Mere minutes from now, this will all be over. Amriel will refuse meandmy sisters, like always. And when he departs, he’ll take this goblin with him. I’ll never see these awful fae again, not until they return for the next Claiming.
At which point I’ll be fifty-three years old, and a priestess. Most likely, I’ll have spent the past quarter-century telling stories like our cook, about how I once saw a goblin in a garden and have never forgotten it.
But by then, the goblin will have forgotten me. Regardless of what I smell like.
I thread between the flowerbeds, my hand rising to the pendant at my throat. When I squeeze, the metal warms against my skin, and the response relaxes something inside me. Soon, I’ll belong to Ishanna. Not to the fae kingorhis Shadow.
I just have to get through the Claiming. I have to stand face-to-face with the fae king, then let him make his choice.
Chapter 4
Inside, the goblin and the delegate stride down the hall toward the throne room, passing in and out of pools of torchlight. They don’t glance back at me, but I swear the goblin somehow marks my every move, because when my pace alters, his does, too.
If I walk faster, so does he.
If my steps lag, so do his.
Eventually, the throne room doors swim from the shadows, and I pause, expecting the goblin to throw them wide for me. But he only gives me a meaningful once-over before turning to his fellow fae. “I don’t want you looking at her too long. Do you understand?”
The delegate lets go of a long-suffering sigh, as if he’s never encountered such a boring question before. “Of course. It would be difficult not to.”
The goblin grunts. “Good.” Without any further discussion, he tugs apart the doors and slips through. Inside, the crowd reacts immediately—screams layer with gasps, the entire room erupting in shock. Then the doors snick shut again, muffling the rest.
I frown at the timeworn wood. Did the king’s Shadow just snub me after begging me to go with him? Then again…Don’t turn your back on me, not even for a second.
Right.
“What’s wrong, little one? Having doubts?”
My attention snaps to the delegate, who leans against the wall, his arms crossed, his unearthly pink eyes trained on me.
“No,” I say. “And didn’t you just agree not to look at me?”
He lifts a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “No. I said I understood him. Not that I’d obey.”
I absorb that, but for all his frostiness out in the garden, I detect no hostility in him now. Only impatience, and maybe even a hint of…sympathy?
But no. The fae aren’t sympathetic. They’re selfish and warlike and cruel. “Well,” I say, “I’m not having doubts. Ishanna will watch over me.”
“Ah. Right. Ishanna.” He nods, but in a way that speaks of skepticism, not agreement. “The magical, invisible woman who lives in the sky and demands total obedience.”
My brows snap together. He has that all wrong. “She doesn’tdemandanything. We honor her because we want to. Because we value her guidance. Not that I’d expect you to understand that.”
“Oh, good.” He buffs his fingernails against his spotless doublet and holds them up for inspection. “Because I don’t.”
I bury the scoff forming in my throat and face the doors, my shoulders pulled back. Clearly, this fae reveres nothing beyond his own beauty, and I refuse to let him call my faith into question. I won’t let Amriel do it, either, or his Shadow, or anyone else. I might be the least respected princess in Aethrolia—the only one without magic—but I’ll walk into this throne room secure in my belief that Ishanna, at least, has a place for me.
I just…need a moment, first.
I’m still standing there, steeling myself, when the delegate sighs.
“Look,” he says. “Just be careful in there, all right? Ever since the war, Amriel’s been…different. Something inside him has gone cold, these past few years.”
I blink at that choice of phrasing. The pastfewyears? As in the two hundred that have passed since the war? That sounds like an eternity to me, but then, this immortal’s sense of timemust differ from mine.
“Although,” the delegate continues, almost to himself, “I’m hoping you’ll be the one to finally change that. Because I’m sick to death of this curse, of seeing him suffer. We all are.”
The bleakness in his tone pulls my mouth downward. The fae king hardly looked to be suffering in the receiving hall, earlier. He looked savage and soulless, like he might kill a man on impulse, then think back on it later and smile.
