Page 11 of The Cursed Crown

She’dneededhis respect. Now, she’d earned it. Along with a healthy dose of apprehension.

He hadn’t seen his dream when she’d touched him. She’d left him with nothing but his nightmares.

Rissa couldn’t deny Rydekar had impressed her too. No one had managed to get out of her grasp until she’d allowed it before. Generally, she left her victim slobbering on the floor. Rydekar barely seemed winded.

He eyed her like she was a poisonous snake hiding under a bed of grass.

Good.

Rissa lifted her chin. “Never forget. I bite when I’m cornered.”

A Crow’s Nest

Rissa retrieved a blue gown speckled with silver stars in the red and gold coffer at the foot of her bed, and put it over her chemise. It was backless, showing off the soft feathers growing at her back and on her shoulders.

As a child, she used to hide. She plucked until her skin was red and blotched. She covered herself in heavy, long coats, even in the worst of summer's blaze. Now, she was unapologetically herself. Thorns, vines, feathers, and all. Concealing her nature hadn’t earned her anything, save for discomfort and an extra dose of contempt from her peers. She liked backless gowns, when the weather allowed it. Her feathers itched when constricted by fabric.

“How far are we going?” She’d never been to the Old Keep, but if she remembered her school days well enough, it was at the borders of the seelie and unseelie land. That didn’t mean much—the two fae lands adjoined for a hundred miles.

“The ride should take four hours or so.”

Rissa stole a glance over her shoulder. Rydekar was touching her things, picking up a ring, a necklace, and throwing them back on her cabinets with an annoying carelessness.

No one else had ever touched her things like this. Not the maids who’d dust her parlors, not her father, not her friends. It grated her to watch him take trinket after trinket, analyzing them with his sharp violet eyes before setting them back down. Never had she felt so judged.

The thought of his living so very close to her was also unsettling. He should have been farther than a half-day's ride away. How was she ever going to feel safe again, knowing that he could get to her whenever he felt like it?

She shoved the anxiety back down. He wouldn’t feel like it. He’d tracked her down because he was under the ridiculous assumption that she could help him unite the folk under one banner. Well, he was mistaken. Once she delivered the man who actually could do that, Rydekar Bane would never bother to think about her again.

“Where were you, before moving the court to the Old Keep?”

His amethyst eyes slid to hers. “Why do you ask?”

A pertinent question, to which she had no answer. None she’d voice. She would rather cut her tongue out than admitting any curiosity or interest out loud. “This is called making conversation. You may have heard of it.”

He turned back to her cabinet, picking up a black ring—the last piece of jewelry she’d made. “Here and there. The high court is set in Whitecroft, traditionally, but a monarch has to oversee all territories. The Old Keep is the only dwelling vast enough to comfortably house representatives from every one of my courts, as well as our army, and whoever consents to join us from Denarhelm. We’ll remain there until the threat of Antheos is dealt with.” Rydekar might exude power, but it was the first time he sounded like a gentry—courtly and callous all at once.

This was his professional facade, Rissa realized. She’d asked for casual conversation, and that was what she was getting.

She didn’t like it much, so she let the subject drop.

Reluctantly, she threw a bloodred riding cloak over her shoulder. It wouldn’t do to damage one of her prettier gowns on the ride south.

“You’re fond of jewels.” Rydekar said it as a fact, not a question, so she didn’t bother to respond. “Like a crow picking up shiny things and bringing it to her nest.”

Her eyes went to the sky, although she couldn’t see it past her roof. Silently, she prayed the old gods to give her the strength not to murder that smug bastard. “Bird insults. That’s so very original of you.”

She’d been at the butt of a thousands of those, at the very least.

“If that’s your idea of an insult, you need thicker skin to survive my court.”

What sheneededwas a very sharp object to pierce his.

“These aren’t fae-made,” Rydekar noted. She didn’t have to look to know which jewels he referred to.Hers. “Do you trade with dwarves?”

First she was a crow, and now a dwarf. Grinding her teeth, she resolved to remain silent.

Rydekar only sighed.

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