Ever
“I am amazed the girl has walked from this hall unscathed,” says my brother, while I fight the urge to look over my shoulder and watch the wasp be marched away by my mother’s companion and adviser.
The queen gives a delighted smile. “You think I am without mercy, Rafael?”
With a dramatic flourish, Raff steps toward the throne and descends upon a knee.
His lips brush her fingers. “I know you to be so, Mother.” These words are music to her ears.
Laughter tinkles from her lips, soft and deceptively sweet-sounding. She pats Raff’s head like he’s an obedient hound, and the mire fox shrinks away from her touch, its teeth bared. Spark isn’t a stupid creature.
“Thank you for riding to meet your brother. Your joy in his return is commendable. Being second in line to our kingdom’s throne, one would expect you to be far less enthusiastic.”
Raff isn’t stupid either. Being the Black Blood heir is no enviable position, and he knows it well.
“Rise, Rafael,” she commands. “Kian waits impatiently to entertain you in the onyx courtyard. You may leave us.”
His dark head inclines, a sign of respect contradicted by the errant smirk on his lips. “Then I shall bid you farewell, Mother.” Footsteps echoing throughout the hall, he strides toward the eastern stairs that will lead him to a punishing bout of sword play with our cruelest of companions. Flame-haired Kian. Bane of my life and my oldest friend.
“Your Majesty.” I bow and spin around, preparing to depart with haste.
“Wait.” The whip crack of her voice tightens my shoulders and halts my exit.
Frozen, I submit and wait for her next order.
“Ever,” she says in a lighter tone. “Tarry a moment, won’t you?”
A request rather than a command. That’s unusual. She rarely asks for anything.
With my face carefully blank, I turn and meet her cold iron gaze. “Yes, Mother?”
“Time spins fast and with every moon cycle, you are closer to running out of it. By now, I imagine the pain you suffer from the curse is almost unbearable.”
She’s right, it’s agony, but I refuse to admit it.
“Do you travel to the Crystalline Oak tomorrow and seek your destiny?”
Not that damned tree again. This mother-son chat might take longer than I hoped.
Sighing, I pat Balor’s head. “Go and rest,” I tell him as I point at flames flickering in a cavernous fireplace to the left of the dais. Sensing my unease, he groans to stay at my side before hanging his head and skulking toward the bed of furs on the hearth.
“Of course, I’ll go. It’s the correct time of month. The amber moon will balance in its branches at dawn. Why would I not?”
“Oh, no reason.” Her feline smile flickers as she tips her towering black crown toward the exact place Lara stood quivering by my side mere moments ago. “I only wondered if current low pleasures might distract you from the hunt for your queen.”
She wants to know if I’ve bedded the human. A pretense of respecting my privacy prevents her from asking directly.
“Me? As if I would care to trifle with a mortal girl.” I wince, the words acidic and hot on my tongue, so close to a lie.
I recall trapping the wasp’s fragile bones against the tree back in the forest, my lips brushing hers as I bent to suck air from her lungs—planning only to take a small draught. Just to taunt her. To make her uncomfortable and afraid. No other reason.
And then…
And then she accused me of kissing her. Incredible! I’d sooner kiss a hairy hog’s snout than that girl’s pale lips.
The queen’s eyes narrow as I dig fingers into my temple. By the Five. Since when did thinking a lie hurt?
“Come now, Ever, some would find her innocence and fragile countenance quite attractive.”
“And some members of your court take trolls and winter hags to their chambers. I usually have no taste for mortals. They are plain and boring.” Emphasis on usually and they—and on the group notion of the human race—no thinking of a particular pair of forest-blade eyes that with one cutting look can ignite my temper, blasting thunderbolts and squalls and tumultuous storms for miles around us.
I puff out my chest and strut forward. “Am I not your son, noble and arrogant just as you have always modeled? Give me credit, Mother, for I am at least as half as conceited and proud as you are. Why would I lower my standards and even think of touching that rust-colored girl?”
Why indeed.
Delight warms her laughter. “Yes, you are debauched in your revelry, my child, but hardly very noble. I thought you would have tasted the low charms of the human by now. After all, repulsion adds a pungent spice to pleasure. Surely, you agree?”
Unflinching, I hold her amused gaze, and say, “Surely.”
At my insolent tone, her gaze sharpens. “But, as you wish, Everend. If you say you have no desire for her, I will take you at your word. How can I not?”
