Still, I was counting on her more than I should have been.
The shape of the trap was elegant; I’d give my mother that. She knew my romance with Cara somehow threatened her plans. Once Cara married me, the generational protection magic would shield Cara. So she’d see me married to someone else.
She didn’t know about the ring hanging from the necklace around Cara’s pretty throat, or my half of the vows, already spoken.
Or she knew Cara wouldn’t act to protect me. That thought rose with a phantom of anxiety. Had my mother used Cara’s brother Tay to convince Cara to abandon me?
“We have long had an ally in the Kingdom of Caer Lira,” my mother said, her voice carrying the particular warmth she manufactured for declarations.
My chest tightened at the mention of Caer Lira, and with it, a blur of memory: Zia brushing strands of silky dark hair from her face, a shy smile flickering across her face, and how there was nothing shy in the way she wielded a sword.
“And I am pleased to continue that friendship by sealing Fieran in marriage to his childhood friend, Zia.”
It was a good plan. There was only one weakness, one that the queen didn’t yet know.
My fate was in the slender, calloused hands of the girl who sometimes despised me.
And I wanted her anyway. Gods, maybe I wanted her more for it.
Sudden heat sparked in my chest. My hand rose to press above my heart as if I might be igniting, too fast for me to resist. I never lost control. Not in front of an entire crowd like this, with my mother smiling beside me. But here I was, holding my heart as if it might fall out of my chest otherwise.
Heat spread through my body, and I called out to Shadowbane in my mind the way I always did when I was afraid. It was the only time he ever refrained from sarcasm.
“It’s the marriage bond.”Shadowbane’s voice sang with triumph.“You are bound. You are free.”
The bond settled into place with the weight of armor falling over my chest and shoulders. Heavy, constricting, protective.
I’d taken a step closer to the railing before I could stop myself. No, I shouldn’t let my mother see, and yet, the railing pressed into my hip as I leaned out, searching for her. She was nowhere to be seen, but my clan stood in a tight circle. She would be at its center. Anayla, with her blue-streaked hair, would stay at her side until I reached her.
“You chose me.”The thought landed with a force that stunned me.
“Gods help her,”Shadowbane said, arriving right on time to douse my joy.
I had built the door. I had handed her the key.
Then she had chosen me.
I had a gift for predicting people, for getting them to do my bidding. Cara was the one face in this kingdom I could not fully read. She slid through my fingers, snarling and smiling by turns, always fascinating and often maddening.
But she had chosen me.
“In celebration,” my mother was saying, “the Claiming will be delayed. For five nights, we will not only have extraordinary Hunts and games throughout our labyrinth, but I will also raiseone mortal each night to become Fae. A gift for our beloved mortals.”
The mortal stands erupted.
I watched the sound move through them like fire through dry grass, predictably eager to burn. My mother always offered hope for those who didn’t spend long enough in her orbit to be poisoned by her version.
It was a false, toxic hope, the kind that kept them grateful, compliant, desperate to deserve it. And she had multiple purposes, I was sure. She and I both always did.
Tay was still in the capital within the queen’s easy grasp. Making him Fae would seem like a gift, but Cara would receive it as a curse. Lidi was in Stonehaven, but Stonehaven was not as far as it felt from here. No one was out of reach of the queen and her Nightwalkers.
“After the Claiming, there will be one last Grand Hunt,” she promised. “Then sadly, the Trials will close until next year, once every new dragon has flown. Our dragons will return to their work keeping our kingdom safe.”
The queen moved to me, her fingers brushing my cheek in the way that looked like a mother’s fond touch. The magic came with it. Aged and cold and precise toward the bond she intended to seal.
But she could not complete it. My mother’s fingers brushed over the hard scales of the marriage bond rather than soft vulnerability. Her fingers stilled against my skin.
To the crowd, we were two figures on a dais, the queen touching her son tenderly after she announced the engagement. No one below saw anything change.
