The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3) Read online

  Wyn had frozen in place. Hetta had never seen him so completely taken aback before, his expression curiously vulnerable.

  “It hadn’t occurred to you that I came with family attached?” she couldn’t resist teasing him.

  “Not that particular aspect of it,” he admitted, still staring after Alexandra.

  She laughed, tugging him back into motion again. “Just remember you also get Aunt Sybil as your aunt too.” But her amusement faded as she told him about Bradfield’s information, and the stirrings of interest from the newspapers.

  Wyn grimaced. “I confess, it would surprise me if Mrs Thompson gave an interview. I had thought she’d forgiven me for the bank incident. Besides, spreading rumours doesn’t seem like her—she was considerably more, ah, direct in her approach in the past.”

  Hetta gave him a look, because while he might be able to joke about it, she still remembered the sharp spike of fear at the sound of the gunshot, the bright red of blood staining his feathers.

  “Well, I’m going to visit the magazine’s offices, here in Meridon,” Hetta decided. “Caro never got a response to her letter, but it’ll be much harder for them to ignore me in person.”

  He looked down at her with such a depth of emotion that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “I never intended to make you infamous,” he said softly. “I am sorry for that.”

  She poked his shoulder. “You forget I’ve been the cause of my own infamy for years.” Though that infamy had been on a much smaller scale than this.

  A weight of anxiety began to creep back. Information was all very well, but how were they going to convince the queen to let Wyn go? She put this to Wyn, who tried not to look troubled.

  “I did not handle things yesterday as well as I might,” he admitted.

  “Yes, you shouldn’t have agreed to these.” She slid her hand down his arm and squeezed the hard outlines of the dismae beneath his coat.

  He blinked. “No, I meant that I should perhaps have been more conciliatory. Queen Matilda is right to be worried about what my—or rather, my kind’s—presence in the Mortal Realm means. But my temper got the better of me, I’m afraid.”

  Hetta huffed, not liking the way he’d phrased that, as if he were an invasive species of bird. “Well, I’m not signing my oath of fealty until she frees you,” she said in a low, fierce tone so as not to be overheard.

  “Hetta—”

  “No. It’s the only bit of leverage I have here, and I’m not going to pretend it’s reasonable to treat you as a danger to the realm. We can conjure up ten years’ worth of testament to your non-dangerousness, if needed. If Queen Matilda doesn’t believe that, then that’s as good as saying she doesn’t trust Stariel to deal with its own internal affairs, and—and I’ll go to the Conclave with that if I have to.”

  Wyn didn’t point out that her membership in the Northern Lords Conclave hadn’t yet been ratified. He drew to a soft halt, looking down on her with dark eyes, and there was a tiny hint of cardamom-and-storms for a heartbeat. It snapped out, and he winced.

  She put a hand on his wrist again. “It’s a small torture, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not worth Stariel, my love.”

  Hetta wanted to argue that he most certainly was, except that she made it a rule not to lie to him. It wouldn’t be fair, since she was the only one of the two of them that could. A prickle of guilt set up camp in her conscience. Ought she to be so reckless with Stariel’s fate over one man?

  “I don’t see why it has to be one or the other. And I am thinking of Stariel. The Iron Law coming down has already affected the estate—and it’s going to affect all of Prydein, sooner or later. Treating you like a criminal isn’t going to help make a bright united future between humans and fae, and neither is you martyring yourself.” She met his eyes steadily, her heartbeat suddenly loud in her ears. “Or you pretending to be human.”

  Wyn sucked in a sharp breath, but before he could respond, a fourth guard—really, was this necessary?—appeared, accompanying a pageboy with a summons from the queen.

  20

  Choices

  Wyn tried to settle his very unsettled emotions as they were escorted to the same room as yesterday, and not least because he kept accidentally activating the dismae. They left Alexandra unhappily waiting in the uncomfortable antechamber.