“Indeed,” I say, and cut her an uncivil bow before spinning to face the exit.
I take one step.
Two.
Then I whirl back and face the bright throne of sparkling quartz. “Oh, and there is something else. Temnen was in Ithalah forest. Alone. And he spoke with the human while I was catching our breakfast. When I discovered him, he didn’t bother hiding his strong wish to claim her. And you know his father will covet her also.”
“Yes, when he learns of her, King El Fannon will do almost anything to steal her away. But by the Elements, what was Temnen doing alone so far north?”
And there it is—the question I cannot answer.
“I don’t know. It would be unusual for the Merit prince to sniff around the forest without purpose. But because I was busy issuing veiled threats to discourage him from taking her and also trying not to murder him in the process, I failed to make inquiries. I wished to avoid causing an all-out war between our courts. But, Mother, I tell you the urge to strike him down was fierce.”
She smiles. “Yes, I imagine the progress of the black blood makes it difficult to control your worst impulses. You must find your bride and halt its advancement. Before long, it will kill you.”
Wishing it would hurry up and do so, I look at the floor and avoid her accusing eyes. “Temnen also said, when the Merits travel past our lands to the Emerald Sea shortly, they plan to meet with you about the girl.”
A slight rise of her brow. “I would imagine nothing less.”
I take a slow breath, grit my teeth, and speak the words she expects to hear. “The mortal will bring us great trouble. Do you wish me to kill her straight away?”
She laughs, hands clapping in front of her silver gown. Swallowtail butterflies burst into the air making a black halo of beating wings before they flutter to the floor. Every one of them dead.
“No. Despite your violent tendencies, you must promise to leave the girl alone for now.” She clasps her hands together like a swooning milkmaid. “To think, in only a matter of days, I shall witness the Merits burning with need to possess the girl. A ceann a thugann athrú—a change bringer—is of immense value to their people, and she is all mine.”
Well, I found her, so technically the girl is mine. Wisely, I choose not to remind the queen of this fact.
“Go now and take your rest, Everend. You must be fresh for the journey to the tree tomorrow.”
Relief floods through me. I bow deeply, long hair covering my face. I am glad I don’t have to act against the human this instant. Before I end the wasp’s life, I’d prefer to have a meal and an enormous goblet of wine or three.
Whiny and intolerable she may be, but something akin to shame stirs in my chest at the thought of crushing her tender lungs. I banish the image of the silver doe from my mind. I rattle the sound of her song from my brain.
Go. Be gone.
“Goodnight, my Queen.” I step forward and kiss the rocks that sparkle from sharp rings on her fingers.
“Goodnight, my son. May you rest well and meet your destiny upon the morrow.”
I haven’t the slightest wish to meet my fate, only a burning hunger to end this curse forever—an impossible task.
“Balor, come.” My dog rises from the hearth, and I bolt down the endlessly long corridor as though a pack of banshees snaps at my cloak instead of one beloved hound.
As I reach the exit, my mother’s voice folds around my body, soft like a caress but deadly as a blade. “Oh, and, Ever? One more thing. When you arrived, the guards told me you carried the mortal in your arms, and my heart danced. But when you set her down to walk behind you, I knew she was no bride. But I did wonder how she came to be so protected, so cosseted by our merciless Prince of Air. A human, Ever, what were you thinking?”
My blood simmering, I stare at her—regal and composed—a briny, sulphuric danger infusing the air between us. Like my dead brother, Rain, water is her element. Words freeze, coating my throat thickly. Lies, every one. I cannot give a truthful answer that will please her.
Long nails, like green tourmaline wands, tap the sea dragons on her armrest. “As a child, Everend, whenever you were given your choice of a pet from a litter, every time without fail, you picked the weakest creature as your own. Do not let this pathetic mortal divert your attention. And do not forget what your strength did to those frail little cubs.”
I swallow, knuckles cracking as my fists close. Yes. It never ended well. I’ll always remember.
“Do not neglect your responsibility to your people and, as always, to the Throne of Five.”
“No, Mother. I won’t forget.”
Unfortunately, I have a constant reminder. The black blood. The poison. The encroaching darkness.
As I climb the stairs to my chambers, with each heartbeat, my blood pulses thicker. It speaks to me as it burns. It tells me things I do not want to know and do not wish to hear.
Remember, the black blood says. Always remember.
You are not your own master.
You are beholden to me, my creature.
It is written. And so it will be.
You are mine, Everend.
Forever mine.
Forever.
