A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Caldamir arrivedwith a storm of fae flanking him. Nyx and Tethys were at his side, making Armene’s absence all the more notable.

Half of the Mountain Court must have come along as well, the sea of curious fae faces spilling out into the hallway behind the princes. Most of them looked on with the same expressions I remembered from my fever dreams, faces half curious and half disgusted—come to gawk at the same creature that barely had the time to pull on a chemise over her naked, recently recovered form, before they’d burst in without so much as a knock.

I’d forgotten, up until the moment I saw Caldamir’s golden curls framing those features as stony as the court he heralded, how much I hated him. One look, however, and I was quickly reminded.

“Ah good, so you didn’t die.”

Caldamir’s comment earned him a half jab from Tethys, but I couldn’t help but see how Nyx stood noticeably still at his side. His face was downturned, the spark in his eye not returned since he first laid eyes on his ruined forest.

The fae closest to Caldamir and the other princes were by far the oldest, their faerie faces still far fairer than any human ones in comparison, but with a certain dignity in their eyes and the way they carried themselves that only came with age. In this case millennia instead of decades. Caldamir’s court was markedly more sober than Nyx’s. Everything from the expressions on their faces to the colors of their clothes—all shades of gray and slate like the mountains surrounding us—was almost grim.

It was one of these older fae that reached out to touch Caldamir’s arm, the touch close to fatherly.

“It’s just as the demon told us,” he said, eyes widening as he leaned in closer to peer at me as if I was an exhibit in a cage. “If I may, my prince,” he turned to Caldamir, hands clasping in front of him. “I’d like to examine her. Take a look—”

“No, Navi. Not this one.”

The answer was firm, though from the way Caldamir was looking at me himself, I was surprised he cared at all what happened to me next. The rest of the fae might be looking at me like a pet, but he was looking at me like a meal.

A means to an end.

A sacrifice, little more than flesh and bone for one singular purpose.

That purpose, of course, being to die.

A slight murmur broke out among the eldest of the fae behind Caldamir, and from the glances they exchanged amongst one another, I guessed they weren’t used to having their requests denied quite so easily. His advisors, probably.

“There’s no need,” Caldamir continued, his voice steady though I noted the way his feet shuffled slightly beneath him, as if he too wasn’t used to having to deny the council outright. “It’s clear she’s fae of some kind. If not completely, then enough.”

Enough.

He didn’t elaborate.

He didn’t have to.

I realized, from the way the faces peered at me, from the way hands clasped in anticipation or wrung out of anxiousness, that there was no longer any secret surrounding why I’d been brought here. After all, if what Caldamir and the others had said was true, it’d been decades since the fae dared venture into the human realm.

Longer still since they brought one back with them—let alone for one to survive long enough to set foot in his court.

I’d have been a curiosity either way.

“Is it really going to be enough?” the advisor, Navi, asked, fighting against the instincts that made his hand twitch to reach out and touch me.

“It’s going to have to be.”

A hum of energy hung in the air around the fae, more than the whispered words shared between them.

“How disappointing,” one female fae said, just loud enough to be overheard from over Caldamir’s shoulder. “I was certain she’d have horns.”

“Humans usually do,” the male at her side said. “I guess that’s the fae in her.”

The fae in her.

More footsteps shuffled and necks craned to get a better look at me. I wanted to shrink back, to climb under the covers and hide from them, no matter how sodden they were with my own sick sweat.

“I don’t care how she looks, so long as it means we get the glamour back,” another fae said, not even trying to keep her voice low. “What’s the point in waiting, Caldamir? Why not do it now and have it over with?”

I froze, my heartbeat quickening until I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. It was a fair question, one I’d been wondering myself.

More mutters broke out, but from the sound of it, not everyone agreed.

Most surprisingly of all, was Tallulah.

The prince’s guard pushed her way to the front of the crowd, making more than a few of Caldamir’s advisors grumble loudly. She ignored them, instead choosing to set her jaw still tucked inside a metal helmet as always.

“Now that we know fae blood runs through her, then all the more reason to wait. It’s one thing to sacrifice a human. Another entirely to sacrifice a fae, whatever the benefit,” she said, shoulders squaring up as if daring anyone to challenge her. Even here, amongst all the other fae of Caldamir’s court, she towered above the crowd. “She should at least be given a respectful death, one deserving of the sacrifice she’s making for all of Avarath.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” Tethys said, his voice practically singing. His eyes cut over to me for a minute, and in that instant, I thought I saw something like relief flicker there.

I only wished he’d been the one to speak up in the first place.

“There’s no point in rushing things,” he said, throwing one arm over Caldamir’s shoulder, who immediately tried—unsuccessfully—to shrug it off. “Delph’s here. She’s safe. We should wait, at least until we’ve had time to make the proper …” He trailed off a minute, his many-ringed fingers curling inward before he finished. “Preparations.”

I couldn’t help but glance over at Nyx at his side, expecting to see some sort of agreement there … but found none. The forest fae was silent, his hands pulling and twisting at the ends of his loose locks of hair. Unless I was mistaken, he looked even more gaunt than I’d seen him last. It only could’ve been a couple days since I was rescued from the canyons by Waylan, but he looked haggard.