  At least today there were only two guards standing unobtrusively by the door, one of whom announced them as they came in. Progress? It wasn’t a formal audience, and Queen Matilda was standing rather than seated this time. Only one of her advisors was with her—the blond-haired Earl of Wolver. He frowned at the sight of Hetta’s arm linked with Wyn’s.

  Queen Matilda weighed the two of them before she met Wyn’s eyes. “I have heard you found sufficient activity to entertain yourself this morning.”

  She wasn’t using the royal plural today—was that a good or bad sign? Or merely a shift in tactics?

  “Yes, Your Majesty, I did,” he said mildly, playing oblivious to the subtext. “Thank you for the quality of the rooms you assigned me.”

  She narrowed her eyes and sat, allowing them to follow suit with a wave of her hand.

  “I’m sure all the palace is very fine,” Hetta said tiredly. “But can you tell us what you want, Your Majesty, and how we can change your mind about keeping Prince Hallowyn here?” Hearing his name and title on her lips sent a strange, quivering emotion through him. Prince Hallowyn. He both wanted and did not want to hear her say it again.

  Queen Matilda smiled very slightly. “It is customary to open the conversation with pleasantries, Lord Valstar, before launching into blunt demands. Such are the hallmarks of civilisation.” She turned to Wyn. “I find we are sadly lacking in information on the fae courts, Your Highness. If you mean to be an ambassador for your people, I would know more of them, and yourself. Which court do you hail from?”

  He was going to have to be very, very careful here. “I am a prince of the Court of Ten Thousand Spires, Your Majesty. There are many courts in Faerie, some large, some small, but thinking of them as equivalent to different human countries is not an unreasonable comparison. ThousandSpire is one of the upper courts, which means it is one of the most influential in all of Faerie.” It pained him to place so much weight on his bloodline, but he needed her to see more than just a single, easily disposable individual when she considered him, needed to give the impression that he represented vast numbers. In a way, he did.

  “And how is it that you come to be in Prydein?”

  He danced around that one. “A disagreement with my father, now resolved.” He looked at Hetta, let his feelings for her rise to the surface. “But now I have more reason to stay than to return.”

  Queen Matilda hmmed, apparently not swayed by this sentimentality. Ah, well. It had been worth a try. She moved on, her interrogation far more thorough than Penharrow’s. How great an area did the Spires comprise? What were its armies and resources? How many other fae courts were there? Oh, it was all phrased very delicately, but Wyn could read the subtext as well as anyone.

  The grandfather clock ticked. Hetta kept quiet during the conversation, though he could tell she was thinking furiously. He couldn’t read the queen’s hawk-blue expression as she folded her hands neatly in her lap.

  She let the silence build for a time. Eventually she said to Hetta: “I cannot have my lords’ loyalties divided. I will grant you permission to marry him, Lord Valstar, if Prince Hallowyn will agree to renounce his ties to Faerie and pledge allegiance to the throne of Prydein.”

  There was a weightless moment just before a dive, when you folded your wings back and before gravity took hold. Between one second and the next the earth would tighten its grip and suddenly you would be dropping as swift and deadly as a stone. Wyn had never experienced that moment whilst earthbound, but he felt it now, breathless as if he were miles above the Indigoes.

  He should accept the offer, if Hetta would. The stormwinds knew he didn’t want the Spires. Why then, thi
s hesitation? But Faerie was more than just his tie to ThousandSpire, and he wasn’t sure what breaking his ties to it would do to him. But I spent nearly a decade living with a broken oath, as a shadow of myself. It wasn’t unbearable. How often had he wished to be human, for Hetta, without the complications of his fae heritage? This was merely the logical extension of that. It was simple. He could do it. He should do it.

  He opened his mouth to express willingness, but Hetta spoke, cold and hard: “No.” She put her hand on Wyn’s arm and met his eyes, something steely in their grey depths. “No. Those terms are not acceptable.”

  He closed his mouth, unable to speak even if he knew what to say. Gratitude and guilt tangled together in a jagged ball of razors in his throat.

  The queen’s eyebrows went up. “Well, then, I hope you find your accommodation comfortable, Your Highness, for it seems your stay may be an extended one.”

