by May Dawson
“I’m sorry, Tera,” he says, and there’s genuine regret in his voice.
“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” It’s the right thing to say, but the words come out flippant in a way that my confession a second before wasn’t. I head into the room to the closet, and as I flip through pretty dresses on hangers, the anger simmers into guilt. I call to him, “Thank you for everything. For lending me the clothes—”
“They’re gifts,” he says firmly.
My desire to keep these pretty things wars with my desire to be a better Tera Donovan. I should stand on my own two feet—even if there are holes in my shoes. It’s too easy to take advantage of people. “You don’t need to give me gifts.”
“May I come in?”
“It’s your castle.”
The room is silent, so I pick up a simple green sheath dress and carry it out. Rian still waits in the doorway, his face expectant.
I was too glib with him when he’s so kind. I want to make it up to him, but all I can think to say is, “You can come in.”
I know it’s too little.
He nods and enters the room, closing the door softly behind him.
“Do you have other breakfast guests you keep waiting?”
He shrugs in a way that tells me the answer is yes. “There are guests arriving all day for my party.”
“Oh!” I’m the worst. “Happy birthday!”
“Thank you.” He cocks his head to one side. “When’s your birthday, Tera?”
“Not until spring.”
“What was your last birthday like?”
“Lonely.”
He runs his hand through his hair, which was perfectly gelled a second before. It makes him look a little wild and dissolute, instead of the polished prince he pretends to be. I like him better this way—a bit ruffled and rough around the edges, a bit more like me.
“You should accept the gifts,” he says. “I’d like to have a chance to make up for those birthdays spent far from home.”
I cross to the bathroom and swing the door halfway shut between us, so I can dress in privacy as we talk. The soft wool fabric glides over my body, wrapping every curve in its vibrant emerald hue. I smooth my hand over the skirt. I usually wear jeans as if I should be able to walk back into Primus and blend there any moment again.
“They’re in the past.” The melancholy feelings I’ve been having lately sweep over me, reminding me that the future isn’t certain either. Airren’s worried face rises in front of me. He’s been pushing me to draw the prince’s favor. Maybe there’s another way.
“I admire your ability to surrender the past,” Rian says softly. “Avalon could learn from you.”
I shake my head as I push open the bathroom door and emerge, twisting my wet hair up into a bun. I slide the silver-and-emerald hair sticks someone left for me into my hair to hold it up. “I’m far broodier than you realize.”
“Are you?”
“Rian,” I say softly, “I want to stay in Avalon.”
“Of course,” he says, looking at me as if he doesn’t want to answer the question he knows I’m asking.
“What do I have to do?” My voice comes out soft. Airren seems convinced the prince can keep me safe. Maybe he doesn’t have to be in love with me for that.
“Tera.” He sounds like he’s at a loss. “You don’t have to do anything. You deserve to be here.”
You deserve to be here. The words fill me with longing and satisfy it at the same time. Maybe I do. Whether I have my magic or not, whether I’m useful to the Crown or not, this is my home.
And yet. This feels too easy. It feels like a trick, although I don’t think Rian would try to trick me on purpose.
“You don’t believe me,” he says softly.
I expect him to try to convince me, but instead he holds out his hand. “Come to breakfast. It’s going to be fun. We’re starting my birthday festivities.”
It is his birthday. It’s no time for me to be asking for gifts.
Rian brings me up to his apartments at the top of the castle. Despite his desire to feed me, he steers me past the tables set up inside and the sumptuous buffet. The balcony is lively with music from a band in the corner, and the wine and champagne already flows freely. The air is scented by the potted flowers everywhere, with their tumultuous blooms, no matter how out-of-season, blowing in the steady, cool breeze.
There’s a seer at a table in the opposite corner, an old woman with unseeing white eyes who stares ahead, a smile on her face, as she flips over cards across a blood-red velvet tablecloth. Two girls paused in front of her table laugh in delight at whatever she’s just told them. Maybe she imagines them in bed with the prince before the night is out.
