by Dyan Chick
Chapter Sixteen
I thought of Ethan and I felt the weight of shame in the pit of my stomach. Hadn't we formed a mating bond? Didn't that mean I was his and he was mine? Thinking of Tristan in such a way seemed like I was betraying Ethan. And then there was Dane and even Cormac, who hated Tristan. I shook my head. "No, that's never going to happen. Tristan and I have nothing in common."
Lainey laughed. "If sex or even mating were just about the things you had in common, nobody would ever be with anyone. Trust me, Cassia, we've seen it all in here."
Jae held up a towel. "It doesn't really matter what you think you are to His Grace. Especially if you are, as you say, a nobody. He rules these lands. His word is law."
I blinked at Jae, not sure of how to respond to her. I knew he was the ruler of the Winter Court based on what I'd learned so far, but I never considered that he'd force me into anything I didn't want to do. Was I being naive? I frowned. I might not know him well, but I trusted him. I wasn't sure if that was a mistake, but I had to start somewhere with my intuition. "He's not like that."
"He is like that, Cassia," Lainey said, a look of concern drawn across her face. "He's been like that before. Please, be careful. Don't upset him."
I bit down on my lip to keep myself from saying anything more. Her words were making me question everything. If my judgment was this far off with him, could anything I'd done be trusted? I'd made a lot of choices in the last few days that I wouldn't have dreamed of making in the human realm. Even if Lainey was wrong, which I hoped she was, her warning wasn't lost on me. I needed to tread carefully in Faerie. There was too much I didn't know.
I stood, water rushing off of me back into the tub, then stepped onto a rug that had been placed on the ground.
Jae hurried over and draped the towel over my shoulders. I tugged it tighter around me, then turned to Lainey. "Thank you, I will heed your warning."
Lainey nodded once.
"Can you tell me what you know about the assassin now?" I asked.
She glanced over at Jae and the two of them seemed to exchange another silent conversation. Finally, she turned back to me and sighed. "There has been talk that the attack wasn't against you." She paused, glancing over at the door as if to make sure it was still closed. "They say it was intended for His Grace."
My chest tightened and I held my breath. Someone wanted to kill Tristan? The thought of anyone harming him made my heart ache. I wasn't sure where I stood with him, but I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. "Are you sure?"
"You can never share that," she said.
"I won't," I said. "But I need to know if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
My mouth went dry and I licked my lips and swallowed, trying to make the feeling go away. Tristan's nobles were calling in their armies and an assassin had been sent for him. This wasn't about me. There was mutiny in the air. Someone was trying to send him from him throne. "I have to see him."
"You need to put clothes on first," Jae said.
"Or not," Lainey said.
"Clothes," I agreed. "Then, I need to see him."
Jae insisted in rubbing rose oil on my bare skin before she'd let me put any clothes on. I stood as still as possible while feeling completely awkward as she rubbed the oil all over me. Between the rose petals in the bath, the rose soap, and the oil, I smelled as if I was sitting in the middle of a rose garden. "Is this normal?"
Jae paused, her hands on my thighs. "Oil after a bath? Of course. It keeps your skin soft."
"The roses," I clarified. "Is that a favorite scent?"
Jae finished rubbing in the oil on my legs, then stood to her full height. She rubbed the leftover oil onto her hands and up her bare arms. "Not that I've seen." She turned to Lainey. "How about you?"
"No," Lainey said. "Roses don't grow here. It's expensive stuff. We usually use almond or olive oil."
Jae blotted the excess oil from my skin with a fresh towel and I was left to wonder why I'd been set up with such luxury. There didn't seem to be a reason for most of the things that Tristan did. Maybe they wanted me to smell extra nice for the Queen's sister.
"This dress is stunning," Lainey said.
I turned to see her holding up a silver gown. It was long sleeved with an A-line skirt. Along the neckline was a row of white pearls and row of gray gems. The fabric shimmered in the flickering candlelight of the room as Lainey walked over to me.
