Page 6 of Joy Guardian

Sefri appeared satisfied with my answer. “The royal chef prepared it with the help of two Joy Vessels. They made sure the taste was agreeable for other humans.”

“It is veryagreeable,indeed.” I assured her, hardly tasting the food.

She gave me an assessing look. “Can I interest you in a companion for dinner?”

I stopped eating and lowered my head defensively.

It’d been two nights since I got the harness. Sefri’s last night’s attempt to connect a shadow fae to my emotions resulted in him cursing and stomping out of thesaraiin anger. The noble fae had called me useless, but Sefri didn’t seem to give up hope of using me.

“I don’t think it’ll work,” I warned.

Not much had changed since last night. I hadn’t become miraculously cheerful since. I couldn’t even remember the last time I felt joyful about anything.

“It’s not anyone from the royal court this time,” Sefri explained quickly. “He’s not permitted to taste your joy anyway. Please meet Joy Guardian Kurai,” she introduced the shadow fae standing at her side.

When did he get there?

Or had he been standing there all along?

I rubbed my forehead. Reality had been returning to me, but it did so slowly. The awareness of my surroundings remained narrow at times, allowing some things to escape my attention.

“Hello, Kurai,” I said, lifting my head.

Hearing the sound of my own voice, loud and clear, helped me break through the fog that threatened to shroud my mind again, bringing my surroundings into a sharper focus. It felt good to be able to speak openly again. After all, not so long ago, people used to call me “chatty.” But that was before Dylan came into my life and stole my voice, along with so many other pieces of me.

“Greetings, Sweet One.” The shadow fae, Kurai, inclined his head in a polite bow.

“Joy Guardian Kurai is here to help us make our Joy Vessels feel more comfortable with their newleilathaharnesses,” Sefriexplained. “He won’t taste your emotions but will keep you company this morning.”

I nodded, taking another forkful of my stir-fry.

Sefri left, leaving the male fae standing in front of me.

I expected him to try and chat me up, like the Joy Vessel Keepers had tried to do. But he didn’t say a word and didn’t even take a seat next to me on the stone bench by the fountain.

After a while, his silence started to bother me, and I ventured a glance at him between bites of my food.

He wore the same beige skirt like the Keepers. Unlike them, however, his shadowy appendages that they called “tendrils” were hidden. Instead, he had wide, golden strips encircling his neck, arms, and torso over the spots where his tendrils would be coming from. Two wide matching bangles also circled his wrists.

The golden strips around his arms and torso looked very similar to the black harness that they had put on me, only his strips didn’t have the rosettes.

His wavy black hair was shorter than the hair of the other shadow fae I’d met. It was pulled into a bun on the back of his head with a few thick strands on the bottom left unbound. They reached down only to his shoulders, when every other fae I’d seen in thesaraiwore their hair long and braided in different styles.

The silence between us grew unbearably uncomfortable, and I broke it first.

“Are you not eating?”

He cleared his throat, shifting his weight to another foot while towering over me.

“I already ate.”

Of course, it was only me who forgot about food, distracted by my newly rediscovered ability to think and analyze my thoughts.

“How are you doing after the harness fitting two nights ago?” he asked in the same polite but detached voice.

It had only been two nights, but it felt like I’d done a lifetime worth of thinking since.

I drew in a deep breath, focusing on my feelings. It’d been a while since I had a chance to assess them in any detail.

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