  21

  Balcony Encounters

  Later that day, Wyn stared through the glass of his balcony doors at the ivy-covered walls of the internal courtyard, feeling oddly raw. There’d been no chance to discuss anything with Hetta, since the queen had all but thrown her out of the palace after she’d flared up in his defence, and his door-guard—William, he’d learnt his name was—had regretfully informed him he was under orders not to let him wander.

  At least Queen Matilda had offered her permission for them to marry, despite the strings attached. He stared unseeing at leaf, brick, and mortar and turned his mind to his own liege. The High King wasn’t the sort of person you summoned; rather the reverse. But it must be possible to find him. If only his godparent wasn’t still trapped by whatever was going on in the Spires—Lamorkin would know where to begin seeking the High King, he felt sure. Stormwinds, he hoped they were all right.

  Claustrophobia clawed at his chest, and he rested a hand against the panes of the glass doors, spreading his fingers over their cool fragility. Was this a test? Even setting the glass aside, this entire setup was ludicrously insecure. Did the mortal queen want him to escape and thus draw cleaner lines between enemy and friend?

  He reached for the ornate brass latch, not truly expecting the doors to be unlocked, but the latch turned easily, opening onto the private balcony. Floral-scented night air wafted in as he stood there, blinking in surprise. Was this unguarded balcony door a trap or simply a mortal oversight? In Faerie it would certainly be the former, but mortals weren’t as casually duplicitous, in his experience. Then again, he didn’t know these Southern mortals so well as their Northern counterparts. Maybe baited traps were as commonplace here as in Faerie.

  Cautiously, he stepped onto the balcony. Below was a carefully cultivated courtyard of flowerbeds and shrubs, cut through by paved walkways. It lay deep in the shadows cast by the tall buildings on all four sides, untouched by light from the setting sun.

  A small figure burst into the courtyard. It was a girl-child, her braid swinging out behind her as she charged along the path, head down like a tiny blonde bullet. She drew to a panting halt below his balcony, out of sight but not earshot, and he heard her begin to climb up the trellis towards him. He strained, and sure enough, through the door across the courtyard came the sound of someone calling, with irritation rather than alarm.

  The girl was making excellent progress up her makeshift ladder, but the gap between the balcony and the trellis was tricky, and she faltered as she reached the top. The trellis shook violently, threatening to peel itself from the wall and take its cargo with it. Quick as a cat, Wyn reached down, took hold of one thin arm, and hauled the girl over the ledge.

  The girl’s wide eyes were a familiar piercing blue, so he wasn’t especially surprised when a woman emerged into the courtyard calling: “Your Highness! Your Highness!” The woman harrumphed, as if she was accustomed to losing her ward and out of patience with it.

  The girl—the princess—shot him an urgent plea, imploring him not to reveal her. Wyn wasn’t proof against mischievous children, so he merely quirked an eyebrow and stepped back through the balcony doors. She scrambled after him and they both stilled, waiting. The woman below made a circuit of the courtyard, her exasperation increasing, but eventually she decided that her quarry was elsewhere. Her receding footsteps echoed on the stone paths and then faded into nothing as she entered the building on the other side of the courtyard.

  Meanwhile, Wyn and his new friend inspected each other. Now, was it sensible, helping the queen’s offspring evade her caregivers? Possibly not—although it did give him the chance to practice his ambassadorial diplomacy. It was cheering to think at least one royal mortal might not dislike him on sight, even if the royal in question was under the age of ten.

  “Who are you?” the girl demanded when the woman had left. She looked around the room accusingly. “And why are you in here? There’s never anyone in here.”

  “I could ask you much the same questions,” he said, folding himself down onto the nearest chair so as not to tower over the child.

  The girl frowned, her chin jutting forward. “Everyone knows who I am,” she declared. “And this is my palace. And you should not sit.”

  “Why not?” he asked mildly.

  “Because I outrank you! And I’m a girl,” she added as an afterthought. “You have to wait for me to sit.”