It reminded me of the dress my sister had worn on my failed wedding day, only this one was even more beautiful. My jaw tightened as I remembered how quickly she'd dismissed Nani. She would have done the same thing to me.
Lainey held the dress out in front of me. Everything about this dress screamed Winter Court. It was a dress fit for a princess. I frowned at the gown, hating the fact that I was being dressed up like a puppet for whatever plan Tristan had. We all were. Since we first entered the Winter Court, Tristan had been dressing all of us as if we were his entourage. The plan had been to take me to the Queen, yet, we were still here, in Tristan's home land. The dress was beautiful, but it reminded me that I was still between worlds. Not fully at home anywhere. Until I learned how to channel my magic and figured out where I came from, I was going to feel like I was make believe no matter how fine the gown was. "It is stunning."
Lainey and Jae helped me into the gown. Then, the two females chattered away while they worked on my hair. They seemed to have forgotten all the dangerous conversations we'd had in the last hour. But I couldn't focus on anything anymore. I was left wondering if Tristan was at risk and what the Queen's sister would want from me. It was overwhelming and confusing and I was ready to be as far away from royal politics as possible. The sooner we got this over with, the better. But first, I wanted to see Tristan. "Can you get me alone with Tristan?"
"I think we can handle that." She turned to Jae. "Think you can do that?"
"Of course I can." Without hesitation, she walked toward the door and slipped through it, closing it behind her.
"You be careful with him, alright?" Lainey said. "I know you have something different with him, but he's still who he is. That's never going to change. Not even his wife got him to fully let go of some of his ways."
"Like what?" I asked.
Just then the door opened and Lainey snapped her mouth shut and lowered her eyes. "Your Grace."
"Leave us."
The sound of his voice seemed to echo inside me, sending a vibration to my core.
Lainey curtseyed and after giving me a quick glance, she scurried away.
I swallowed and slowly turned to face Tristan. I'd been so desperate to see him, to make sure he was safe, that I hadn't thought about how I'd react to him once he was here.
"You wanted to see me?" Tristan asked.
"Thank you for coming," I said.
"I considered sending a message instead," he took a few steps closer to me, "but I am curious to see what you have to say to me while the others aren't around."
Tristan and I had spent some time alone over the past few days. Enough so that I knew that while he might get close to me, he had never done anything unwelcome or pushed too far. "I heard something. No one seems to want to tell me the answers. So far, you seem to be the only one who thinks I can handle knowing the truth. So I thought I'd ask you instead of listening to rumors."
"You know I'm going to ask who told you the rumor, don't you?" He moved even closer to me.
My pulse elevated with each step he took closer to me but I tried to ignore it. "You know I'm not going to tell you that."
He smirked. "You're deliciously loyal, Cassia. It's one of the qualities I admire about you."
He was standing so close to me now that I could nearly feel the heat of his body. My thighs clenched involuntarily at his closeness and I forced myself to focus. "I heard a rumor about the assassin's target."
"I agreed with Cormac this time, that the details weren't necessary for your ears." He narrowed his eyes and seemed to study my face. "But
I think he underestimated you. Not a mistake I'm about to make. Yes, the assassin wasn't meant for you. And yes, some of my nobles called in their troops. I can see you working out the pieces, that brain of yours, with the Autumn hunter mentality. Puzzling it all together. Honestly, if it weren't for the strategies those Autumn hunters can come up with, the Winter Court would have succeeded in taking over rather than leaving the other courts behind."
"So that's what happened?" I asked, relishing the new piece of information I'd obtained about Faerie's past.
"Yes, that's part of what Cormac doesn't want you to know. However, that doesn't matter to us now."
"What's going on here, Tristan?" I asked.
"I'm not sure yet, but I have a feeling we're heading to war again. And this time, I'm not on the inside. But when I have more information, I'll let you know. I don't see why you have to be kept in the dark," he said.
