Ikelos froze. Even Erissa flinched at the sound of my scream, letting the bread roll she was nibbling on clatter against her plate.
Heavy sobs began to work their way up my throat, but I forced them down. Slamming my palms down on the table, I shoved myself off Arenn’s lap. For once, he was smart enough not to try to stop me as I marched over to the other side of the table where Ikelos was trembling. Roughly, I grabbed the back of his chair and yanked it backwards, my knuckles white from the force. It slid across the floor with a deafening scrape until I was towering over the weak, shivering king as he cowered away in his chair.
“Naria, be careful before you do something you regret,” Lukas warned, slowly rising from his chair.
“Ignore him,” Lyssandra snarled, also pushing herself up from the table. She glided to my side, her long crimson ball gown trailing behind her. “Here. I have something to make the job easier.” Lifting her skirt, she plucked a thin silver dagger from her boot. It glinted in the golden light of the room as she placed the hilt in my palm.
“Wait, no!” Ikelos whimpered. “Please!”
“Don’t do this, Naria. He might be a monster, but you’re not. Let the other rulers punish him for his crimes,” I heard Lukas beg.
My knees trembled with both rage and fear. The dagger felt so heavy in my palms. I wasn’t a killer, and I knew I’d regret this, but every time I looked at the snivelling man before me, all I could imagine were my parents’ screams as they burned alive in the flameshestarted.
“Do it, Naria,” Lyssandra hissed into my ear. She leaned against my side, placing a cold hand on my shoulder. “Do it for me and do it for your kingdom.”
“Wait!” Ikelos protested. He was too weak to leave his chair. Too weak to put up a fight. And thanks to the teachers he’d found for me, I knew exactly where to strike to make this a slow and painful death. Sucking in a deep breath, I raised the dagger.
“Yes,” Lyssandra hissed.
“No!” Lukas pleaded.
“Seeing you with a weapon is so alluring, little human,” Arenn purred.
My jaw tightened. I’d be sure to kill him next.
“Wait!” Ikelos begged with tears streaming down his cheeks. All I needed to do was swing down, but my arms were frozen above me. Why was this so impossibly hard? Squeezing my eyes shut, I finally thrusted the dagger towards him. “You’reforgetting about the treaty!”
Something hard caught my wrist seconds before I pierced his chest.
“What did you say?” Lyssandra snarled. Slowly, my eyes opened to see her fingers curling around my wrist. With a shuddering breath, I dropped the dagger, letting it clatter to the floor. Disbelief washed over me as all my rage was replaced by horror.
I almost killed a man.
“You should ask your parents,” Ikelos’s dry voice answered her, but I could barely hear him over the pounding of blood in my ears.
Huffing, Lyssandra shoved herself off my shoulder as she glared at the Faery King and Queen. “What’s he talking about? What’s this treaty?”
Queen Amabel almost dropped her goblet. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she stammered.
“It’s nothing you should concern yourself with. It’s a mere trivial political deal,” the Faery King added, a humourless laugh following his words.
Ikelos cackled. “Look inside my head, girl. Like you did with the rest of my memories. I’ll show you what they’re hiding from you.”
Lyssandra furrowed her brow but still reluctantly obeyed, placing a hand against his wrinkled forehead. After a few tense seconds, she gasped and quickly drew her hand away.
“You lied to me!” Her head snapped up to where her parents were still sitting at the table.
“No, no.” Her father rose out of his seat, waving his hands frantically. “I can assure you it was merely a political deal!”
After he spoke, the temperature in the room plummeted, as if someone had just cracked open a window on a brisk winter’s morning. I would’ve questioned it, had my hands not alreadybeen shivering so much from another, even colder feeling that weighed on my chest. If the village mother were here, she’d tell me it was probably shock. I did almost kill a man.
Ancients… Could I even still call myself a healer?
“Gold for a daughter,” Ikelos cackled again, forcing my attention away from my trembling palms. “I give you gold, and you stay out of the human kingdoms and far from my wife. Though I’ll admit, I never thought you’d actually accept it! You faeries are no better than the goblins.” He threw his head back as he shook with laughter.
“Quiet!” Lyssandra snapped at him.
The Faery Queen fiddled with her auburn hair. “We always knew you’d come back home eventually, and the gold was very useful to us!”
