Wren stiffens. He can see the careful way she is holding herself. Transforming her habit for shyness into remoteness. He is all admiration, except for the part where this new queen might decide he is nothing but a thorn to be excised from her side.
“Am I to advise you how best to deceive me?” she says, and he knows they are no longer just talking about his bruises.
Oak walks to the end of the table opposite her. A servant comes and pulls out the chair for him. Dizzily, he drops into the seat, well aware that it probably makes him seem sulky.
He has no idea what to say.
He thinks of the moment in the Court of Moths when he was told that Wren betrayed him, when it seemed certain that she had. Used him as he was familiar with being used. Kissed him to distract from her true purpose. He was furious with her, certainly, and with himself for being a fool. He was angry enough to let them take her away.
It was only later when he understood the details that a terrible panic set in. Because she had betrayed him, but she did it to free those she felt were unfairly imprisoned. And she did it with no strategic or personal benefit, putting herself in danger for Folk and mortals she barely knew. Just as she helped all those mortals who made bad bargains with the Folk back in her town.
He hadn’t found out her reasons before he’d let them take her. He recalls the uncomfortable mix of anger and fear over what might be happening to her, the horror of not being certain he could save her from Queen Annet.
He wonders if this dinner is because Wren heard he was hurt and regrets that, if nothing else. She certainly felt betrayed. But betrayal didn’t stop one from feeling other things. “I do have some experience with deception,” he admits.
She frowns at that unexpected confession, taking her seat as well.
Another servant pours black wine into a goblet in front of him, one carved of ice. Oak lifts it, wondering if there’s any way to tell if the liquid within is poisoned. Some he can identify by taste, but plenty have either no flavor or one subtle enough to be masked by something more aromatic.
He thinks of Oriana, patiently feeding him a little bit of poison along with goat milk and honey when he was an infant, making him sicker to make him better. He takes a tentative sip.
The wine is strong and tastes of something like currants.
He notes that Wren has not touched her glass.
I have to show her that I trust her, he tells himself, even though he’s not entirely sure that he does. After all, she wouldn’t be the first person he liked who tried to kill him. She wouldn’t even be the first person he loved who tried to kill him.
He pushes the thought away. Lifting his wineglass in salute, he takes a deep draught. At that, Wren finally brings her goblet to her lips.
Oak tries not to show his relief. “I asked you once about whether you might like to be queen in earnest. It seems you changed your mind.” He manages to keep his voice light, although he still isn’t sure why he’s sitting here and not at the other end of an ice whip.
“Have you changed yours?” she asks.
He smiles. “Ought I? Tell me, Your Majesty, what is it like, now that you sit on a throne and have so many demands on your time and resources? Do you like having courtiers at your beck and call?”
Her returning smile is tinged with bitterness. “You know well, prince, that sitting at the head of the table does not mean your guests will not fall to bickering over the portions on their plates, the seating arrangements, or the polish on the silver. Nor does it mean they will not scheme for your seat.”
As though part of her speech, two huldufólk servants enter the room and set the first course before Oak and Wren.
Thin slivers of cold fish on a plate of ice with a scattering of cracked pink peppercorns. Elegant and cold.
“As your guest,” Oak says, lifting his fork, “I have few complaints. And I am, in fact, at your beck and call.”
“Few complaints?” she echoes, one pale blue brow rising. “The prisons were just to your liking?”
“I would prefer not to return to them,” Oak admits. “But if I had to remain there to be here, then I have none at all.”
A faint flush comes into Wren’s cheeks, and she frowns again. “You asked me what I wanted with you.” She peers down the table at him with her moss-green eyes. A soft green, he always thought, but they are hard now. “But all that matters is that I do want you. And I have you.” Though that seems like a confession, she delivers the words like a threat.
“I thought you believed that there could be no love where one person was bound. Isn’t that what you told Tiernan?”
“You need not love me,” she tells him.
“What if I did? If I do?” Oak has proclaimed his love to people before, but that felt like play and this feels like pain. Maybe it’s because she sees him, and no one else has. The illusion he wears is much easier to love than what’s underneath.
Wren laughs. “What if? Do not play word games with me, Oak.”
He feels a hot flush of shame, realizing that was exactly what he was doing. “You’re right. Let me be plain. I do—”
“No,” she says, cutting him off, her voice simmering with the magic of unmaking, sending one of the fruits on a footed tray to pulp and seeds, one of the platters to molten silver. It sears through the ice of the table to drip onto the floor in shining strings, cooling on the way down.