"Why not just tell me that? Why let me think someone was after me?" I asked.
"Because some of them are after you, Princess," Tristan said.
I frowned at his use of the word princess again. "I'm not a Princess."
"With all the time you've been spending with those princes, it's likely only a matter of time." Tristan shrugged. He didn't seem jealous in the slightest, an observation that made my stomach turn. For some reason, I wanted him to feel that way. To be a little bit upset about what I had with the others.
"You realized none of this makes sense. Why keep me in the dark? As you said yourself, I can put the pieces together. I can help."
"No, you can't. Not right now, anyway," he said.
"But-"
Tristan put his hand up, interrupting my objection. "There's something you should know about the Queen's sister," Tristan said. "They're half-sisters, two different fathers. One of them, was Winter Fae. She's gifted at reading minds. Probably the most gifted I've ever met."
"Is that something all the Winter Fae can do?" It was something I'd wondered about for a while since meeting Angela.
"No," Tristan said. "Some of us have the gift of sight instead. Some of us have none of those gifts."
He cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow. "Do you have either of those gifts?"
I swallowed, not sure how to answer that question. I'd had flashes of moments that felt so real that I wondered if they were the future. But I didn't know what any of it meant yet. "I'm not sure."
"Interesting," Tristan said. "Well, whatever you're hiding from me and the others is about to come out. Tiana is very thorough."
I clenched my jaw, trying not to show Tristan that I was nervous about anyone reading my mind.
"We shouldn't keep her waiting. Was there anything else you needed from me?" he asked.
"Are you safe?" The words tumbled out before I could think them through.
Tristan laughed. "Am I safe? Why would you care?"
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Maybe I worry about you, alright?"
"You accused me of trying to kill you," he said.
"And I said I was sorry. I meant it. Why can't you believe that I'd be worried about you when I hear that your nobles are plotting against you and someone broke in here to kill you?"
"You know," he said. "You're the first female I've ever met who turned me down."
I stood in stunned silence. Was that what this was all about? My refusal to sleep in his chambers? I opened my mouth to say something but Tristan already had the door open.
"We're late, princess. Time to go."
Pursing my lips, I marched through the open door into the hall. Tristan had a way of making me feel like I wanted to simultaneously scream at him and tear his clothes off. It was one of the most infuriating and confusing feelings I'd ever had.
Worried I'd betray more than I wanted, I silently followed him down the hall.
I had a mind reader to meet and I hoped she'd keep everything she found in my head to herself.
Chapter Seventeen
I followed Tristan up the stairs and down the hall on the fourth floor. As we approached the room I had just left, I saw Cormac, Ethan, and Dane waiting in the hall. Beyond them, two guards that weren't wearing the colors of the Winter Court were standing on either side of the now closed door. I stared at their burgundy and gold uniforms, trying to place where they came from. Were they traveling as envoys of the Autumn Court or were they directly from the Queen's palace?
"You do look like a princess, love," Dane said.
I lifted an eyebrow in silent protest.
"The colors of the Winter Court look especially stunning on her, don't you think?" Tristan asked.
"She'd look good in anything," Ethan said.
"That's probably true," Tristan said. "Look at us, agreeing on something."
"That is nice to see for a change," I said.
The only male standing in silence was Cormac. His gaze seemed fixated somewhere beyond me as if he wasn't even seeing me.
"Everything alright, Cormac?" I asked, my brow furrowed in concern.
He blinked and then looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time since I arrived. "I'm fine. Lots to think about."
I'd seen Cormac walk away to sulk or be alone. I'd never seen him lose focus in front of me. It was concerning to say the least. "You sure?"
"You should be worried about yourself right now, not me," he said.
"She'll be fine," Ethan said. "I'm sure she'll dazzle her."
My stomach twisted into knots as I realized the Queen's sister was here waiting for me. How did one respond to the sister of a queen? Especially in a place where the title is earned through a trial instead of birth?
