The King of Faerie (Stariel Book 4)

by AJ Lancaster

  “One of the villagers told my sister. I take it you got Her Majesty’s permission, then?”

  “We did.” That wasn’t really a lie. They’d gotten Queen Matilda’s permission. They just hadn’t quite met her conditions yet. Details, details.

  She waved for Angus to sit.

  “I must have missed the engagement notice,” he said as he seated himself.

  “Oh, there wasn’t one,” she said airily. “They’re not compulsory, you know. In any case, Her Majesty wants to announce it herself at the Meridon Ball.”

  “And when is the date for the happy event?”

  “We haven’t decided.”

  “Not in a rush then, are you?”

  “Why should we be?” She had the sudden feeling that Angus knew. But that was just paranoia. He couldn’t possibly know; she and Wyn had told no one of her pregnancy, and the only person Hetta knew who could read minds was her brother Marius—though he didn’t know about his talent—and he was safely distant at Knoxbridge University until the end of the term. “It’s my business whether I rush or not.”

  “Oh, aye,” he agreed with a sudden grin. “But I would’ve thought you’d be eager to tie the knot sooner rather than later—or that he would. But maybe fae are more cold-blooded creatures.”

  The remark irritated her. Wyn wasn’t a creature. “I’m certainly not going to share those kinds of details with you, but since you’re so anxious for my happiness, rest assured I’ve no complaints on that front.” She lowered her lashes and smiled a slow, deliberately sensuous smile. Pettiness be damned; a childish part of her wanted to provoke him. Besides, the idea that she was an innocent lady with no idea of what passed between men and women was frankly ridiculous.

  Although you currently find yourself in the exact situation all those societal rules are designed to prevent, a small voice pointed out. She ignored it.

  Angus laughed, full-throated. “I deserved that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” she informed him primly. “For being vastly improper. Now, why are you here? Me accepting your apology sheep wasn’t encouragement to drop in whenever you feel like it.” Angus had given Stariel a small flock of his coveted slateshire sheep in recognition of the wrong he’d done them. It was a very Northern custom. “I suppose it’s about the Conclave?”

  “I know it’ll take more than ‘apology sheep’ for you to forgive me,” Angus said, mouth curving at her turn of phrase. “But yes, the Conclave is one of the things I wanted to discuss. I’m holding a house party before the Conclave, to which I’ve invited several of our peers, including the Chair. I thought it might be a good chance for you to meet Lord Arran, give you a chance to show some of what you’ve been up to here.”

  She sat back in her chair. “Are you campaigning on my behalf?” She hadn’t even sent her own letter to the Conclave’s Chair, and here Angus was having already secured his attendance at a house party! Part of her wanted to refuse to be involved with it out of sheer pique.

  He shrugged. “I owe Stariel a debt worth more than a few sheep.”

  The thought flashed through her unbidden: Angus Penharrow will deal well with fae. They too weighed the world in terms of oaths and debts.

  Angus continued. “Lord Arran is old-fashioned, but also fair-minded. Or he can be.” He canted his head. “So I can send around a dinner invitation without your biting my head off, then?”

  I don’t need your approval or your help, she wanted to say. Instead, she wrestled her emotions into something that resembled graciousness. This wasn’t a time for pettiness, not when this was so important for Stariel. And Angus did owe Stariel, even if it rankled to accept his help.

  “I’ll try not to. Hopefully Lord Arran will favour me more rather than less upon closer acquaintance.”

  “Well, you’ve impressed every Northern lord you’ve met so far.”

  “All one of them.” Guilt dragged a nail down her throat. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy flirting—quite the opposite—but it wasn’t as fun when she knew Angus might take it seriously. “Don’t flirt with me, Angus,” she said quietly, fiddling with her ring. “And if—if you think speaking in my favour to the other lords will somehow make me not marry Wyn, then I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Don’t insult me, Hetta.” He said it lightly, but there was a warning growl in his tone. “I know you’ve more cause than most to doubt my integrity, but I actually do pride myself on my honesty.” He grimaced, because they both knew he’d lied to her, and more than once. “I won’t pretend to be thrilled at the match—”

  “You shock me.”

