Willow put her hands on my waist and started dancing.
I stiffened. “Oh, I’m not—”
“Relax. It’s just dancing. This is what we do on a dance floor.” She put my hands on her shoulders and spun me around, so I faced away from the crowd. Toward the king. “Is that her? Your mother?”
At the far end of the ballroom, seated on a throne upon a dais a few steps back from the dance floor, Mother sat with her eyes downcast, her hands in her lap. Jeweled clips held her long blonde hair off her face, and though her pale cream dress and silver bracelets set off her golden skin, she looked as if she’d rather fade away than sit where she was. Beside her, the king stared out over his guests. His salt and pepper hair was pulled back at the base of his neck, mostly hidden beneath a heavy-looking jeweled crown. He wore a long black cloak made of fur, and beneath it, he wore black pants and a black shirt, similar in style to Fergus’. His cheeks were hollow beneath his high cheek bones and his blue eyes were cold, reminding me of all the horrible things he’d done. But it wasn’t him I was interested in. “Mother,” I whispered.
As if she heard me, Mother’s head lifted. Her dull eyes drifted over the sea of people, not seeming to see anything before she dropped her head again. On closer inspection, her hands were shaking in her lap.
“That’s her?” Willow whispered.
I nodded, my eyes fixed on the woman I hadn’t seen for five weeks. Apart from the shaking hands and dull eyes, she looked fine. Unhappy but unhurt, which was better than I’d dared hope. I untangled myself from Willow’s arms and took a step toward the dais before she grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Getting Mother and getting out of here.” I shook her off.
Willow moved in front of me. “Not yet.”
Her eyes bore into me, reminding me how stupid I was being. We had a plan. We had to follow it. We would wait until she went to the bathroom.
“It’s her, right?” Fergus came up from behind, placing his hand on the small of my back as he spoke in my ear. His breath sent tingles along my spine and his hand sent tingles everywhere else.
Willow looked between the two of us, her lips tightening. “Well it certainly isn’t our Mother.” There was a note in her tone I didn’t understand.
Fergus’ shoulders stiffened. He’d told me the first night we met that his mother was dead, but there was something else going on. Something I didn’t understand.
I looked between them both but before I could speak, Fergus’ eyes turned hard. “Remember how we decided I was a cold-hearted killer? Willow means Mother can’t be here because I killed her.” He turned on his heel and strode away, the crowd of people parted before him and swallowed him up in his wake.
“Ferg!” Willow called. “That’s not what I meant.”
I glanced at Willow. Fergus’ words echoed in my ears, but I required clarification. “He what?”
“You might want to talk to him about it.” She watched the place he’d disappeared.
It was true then. She wasn’t denying it. She’d be denying it if it wasn’t true.
I glanced at Mother staring blankly at her lap. She didn’t look like she was about to get up and go to the bathroom, and if she did, I hoped Willow would come and find us. I started after Fergus, glimpsing his tall form across the other side of the ballroom, head bowed and fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose. I’d come to Unseelie thinking only of rescuing Mother, but I was starting to wonder if she wasn’t the only one who needed help. Fergus was used to everyone’s judgement, and he was expecting mine. Perhaps it made me stupid, but I wasn’t judging.
I pushed past people who didn’t part for me the way they had for him. He’d almost reached the exit to the tunnel I’d come through on that first night when I grabbed hold of his hand, forcing him to stop. We stood, almost out the door and away from the racket and kerfuffle of the guests. He stared a moment and then looked pointedly at my hand in his. His voice changed to that low monotone of Xion Starguard. “You must either be very brave or very stupid to take the hand of a murderer.”
I met his eyes. “You think I’m afraid of you?” I wasn’t. Whether he was Fergus or Xion, he wouldn’t hurt me. I didn’t need to understand what had happened with his mother to be certain of that.
His eyes—hard as stone—roved over my face before he spoke again, sounding more like himself. “Well, you should be.”
