Page 24 of Heir to His Court

I rolled my eyes. “Not for bloodsport. For baseball, football, soccer. Sports where people don’t die?”

“What amusement is that?”

I gave him a flat look. “If you want to expand Everenne’s reach, you should consider the Olympics. A Fae enclave hasn’t hosted. It would bring in untold riches.”

Reality reasserted itself. An Ancient frolicked on the horizon, and I’d promised another to drag her son home.

“Ah, untold riches,” he said. He shifted toward me and wrapped his arm around my back, drawing me against him. “Is that your goal? Unlimited wealth?”

“My goals are modest. I want the internet.”

“Achievable, if one courts power.” He lowered his head, nuzzling my hair. “Here is power, in your arms. Admit I am useful to you.”

I snorted. “If I ignore the little negatives. Dishonesty, destruction, devastation.”

“Not devastation, surely. Everenne has never endured devastation. Nor will it, while I rule.”

General, Nayya had called him. General of Ninephe. What kind of strength must he possess, to secure power for two Ancients?

“The power in Everenne to make the changes I want is yours alone.”

He glanced down at me. “Yet here you are speaking, and I am listening. There are many kinds of power, Aerinne.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t realize—I just understood the hidden strings. I’d never aspired to be a player on the High Court chess board. As Lady of Faronne, I skirted too close to politics as it was. I handled the ‘politics’ that came at the end of a blade.

This? This was a whole other game, and I was nowhere foolish enough to think I had the age or experience to play properly.

Did any of this even matter right now, when I knew that I would have to turn my mind toward Ninephe? A thought I kept carefully, very carefully, tucked away. Raniel could not know that his mother had ordered me to lure her son home, away from Everenne. Which I would do, as I could see no other option if I wanted Juhainah’s gaze fixed elsewhere.Howto do it was the problem.

I couldn’t just knock him out, sling him over my shoulders and ease on down the road.

“I think,” I said, “that if power was my goal, I would want it in and of myself. Not because I stand at the side of a powerful male.”

“That is what I want for you as well. Tobea power, rather than to be wielded by it.”

I shrugged. “I need at least a decade of peace to begin to even find out who I am when I’m not required to kill.”

“You are a Fae Lord, Aerinne. An Avellonnian Kuthliele, last priestess of Psion. You may be assured there will always be enemies to kill.”

Unfortunately, true.

“What do I want, Renaud? What I want is a final dance for the night.”

I abandoned him for the revel, but of course he stuck to my side, a hand resting with deceptive lightness on my hip.

“Maybe we should import flashing “mine” signs,” I muttered, mostly sarcastic until it occurred that knowing bonded Fae, such a product would sell well.

Fingers brushed my neck. “Crude, but intriguing.”

I sneered at him, then passed Nifario, who waved us in with unblinking eyes.

“One more dance,” I said, winking at the quarter troll. “Then it’s my bedtime. My babysitter says so.”

“I sit no babes,” the Prince said, a little stiff. “You are adult.”

I gave him a sidelong look. “Sore spot, Old One? Did someone accuse you of robbing a cradle? Someone other than your mother, that is.”

He stopped walking.

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