Page 13 of The Cursed Crown

“I thought I noticed a family resemblance. But I can’t see the Lilwreath looks in you.” The entire line of Lilwreaths was marked with amethyst blood, echoed either in the shade of their eyes or hair.

Khal nodded. “We’re related on his mother’s side. My parents rule in the Court of Ash—our court’s relationship with the high crown has been tricky for generations, so Rydekar’s father married my aunt to smooth things over.”

“Ah! A political alliance.” She grimaced in distaste. “How did that work out?”

“Well enough for the realm. Not so well for my aunt. Uncle Dorin, Rydekar’s father, was never an easy man.”

“I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Khal laughed goodheartedly. “Oh, in this case, it does. Difficult, they may be, but Rydekar is nothing like his father, thank the Old Gods.”

Rissa might have asked what he meant, had Khal’s steed not reached the head of the party, settling at Rydekar’s right. One glance at his deadly glare, and she resolved to keep her mouth shut for now. She’d poked the bear enough for an hour or two.

“So, tell me, Khal. Anything I should know about the den of vipers I’m walking into?”

The general proceeded to gossip like an old hen, about this gentry and that, lower kings and queens. Rissa filed the names away in a corner of her mind as they trotted and galloped through the valleys, groves, and mountains separating the seelie lands from the unseelie kingdom of Tenebris.

Fairy Courts

Like any child of the gentry,Rissa had traveled to various neighboring courts in her youth. She put a stop to it as soon as she was old enough to be heard. The Court of Sunlight might despise their nightmare of a princess, but out of respect, or perhaps fear, they had the decency to conceal most of their disgust. The insults were whispered behind her back, rarely said to her face. The youth of the Summer Court or the Bone Court adhered to no such edict.

She wasn't under any delusions. The unseelie realm would be much worse. Seelie were creatures of order and proprieties. Most nobles of Denarhelm would sooner eat their ears than be seen disobeying a rule. Unseelie thrived on chaos.

She would have thought that she'd feel something the moment they left the confines of her world for a realm so different, but the scenery never changed. Darkened woods, twisted olden trees with stories of their own. As the shadows shortened and the night turned red in the east, Rissa fell silent and too still. They must be close now.

"Are we still on seelie land?"

Khal glanced back over his shoulder. "No, we left your home at the base of the last mountain."

Never mind the mountain, they'd left her home at the base of her tree, back in the Darker Woods.

"We're not quite in Tenebris, though. The first settlers meant this place to remain courtless, not unlike the Wilderness. This part of the Murkwoods is home to many a shy folk."

She'd learned all that, naturally. "The high unseelie court is settled in the keep. It might as well be. How did you achieve that, in any case? I believed the Old Keep remains closed unless it's opened up by both a seelie and unseelie monarch. Was that rumor?"

Khal was generally forthcoming with answers, but now, he turned to his cousin. The king had remained too close for her liking throughout the ride. He attempted no answer, pretending he couldn't feel both of their gazes set on him.

"No need for a monarch." The taciturn, pale sea land warrior at Rydekar's right hadn't said a word to her in the last few hours. Rissa would have sworn he only spoke now to spare Rydekar. "So long as a seelie and unseelie fae walk in together, the Old Keep's amenable."

"And you have a seelie fae with you?" She shouldn't have been surprised.

Rissa knew at least of one seelie who spent a fair bit of time in Tenebris—the captain of her father's guard, Meda, had been one of them for centuries. Yet she was astounded all the same. There was a considerable difference between dallying with the occasional unseelie folk and opening the doors to the ancestral home of their kind. One was a harmless distraction. The other could be seen as treason.

Rydekar finally saw fit to join the conversation.“Siobhe’s seelie."

Siobhe. She'd heard that name before, but Rissa couldn't quite recall where. She scanned through her memories of princesses and duchesses and children of the gentry, but they all blurred together in one pretty, horrific picture.

"His wife," Khal clarified.

Rissa's head snapped to the king.

Of course. She remembered now. An elegant lady with silver-white hair, planted at his arm the entire evening when they'd met. She hadn't said a word to anyone, least of all Rissa. Her eyes had been pale and beautiful; her limbs, long and so frail a burst of wind could have blown her away.

"Former wife," Rydekar amended.

In front of her,Khal's chest shook with silent laughter. "She still lives at court, does she not?"

"We were bound through a contract for a specific duration. That time has passed. She remains at court because she wishes it and I allow it."

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