“You’ve had plenty of opportunities to kill me, yet I’m still here. I don’t think you will do it tonight.” I glanced across at the guests dancing, eating and drinking, and at the king, sitting not far from where we stood. “Not here, anyway.”
His eyes were almost slits. “You never know when it might happen.”
His eyes kept going to my hand, like he was waiting for me to drop it, to walk away. I gripped him tighter. “Want to tell me about it? I happen to be a pretty good listener.” I dropped my voice. “And not just during private pianoforte performances.”
His lips quirked, but his smile disappeared immediately. He looked across the dance floor, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “It happened the same as with your magic. I was much older than most fae of royal birth when mine came through—I’d just turned three. When it came, I had no warning, just an itchy palm. Mother was the only one with me, we’d spent the day at Lanwick, swimming and playing. I loved going there with her.” He shook his head. “How I wish my magic had shown up an hour earlier.”
“Because it would have been safer for it to happen at Lanwick?”
He nodded, his eyes falling on something distant and unseen. “Mother was walking me up to my rooms. We were on the same staircase I took you up earlier tonight. She was in front of me, and then … she wasn’t.” He pressed his lips together and drew in some deep breaths. “Everything around me turned to rubble, and she fell all the way to the ground.” He shook his head. “I think she must have been hit by a rock because her magic should have slowed her fall. No one knew if it was the fall that killed her, or the rock and rubble that landed on top of her once she hit the ground. Either way, the outcome was the same. I killed her when my magic came through. And Father’s never forgotten it.”
I’d seen the place on the staircase it happened. The place where it seemed to have been fixed up. “But you couldn’t have done anything different.” I knew what it was like. I’d had no warning either and I couldn’t have stopped it happening if I wanted to.
He shook his head, still not meeting my eyes. “You don’t know that.” His voice was only just loud enough to hear over the music.
“Did you forget that my magic arrived the same way?” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I moved to stand in front of him, pulling myself up onto tip toes but still wasn’t tall enough to put myself in his line of vision. “I know you loved her, and you wouldn’t have hurt her if you’d had a choice.” He’d spoken of her laughter and the feel of her hair brushing against his face. I’d heard how much he’d loved her from those few words.
“Father has spent almost sixteen years telling me how much I must have hated her to do that to her.” There was no emotion in his voice. There was no anything.
How cruel of the king. “Don’t you dare let him do that to you. Don’t give him that much power.”
His eyes drifted down to rest on mine. “You want to lecture me on giving others power over me when you do it every single day?”
I touched my ears with my free hand—the other was still wrapped in Fergus’. I did that. I let people speak to me like they were better than me because I was embarrassed about how I looked. Fergus was the only person who had ever questioned it. “Perhaps it’s something we both need to work on.”
“Come, Fergus.” The king’s voice boomed across the ballroom. Though no one stopped their dancing or their drinking, it seemed as if every person tuned in to listen.
Fergus lifted his eyes from mine, swiveling to stare at his father.
The exit we stood in was on the same wall as his throne, but we stood behind and out of his line of sight. Or so I’d thought.
“Come. Introduce us all to your future wife.” The king watched his son from his elevated height on the dais. Fergus could have run. Should have. He didn’t need to tell me he stayed because of me. Because he’d promised to help me with Mother.
With stiff shoulders, he made the long walk across the width of the room to stand in front of the king’s throne. I followed five steps behind. When Fergus stopped and spoke, his voice was almost too soft to hear. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?” The king’s voice was loud and mocking. It seemed as if the orchestra lowered the level of their music just enough for the conversation to be heard across the room. “Why ever not?”
“Because she’s currently in the guest chamber. Waiting until the guests have finished arriving.” He drew in a breath and when he spoke again, his voice hardened. “As per protocol.”
The king raised his eyes to meet mine I tensed. Fergus shuffled to his left, protecting me from the king’s stare with his body. “This is not your date?”
