A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford

Chapter Thirty

It seemedCaldamir was worried about the wrong kind of kidnappers—and more wrong still about the inner gardens somehow protecting me from them. The glowing gardens provided a far better mode of escape than the sheer cliff walls on the outside. Pathways and rooms honeycombed out from between the iridescent fungi, each one leading to more and more of those same winding passageways. Tethys never once let go of my hand, even long after our footsteps had slowed from their original skittering sprint.

By the time we stopped, backs pressed to a thick wooden door in some other part of Caldamir’s castle, I was the only one who’s chest was heaving from lack of air.

Tethys’ was heaving too, but for an entirely different reason.

My back might’ve been pressed to the door, but it was Tethys’ front pressed to me. One of his hands was still clasped with mine, his fingers tightening their hold when I finally realized how close we were standing and slowly, ever so slowly, lifted my face to look up into his.

His golden eyes were hooded, but their gold still somehow glinted with that mischief of his that never seemed to fade.

Standing here, in front of him, it was like the rest of Avarath began to peel away at the edges. The world beneath was gilded, like him.

His eyebrows arched up as he searched my face in a way that made my pulse race. He towered over me so close, not that he didn’t usually, just that he was so near to me that I was all too aware of how small every part of me was compared to him. His hand clasped in mine. His waist against my chest. His excitement, so unmistakably growing even more now that we were alone.

I should have been leaning away, should have felt my instincts telling me to run rather than draw closer to him—but that’s exactly what I did. I found myself rising up on the tips of my toes, the inches bringing me only minutely closer to him, but enough to make my breaths hitch a second time.

This time, for the same reason his still did.

“I’ve missed the feel of you in my arms,” Tethys whispered. He leaned his salty lips toward mine so I could taste the sea on his breath again.

“You say that like it’s been an eternity since that night.”

“An eternity sounds about right. Though if we’re being exact … thirteen days.”

I leaned back from Tethys then, to see the look on his face. “You kept track?”

Thirteen days. That meant the new moon was nearly upon us. The idea made a second kind of excitement blossom in my chest, made the heart inside me race more than it already was. It was so close that I was almost sorry. Here, in Tethys’ arms, it was easy to forget for a moment why I was in such a rush to leave the realm that held him in it.

If only for a moment.

“I thought I’d lost you back there, in the canyons,” he said. “You can’t know how afraid I was that I’d never get to see you again. Never feel the warmth of your hand or the …”

“Stop, Tethys. Stop right now.”

I tried to draw back again at his words, but Tethys only held me tighter.

“What is it?” he asked, voice low and thick as the honey that once sparkled on Nyx’s lips. Another pair of lips I’d almost forgotten the taste of. “What’s wrong?”

That mischievous sparkle in his eyes dimmed for something more like concern. I missed that mischief the moment it was gone.

“Is it something I did?”

His questions had served to bring everything rushing back.

Too much had changed from the night I lie with Tethys beneath the stars. I’d come to know Avarath, I’d come to know the princes. More than that, they’d come to know me.

That was the part that left my mouth dry and my stomach turning sour.

I dropped Tethys’ hand and—finding the press of the door still against my back—shoved him away from me. Only, he didn’t budge. I shoved him again and this time he obliged me, stumbling back a step of his own accord.

I’d been so consumed with escaping Tallulah and my quarters that I’d never paid attention to where Tethys actually brought me.

I’d expected the prince to try and take me to some secluded place—his bedroom or a largish broom closet or something of the like—but instead, we’d found ourselves in an abandoned corridor. The windows here looked out on that valley below, the lines of the plains and rivers so far below us that they looked like a patchwork of colors.

Even more windows came into view, a row so long that I could almost make out the whole line of the horizon behind him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, sharply, if only to mask my own breaths I struggled to force back into line. “What did you bring me here for?”

“I just thought you might want to get away from that old windbag.”

“She’s hardly a—” I cut myself off, shaking my head free of the words before I could be distracted. “That’s not what I meant, and you know that,” I said, glaring up at him. “How can you say you were worried about me when you know … when you know what you have planned for me?”

Tethys started to take a step toward me once more, but he forced himself to stop. “You think I wanted this?” His chest was heaving again, his voice growing louder. “I didn’t ask for this. For you. It’s not my fault that you consume my every thought. Night or day. Waking or sleeping. You’re there. You’re always there.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying …”

He moved forward, taking me up in his arms before I had the chance to decide whether or not I wanted him to. “I’m saying that I think I’m falling in love with you, Delphine.”

His golden eyes flickered between mine. His face was alight with a barely refined passion—a passion that I matched, but with violent fury.

I tore my hands from him and jutted my chin forward in anger.

“You don’t get to say that. How long do I have, until tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?”

Tethys’ lips curled up. “I don’t know what Caldamir has planned.”

“That doesn’t absolve you of your part in this,” I spat back. “What’s the point? Of … of this. Of us?”

Tethys’ hands hard started twitching again, and it was clear he was struggling to control himself.

“Is there really anything wrong with savoring what’s right before us, even if we know it has to end?”

“Yes!” I said, still glaring at him with all the despise I could muster. “It is when you could change it.”