Well, almost. As haggard as he could while still somehow remaining to be the most gorgeous creature in the room.

His eyes had taken on a vacant expression. His lips parted, tongue moving behind them but his voice making no sound.

“Fine,” Caldamir said, after a moment. “We’ll wait. But not long.”

That same, unsettled rustling broke out around him. I watched as advisors and courtiers alike exchanged a mix of glances, as many angry as there were relieved.

Caldamir felt their discord rather than saw it. Though his back was to them, I could see it in the way he kept shuffling his feet, shifting the weight from one to the other as if he shared their same indecision.

“It’s settled,” he said, finally. “Tallulah, you’ll stay with Delph. I don’t want anyone here getting any ideas—one way or the other.”

* * *

It wassomething of a task getting Tethys to leave and Tallulah to stay. One wanted nothing more than a few, private moments alone with me, while the other—the hulking brute of a woman now sulking by the window with a hand nervously itching at the hilt of her sword—wanted nothing to do with me.

Well, aside from being quite possibly the only reason I wasn’t already laid out on some sacrificial pyre.

She’d escorted me out of what turned out to be the infirmary into an entirely new set of rooms in a part of the castle with so many winding corridors, I was surprised we didn’t get lost along the way. I called the place a castle only for lack of a better word. The rooms and corridors weren’t made from hewn stone and mortar, but rather tunneled straight out of the mountain itself. All the rooms opened up with some kind of windows—either looking out on the valley spread far below us, or a series of inner courtyards filled with gardens of glowing mushrooms.

The room we found ourselves in now was one of the inner rooms. Better, I supposed, to keep assassins from climbing in—or me from diving out.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, finally unable to stand the endless silence stretching on between us. I was going to go crazy from boredom soon, and it’d only been a couple of hours. I waited until Tallulah looked up lazily from her perch, backlit by a thousand glowing fungi in every color, before I added, “Why’d you suggest Caldamir wait? Wouldn’t it be better for you if I was out of the picture already?”

Tallulah let out a sigh, and my heartbeat quickened just a little.

“Do you still have the knife I gave you?”

“What?”

For a moment, something like sadness flickered across her face. I couldn’t be sure, not with the way her face was cast in shadow, but I swore for that single moment, she carried the weight of all of Avarath on her face.

“The knife I gave you before, in the forest. Did you lose it?”

I blinked at her a few times before carefully, ever so carefully, pulling out just enough of the hilt from where I’d tucked it beneath my new set of skirts that she could see it.

She nodded once, then went back to looking out into the cavernous inside garden.

“There’s more to this life than magic,” she said, head tilted back as if bathing in some warmth emanating from the mushrooms.

Before I had the chance to respond, to press her further for more answers that might lead me closer to the truth, another voice answered for me. Another voice I recognized all too well from the way it made my heart pound in my chest.

“Indeed, there is.”

It was Tethys.

I’d recognize that voice anywhere. The mischief in it was unmistakable.

The one thing I couldn’t recognize, and neither it seemed could Tallulah, was where it came from. Tallulah stood at the ready, two steps away from the window, hand on her sword.

“You heard Caldamir’s orders,” she barked, head swiveling back and forth. “No one is to step foot in these rooms.”

Tethys’ tongue tutted, this time the sound coming from another corner of the room. I tried to follow it, but by the time Tallulah and I had turned to that corner, Tethys’ voice was already coming from somewhere up above us in the rafters.

“What are you doing with that sword, Tally? Are you really going to run a prince through with it?”

“Tally?”

It was all I could do to stifle a giggle as the guardswoman’s face turned a shade of maroon I never thought possible.

“I wasn’t so sure about that before, but I’m starting to think I might enjoy that.”

“Well then,” Tethys’ voice responded, this time so close to my ear that it made a small shiver run down my spine. “Why don’t I give you a good reason to do it?”

I whirled on my heel a moment before Tallulah did, but this time, I didn’t find empty shadows. I found my prince.

And in that moment, he gathered me up in his arms, pressed his lips to my ear, and whispered, “Do you want to stay here, cramped in this room?”

I was so close to Tethys that I could feel every shape of his body. He towered over me, all muscle and sinew and excitement. I could feel his blood racing from beneath his skin, feel the press of his own excitement standing so close to me again.

All it took was a shake of my head, and suddenly, I was Tethys’ captive. His arms grabbed me roughly, spun me around, and pulled my back up against his chest—knife to throat.

“Careful now, Tallulah, or I’ll slit your precious charge’s throat.”

“You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

Tethys paused, the knife pressing dangerously close to my skin until I let out a small gasp at its prick. A single, hot bead of blood dribbled down the length of my neck.

Tallulah froze, eyes widening with panic. “Tethys, what are you doing?”

“Just giving the lady what she asked for,” he said. In the moment that Tallulah let down her guard, Tethys dropped his knife, grabbed me by the waist, and plunged us both out the window.