Fergus shook his head. “Of course not. This is…” There was a long pause as he considered how to introduce me.
Had I been able to think of anything to fill the silence, I would have spoken up. Instead, it was Willow who stepped up from behind. us “Father, surely you remember Ashling Overtree? My best friend? You’ve met her many times.”
The king frowned, then nodded. “Of course. Of course.” Dismissing Willow and I with a wave of his hand, his gaze returned to Fergus. “It’s time.”
Fergus looked around the ball room. A light sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “There are still guests arriving.”
I glanced at Willow, her panicked eyes telling me all I needed to know. The king wanted the naming ceremony to commence right this moment. It was far earlier in the evening than we hoped.
“There will be guests arriving most of the night.” The king didn’t bother to hide his annoyance.
“I … I don’t think she’s ready yet. Still dressing, I believe.” I’d never heard Fergus sound so unsure of himself.
The king considered his son a moment. “You don’t think she’s ready yet, what?”
Fergus drew in a deep breath and clenched his fists. “Your Highness.”
Beside me, Willow mumbled, “Damn it. Father’s in a foul mood.” I didn’t need anyone to explain it for me. I could see that for myself.
King Aengus gripped the arms of his throne and leaned forward. “Could it be that she’s not ready yet because she’s not here? Perhaps because she doesn’t exist?”
The king could have had the conversation in private with his son. That he hadn’t was worse than bad.
He didn’t give Fergus time to respond. “For months you’ve been stringing my kingdom along. Stringing me along. Telling us you found someone, using my people—the Wild Hunt who have better things to do with their time—to search for her. When, really, it would seem there is no one.”
Fergus shook his head, shook out the tension in his shoulders and spoke in that calm and somewhat bored tone I’d only ever heard him use here in Unseelie. “She’ll be out when she’s finished making herself presentable.”
“Don’t lie to me!” The king’s voice reverberated around the immense room and everyone stopped. There was no more music. No talking. Just a great yawning silence waiting for what would come next.
Mother sat staring at her hands as if the king hadn’t just yelled at the top of his voice.
The king’s voice softened to a whisper. “She’s not in the guest chamber. Chester already told me. You are nothing but a disappointment. Out every night with a different woman but unable to choose one to rule with? You think I don’t know what you get up to, boy?” His lip curled in disgust.
“You have no idea.” Fergus’ voice wobbled with his own anger. No one here knew—only me, Willow and Jax—where he spent his nights.
I took a step toward him, but Willow wound a hand around my arm and held me back.
“I can’t believe you’re my child. You’re too soft to rule. I had hoped marrying would settle you and that a powerful woman would make you into someone fit to lead this realm when the time comes.” He shook his head again. “We’ll make you fit to be the Unseelie King one way or another, boy. And since you won’t do it of your own accord, I’m sending you to the Army of Souls. When you return, I will invoke the Choosing.”
There was a collective intake of breath from around the room. I glanced at Willow. I knew what the Army of Souls was, and even to the Unseelie fae, it was bad. Going there would wreck Fergus. But the Choosing I knew nothing about, other than hearing Willow mention it earlier.
Willow saw my confusion and whispered, “It’s a competition. To find a wife for the future king.”
A competition? That was how the king would find Fergus a wife? The thought disgusted me. I wriggled from Willow’s grasp and marched up to stand beside Fergus. “You know nothing about your son. He’s already an excellent leader. But you haven’t seen it because you refuse to look.”
“Bria.” Fergus’ warning came from beneath his breath, so soft, I doubted anyone else heard.
He didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t about to spill his secrets. But, as he’d so rightly pointed out, too often I backed down instead of standing up.
Not today.
The king waved his hand, dismissing my comments and looking at his son. “You leave tonight.”
Fergus lifted his chin and gave a nod. I doubted anyone else here apart from Willow knew how much he didn’t want to go, because every movement he made was easy and carefree as if the news bothered him little.