  He snorted. “—but it doesn’t change my duty to my own people and to the wider North. I meant what I said in Meridon. We cannot afford for the North to be divided against itself. Not given”—He glanced at her ring and finished lamely—“events.”

  A heavy silence fell. How was she supposed to treat him now? It had all been simple when he’d courted and then betrayed her. How dare he try to make reparations for his actions and make everything complicated again? How dare he help her? And most egregiously, how dare she need it?

  “Thank you, then,” she said, dredging up a graciousness she was far from feeling.

  He jerked his head. At least he was as uncomfortable receiving her thanks as she was giving them.

  “Is your fiancé available?” he asked, shaping the word like a slice of lemon.

  “No, he’s out on the estate.”

  “I take it the business with his sister is done then? Can I use his name again without drawing fae monsters down upon us all?”

  “You can,” she confirmed. She nibbled on a biscuit while she thought about how much she wanted to tell Angus. But he’d had to suffer through a monster attack at the theatre thanks to Aroset, so he probably did deserve a bit of the truth. “The succession in ThousandSpire is still unsettled, but I don’t think Princess Aroset will be sending any more monsters.”

  Angus met her gaze, something close to accusation in his eyes. “What about others? There are more fae out there, aren’t there? How does one evict unwanted fae guests?”

  She thought of her tenants and their description of the starcorn and hazarded a guess.

  “You’ve seen wyldfae at Penharrow?” She explained the different ranks of Faerie. “Lowfae are usually wyldfae as well, which means they don’t belong to any particular court. Though since Penharrow isn’t a court, I don’t know how you’d know where they were from or what they were. Most of the lowfae I’ve seen are fairly harmless, and they keep themselves hidden from humans for the most part. The lesser and greater fae are more like us.”

  She had a pang of sympathy for Angus. She could kick out unwanted lesser and greater fae with only a thought through her bond with Stariel, but Penharrow wasn’t a faeland.

  Angus grew thoughtful and she ate another biscuit, suddenly famished.

  When he spoke, she suspected it was the question he’d really come here to ask all along: “And how,” he said slowly. “Does a mortal estate become a faeland?”

  6

  Storms

  The question rolled in her like a struck gong all day, and she repeated it to Wyn later that night.

  “What do you think the first Valstar offered the High King, to make Stariel into a faeland?”

  They lay entangled in Wyn’s bed, beneath the rafters. The reason for this choice of location was mainly that her own room shared a wall with her sister Alexandra’s. I should shift rooms, she thought absently, tracing a line down from the hollow at the base of Wyn’s throat. There would be hells to pay if anyone found her here, though the chances of that were slim, given the combination of her illusion and Wyn’s glamour. At least if we actually manage to get married, I won’t have to sneak around my own dashed house!

  Wyn hummed thoughtfully, the sound vibrating against her fingertip. “I do not know; it’s never specified in the tales. Perhaps he merely impressed the High King with his power. Faelands… I wish I knew more about them. All I know
about their creation is that they need a link to a living soul to sustain themselves. The longer they go without a ruler, the more they risk coming unravelled. Maybe that’s why Cat…” He trailed off. The slow beat of his pulse under her hand was the only movement in his body.

  She wrapped her arms around him. “Ivy said she’d help search the library, but she doesn’t think we have any records from that time.” The original Lord Fallstar had established Stariel more than a thousand years ago—centuries before the Iron Law came into being. “Perhaps my ancestor gave the High King a good deal on sheep,” she mused. Stariel’s ‘wealth’—if you could call it that, given the state of their finances—lay in natural resources.

  Wyn laughed, returning her hug. “If so, Penharrow will be well placed to bribe him.”

  “We will be well-placed to bribe him.” She sighed. “In another season or two. If we find tenants for the Dower House. If the bank will extend the rest of the loan.”

