Page 88 of Crowned By the Fae King

She rubbed at her face, her shoulders sagging. "You're not fine. No one would be fine after that."

If I blinked, I would cry, so I didn't blink. "I don't want to talk about it."

Dani gave me a sad smile. "Do you want to go hide, instead?"

My mouth trembled. One hot tear fell out of my eye, unbidden.

That was answer enough for her. "Go," she said, giving me a little nudge. "Vad and I have dealt with the Clement Palace in chaos before. People are used to listening to us. I can hold down the fort for a bit while you recover."

I looked over at her, feeling pathetic.

"You know how to find us if you need something. Just be careful with Vaduin, okay? He's half-basilisk," Dani said, her expression going serious. "If he's already in a heightened state, he instinctively snaps killing glares at anything that startles him. If you need to portal to him again, shield your eyes when you do."

My skin went cold. It would be bad enough for Cass if I died or was seriously injured. If his best friend was the one who did it?

I wasn't sure there was any friendship that could survive something like that.

"I will. I promise," I said through the quiet horror. I took a shaky breath. "Are you sure you're okay with me hiding?"

"Deadly so," she assured me. "Go."

I did.

Bark & Bite

In all of the Clement Palace, there was only one place I could think of where no one would accidentally stumble across me. The spire of stone on which the thrones sat was central to the palace, but it wasn't a place people came often, and it was cold and snowy. Hidden behind my throne, curled up and staring out across the frozen mountains, I didn't think anyone would find me at all. After six hours of nothing but the cold wind and drifting snow, I was sure I'd been forgotten.

The crunch of footsteps in the snow proved me wrong. I looked up to see my swordmistress, her expression impassive and a heavy, fur-lined hood over her dark hair.

She was maybe the last person I would have expected to be looking for me.

With a clean motion, she unhooked one of the two swords hanging by her side, and tossed it onto my lap. It was the sword Cass had gotten made for me, the plain black scabbard unassuming but the star-iron within anything but.

"I think this should no longer leave your side," my swordmistress said, as emotionless as ever.

My hands closed around the scabbard. I wouldn't have been able to fight Ithronel—but having the sword in my hands gave me something to hang onto. That was talismanic, maybe; it's not like swords were any good if you didn't know how to wield them. I was under no delusions about my skill level. I was the novice my swordmistress named me.

It still felt better to have the sword than to be weaponless.

She took a seat next to me in silence.

We sat there for a while, my swordmistress staring out at the horizon and me staring into the middle distance. I kept expecting her to say something cutting, and she kept not saying anything. She didn't even seem to notice the expectant tension in the air. She simply sat there, silently, and breathed with the same steady pace of someone meditating.

"Why are you here?" I asked when I couldn't bear the silence any longer. "This isn't what you're paid for."

She didn't bat an eyelash. "I was paid to assess you, and chose to remain. I would not have done that for someone I deemed unworthy. You are my student," she said with calm finality. "You have a lesson to learn, and so I am here."

Sharp outrage shrilled under my skin in immediate defensiveness. "I don't need a lecture about this from you," I snapped, all but sneering the words. "Your job is to teach me about swords. This has nothing to do with you."

My swordmistress turned her head and regarded me as if I was a speck of dust. "Do not presume to tell me what is and is not swordsmanship, novice."

"Don't call me that. I'm your Queen," I said. The anger was all I had left; the only thing keeping me from sobbing like a broken child. I clung to it like a blanket. If I bent, even for one second, I would shatter.

"No, you are not," she said. Her eyes swept across me with dismissal. "I am not a citizen of any Court. I am a paladin of the sword." She turned her face back towards the horizon, her face set in flat calm. "If you cannot master your emotions, you will never master the sword. If you cannot see the field of battle with clear eyes, you will be struck down like wheat at the harvest."

I jerked back, the level words hitting me harder than any emotional outburst. "Do you even have feelings?" I asked viciously. I needed… needed something. Anything. If that was hatred, so be it. "I don't need relationship advice from some… some monk."

A slow blink, dark lashes sweeping across dark eyes. "I feel many things, novice," she said without any reaction. "You deserve to see none of them."

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