Page 61 of A Cage of Magic and Darkness

“And I don’t care. We’re all tired. You’re going to be the queen of Askos, and queens don’t lie around in bed all day feeling sorry for themselves. Now, get up.”

I groan and pull the blankets over my head.

Skylar yanks them back down and claps, once. “Now. Don’t make me say it again.”

“Since when did you become such a matron?” I complain.

“Since you started acting like a child. Now, get out of bed before I have to fill up a bucket of cold water to tip over you.”

I sit up, my mouth agape. “You wouldn’t dare.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Try me.”

I let out a low growl and swing my legs out of bed. “Fine.”

She’s right. I do need to face the world, however much I don’t want to. I’m battling the sense of overwhelm. The weight of grief from the loss of my mother, combined with fear for our future, and shame about what I am, and for the failure of the journey into the wildlands all feels like too much.

Despite this, I take a shower and wash my hair. Still wrapped in a towel, I sit at my dressing table and allow Skylar to brush out the tangle of knots. There are pieces of twig and grass tangled into the strands that even washing it didn’t get out.

“Have you seen Prince Ruarok?” I ask, not meeting her eye in the mirror.

“No, I haven’t. Like you, he’s been keeping himself to himself since you returned.” She gives my hair a couple more brushes, and then, feigning innocence, asks, “Did something happen between the two of you while you were out in the wildlands?”

An image of him under the blankets in the tent, his fingers inside me, while he speaks utter filth into my ear, bursts into my head. My cheeks flood with heat, and I can see how pink I am in the mirror. Even my throat and chest have become mottled.

Skylar presses her lips together and raises her eyebrows. “Should I take that reaction as a yes?”

I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

I’m surprised she doesn’t smack me with the hairbrush.

“You are telling fibs!” she exclaims. “It might as well be written across your forehead.”

I cover my face with my hands. “By the gods, is it that obvious?”

She lets out a shriek. “Tell me everything.”

“I didn’t have sex with him, if that’s what you’re asking. It was cold in the tent, and we got…close…but that’s all. And you mustn’t breathe a word of this to anyone, okay? He’s my stepbrother, and you know what his reputation is like. It doesn’t look good for me as a future queen.”

She blinks at me. “Are you even still related with the king and queen dead? I don’t know how these things work.”

Truthfully, I’m not completely sure either.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say finally. “People will still judge me. They’ll probably smack Ruarok on the back and congratulate him, but you know it’s not the same forwomen, especially someone with my high standing. I need for people to take me seriously.”

She meets my eyes in the mirror. “They do.”

“For the moment, perhaps, but I’m young and female, and I already have that going against me. Imagine if people hear that I’m also…intimate…with my stepbrother. It’ll be all I’m known for.”

“I understand. I won’t breathe a word. I promise.”

I offer her a smile. “I trust you, Skylar.”

My thoughts linger on my stepbrother. He hasn’t hidden the fact that he wants me, but I can’t help but question his motives.

Is what we seem to have together real, or is it just because of what he is? Am I simply connecting with the part of him that’s Incubus? Does he have this effect on everyone—woman or man? Perhaps that’s what makes him so dangerous. Was it part of the reason he was locked in the cage in the first place?

Skylar finishes with my hair. There is much to do. I shouldn’t have been lying around in bed, but I’d needed to recuperate. I need to see what progress has been made with the service to honor my mother and the king, and then there is my own ceremony. I’m not yet crowned, and the kingdom needs a ruler.

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