“Delph … if it was up to me …”

The tone in his voice reminded me of what Nyx had said before.

“Everyone keeps acting like this is out of their control, but it’s not. At least Caldamir doesn’t pretend otherwise. You have a say in this too, you know. Are you, or are you not, a prince of Avarath?”

“It’s not so simple.”

I took another step away from him and looked him over again, bile rising in the back of my throat as I did. “That’s your excuse? That it’s not simple?”

“What’s the point of all this, Delph?” Tethys hissed. “You’ve known this was coming from the beginning. None of us lied to you. None of us told you anything but the truth. No one’s promised you anything different.”

“So you think,” I shot back. I should have been focused on keeping my head level, but every second I looked on as he struggled to answer me only made my temper burn hotter.

My response made Tethys pause, shock flickering across his face. He stilled, suddenly.

“What are you talking about?”

I’d been so careful to guard my secrets up until now. Now, I didn’t know that I wanted to anymore.

When I didn’t answer immediately, Tethys started to tug anxiously at his bound locks. “Was it Armene? I knew he was hiding for a reason. That bastard.” His eyes took on a glazed expression as he paced the short length of the room. “It would be just like him to take the moral high ground at the last minute, try to make the rest of us look bad.”

“No,” I answered instinctively, protectively even. “Armene is … as set on this whole thing as you are.”

As far as I knew.

“Who, then?”

The wild look in Tethys’ eyes left me with no choice but to answer truthfully.

“My kind. My court is coming to get me.”

“Oh, Delphine.”

He finally stopped pacing. The pity on his face only made my rage burn brighter.

“Delphine … the Starlight Fae … they’re gone. Really gone. They’re not coming for you. Why would you think …” He trailed off, looking confused for a moment before a knowing look dawned on his face. “The pool,” he said, suddenly shaking his head. “This is my fault. I should have seen it.”

He reached out to take a hand that I jerked away from him. “Delphine, you’ve been tricked. The Starlight Fae aren’t coming to get you. Any promise they’ve made to you is nothing more than a ruse.” A slight tone colored his voice bitter. “That was always their specialty.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head so violently that the room became a blur. “That can’t be true. I won’t believe it.”

“Whether you believe it or not doesn’t decide the truth, Delph,” he said. He paused to drag one hand down the length of his face, his eyes shifting from side to side as he looked at something only he could see. “Better fae than you or I have gone mad from that pool.”

My stomach turned. I couldn’t believe him. Wouldn’t believe him.

I had no reason not to trust the voice from the pool. No more reason than I had to believe him. Tethys could claim to not have lied about his intentions, but that was only true of his words. He and all the princes had played a dangerous game with me, a game played in stolen glances and soft kisses—or near kisses.

Or it had been a game until Tethys claimed to be falling for me. It wasn’t a game anymore.

No matter what Tethys said, he was no longer a righteous player here. His words didn’t make him a liar, but all the rest of his actions did.

“You’re wrong,” I snapped. “They’re coming for me. Soon enough, you’ll see.”

I knew I sounded like a petulant child, but I didn’t care. I was on the verge of something—a wild rage, tears, complete collapse—but whatever it was, I was saved from having to face it.

Tallulah had finally found us.

And a good thing too.

Any longer together, and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t say something to Tethys that I’d regret. I’d already revealed too much. Whether or not Tethys believed the Starlight Fae were coming to my rescue, it’d be better if he didn’t know how soon I expected them.

Nyx might have once rightly claimed that Caldamir was the only one of the princes worthy of my hate, but that wasn’t the case anymore. It was one thing to wish a stranger dead, another entirely to claim to know me, to care for me even, and still be willing to spill my blood.

Tallulah swore when she rushed through the door and laid eyes on us, but still, the relief was painted plainly on her face.

“Really, Tethys, you brought her here? You couldn’t come up with something more creative?”

I took one last look out the windows.

Avarath—the entirety of it spread out before me. It was breathtaking.

Even from here, at the peak of the mountains, the magic of it was unmistakable. The very air itself, once oppressive to me, had a spark of something to it. It had a sharpness, a bite. I could only imagine what it was like before whatever it was that had gone wrong.

I was grateful, in that moment, to see it at least once before I left.

Before the fae came and took me back to Alderia as they promised.

Tethys could claim all he wanted that it was all a ruse, but he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t made the deal.

I had.

And I chose to believe it.

It was all I could do to tear my eyes from the window to the predator that’d only moments before set my blood aboil.

“Still took you long enough to find her,” he said.

Tallulah took a few, deep breaths. “And not a moment too soon. We’ve been summoned. Caldamir is holding a feast. To celebrate.”

She turned to me, next.

“So, are you going to come willingly, or am I going to have to force you?”

“No. We were finished here anyway,” I said, turning a cold shoulder to Tethys’ frustrated one. “Might as well be tonight as any other.”

“Oh, hell no. It isn’t tonight,” Tallulah said, taking hold of my arm with a vice-like grip that I knew would be impossible to shake. “It’s tomorrow. But trust me, it’s going to take at least that long before we make you presentable.”