Page 135 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
My gaze hit the ceiling, watery and unstable. “I see why you’ve invited me to train with you,” I said with a forced laugh,trying to lighten the oppressive mood that was cloaked around us in our secret corner of the palace staircase.
Morgoya curled her hand around mine and tugged me along beside her. “It’s not only for that,” she remonstrated. “I’ve been wanting to reconnect, but I respected your need for space.”
“That was on me.” I sighed. “Every time I wanted to say something, I froze.”
She squeezed my hand before exchanging it for the handles of a double door. “I never should have allowed him to take it that far,” Morgoya insisted, glancing over her shoulder as she shoved against the wood.
An enormous, open space was revealed with high, arched windows and a dome ceiling that merged a fair distance above a viewing balcony; it had indistinguishable carvings on the railing and spanned all the way around the top of the room. Reminiscent of a ballet studio, an entire wall was covered with a mirror, magnifying the reflection of the gloomy stone, and showcasing a figure sitting in the middle of the polished floor.
Batre was cross-legged with hands on her knees and her eyes closed.
Forgetting my reply, I paused on the threshold, entranced as I watched the earth faerie rising from the ground. Her ascension was so precise I couldn’t discern what was happening for the first few minutes as her girlfriend and I observed her in a respectful silence—until the vines began to build up around her sides.
Batre didn’t show any signs of exertion as her magic worked to create a throne beneath her, using foliage and tendrils pulled up through the cracks in the floor. Olive-coloured and flowering with little white petals, the vines wove in and out of each other as they grew in length and thickness, stitching together to create the chair that raised her until she was perched atop it like a goddess of nature.
Her eyelids fluttered gently as we approached, cracking open once the throne of vines settled into the foundations of the stonework.
“Hi.” She beamed at me. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
My jaw slackened. “You areincredible.”
Batre snorted, flicking her long twin braids over her shoulder as she wriggled her legs out from beneath her and rose from her creation. “I do parlour tricks like this when I’m not rescuing damsels in distress,” she informed me, winking.
“Thank you again,” I blurted, a wave of shyness washing over me. “I do hope you never have to rescue me again, though.”
“Well…” Her gaze flicked towards Morgoya before returning to mine with a sheen of shrewdness. “I don’t suppose the Court of Darkness will be interested in you anymore, will it?”
For a moment, my lower belly tightened with the memory of everything I had done with the High King in order to achieve that hopeful outcome. The sound of Lucais’s voice echoed in my ear—how he praised me, begging me for one more, the feeling of his hips as they rocked into me, as he touched a part of my body that I could have sworn had never been noticed before…
“Aura?”
Shit.
“Um.” Blinking furiously, I rubbed my temple and swallowed down the filthy memory, praying to the High Mother that he wasn’t able to eavesdrop through our newly cemented bond. “I don’t actually know.” I dropped my hand. “I guess not?”
If I hadn’t been so spooked when we woke up in a completely different room to where we’d started, maybe Lucais would have stayed a bit longer to talk me through the next steps. As it was, though, I didn’t eventhinkto ask him for the specifics, simply being so relieved that we’d managed to do it successfully after all of that effort.
“I feel like a soulmate,” I confessed in a whisper. “I don’t feel like a High Queen.”
But I didn’t feel like the High Lady of the Court of Darkness, either.
Morgoya patted me on the shoulder as she strode past me to greet her girlfriend properly. They shared a sweet, chaste kiss before she told me, “There is a separate ceremony to the mating bond required for the coronation of any High King or High Queen.”
“You’re kidding.” I slouched as all of the blood drained from my face. “They didn’t mention that.”
Morgoya’s head whipped towards me so fast it could have flown right off her shoulders. “They?”
Ground, open up and swallow me whole.
If Batre could conjure up a throne of vines through the stonework, perhaps she could do the same with a sinkhole or quicksand.The earth faerie did no such thing, but she did speak up so I didn’t have to keep my foot wedged inside of my mouth, and for that, I was thankful.
“It’s not a really big deal if you’re theadjacentleader,” she promised me. “If you’ve solidified the bond, then the hard part is over—no pun intended—and you’ve secured your place at his side as a ruler of Faerie. It just isn’t completely official until they weigh it down with all of the bells and whistles.” She nudged Morgoya in the ribs, who was staring at me like she was trying to read my mind. “Is it enough for the Court of Darkness to back off, though?”
“The Court of Darkness, yes,” the High Lady mused distractedly.
I crossed my ankles, wishing that I could access the power of time travel. I’d go all the way back to the day I left Brynn in the human world, take her with me instead, and then I’d make sure this particular conversation never happened.
“It should release some of the pressure on you,” Batre persevered encouragingly. “For now, let’s focus on getting a feel for your magic again. I haven’t experienced this myself, but I hear that when a prospective leader is coming into their full power, they’re usually unable to access any other parts of their magic.”