"We'll be right outside, Love," Dane said.
"You're not going to see her with me?" Suddenly, my mouth felt very dry.
"She's requested an audience with you alone," Cormac said. "You have nothing to fear."
"Except for any secrets you don't want us to know," Tristan said.
"Cassia," Ethan said. "You have nothing to worry about because you have nothing to hide."
I swallowed and nodded slowly. I hoped I had nothing to hide, but I didn't know enough about who I was or what I was doing here to know what was right or wrong. Was the magic I had going to cause trouble for me? Was my relationship with these males in danger or had I endangered them? Would she now be able to tell how confused I was about everything?
The door opened and another guard stepped out. His burgundy and gold uniform looked so bright against the stark grays and whites of the Winter Court.
I glanced at the princes, wishing I had thought to ask questions that were useful.
"She's ready for you," the guard said.
I turned back to the door as a weight settled into my body, making each step more difficult than it should be. Slowly, I walked toward the door. I didn't look back at any of the princes. I was afraid that I'd lose my nerve if I did. Or that I'd have another one of the strange sexual encounters flash into my mind in front of the mind reader.
I stepped through the threshold and stopped a few steps away from the double doors. Two chairs had been brought into the nearly empty room while I'd been dressing. One was occupied by a female in a gold dress. She stood when she saw me, sending the iridescent fabric of her dress rippling in the weak afternoon sun. She was a few inches taller than me and had long, curly blonde hair that cascaded down her back.
Expression serious, the female seemed to examine me with her blue eyes. Her sharp, pointed nose moved up and down as she made no attempt to mask her thorough examination of me.
I swallowed against a lump in my throat and clenched my hands together as I waited for her to speak.
She walked in a circle around me, the only sound the gentle whisper of fabric over the wood floor.
After what felt like minutes of silence, she walked back to the chair she had been occupying, and sat down. Then, she gestured to the chair opposite hers. "Please, sit."
I sat down in the chair across then remembered my manners. I bolted up s
o I could drop into a curtsey. All of my informal time with the princes had caused me to forget protocol. "Forgive me, Your Grace."
"Sit, girl. There's no one to see us in here. Besides, I'm not the Queen. I hold no royal titles. I was born into nobility, yes. But I doubt I'm any more high-ranking than you."
"I'm not sure where I would rank." I sat back down, thinking about how nice it would be to sink into anonymity somewhere.
"You really don't care, do you?" She leaned back in the chair and stretched her long arms along the armrests, wrapping slender fingers around the end. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, inspecting me again. "It's rare to meet someone who doesn't worry about such things as rank. Truly, you seem like you'd almost rather be a nobody."
I wasn't sure what to say. All of her comments were true, of course. But I hadn't said anything that would make her come to those conclusions. Was she already reading my mind? "I wasn't born here, or at least I wasn't raised here I mean, I suppose I was born here. Somewhere in Faerie at least. But I didn't even know I was Fae until a few days ago."
She lifted a hand and waved dismissively at me. "I know all that. Cormac told me everything. How they found you, the attack at your wedding, the fact that your father was paid off by someone. I'm here to figure out if your powers might give us a clue as to who sent you to that horrid place to begin with."
I leaned back in the chair, considering her words. She probably knew the whole tale of my time with the princes. She probably knew of the attacks by the monsters and how we hunted them. It was possible she even knew about my relationships with two of them. "We were on our way to see the Queen." The words sounded stupid as they came out of my mouth, but I didn't know what else to say.
"I'm aware. I'm also aware of the fact that you show an affinity for three, maybe even four Courts. That's something that shouldn't be possible. Even our strongest, most elite warriors do not have affinity for more than one Court. Those like me, born of two Courts only hold the power of one. There have been stories of those who have carried the powers of both their mother and father, but they've never been proven as true. For you to have all four is impossible. Unless..." she trailed off, then pushed herself to standing.
