by May Dawson
“There’s your birthright,” Duncan muttered in my ear before he passed, adding over his shoulder, “Try not to look so impressed. Look like you belong here, maybe.”
“You certainly look like you belong here, with all the other poisonous things,” I shot back.
Tiron sighed faintly under his breath.
“What?” I looked up at him as Azrael and Duncan strode ahead of us toward the castle, winding through the enormous, elaborate gardens. “Is he always such a grouch?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitating. “He’s the worst, until you get to know him.”
“He seems to know me, and he doesn’t care for me much.”
“You hurt Azrael.” Tiron stopped, turning to face me, and I looked up at him. “Azrael can forgive you that, perhaps. Duncan will be a bit harder to win over.”
“What about you?”
A faint smile played over Tiron’s lips. “Maybe I was already won over from the first time I watched you kick ass in the mortal world to save a mortal life.”
He reached toward my face, and I took a step back automatically, my hands rising.
“I was just going to fix your hair before you see Faer,” he told me. “You look a bit of a mess, thanks to Duncan’s persuasion techniques.”
I hesitated, then nodded. It wasn’t as if I had a mirror and comb before I strode back into my kingdom. Tiron’s fingers were gentle and adept as they stroked over my hair, tucking it back behind my ears. Then he gave me a slow once-over before he reached out and pinched my cheeks.
I pulled away, staring up at him.
“Trying to get some color in your face from something other than boiling rage,” he said, humor in his voice. “All right, shall we?”
“Whenever you’re ready.” Duncan’s voice was distant, irritated.
Tiron winked at me, unimpressed by his friend’s ire. It was impossible not to smile back at his playful air. The two of us made our way to the guys.
There were guards on the grounds, pointy-eared or horned Fae, dressed in black tunics. My eyes flickered between their unusual features and the pointy weapons they carried.
Suddenly, one of the guard’s eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees, his head bowing.
“Here we go,” Duncan muttered. “This should be good for her.”
A few guards gaped at him, then looked back at me, and suddenly they were all falling to their knees.
I stared at them. I wanted to tell them it was all right, they didn’t need to do that, but it didn’t sound very princess-y. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.
Then Azrael’s voice, in my ear: “Tell them to rise and be at ease, if you want them to go back about their business.”
I nodded my acknowledgement—and maybe my thanks—before I said loudly, “Rise. At ease.”
Then I headed toward the castle doors, my feet crunching over the colorful marble gravel underfoot, passing through an arch into a big courtyard. There were people training in here with swords and bows and in hand-to-hand combat, Fae knights of every size and shape, with strange ears and stranger faces. I caught a flicker of a tail and stopped, trying not to gawk but letting my gaze roam. A cacophony of noise rose in the air, but this felt, for the first time, like coming home. Like someplace I knew, someplace where I belonged.
“Princess Alisa.” A woman in an elaborate gown, her hair trussed up to expose her long, jeweled ears, fell to her knees in front of me. Her voice sounded choked with emotion, and I took a step back before I could stop myself. She looked up at me with her pink eyes, shining with tears that leaked onto her unnaturally pale skin.
“Oh, here we go again,” Duncan muttered.
The bustle and noise of training ceased as attention rippled through the crowd, and one by one, people dropped their weapons and fell to their knees.
“Rise! At ease!” I called.
“She can be taught,” Duncan said in a tone of wonder, to no one in particular, then I heard a whap as Azrael’s fist found his brother’s chest.
People rose to their feet again, and so did the woman in front of me. She wiped away her tears as she rose, although more immediately sprang to her eyes.
“It’s really you,” she murmured. “We thought you were dead all this time.”
“No such luck,” Duncan said. Another whap. Duncan didn’t seem particularly moved.
Then she drew me into her arms, hugging me, beginning to cry into my hair. I froze.
I was never good at tears, never knew what to do when a friend needed encouragement. If someone hurt you and you wanted me to kick ass, I was your girl. I would always have a friend’s back.
But if someone hurt you and you wanted tissues, cuddles, and encouraging words, there had to be a more competent friend that you could find. After whoever hurt you sounds like an asshole, do you want me to bury him alive? I was pretty much spent.
Over her shoulder, Azrael raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say go on.
I raised my eyebrows right back. What? How? Then I closed my arms around her back.
“There, there,” Azrael mouthed at me, frowning as if he wondered how anyone could be so bad at this.
“There, there,” I patted her back, remembering to say something, anything. “I’m home again.”
For now. Against my will. But still, home again.
She pulled back, studying my face, cupping my face in her hands. Her nose was starting to turn as pink as her eyes as she wept. “I’ve missed you so. Do you remember me? Is it true you lost your memories?”
“It’s true,” I admitted. She looked a bit younger than me, but not by much.
“We were best friends.” There was a hitch in her voice.
Duncan snorted. “An overstatement.”
Azrael stepped in front of him, blocking Duncan from me and the tearful girl, although I could still hear him demand, “Why are you like this?”
“Someone should tell Alisa the truth.” Duncan returned.
