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“You summoned me, Your Majesty?”

“I did.” His hand slipped down to idly stroke The Lady Sapphire Speaker’s hair while he spoke. “How long have you served the throne, Raven?”

I frowned, he knew exactly how long. “Since birth. I was brought before the throne for the first time when I was still wet from the waters of my mother’s womb.”

“That’s right, my love. You were born here in Sceach Ghael an Bith, weren’t you?” Oaken Rose purred as if she were trying to seduce me to her side with mere words. The muscle in my jaw ticked with irritation.

“I was. In what is now your chambers, Banfhlaith Oaken Rose.”

“Such courtly manners for your beloved?” A tittering falsetto laugh fell like the shorn wings of a dove from her lips.

I said nothing. There was no response that she would enjoy. She could call me love and beloved all she wished, but there was no part in my heart that had anything but apathy for her.

The Ard Rí turned his doting attention back on me. “Such a long service to the throne of Magh Meall, and yet you are neither allowed to fly your crest nor claim your title in true.”

The Sapphire Speaker tilted her head and let his hand slide down her throat to stroke the soft thump of her pulse. She had been his pet since before she served him as more. Cricket’s words about grooming whispered memories in my ear, drawing thorns of agony up through my skin.

“Tell me Raven, what would you do to reclaim the title you were born to?” Glittering cornflower-blue eyes turned up from his betrothed to lay heavy on me with a teasing smile.

“Whatever was just and right as penance for my transgressions.” I was careful. This room, in its ceremonial state with the ears of magic turned squarely on it, was a dangerous place. I could easily fall into an oath or a trap without realizing it.

“Would you water the tree?” he asked, his brow tilting upward as his hand dipped into the low-cut bodice of the Sapphire Speaker.

“With my blood, if necessary.”

To water the tree was an ancient ritual. One that predated the throne by millennia, and some even said it predated the Fae themselves. The ritual called Fae to feed the splendor of the throne with our own body, be it tears, blood, or the waters of one’s loins. In the time I had known Daróg to sit upon it, a ritual of watering had not publicly been performed. Whether it was secretly carried out away from the prying eyes of the court was another matter. He could have been watering it daily. And no one would have been the wiser.

“And with your tears?” the Sapphire Speaker moaned through a gasp as his fingers began to pinch and roll her nipples in a faux milking motion. I recognized the skill because it was one his sister had taught me. She could come for hours just by virtue of that move, and it seemed he had trained his soon-to-be Ard Banríon to do the same.

“If need be, My Lady Sapphire Speaker. I have much to weep and keen for. If the tree thirsts for tears, then I have plenty to offer it.”

The Oaken Rose pushed free from her stately chair and came to me, dragging her silken hands across my tunic. “And would you water it with your cum if the tree thirsted for it?”

I stiffened everywhere but in the one place I knew she wished I would. “Regretfully, my lady, I would not be able to assuage that particular desire. You would need to call another Fae to provide such sustenance.”

“And why is that, my Raven? Have you become a human monk in your absence from my bedchamber?” she purred in my ear as she nipped it.

“Leave him be now, sister,” the Ard Rí interrupted, finally putting me out of my misery before I had to disgrace her before the throne. She pouted and retreated to her chair, leaving me thankful that I didn’t need to pry her from me. I wanted her touch like the forest wanted fire.

“Water the tree, Raven of the Dawn. Reclaim that which you have lost.” He held up a hand as I opened my mouth to—to what? Protest? Beg? Deny it?

Shock that he was so easily offering me everything he’d stolen washed over me. All these decades of longing for a home that by now I barely even knew. And just like that, with the snap of his fingers and the change of a whim, he was returning it to me. All for the price of what? My blood? My tears? I had already denied him and his sister my cum. The price was suspiciously low.

“I told you, my Wings of Hope, I spent long hours with nothing but my own thoughts. On this, I will not be moved nor denied. Your suffering has been long, your penance undeniable. You have served me loyally and dutifully for decades since your transgression against magic. Water the tree as your final act of penance. If the tree blooms for you, it will be enough.”

“That’s . . . That’s it, my lord? Bleed for the sacred throne and just like that you will absolve me of my sins against magic? And the tattoos of my ignominy?” He could return my name, my lands, even my crown and crest, and it would mean nothing in the eyes of the court when my shame was inked permanently into my skin. It marked me as a creature of contempt, available for all manner of disrespect and dismissal with little to no reprisal aside from that which I could provide by my own hand.

“I cannot absolve you of a crime against magic. Though I sit upon this throne and guide it, I am but the master of the helm. Only magic itself can wash your sins away.” He rose, pulling his betrothed to her feet merely by the pinch of her nipple. She was slow to rise on purpose, panting into the pain of it. Daróg unsheathed a dirk from his belt, pressing the blade to her throat as she stood. “Would you water the tree as well my pet?”

“If you wish it, my lord,” she whispered on a hot breath.

The Oaken Rose watched how I reacted to this. I had no love lost for the Sapphire Speaker. I had always found her obsequious at best and useless at worst. If he wished to kill his betrothed and the direct line to the destroyed House of Magic, that was his choice. I would not stop him. Nor the hordes of Fae that would conspire against him once the last connection to the House of Magic was gone. Far too many Fae harbored secret banners of the twin star crest behind allegiances still as firm as stone.

A small bead of blood ran down the benighted pondscape of her magically enhanced skin, and he chased it with his tongue. “Your blood is for only me, pet.”

A flick of his wrist, and the handle of the knife was pressed into my palm as he shoved his hips against her and pushed her away from where I was meant to bleed.

I averted my eyes from them as his fist balled in her hair, roughly maneuvering her onto a branch as he began stripping her of her regal gown. I could easily bury the knife he had given me in his chest at this very moment. This was both a test of my loyalty and a test of my conviction. Whether he had said it in a fevered state, or in a moment of desperation, he still knew where my sister was and could easily control my access to her or whether she lived to see the next dawn. Killing him now would be the epitome of foolishness.