She looks as startled as he is, but she recovers quickly, pushing herself into a standing position. A strand of blue hair has come loose, falling over her face. “Do not think I will be flattered because you think me a better opponent and therefore set me a more careful romantic riddle to solve. I need no protestations of your feelings. Love can be lost, and I am done with losing.”
He shivers, thinking of Lady Nore and Lord Jarel and how, though what was between them certainly was not love, it had something of love in it. He saw the former queens of the Court of Teeth immured inside the frozen walls of the Hall of Queens. That’s what it was to want to possess another, being unwilling to let them go, even in death. To murder them when you decided it was time for them to be replaced, so that you could keep them still.
Oak hadn’t thought Wren capable of wanting to possess someone that way, and he didn’t want to believe it now.
But she may think—after throwing him in prison and leaving him there—they are enemies. That she made a choice in anger that cannot be taken back. That whatever else he says, he will always hate her.
And perhaps he would hate her, eventually. He blames himself for much, and is willing to endure much, but there’s an end to his endurance.
“Perhaps you could remove the bridle, at least?” he asks. “You want me. You can have me. But will you kiss me even as I wear it? Feel the leather straps against your skin once more?”
A small shudder goes through her as she takes her seat again, and he knows he scored that point at least.
“What would you do to be freed from it?” she asks.
“Since you can use the bridle to make me do anything, it stands to reason that there ought to be nothing I wouldn’t do to get it off,” he says.
“But that’s not the case.” Her expression is canny, and he remembers how many bad bargains she has heard mortals make with the Folk.
He gives her a small, careful smile. “I would do a lot.”
“Would you agree to stay here with me?” she asks. “Forever.”
He thinks of his sisters, his mother and his father, his friends, and the idea of never seeing them again. Never being in the mortal world nor walking through the halls of Elfhame. He cannot imagine it. And yet, perhaps they could visit, perhaps in time he could persuade—
She must see the hesitation in his face. “I thought not.”
“I didn’t say no,” he reminds her.
“I’ll wager you were thinking of how you might bend the language in your favor. To promise something that sounded like what I asked for but had another meaning entirely.”
He bites the inside of his cheek. That wasn’t what he was thinking, but he would have eventually come around to it.
Oak stabs a piece of fish and eats it. It’s peppery and has been splashed with vinegar. “What will you do when the High Court asks for me back?”
She gives him a mild look. “What makes you think they haven’t already?”
He thinks of all the war meetings she was dragged to by a silver chain back in the Court of Teeth. She knows what a conflict with Elfhame means. “If you let me speak with my sister—” he begins.
“You would put in a good word?” There’s a challenge in her voice.
Before, she played defensively. Her goal was to protect herself, but one cannot win that way.
I am done with losing.
He sees in Wren’s face the desire to sweep the board.
He thinks of Bogdana, standing outside his cell, telling him that it is the High King she wants.
Was this all part of the storm hag’s plan? His sister’s lessons and his father’s lessons come to him in a confusing rush, but they are all wrong for this.
“I could persuade Jude to give us a little longer to settle our differences. But I admit that it will be harder with this bridle on my face.”
Wren takes another sip of her wine. “You can’t stop what’s coming.”
“What if I promise to return if you let me go?” Oak asks.
She looks at him as though they are sharing an old joke. “Surely you don’t expect me to fall for such a simple trick as that.”
The prince thinks of the key on the mantel, of the possibility of escape. “I could have left.”
“You wouldn’t have gotten far.” She sounds very sure.
Another course comes. This one is hot, so hot that the plate steams and the side of his ice wine goblet shines with melt. Deer hearts grilled over a fire, a sauce of red berries beneath them.
He wonders if Wren planned the progression of this meal. If not, someone in the kitchens has a truly grim sense of humor.
He doesn’t lift his fork. He doesn’t eat meat, but he’s not sure he’d eat this even if he did.
She watches him. “You wish me to make you my advisor. To sit at my feet, tame and helpful. So advise me—I wish to be obeyed, even if I cannot be loved. I have few examples of queens that I might model myself after. Ought I rule like Queen Annet, who executes her lovers when she grows tired of them? Like your sister? I am told the High King himself called her method of diplomacy the path of knives. Or perhaps like Lady Nore, who used arbitrary and almost constant cruelty to keep her followers in line.”