“But you only tell her ‘the truth’ because you hate her,” Azrael pointed out.
“It’s still helpful.” Duncan said, then added, to me, “She was a glorified servant that your parents paid to be your friend.”
She bit her plush pink lip and didn’t deny it. “But I genuinely came to love you, Alisa. My name is Nikia.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said automatically, before thinking it through, which set her off crying again.
“All right, okay, let’s continue the reunion later.” Duncan shoved me forward with his hand on my shoulder blade.
I glared at him. “How come you don’t drop to your knees like the rest?”
Duncan winked at me. “I only do that for women I like, Princess.”
Azrael rubbed his hand over his face as if we both exhausted him.
“King Faer would like to see his sister alone,” Nikia said. “I will take her from here. You three can wait in his antechamber.”
Tiron closed his eyes, as if he were praying for strength. Azrael and Duncan exchanged a glance, and I could almost swear I saw the word pass between them. King?
As if something had changed while they’d been away. I had a funny feeling, though, that they knew they might come home to a king on the throne.
They’d said I was queen, that Faer needed me to rule. Would we rule together? Or did the king not feel like he needed me at all?
Tension boiled in my stomach at the thought of seeing the twin brother I’d grown up with, who I didn’t remember at all. I swallowed, suddenly more anxious than I’d ever been facing down shifters or vamps.
“I have so many questions,” I told them, my voice tight with anger. “Questions you should have answered.”
The look Azrael gave me was full of regret, but it didn’t help me now.
“Come along, Princess,” Nikia said gently. She gave them all a dirty look, as if she didn’t know why I was angry but she was on my side, and that made me like her a little.
Nikia swept away through the stone halls
, expecting me to follow.
The three males were terrible, and I hated them, but I still hated to leave them behind.
It’s only because they’re the only familiar faces in this world.
It isn’t because I feel anything for them at all.
Chapter Eighteen
Azrael
Seven years earlier
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded as I faced the lavender-haired girl in the snow.
She had to be in pain from the wound in her shoulder, but she still managed to pull quite the insolent face.
“My name’s Alisa,” she said. “Faer is my twin brother.”
I stumbled over my words—and my thoughts—for a second. There had been a girl in my room all along? We shared a private bathroom, and I’d never seen Faer—Alisa—naked. She’d never seen me. But we’d still be so close. The memory of whipping her with those wet socks, the two of us tussling across the ground while she laughed helplessly, rose again in my mind. But this time felt different.
“I’ve got to deal with your wound,” I reminded myself as much as her. She gritted her teeth, trying to press her hand over the wound and spark her magic to life. Blood rapidly pumped from the wound, soaking the remnants of her tunic and flowing into the snow. Magic flashed around her fingertips, then died. She was weaker than she wanted to admit, and her head fell back against the trunk of the tree.
“Don’t give up,” I warned her. “You’re not going to enjoy the combat medicine class that comes up in a few months. That’s going to be far worse than this little bite.”
“I don’t think anything here is made for my enjoyment,” she managed.
I pushed her hands out of my way and raised my own magic. She grimaced as my healing magic poured into her. Healing isn’t an autumn strength, though winter is the worst at it, and I knew I was hurting her. The grimace turned into a panting of pain, and finally she couldn’t hold back a whimper, though she tried to swallow the sound.
Normally, I’d have felt just fine about my idiot roommate feeling the pain from his poor decisions. On the other hand, I was protective of females. I had conflicted feelings seeing Alisa in pain.
“You are terrible at this,” she managed through her gritted teeth.
Actually, my feelings were becoming less conflicted by the moment.
The wound knit together between my touch, then her skin healed over. When the wound was red with tender new skin, I pulled away and stood to my feet. I towered over her.
“Does King Herrick know where you are?” I demanded.
She scooped a handful of snow and held it against the red skin where the wound had been; apparently my healing magic felt like a burn. She hadn’t exactly expressed any gratitude either for the fact that she was no longer bleeding out. Her face looked drawn and tired, but Alisa’s eyes were still bright. She always looked as if she were plotting some bit of mischief.
I nudged her calf with the toe of my boot. “I’m waiting.”
She sighed. “Yes, Herrick knows where I am.”
“The king gave his blessing for you to sneak into an all-male academy?” I asked skeptically.
She smiled mirthlessly. “Not his blessing, no.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
She turned that insolent gaze up to me, the same one she’d given me posing as Faer that always tested my patience. As if she were speaking to a child, she said slowly, “I don’t need anyone’s blessing besides my own, Azrael.”
I dropped to a crouch beside her. “You know that by law, entering the academy under a false name is a ticket to the hanging tree?”
“I’m sure they’re going to string up the high king’s daughter. Even the masochistic assholes teaching here aren’t that stupid,” she scoffed.
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “You don’t even like it here.”
She met my gaze, her eyes blazing with challenge. “Faer didn’t want to come. I did.”
“Why?”
“You ask so many questions, Azrael.” She yawned as if those questions tired her.
