A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford

Chapter Fourteen

I wasinterested to see the princes’ quarters, but it wasn’t far up the path that I realized we were headed back to mine. The other fae had started to wander out of the great hall, their drunken footsteps carrying them precariously through the swinging bridges crisscrossing overhead.

Caldamir shut the door as soon as all four of us had stepped inside the house, checking through the vines draped like curtains for any listening ears that might have wandered too close.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “This is getting more interesting by the second.”

“We’re only here because you asked for it,” Caldamir reminded me, leaning up against the wall so he could keep an eye out the window with his peripherals. “Don’t make me regret this.”

I had half a mind to tell him just where he could shove his regrets, but for once, I managed to keep my mouth shut. I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to finally get some answers.

Armene had already sat backwards on the only chair, his legs sprawled out along either side as he leaned on his arms crossed over the high back. Tethys, meanwhile, had chosen the bed—but not in the traditional sense. He’d found a perch atop the back of the headboard, one foot propped up at his side, the other dangling over the edge.

Tethys saw my wandering gaze and leaned forward to pat one of the pillows beneath him. “Here’s as good a place as any. Right where you belong, between my legs.”

“Tethys …” Armene glared up at him through the dark strands of hair that’d made their way out of his bun.

I, in turn, ignored my aching feet and planted them firmly on the branches making up the floor.

Caldamir took that as the sign to begin.

“You know you were brought here to fulfill a deal, but that isn’t the full truth of it.”

My carefully measured breaths did nothing to stop my heartbeat from racing again.

“It’s no secret to either realm that the fae haven’t been visiting as often as we used to,” Caldamir continued, “but there’s a reason for that.”

“The magic,” I said, slowly. “There’s something wrong with it.”

“At least that’s one thing we don’t have to explain,” Armene muttered. He’d taken on his own kind of vacant stare. He and Tethys both.

That’s how I knew I wasn’t going to like what Caldamir had to say next.

“The glamour operates on a system of what you call ‘deals.’ We’d hoped that completing one, something long-standing, would bring back a spark. But then when I saw you at Otto’s estate, I had another idea.”

“I knew it,” Armene practically growled this time, his eyes narrowed as he glared at Caldamir. “I knew you’d planned this all along.”

“I’d hardly call it planned,” Caldamir snapped back, before turning to me and squaring his shoulders. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but here we are. How much do you know about the fae realm?”

“Basically nothing,” I admitted. “Everything I thought I knew has been wrong so far.”

“Well then,” he said, “I’ll try to keep things short, but there are some things you need to know. A long time ago, there were more than four courts in Avarath. There were more than princes. We had a king.”

“If you could call that wicked creature a king,” Tethys muttered from his perch.

“Wicked or not, that king held the key to our glamour. Our magic. So, when he lost the war—”

“There was a fae war?” I asked, before biting my own tongue again, afraid that anything that came out of my mouth would ruin the chance I had of getting further answers.

“A great and terrible one,” Armene answered. He was still staring ahead, but something flickered across his face as he said it. A haunted look, the look of memories he wished he could forget. “It nearly tore Avarath apart.”

“In order to defeat the old king, one of the greater courts sealed him away so that only one of their own kind could re-awaken him. We were so blinded by the need to rebuild our kingdoms that we didn’t realize what that meant until it was too late,” Caldamir continued, his face fighting the same haunted expression. “When the war ended, faerie was left in ruins. We didn’t blame the greater courts for abandoning it … not until we realized why. It wasn’t until later—much later—that we started to understand the true consequences of what they’d done.”

“The king acted like a conduit through which all glamour of this realm flowed. When we imprisoned him, new magic stopped entering Avarath. All that remained was what was here at the end of the war … and over the last couple centuries, it’s been slowly dwindling away.”

Caldamir fixed me with his stony glare. “The courts that abandoned Avarath knew that and left us here to slowly die with the glamour. And die we will. Slowly. Painfully. Unless we do something about it.”

I didn’t dare ask what he meant.

Tethys answered my unspoken question, anyway. “It was the death of a Starlight Fae who sealed him, so only the death of a Starlight Fae can release him.”

All three of the fae were staring at me now.

“Please.” My voice sounded small as I struggled to control it. As much as I wanted to know everything, I didn’t want to waste time. I didn’t want these three to descend back into fighting before I’d gotten any actual answers. “But what does this have to do with me?”

“I lied to you that first day we met,” Caldamir said. “It wasn’t your human blood that would make you hunted here in Avarath. We—I—brought you here, because there’s a chance you’re not just fae-marked. You’re not cursed, Delphine. You’re fae. Not just any fae … Starlight Fae. The last of their kind.”