Oak sets his jaw. “I believe that you can be obeyed and loved. You don’t need to rule like anyone other than yourself.”
“Love, again?” Wren says, but the twist of her mouth softens. Some part of her must be frightened to be back in this Citadel, to be sovereign over those she was fighting mere weeks before, to have been ill, to have demands on her power. She doesn’t behave as though she’s afraid, though.
He looks across the table at the scars on her cheeks that came from wearing the bridle so long. At her moss-dark eyes. A feeling of helplessness sweeps over him. All his words tangle in his mouth, though he is used to having them come easily, tripping off his tongue.
He would tell her that he wants to stay with her, that he wants to be her friend again, wants to feel her teeth against his throat, but how can he possibly convince her of his sincerity? And even if she did believe him, what would it matter when his desires didn’t keep her safe from his machinations?
“I never pretended to feelings that weren’t real,” he manages.
She watches him, her body tense, her eyes haunted. “Never? In the Court of Moths, would you really have endured my kiss if you didn’t think you needed me on your quest?”
He snorts in surprise. “I would have endured it, yes. I would endure it again right now.”
A slight rosiness comes into her cheeks. “That’s not fair.”
“This is nonsensical. Surely you could tell I liked it,” he says. “I even liked it when you bit me. On the shoulder, remember? I might have a few tiny scars yet from the points of your teeth.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she tells him, annoyed.
“Unfair,” he says. “When I so love being ridiculous.”
Servants come to collect their plates. The prince’s food is untouched.
She looks down at her lap, turning enough away from him to hide her expression. “You cannot really expect me to believe you liked being bitten?”
He finds himself in the position he has so often put others, on his back foot. A hot flush creeps up his neck.
“Well?” she says.
He grins at her. “Didn’t you mean for me to enjoy it a little?”
For a long moment, there’s a silence between them.
The final course comes. Cold again, ice shaved into a pyramid of flakes, coated in a thin syrup as red as blood.
He eats it and tries not to shiver.
A few minutes later, Wren stands. “You will go back to the room in the tower, where I trust you will remain until I summon you again.”
“To sprawl at your feet like a war prize?” he asks hopefully.
“That might amuse you enough to keep you from mischief.” A small smile tugs at a corner of her mouth.
Oak pushes back his chair and walks to her, reaching for her hand. He is surprised when she lets him take it. Her fingers are cold in his.
She glances toward the guards. A red-haired falcon steps forward. Before Oak lets her hand go, though, he brings the back of it to his lips.
“My lady,” he says, eyes closing for a moment when his mouth touches her skin. He feels as though he is attempting to cross a chasm on a bridge of razors. One misstep and he’s going to be in a world of pain.
But Wren only makes a small frown, as though expecting to find mockery in his gaze. She takes back her hand, her face unreadable as the guards lead him to the door.
“I am not the person you believe me to be,” she says in a rush.
He turns back to her, surprised.
“That girl you knew. Inside her was always this great rage, this emptiness. And now it’s all I am.” Wren looks wretched, her hands pressed together in front of her. Her eyes haunted.
Oak thinks of Mellith and her memories. Of her death and Wren’s birth. Of the way she’s watching him now.
“I don’t believe that,” he tells her.
She turns to one of the guards. “On the way to his rooms,” she tells him, “make sure you pass the Great Hall.”
One of the falcons nods, looking discomfited. The guards escort Oak out, marching him through the corridor. As they pass the throne room, they slow their steps enough for him to get a clear look inside.
Against the ice of the wall, as though a piece of decor, hangs Valen’s body. For a moment, Oak wonders if this is Bogdana’s handiwork, but the falcon is neither flayed nor displayed in the manner of the storm hag’s other victims.
His throat is cut. A gruesome necklace of blood has dried along his collarbone. His clothing is stiff with it, as though starched. Oak can see the gape of flesh, cut cleanly with a sharp knife.
The prince glances back in the direction of where he had dinner with Wren.
When she noted his reluctance to name the person responsible for his bruises, she already knew. Hyacinthe must have conveyed Oak’s words to her. She could have done this while the prince donned his clothes for their dinner.
It is not as if he hasn’t seen murders before. In Elfhame, he saw plenty. His hands aren’t clean. But looking at the dead falcon, displayed thus, he recognizes that, even without Mellith’s memories, Wren saw things that were far more terrifying and cruel than anything he witnessed. And perhaps somewhere inside her, she is coming to learn that she can be all the things that once scared her.