  “What if you were a boy?” he couldn’t resist asking. “And I were a girl?”

  “I would still outrank you,” she said primly.

  “But we have not been introduced, so how can you be sure?” A smile tugged at his lips. The princess saw it and flared up.

  “Because I am Crown Princess Evangeline!” she announced, stamping one small foot.

  Wyn bowed his head “I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Crown Princess Evangeline.”

  The princess narrowed her eyes. “You’re laughing at me.”

  “I am, a little,” he agreed. “It is only that our meeting was something of a surprise to me. I did not expect to encounter princesses climbing in my balcony, nor for them to upbraid me on my manners, having done so. Now I wonder: Should I rise, having already sat, or will that only make the situation worse?”

  She giggled, imperiousness melting into childish delight in an eyeblink. “Well, I suppose it’s all right for you to sit, since you didn’t tell Lady Hawkins where I was.”

  “Thank you,” he said solemnly. “Will it make you very angry if I tell you that I’m not sure you do outrank me, Your Highness?”

  “I outrank everyone,” she informed him. “Except Mama and Papa.” Her face fell. “And maybe the baby, if it’s a boy.”

  Interest quickened, but he didn’t let it show in his expression. The queen was with child? “That seems unfair.” Mortal inheritance laws still puzzled him.

  She shrugged. “It’s the law.” Her attention wandered towards the door, and he knew she was contemplating her exit route. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I am Prince Hallowyn Tempestren of the Court of Ten Thousand Spires.” An iron truth on his lips, despite his ambivalence in invoking it.

  She blinked at him. “That sounds like a made-up name.”

  That startled a genuine laugh out of him. “It is my true name; it is impolite to make fun of it.”

  Her mouth grew mulish. “Princesses do not apologise.”

  “Never? I do not recall either of my sisters being given such a far-reaching exemption.”

  “You have sisters? Are they older than you?” There was a yearning in her expression.

  “I have two sisters,” he told her. “And three brothers as well.” It was peculiar to be speaking so freely of his family when even at Stariel so few people knew such details. “All of them are older than me. And all of them have names you would likely think made-up.”

  “You’re not the Crown Prince, then,” she said smugly. “You don’t outrank me.”

  He spread his hands. “Ah, but we don’t have such a thing, where I come from. Any one of us might inherit the throne.” Cold crept into h
im and curled up around his heart.

  “How do you decide then?”

  “We don’t. The land decides for us.” It was very nearly a lie, and the words were thick and difficult in his mouth as a result. The land did decide, but hadn’t he made his own decision on that front? Would he rule the Spires now if he’d embraced rather than fled its touch, after King Aeros’s death?

  The thought chilled him. He hadn’t let himself put it in those terms before: the Spires wanted me for its king. He made himself think the words: I could have been king. I could still be king, if the faeland hasn’t bonded yet. But he would not be the King of Ten Thousand Spires. He would not. Thwarted storm energy crawled through his veins, seeking an outlet and not finding it, painful in its constraint. Stormcrows, what if his choice didn’t matter in the end? Dust and metal, arrowing towards him across Stariel lands…

  “There’s a Northern estate like that,” Princess Evangeline said, and he grasped at the new subject with relief.

  “Yes,” he agreed with a smile. “I know.”

  Growing restless, she began to investigate the depths of his room with quick, birdlike movements. Confidently, she trotted towards the interior door.

  “I wouldn’t leave that way if I were you. There’s a guard.”

  She skidded to a halt, and he suddenly wondered what the guard would think if a small, grubby princess emerged. There was a leaf caught in her braid, and her dress was smudged in places from her climb. Why in the high wind’s eddies did her carers choose to dress her in such pale, delicately embroidered fabric? It seemed a waste, or at least an unfair burden upon the laundrymaids if this was a regular occurrence. Ten years ago, the thought wouldn’t have occurred to him; such trivialities were not of concern to princes. But a decade of domestic service had left its mark.

  “Why is there a guard?” Her eyes grew round and interested.

  “Because I’m a prisoner,” he said. “Because I’m fae.”