Now that I knew who she really was, I wondered how I ever mistook her delicate features, her slender body, for Faer’s. I knew from his reputation that he was slight, that he didn’t care much for the training yard, but Alisa… with her beautiful lush lips, her bright eyes and those rounded cheekbones, she was the gorgeous. No matter how short her lavender hair was cropped.
“Let’s focus on the important ones then,” I said. “Why the hell shouldn’t I tell people who you really are?”
She tried to pull together the bloodstained rags of her tunic, and I sighed in exasperation and yanked mine over my head.
She shook her head, rejecting the gift. “I don’t need anything from you.”
My voice came out icy. “Oh, really?”
She looked up at me, something flashing through her eyes at my threat. Then she smiled, confidently, as if she already knew just how I’d react. “Azrael. You can’t tell on me. We’re having so much fun together.”
I laughed at that. “You’re breaking the laws that govern the four kingdoms. Your father might be high king, but maybe you could pretend to care about those laws.”
“I do,” she said, her voice brittle, as if she didn’t appreciate the accusation.
My mind raced. I held out my hand, offering her help up. I still gripped my shirt in my other hand. “Let me tell you how this is going to go, Princess.”
She ducked her head to hide a laugh at my high-handedness. Irritation flickered inside me, but I pushed it away.
Vail had assigned me to mentor and help my younger charge. I intended to do just that.
“You’re going to get up,” I said patiently. “And put this shirt on, and you’re going to say thank you, you ungovernable brat. And then we’re going to go back to our room before we’re caught, and keep up this little charade. But you’re going to explain it all to me, Alisa. Why the hell are you here, really?”
She glowered up at me for a few long seconds. I held out my hand, waiting. She suddenly slapped her hand into mine, and I pulled her easily to her feet.
It was hard to let go of her hand, and she didn’t move to pull away. Tension seemed to shimmer in the air between us. I’d grown fond of ‘Faer’ the past few months, despite his many faults.
When I looked at Alisa, I knew I could feel fonder of her, in a very different way. At a bare minimum, she’d be sent off from the academy in disgrace if she were found out.
But most of all, perhaps, I didn’t want to say goodbye to Alisa. The academy seemed like it would be boring without her.
“You’re going to keep my secret?” she asked, her body close to mine.
“For some reason,” I grumbled. “You must have infected me with your foolishness. If I’d known that your kind of stupidity would be contagious, I would’ve asked for another roommate back when you first strolled into our room—”
Her smile was like the sun coming out after a heavy rain. “You would have done no such thing. I keep your life interesting, Azrael. You need me.”
I scoffed at that. “Not at all. And for the record, just because I know your true identity, don’t think I won’t hesitate to—”
“Be absolutely miserable to me?” Her eyes widened innocently. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. I enjoy our little game. You don’t even realize the half of what I manage to get away with under your nose. And our instructors, oh…” She trailed off meaningfully, a mischievous smile teasing at the corners of that beautiful mouth.
“I don’t understand,” I said frankly. “What are you here if you don’t take any of this seriously?”
She looked genuinely surprised at that. “I do take it seriously. Our training—what we do matters. Every Fae royal should be able to fight for our kingdom.”
“What about Faer?”
An unpleasant expression crossed her face, and she murmured, “I don’t know what’s become of my brother. He’s always had a lazy side but now… the wa
y he sides with Father… I almost wonder if he’s enchanted.”
She shook herself, as if she’d realized she was revealing too much, and her expression changed in an instant. “Nevermind about that. I always wanted to come here, since I was a kid listening to bedtime stories about the Fae knights, and when Faer turned down his place, I saw my chance.”
I scoffed. “Some fairy tale.”
She inclined her head, admitting I was right. The realities of what faced us in the ever-growing rift was worse than any story.
“I just wanted to prove myself,” she said.
“To who? No one even knows who you are. And you’ll never be allowed to fight, since you’re a summer court princess.” My words came out brusque, but they were the truth. “Sooner or later, if you succeed in getting through the academy and sneaking off, you’ll have to return to reality. And no one will ever know what you did.”
She smiled up at me. “I’ll know, Azrael. And now, you will too.”
She pulled my shirt from my hand and despite the blood loss that should’ve left her staggering, she managed to sashay back toward the walls guarding the academy.
Chapter Nineteen
Alisa
Nikia led me into a spacious room with gold-streaked marble floors and walls. Even the flowers blooming in pots everywhere couldn’t quite warm this space. She gestured toward a wooden door at the end of the room.
“No one enters King Faer’s private apartments,” she said, “except for family.”
“And servants?” I asked.
“Human servants,” she said, as if that was supposed to mean something to me. I frowned.
“What did I come back to, Nikia?” I asked.
She glanced toward the closed door. “I’ll come to your chamber tonight to help you get ready for the ball.” Her voice was hushed as if she were afraid someone would hear. “We can talk then.”
“The ball?” I demanded.
Her wide smile lit her eyes with amusement. “Yes! Faer has been planning for your homecoming for a long time! Tonight there will be a big celebration. Bigger than solstice.”