  “True.” He paused, his fingers tracing up along her side suggestively, sending little sparks of awareness through her. “Although I confess, I don’t wish to speak of finances just at this moment.” The russet of his irises was black in the dim light, but the motes of brandy-gold in them glowed slightly. She didn’t draw attention to the fact; Wyn was sensitive about showing the fae side of his nature, especially without meaning to. She did, however, wrinkle her nose at his black eye. He healed fast, which in this case meant the black eye had already progressed past the red-and-swollen state to the spectacularly black-bruised state.

  She traced the edge of it gently. “I still can’t believe Jack punched you!”

  “He’s very loyal to you,” he said placatingly.

  “And I can’t believe you let him punch you.”

  Wyn didn’t deny it. “I thought it might make him feel better.”

  “Did it?” She hadn’t seen her cousin since the morning, as Jack had taken himself off to the pub instead of attending dinner. Wyn had cast a minor glamour over the eye, but no doubt the rest of the family would still hear of it eventually.

  She felt his sigh through his body, and his hand flattened on her side, sadly abandoning its distracting movements. “Not noticeably, no.”

  “Did it make you feel better?” She shifted against him encouragingly, and his fingers resumed their slow tracing.

  His lips curved. “Ah. I’m becoming obvious, aren’t I? No, it didn’t actually.”

  She poked him in the ribs. “Regardless, you’re not to let any more of my relatives hit you!”

  “I feel it’s only fair to give Marius the opportunity if he wants it.” He took on the mild expression he used when he was being deliberately provoking.

  “You know Marius won’t do any such thing.” Marius had a better rein on his temper than Jack. He would, however, be hurt that Jack had yet again found out something important before he had. It didn’t sit well with Hetta either. “I want to tell him I’m pregnant,” she said in a rush.

  The gold motes in Wyn’s eyes gleamed brighter. “You know I’m in favour of doing so.”

  “The others…I don’t want them to know yet. Not until we can set a date. Or until it becomes unavoidably obvious.” Or the reverse. She didn’t say the words aloud, though guilt wormed in their wake.

  “The books suggest this may be several months yet. They were unhelpfully vague on the exact amount of time. The dizziness you had this morning is apparently relatively common but will probably not last for the duration.” He half opened his mouth and then shut it again.

  “I feel fine,” she said in answer to his silent question. “Though I appreciate the effort you made not to ask me for the fifty-seventh time today.”

  “The book I read today did suggest tact was called for when dealing with pregnant mortals. Apparently they can be prone to irrational anxieties,” he said, deadpan.

  “In which case, are we sure it’s me that’s the pregnant one?”

  “There, there,” he soothed, patting her head. “Try to rid yourself of irrational anxieties.”

  Oh, he was so appealing like this, teasing her with his white-blond hair tufted into disarray. So she kissed him.

  “Hetta,” he groaned, bringing his hands to her hips.

  “Irrational, am I?”

  He chuckled, the sound shifting into a deeper rumble of pleasure as she nibbled her way along his jaw. She moved down his body in lazy spirals, enjoying the freedom of her position, lust a coil low in her belly. Sitting back on her heels, she let her hands wander lower, and he arched in pleasure at the touch.

  What if I asked him to take his fae form? The thought crashed over her like deep, cold water. Would he? Did she even want him to? What if he did only because she’d asked? Rakken’s words about Wyn hiding his feathers from her echoed in her ears, and the request half-formed on her lips. But there was something undoubtedly libido-quelling about voicing the question aloud. She knew in her bones that Wyn would do nearly anything he thought would make her happy, but she didn’t want him to do this for her.

  Wyn twisted them so their positions rearranged, and she gasped as her back pressed into the mattress. She’d kissed quite a lot of men; none of them compared. Maybe it was the sheer amount of practice she’d had with Wyn, but she suspected not. He kissed like coming home, and yet there was that edge, as if a storm could somehow be tamed. He kissed in dizzying contrasts, and it drove her wild. Oh, I love you, was all she could think, the beat of it aching in time with the rain on the roof, the rhythm of their bodies.

