten of you.”
Another gargoyle sneered, “Ten highly skilled soldiers dedicated to our Queen Absolute versus the Queen of Nothing and her traitorous sidekick? I like those odds.”