Magic can’t foretell the future or raise the dead, yet people in Avalon obsess over the possibility of both. I guess when you grow up soaked in it, it’s hard to believe magic has limits.
Rian hands me a champagne flute; small red strawberries sink slowly through the bubbles. He knocks his own glass of champagne back. His posture is always elegant, even when he’s gulping champagne down like it’s his last glass. Even though he’s smiling, even though he’s always smiling, there seems to be an edge of unhappiness underneath it all.
I want to understand why. “Why would a prince of Avalon need to drink like it’s his job?”
“It pretty much is my job,” he tells me with a wink. “Every kingdom needs someone to remind them how to play.”
“I’m sure your father would agree,” Airren says from behind us, his voice dry.
Rian raises his empty glass as if to greet Airren. “It’s my birthday, would you mind not bringing up the old man?”
“My apologies.” Airren doesn’t manage to sound apologetic.
Rian rolls his eyes. He wraps his arm around my waist, steering me away from Airren toward the seer. “Have you had your fortune told before?”
“Only by my school-mates.” At boarding school, we’d gathered on someone’s bed late at night to flip over each other’s cards, giggling over our interpretations and shushing each other so the dorm mom wouldn’t overhear. I hadn’t thought about that night in years. “I was supposed to be a famous wizard.”
“And here you are.” There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes as he takes two more flutes from the waiter who pauses by him. I haven’t yet finished my first glass.
“And here I am, I suppose. There’s a reason to stay away from the cards.”
But he’s already stepping forward to the seer, flashing his bright, magnetic smile her way even though she can’t see it. “Would you tell my fortune, please? I’d like to know if there’s any chance I might kiss this girl before the day’s over.”
I shake my head, but I can’t help smiling, half because I’m self-conscious and half because he’s sweet.
She shuffles the cards, her fingers so quick and deft that they seem like a blur. “You’ve already kissed the girl. Ask me what you really want to know.”
Her words startle me. My gaze flickers to Rian, and his eyes widen in surprise.
That night with the Fox in the tunnels rises in my mind, the cool metal of his mask under my palm, his lips against mine, just for a second.
“I did catch you when we were kids,” he says, a smile coming to our lips. “I planted a kiss on your cheek. You really don’t remember it?”
I shake my head. “I wish I did.”
“Let me refresh your memory.” He slides his arm around my waist, then pauses, checking to make sure I want this. Impetuously, I tilt my head so my cheek rises toward him. There’s a small, crazy part of me that believes I’ll remember that first kiss when he kisses me now.
He brushes a sweet, chaste kiss over the curve of my cheekbone. My eyes drift shut, taking in the moment; his soft lips, the scent of his cologne mixing with the flowers and the cool, fresh air, the music playing headily.
When I open my eyes, he’s smiling down at me. “No? It didn’t jog your memory?”
I shake my he
ad. I should remember; we were seven or so at the time, and it would have been different, being at the palace. Meeting Rian should’ve left a memory. The sense that someone might’ve stolen it leaves me rattled.
A messenger in black-and-gold makes his way to us and bows to the prince. “Your father has gifts for you.”
“Lovely,” Rian says off-handedly. “He couldn’t make it, of course.”
Impetuously, he grabs my hand in his. “Come with me. He likes for me to unwrap his gifts in front of an audience, but I just can’t abide having everyone there right now…”
I nod, perplexed about whatever the dynamic is between Rian and his father. But I know all about daddy issues.
“You too, Airren,” he says, clapping Airren on the shoulder as we go past. “My old school chum.”
Airren’s brows lift, but he still follows Rian as we leave the apartments and make our way down the castle’s sweeping marble stairs to the courtyard outside. More black-and-gold liveried servants stand in the whit e gravel yard.
One of the servants holds the reins of a unicorn; the unicorn tosses his shimmering silver-and-white mane. His long and narrow face is beautiful, but he’s quick and impatient, his feet dancing across the gravel despite the servant’s tense, white fingers on the leather lead.
