Page 55 of Fae Champion

“No, Your Majesty. I beg your pardon for my interruption,” I answered before I might risk speaking the truth. Hadn’t the guys told me the cause was more important than any of us individuals?

Even so, I couldn’t help but feel like a coward.

Disappointment flashed across the queen’s eyes, too fast for me to be sure of it, but enough to suggest she might have hoped I’d give her reason to carve out my tongue too, right then and there.

“It is wise to think before you speak in my court,” she admonished me. I took it silently.

Louder now, for all of her court, she announced, “May you all take note of how I treat my allies … and how I treat my enemies.”

She waved a hand at Finnian, and he scooped up Sandor and led him away. Sandor didn’t even resist, already a shattered man.

“Make wisely your choice of which you wish to be.” She allowed the threat to settle into the bones of her crowd before flicking her fingers at the orchestra assembled to one side of the dais. Immediately, the many fae scrambled to pick up their instruments. Their start was slightly jumbled in their haste, but within seconds, the same haunting, oddly jaunty tune rang out, announcing that it was once more time for this strange, violent, and somehow sensual party.

However, not a single fae left for the dance floor. Not yet. Not so long as I, her disobedient subject, stood before the queen.

She studied me now for so long that I had the opportunity to return the favor, and I was once more struck by how similar our features were. With our comparable frames, dark straight hair, high cheekbones, and plump sensuous lips, we might have been mother and daughter. I’d never been more grateful for the impossibility, no matter what kind of power the close connection to her and her bloodline might have delivered.

I glanced at my father. Tall and dark-haired was where our similarities ended. His brown eyes met my gray ones, and in them I recognized fear, perhaps this time for me and whatever fate awaited me.

“My husband has pled for mercy on your behalf,” the queen said, drawing my gaze back to her. “As I canbarely deny my darling a thing he wishes, I’ve agreed not to further punish you … this time.”

When I didn’t immediately respond, the king said, “The Lady Elowyn and I are most grateful for your merciful restraint, my dear. Isn’t that right, Elowyn?”

“Yes, yes,” I hastened to say. “Very grateful. Thank you.”

She narrowed her eyes at me as if I hadn’t been obsequious enough. I said no more, but tipped my head at her, regretting that I saw no way to use the icepick and walk out of here alive.

“My husband is overly fond of his relations,” she added in case I’d missed her displeasure.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I chirped.

She stared at me some more while I held completely still. She crossed her ankles in the other direction, leaning forward, and my butt clenched when she looked as if she might rise.

She didn’t, resuming her petting of the feethle at her feet, whose face was dyed red, the bowl of blood licked clean.

“Rush, as previously ordered, you’ll not leave her side. She’s now your responsibility. If she were to be foolish enough to commit any misdeeds while in your care, you’ll also suffer her fate.”

I shifted from foot to foot, ready to scream. The woman might have agreed to the illusion of my freedom, but she was cinching the invisible bars that caged me.

“I understand, Your Majesty,” Rush said, and Iwanted to punch him for agreeing so easily even when I’d been doing the same.

It wasn’t fair. Nothing the queen did was.

“Don’t sound so glum,” she told Rush as the orchestra transitioned into another song, this one more upbeat than the last, its rhythm ordinarily the kind that would have my feet tapping. Now I felt rooted to the spot, the queen’s will stronger than mine.

I hated it. Hatedher.

“It won’t be for long.” And though she continued addressing Rush, now she looked at me. “Tomorrow the two of you will fight. We all know you’ll emerge the winner of the Gladius Probatio, and then Elowyn will return home to the Forzantos territory, where she belongs.”

It wasn’t even a little bit where I belonged, but it didn’t much matter. I doubted the queen would let me leave here in one piece. She’d either order Rush to slice off my head in the ring, or she’d ensure I had an accident along the way. If the courtiers could so easily accept the assassination of their crown prince, and then the murder of the Lady Aleeza while standing around hobnobbing at a gathering much like this one, no one would remember me at all once I left, certainly not long enough to wonder why word of me was never heard again.

Whatever game the queen was playing, I didn’t comprehend it. She could have more easily dispatched with me right then and been done with me.

She pointed my way. “So you behave now, not justfor Rush’s sake, but for the”—she rolled her lips in disgust—“revolting dragon shifter and dragonling as well. They’ve been testing my patience, so if I were you, I wouldn’t give me any more reason than I already have to dispatch with them.”

I blinked at her—once, twice. “Xeno and Saffron are alive?”

Her nose and mouth pinched together. “Don’t speak their names in my court,” she thundered. The music faltered but resumed quickly. “It’s enough that I allow their foul presence at my palace.”

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