His Plan
“Lord Aedan!” Auberon whirls. “Get your bannermen here and arrest
Malleus. My son as well. And then we will deal with the human-loving
peasant mob outside.”
Aedan lifts his chin. “I think I prefer to stay out of this, Your Majesty.
Like the Dream Stalker, I have a great aversion to unnecessary death.”
As he speaks, I recall the poisons in his bedroom with a shudder. Man
loves his poisons.
Auberon pounds the table. “My son thrives on death. What is the
meaning of this?”
Aedan stands. “I tend to agree with Prince Talan. The kingdom has been
mismanaged, and that is the cause of the unrest now.”
Every word planted in his brain by Talan long ago.
“This is treason!” Arwenna’s father, the Marquis de Bosclair, gets to his
feet. “You will do as our king demands.”
“I will not.” Aedan looks resolute. “It is time to take a stand.”
The marquis’s cheeks turn pink. “Once we’ve dealt with the
commoners, I will march my own armies against any noble who refused to
obey His Majesty. The king is correct. Any commoners marching on the
king are trying to aid our enemies. They’re working for the filthy humans
who spread the famine. They’re our enemy within our kingdom, and we
must deal with them the way we do any threat to the crown.”
“That’s nonsense.” Ker-Ys’s shrill voice rises. “They’re not helping the
humans, and they’re not demi-Fey. They’re just starving. I stand with Prince
Talan.”
And here before me, each strand of Talan’s plan weaves together in
perfect precision.
Months of whispering dreams into nobles’ ears, of sowing thoughts like
threads—now, his schemes stitch themselves into place, a tapestry worthy
of Elaine of Shalott’s loom. He’s even managed to construct it so that KerYs has looked like his enemy. For months, he’s been controlling Ker-Ys to
oppose him. Now, I realize, it
All of the Truth
His eyes lock on me, cold and certain. “You’re not getting away, not
without answering my questions. I recognize the feel of your mind, but I
can’t read your thoughts. I’m not a telepath. So, you’re going to do
something new for you and actually tell me the truth.”
I take a step back, eyeing Talan warily. My fingers twitch, and my legs
are still shaking, giving me away. My whole body is charged with panic and
something more corrosive. Heartbreak, maybe.
Months of deception have made lying second nature, and my mind
offers up a whole garden of falsehoods, pretty little blossoms of deceit
waiting to be plucked. Should I offer him another rotten bloom while I hide
a knife behind my back?
The question is which lie to pick…
Am I a scared farm girl blackmailed by enemies? An agent conspiring
with Fey nobles to put him on the throne? Am I a wide-eyed innocent, a
blank slate? An idiot?
Maybe a politician’s trick—I could just lie, lie, lie, flood him with lies
until he’s too exhausted to bother with the truth.
But the lies feel brittle now, dried roses ready to crumble at the slightest
touch. I can’t bring myself to lie again. And Talan won’t fall for it anymore.
So, I say nothing, because that’s all I’ve got left—silence.
The wind toys with Talan’s hair, lifting dark strands. “I’ve been inside
your mind before.” His voice is cold as midwinter frost. “Isn’t that right,
little telepath?”
I nod, just once.
My mind churns wildly like a raging storm.
He knows I stole from him. He just doesn’t know why.
He steps closer, slowly, like he has all the time in the world to destroy
me. All the warmth leeches from the air around us. In my thin nightgown, I
shiver.
“And why did you steal that map from me?”
A Dragon ride
“We’re winning, but I have to leave Brocéliande again for a few days.”
He studies me for a long moment. “Before I go, do you want to join me for
a ride?”
My heart sinks at the phrase we’re winning. “Okay. I’ll get Clover. I
think she’s in the stable now, right?”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Yes, but I didn’t mean a ride on a horse.”
I press my hand to my chest. “Oh. Is this really how the legendary
seducer proposes sex?”
His slow, sly smile sends heat prickling down my spine. “I do love that
that’s where your mind went, but I meant on Tarasque. Do you want to ride
with me on a dragon?”
“On the dragon?” Is he out of his mind? “But only dragon riders are
allowed to ride. Also, I’d fall off.”
“I’m the best dragon rider who’s ever lived, and I will keep you on. I
know how you like to cling to me, anyway. You won’t slip.”
My heart pounds with the allure of doing something dangerous,
something that I absolutely should not be doing. And yet…when will I ever
get the chance to ride a dragon again? Probably never. “Let’s do it.”
His eyebrow rises in what I’ve learned is admiration. “Good. Meet me
on the other side of the Lost Palace. I can only get her out that way.”
My pulse races as I step outside into the biting air and wind my way
down the path around the old palace. Icicles drip from gargoyles and stone
carvings of human heads with tusks and owls with their wings spread out.
Snowy yew branches arch over me.
As I walk, I hear the creak and groan of doors opening. I follow the path
around the palace and see Tarasque lumbering through the doors and into
the garden. Talan is in front of her, completely at ease with his beast. He
radiates quiet confidence and power that makes my breath catch. “Let’s go,
Tarasque.”