“You can’t send him there. You do not understand what it will do to him!” Someone had to stand up for Fergus if he would not do it himself.
The king’s glare turned slowly on me. His eyes swept down my body and back up to my face. “Bria?”
I swallowed. Fergus hadn’t been as quiet as I thought when he said my name.
Mother’s head shot up, and she stared at me. Under the king’s gaze, I willed her not to say or do anything. We’d get her out of here, but for now, we needed the king not to know why we were here.
The king stared at me until I was certain he must be reading my mind. “What gives you the right to tell me what to do with my son?”
Nothing. I had no right. Especially here in Unseelie. But the disdainful way the king looked at his son loosened my tongue. “Someone has to stand up for him. He’s had no one to do that for him in fifteen years.”
“His own fault,” the king spat back.
“Bria.” Fergus’ voice was soft, the warning unmistakable.
But I wasn’t ready to stop. “It was a horrible accident that you’ve blamed Fergus for all his life. He was just a child. You should have taken some of that burden from him!”
A mocking smile settled on the king’s face. “Aww. You mean to tell me the Crown Prince feels unloved?” The smile disappeared and his blue eyes turned icy. “There seems to be no lack of love in his bed every night. Different lovers if I’m correct.”
I knew that wasn’t true. I knew where Fergus went every night, and the words still stabbed at my heart. I couldn’t imagine how it made Fergus feel, and it took all my composure to keep my voice even. “If that’s where he needs to find love, good for him. Goodness knows, he got none from you.”
There was a collective intake of breath from the fae surrounding me. Mother climbed to her feet, and I willed her not to do anything stupid. I was coming for her. I just needed to help Fergus first.
The king laughed. “I have news for you, Ashling … or Bria, whatever your name is. None of those women loved him any more than I did. They were all after the same thing I’m sure you are after. The role of queen and all the riches that go with it.”
Mother got to her feet. “Bria…?”
Fergus spoke out the side of his mouth. “Bria. Don’t answer him. It’s not worth—”
I cut him off. Somewhere inside I had the sense I was being goaded, but it still didn’t stop the words that came next. “I care for your son and there’s not a thing I want from him in exchange.” I took Fergus’ hand to prove my point, and I was suddenly looking in his eyes. They were the most stunning color—deep brown with tiny flecks of gold—and he was staring at me in a way that stopped my heart.
The king laughed, hard and mocking. “You don’t care for him. No one does. Not even his own people.”
The king’s words hit Fergus like bullets. He flinched with each one.
I squeezed his hand, no longer talking to the king, but to Fergus instead. “It’s not true. You know it’s not.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his breath came heavily. His eyes were on me, but he wasn’t seeing me. Or hearing me. He was probably replaying in his mind all the hatred his father spewed.
I needed to drown that all out. To make him forget what his father said and to forget about all the people watching with glee on their faces. I wanted to erase the embarrassment he must feel at his father attacking him so publicly. And for him to relax and smile, the way he had when we sat on the picnic rug in the clouds just a few hours ago.
I wanted him to know someone cared about him.
I wanted him to know I cared for him.
I dropped Fergus’ hand, pushed up onto my tip toes and reached up to hold his face between my palms. “It’s not true, Fergus. You are good. You are worthy. People love you.” He stared through me, giving no sign he heard. “Jax does. Willow. Me.”
His eyes focused. “You?”
I licked my lips and nodded. “Me.” Everything around me disappeared, and the world narrowed to contain only Fergus. I didn’t think about what came next. It just happened. One minute I was looking at him, taking in his beauty, the next I was drawing his head down and pressing my lips to his.
Fergus froze.
I waited, too. Waited for him to push me away. To laugh. To tell me he could have anyone in the room and ask why he would kiss a deformed fae from the Seelie Court.
Kingdom of Yesterday's Lies (Royals of Faery Book 1) Page 24