“Will my father ever stop trying to tame them,” Rian mutters, and there’s an edge of genuine anger in his voice, something I haven’t heard from him before.
Rian crosses quickly to the unicorn, taking the reins from the man and beginning to murmur to the unicorn, which quiets as he rubs his hand across its neck. The unicorn’s coat seems to shimmer with magic. They’re supposed to be incredibly fast, as well as dangerous in battle, but they only occasionally bond with a human enough to let them ride.
“I still can’t believe they’re real sometimes,” I say softly to Airren, who comes to my shoulder, as if there’s a connection between us that draws his body against mine whenever he isn’t trying to stay out of the prince’s way.
Airren snorts. “Unicorns still shit in the woods.”
“You’re dreadfully unromantic.”
Airren glances toward me. “There are only a few things I feel sentimental about in this world, Tera Kate.”
Before I can unpack that, Cax waves from across the courtyard and bounds across the gravel toward us. “There you are!”
“The prince invited us to his breakfast,” Airren tells him. “You were sleeping. Very determinedly sleeping—I knocked for a while.”
Cax shrugs. “Where’s Croft?”
“I don’t know, pretty sure he’s off being sullen somewhere,” Airren says.
Cax’s lips purse to one side as if he doesn’t like Airren being critical of Mycroft. “I’m worried about him.”
“Me too,” Airren says bluntly. “But he’s been through worse.”
“He almost died.”
“Yeah,” Airren says. “Hardly the first time. Almost dying is pretty much a rite-of-passage for Divide Marines and spies alike.”
“You’re really selling that spy life,” I tease.
Airren’s hand rests lightly on my shoulder. “It’s not what I’d choose for you, Tera.”
“I want to be where you fools are,” I say lightly, but there’s nothing light about it.
In response, Airren wraps me up in a quick, spontaneous hug. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, as if he’s trying to tell me something that he can’t manage to say.
“Always,” Cax says, reaching to take my hand in his. “You can’t get rid of us.”
The unicorn rears onto its hind legs. Suddenly, enormous white wings rise from its sides, beating the air furiously. Everyone stumbles back. Even Rian drops the lead and backs away, although he stays closest, making calming sounds at the unicorn.
Rian turns his head to glare at a servant. “You need to give them space. They’re wild things.”
The unicorn’s back hooves almost rise from the ground and then strike back down, hard again. Rian’s gaze fixes on the elaborately engraved black leather saddle he wears, which is embedded with emeralds and rubies to form the Crown crest. The unicorn must be enchanted so it can’t fly away. Rian swears as he starts toward the unicorn, holding up his hands to soothe it.
But as he reaches underneath the unicorn’s belly to loosen its buckles, the unicorn rears back again. Rian jerks to the right, trying to avoid its hooves. He’s about to be trampled for his nineteenth birthday.
“It’s okay!” I call out to the unicorn softly as I creep up beside Rian. As soon as I start moving, Airren grabs after my arm, but he’s too late. I flash him a look over my shoulder. Trust me.
I’m not some stupid hero. I’m not going to get myself killed to free the unicorn, but I’m sure I can help Rian. Someone needs to soothe the beast so he can reach the buckles, and once the saddle slides free, the unicorn can take to the sky again. It can escape back where it belongs.
“Take it easy,” I say, my voice gentle. As I edge toward the unicorn, keeping a watchful eye on its swinging head, with those big, alert silver-gray eyes and the long, dangerous horn, Rian nods at me. Working as a team, the two of us slowly approach the unicorn.
“Take it easy, girl,” I say, taking a guess about the unicorn’s sex. I hold out my hands, and to my surprise, the unicorn drops her head to sniff me, her nostrils flaring. When her nose sweeps across the back of my hand, it’s surprisingly soft, and I turn my palm up. She nuzzles her nose into my hand.
“Got it,” Rian says, backing away from the horse. The saddle dangles from one hand.