The enormous dragon slithers forward, and I can feel the
Slowly Falling for him
I glance at Talan cautiously. “Whose blood is on your sword?”
“Someone made the mistake of testing my patience. You’d think people
would have learned by now.”
Vague. Annoyingly so. “Another traitor?”
He cuts me a sharp look. “I won’t let anyone get in my way.”
A chill ripples up my spine as he stalks over the snow.
The air seems to grow heavier and otherworldly until the forest opens
into a clearing, a path lined with ancient statues and pale purple hedges. On
the far end of the path, the Lost Palace emerges from the wintry forest, a
haunting edifice of twists and curves. Ice and snow glaze the stones,
sparkling in the pale light. Fog billows around a frozen garden of heather
and bare yews. Moths flutter around us—not metallic, but real ones that are
bright blue. Corbinelle moths. Beautiful to look at, but they’re venomous.
Like Talan, really.
Stone arches frame a door of carved oak, peaked in the center. As we
walk closer, my gaze flicks up at the statues. I stop to stare at one of them, a
towering, crowned queen with long hair that drapes over her robes. My
gaze slides to the symbols on her wrists, and an ember of recognition sparks
in my mind. The encircled triple spirals remind me of the ones I saw in
Nimuë’s tower—and look exactly like the ones I’d seen on my wrists for a
moment in the bathtub. As I stare at them, cold magic slides over my wrists.
Talan follows my stare. “That’s Nimuë. She built this palace long ago.
She’s buried here, in fact. Did you know that before she was the Lady of the
Lake, my grandmother had that role? Before she was queen.”
I stare at the triple spirals again. Three Ladies of the Lake. “Queen
Morgan.”
Thank the ancient gods we don’t have the same grandmother in reality,
given some of the filthy thoughts I’ve had about him.
I draw a shaky
He knows Things
I turn to look at the darkening sky outside, and another bolt of lightning
spears the clouds.
Hugging myself, I remember what Darius said all those months ago. I’d
suspected it for a while, and I’d seen it when we’d fought the basilisk.
There are rumors that Talan can not only control dreams, but the weather.
I cock my head. “Tell me, Talan. Why would anyone keep a primal
power a secret? Everyone thinks they’re gone from the world, but you
control the weather, don’t you?”
A flicker of surprise crosses his features. “The weather responds to my
magic. I wouldn’t say I have much control, and if I did, I would most
certainly keep it a secret, just like you tried to hide yours from me.”
“Right, because we both know what happened when you discovered
mine. Now, I’m your plaything.”
His eyes glitter like dark jewels, and his gaze sweeps down my body,
then up again. The dark, velvety feel of his magic wraps around me, making
my pulse race. “Not nearly as much as I’d like you to be.”
I stare up at him. “You and I don’t exactly go together.”
“And yet here we are, the only two people in the world with primal
powers. And I think you like me more than you let on. Even if you know
I’m evil down to my bones, some part of you wants a taste of my poison.
Underneath your pretty little uptight farm girl exterior, you hunger for
chaos. You crave adventure. You want the freedom to make bad decisions.”
His voice drops low, and a dangerous edge slides through his words. “And
what’s a worse decision than me?”
I swallow hard, trying to ignore the resonance of his words. After years
of trying to balance my mom’s bank account and make enough rent money
for both of us, sometimes I wanted to break everything. Burn it all down.
“And what led you to that conclusion?”
“You always had to be the
What did you get into
The torchlight dances in his dark eyes as he stares down at me. “Let’s
start with your name.”
“I’m Severine.”
“No. Your real name.”
“That is my real name.”
He cocks his head, and a lock of ebony hair falls before one of his eyes.
“If I desire, I can wrap you in a dream, girl. And in that dream, you will feel
compelled to say your real name a thousand times. You will say it for days,
for weeks, until you starve half to death, until the word no longer has
meaning. So, let’s try this again. What’s your name?”
Thunder rumbles outside, rattling the diamond-shaped glass panes.
I feel it then, a touch of his velvety power, brushing at the edges of my
mind. Threatening to wrap around me, to envelop my reality. He really will
do it unless I act fast. The shield in my mind isn’t strong enough. There
wasn’t enough time to practice.
Lying works best when it is laced with truth. I can give this evil fucker a
crumb.
I narrow my eyes at him, jaw tightening.
I should be acting like a meek girl, intimidated by the crown prince. But
Raphael’s words still echo in my mind, and the state of his ravaged, tortured
body burns my thoughts like a brand.
“Fine, it’s Nia.” I spit out the words. “Vaillancourt.” My words come
out sharper than they should, while my mind is whirring, making up a story
that would work, that would convince him I’m not worth his time.
“So, Nia. What are you doing here?” His voice is so uncannily familiar,
and the sound of his deep, velvety voice as he speaks my name sends a
strange rush of heat through my blood.
My pulse is racing out of control. Some Fey can hear a heartbeat while
standing nearby. I wonder if he’s one of them.
I lift my chin. “My family and I are tenants on farmland we don’t own.