  She lost track of things for a while. The rain’s intensity increased, and in the distance came the rumble of thunder, followed by small flashes of lightning, throwing the chamber into a series of still-lifes.

  When she could think properly again, snuggled under Wyn’s arm, unease looped its way around her chest and tightened. Wyn was fae. Could they really keep ignoring that fact? Her and Wyn’s child would be half-fae. She swallowed. Here with them now, carried within her own body. A baby. The word still seemed too big, too serious, too much.

  How to broach the subject? The storm outside was reaching its peak, rattling against the house. Wyn obligingly shuffled the duvet up before draping his arm around her once more, his hand splayed out against her stomach. She leaned into the touch. He was gloriously warm, but then, he always burned hotter than she did.

  “Wyn, our child will be—”

  But before she could say anything more, Stariel blazed into alertness, and charge swarmed over her belly in a burst of elektric blue fire. Wyn’s magic flared in the same instant. The lightning forked from her skin to his fingers, up his arm and across his shoulders, and fizzed into a ball of charge in his other hand as he rolled off the bed and strode to the balcony, threw open the doors, and flung it out into the night.

  “Ow,” she said weakly, in confusion rather than pain—the shock had been mild, like picking up a hairbrush full of static. “What was that?” Wyn had been struggling with his powers ever since they’d increased, but he’d never lost control in her presence. Had he done so now?

  His face was ashen. “It wasn’t me,” he said grimly. His gaze fixed on her middle. “Maelstrom take me, but that wasn’t me.”

  7

  Minor Elektrical Charges

  “Are you all right?” he asked Hetta, as the cold night air swirled around him. How powerful had that charge been? It had felt tiny, but his judgement wasn’t sound; as a stormdancer he was immune to everything short of an actual lightning strike. What had happened? Where had the magic come from? Or, since the answer to that question was obvious if not palatable…why had it come from there? He stared at the smooth skin of Hetta’s stomach, ice crystallising in his lungs.

  “I’m fine,” Hetta said. “It wasn’t painful, just surprising. It felt like a bit of static.” She sat up and frowned at her stomach. “If it wasn’t you, did that come from where I think it came from?”

  “What does Stariel say?”

  Hetta pursed her lips, and her eyes went
distant. “It came from me. Or rather, our child,” she confirmed. “Stariel is concerned but doesn’t seem to know what it means. Wyn, why is our child giving off minor elektrical charges? Is this normal?” Her voice went up on the last word.

  My child. Seven stormcrows. He balled his hands into fists and clung onto his mortal shape. He would not lose control. He would not panic. Doom, his instincts said helpfully.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” he said. Maybe he was wrong; stormwinds take him, he wanted to be wrong.

  He shut the balcony doors before turning his leysight on Hetta. She shone bright as a star, blazing with both her own and Stariel’s magic as the heart of this land. He couldn’t make out the separate spark at her centre even knowing it was there. “Your power swamps the leylines too strongly for me to read much.”

  Hetta’s lips quirked. “That sentence made a surprisingly amount of sense to me. Is it going to happen again, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said again. He closed the distance between them, pulling her into his arms and burying his face in her neck. “I think we may need to ask for advice. Which I don’t much enjoy admitting.”

  He felt Hetta smile against his shoulder before she asked, “Who are you suggesting?”

  He hesitated. “I can think of two people who might be less ignorant than me. Lamorkin knows many things. They might know this.”

  Hetta didn’t point out that his godparent was currently who-knows-where, but her expression said it well enough.

  He continued reluctantly. “The other is…Rake. He’s older than me—he might remember our mother’s pregnancies.” It was a strange thought, because the pregnancy Rakken was most likely to remember was when their mother had been carrying Wyn. “Or even if he doesn’t, his knowledge of magic far surpasses mine.” And thank the High King his brother couldn’t hear him admitting that; it would make him insufferable.