All three of their faces were stony now, serious—a far cry from the laugh that bubbled up and spilled over out of me, wracking my shoulders until I had to reach out and grab the wall for support.

“You find that funny?”

“I find it ridiculous,” I said, only after I’d managed to regain my voice. I motioned down to my frame, utterly normal by human standards, but positively miniscule compared to even the smallest of fae. “White hair and black eyes don’t make me fae.”

“Not full fae, but a descendent, maybe,” Caldamir said, something about his voice a little too careful. “Your village had a reason to believe you were fae-marked. The hair, the eyes … those are distinct markers of the Starlight Fae.”

“Fae that spent altogether too much time in the human realm.” Tethys’ voice was the one that surprised me the most, however. For perhaps the first time since we’d met, there wasn’t even a hint of some unspoken jest on his face. He stared determinedly at the wall directly in front of him, one hand absentmindedly worrying at the rings on his fingers.

I shook my head, eyes narrowing. “No way. I’m not fae. It’s not possible.”

“Not all fae, no … but enough to count,” Caldamir said.

“Maybe,” Armene interjected. “Maybe enough to count.”

I could feel the blood draining from my face, and with it, the room started to tilt around me. This time, when I reached for the wall, it wasn’t to steady me from laughter.

“So, what you said earlier about me being unable to live in Avarath as a human, that was a lie?”

“No,” Caldamir said. “If you are human, you’d die before we reached the Mountain Court.”

The Mountain Court.Caldamir’s kingdom.

“But if I’m fae … then I’ll die after.”

Caldamir paused for a moment before he nodded, however reluctantly.

I felt like I was going to be sick. “And this isn’t another fear thing? Another cruel trick where you end up giving me a paper cut and calling it a sacrifice?”

“No,” he said. “This time, the wording of the deal is very specific. It isn’t only blood that must be spilled. It must be a life.”

“Not just any life,” I reminded him. “My life.”

“Lord Otto never gave me up, did he?” I asked, suddenly. “You had something to do with that.”

“Humans are easily convinced. By the time Lord Otto offered you up, he truly believed it to be his own idea.”

I felt the slightest flash of guilt for the hatred I’d felt for Lord Otto when he’d showed up at my cottage, the deepest sense of cutting betrayal. He, like me, was just another victim of the fae.

“And I, more convincible than most.” I shook my head. “Why should I believe anything any of you are saying?”

“It doesn’t matter if you do. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be well on our way to my court. You can come with us as a guest, or you can be brought as a prisoner. That, at least, is up to you.”

Armene and Tethys both started at that.

“Tomorrow? Shouldn’t we take some time to discuss things first? Consider our other options?” Armene asked.

Tethys nodded his head in agreement. “There’s no need to be hasty. Like we all agreed earlier, Delph being fae changes everything.”

“It’s precisely for that reason that we have to leave right away,” Caldamir shot back. “You think the other fae here haven’t started to get the same idea? It won’t be long before news of her spreads … and not all the fae will agree with us.”

“Oh, I wonder why?” Tethys said, sarcasm heavy in his tone. “I know I’m really looking forward to having that king back on his throne again.”

“I, more than any, have reason not to want him back,” Caldamir said, fixing Tethys with what I was beginning to realize was his signature glare. “But I know this is the only way. So, unless either of you can come up with another way to bring the glamour back, then we leave at first light.”

“This isn’t the last we talk on this,” Armene said, matching Caldamir’s glare.

“And I don’t expect it to be,” Caldamir said. “There’ll be plenty of time for talking on the road.”

All three of their heads cocked to the side suddenly, but by the time I picked up on the rustling sound outside the door, Caldamir was already throwing it open to confront our eavesdropper.

“Show yourself, Waylan.”

The demon materialized beneath the stoop.

Caldamir shot Armene a dirty look. “Keep track of your pet, or I won’t be held responsible for what happens the next time I find him creeping in places he shouldn’t be.”

The demon bared his fangs at Caldamir in what was supposed to be a smile, but it wasn’t fooling anyone.

“That’s enough for one night,” Caldamir said, glancing back over at the rest of us. “If we’re going to get an early start, we need to rest.” He nodded at Armene as all three of them started getting back to their feet—which in Tethys’ case meant jumping down onto the bed first, which he did with surprising grace. “Have your demon keep watch. Even the boldest of Nyx’s fae won’t dare approach with him guarding the girl.”

“So, what happens now?”

All three of them stopped in the door, but Armene and Tethys looked to Caldamir to answer my question. Which he did.

“You make your choice. You ride in ropes, or you ride free. We have a duty to our people to fulfill. That has to come first.”

“A duty that’s dependent on me actually being fae,” I said.

“Well then, if you’re human, then none of this will matter anyway, now will it?”

That, at least, I couldn’t argue.