The unicorn’s wings shimmer as they fold back into her sides.
“Well,” Rian says. “It appears the two of you are friends. Happy birthday to you, Tera.”
“I told you, my birthday’s not until the spring.”
“Tell that to her,” Rian says. “It appears she thinks you two belong together.”
Indeed, the unicorn shoves her nose into my chest, and I pat her head with my hand uncertainly. “I don’t know how to take care of a unicorn.”
But there’s still an unexpected rise of delight in my chest.
Dirtside scum with a dragon…and a unicorn.
If the wild, magical creatures love me, I can’t really be evil, can I?
“You’re right,” Cax says quietly to Airren behind me, so quietly that he must think I can’t hear him. “He can give her everything we can’t. Safety. Wealth. Unicorns.”
“Let’s hope so,” Airren says.
There’s an edge of jealousy in both their voices, and yet Cax sounds fervent and genuine when he agrees, “Let’s hope so.”
Chapter 16
“This is the boring part,” Rian confides to me as he drew me onto the dance floor.
“Dancing with you?” I ask lightly. “I don’t believe it.”
“The uptight and proper part of the evening,” he says, wrapping his hand around my hip instead of touching the middle of my back like a proper gentleman. Still, we hold a good four inches between us as we dance to the band playing cheerfully. “The real party starts later.”
“When the stuffy nobles have left?” I ask cheekily, and he grins. This close to him, I can see the silver flecks near his iris, the way his gray eyes are light at the center with an almost-black rim around the outside. They’re unusual eyes, beautiful eyes, and a strange sense of familiarity rises in my chest. I frown, wondering if he made an impression on me when we met as kids, or if I’ve misunderstood something about who he is.
“Do you think I’m stuffy?” he asks right before he spins me, and I lose the thought as I turn, my high heels gliding across the slick wooden dance floor.
When he reels me back in, my palm meets his muscular shoulder again. I wonder when the prince works out. Despite Mycroft’s accusation earlier that he never uses the gym, Rian feels surprisingly built for someone so many consider nothing but a party boy.
I crinkle my nose at him. “Well, you haven’t really proven anything. My grandfath
er would always spin me when we danced.”
“Feisty as well as beautiful,” he says.
“I liked that dress you wore earlier on you—the emerald—but I like this one even better.”
I glance down at the sweep of satin that clings to my body, the dress that Airren spun for me. “Thank you.”
“It’s made of magic, isn’t it?” As he follows my gaze, his fingertips skim the fabric along the neckline until he rubs his thumb across the broach.
Some small, crazy part of me longs for him to touch my skin; his fingers brushing the fabric feels like a tease.
But that’s not a good idea. I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re doing, your majesty. And I don’t think you do either.”
His lips part in surprise—an unguarded moment—before he shifts back to charming. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sleeping with me would be a scandal if anyone found out,” I remind him. “Padrick Donovan’s daughter. You don’t need that. It’s bad enough you’re dancing with me.”
“I don’t intend to sleep with you.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
If he doesn’t intend to sleep with me, I don’t know why his hand grips my hip the way he does, his fingers brushing the top curve of my ass intimately—not that I mind. He sure as hell can’t hope for anything else.
The royal family would have me hung before they’d let me marry their son. No royal wedding for me, in the big cathedral, in a long lace dress, emerging smiling onto the stone steps with an armful of honeysuckle blossoms and Rian’s hand in mine.
Well, that’s a pretty vivid daydream of something that will never happen.
“Can’t I just enjoy your company?” he asks. “You are a bit of a mystery, and quite the fascination.”
I shake my head, but my lips part in a helpless smile anyway. “We both know I’m not that interesting, except for being Padrick’s daughter, with all that means.”
His silver gaze fixes on me. Slowly, I realize we’ve stopped dancing. The two of us are still as the music and the dancers flow around us, and his fingertips graze my chin. He looks at me as if he wants to kiss me, but he doesn’t.
