Page 45 of Upon the Riven Throne

She attempted to push herself to sitting, her arms so weak they trembled. “Tell me what happens during the ceremony.”

He sat gingerly on the bed, pressing her back down. “There are things we should not speak of outside of dreams.”

Mireille’s fingers found his forearm, bare below rolled-up sleeves. She tugged. “Come, then. Let us dream. ”

Alder hesitated, but Mireille’s heavy eyes were taking longer and longer blinks, and he finally lowered himself onto the bed beside her, letting her draw his arm around her as she shifted to her side, her breath uneasy and slow.

Mireille woke in a moonlit garden,fireflies dancing overhead, her unbound hair woven through tall grass and the scents of wisteria and honeysuckle all around her. She flexed her fingers, feeling well once more. She turned her face toward Alder who, inexplicably, lay on his side in the grass beside her.

Or not inexplicably, she supposed, because the dream was hers.

She ran a fingertip over the mark on his temple as his dark eyes traced the lines of her face. When she pressed up to sitting, he did as well. Her fingers entwined with his. “Tell me.”

“When she attacks, I will be free to destroy her. I am more than an even match for her, but the bindings on my power must be broken.” He drew his hand from hers. “But I cannot ask it of you. I will not risk your life further.”

“I am at risk every moment. That risk is the very reason I am here.”

“You came here for protection. I have nearly failed, time and again. If I fail once more, if you are harmed—” His words cut off, bitten back with something like rage and despair.

He would lose everything. His lands. His title. The bargain. Because he’d pinned all his hopes on Mireille. “I cannot break your bargain.”

Alder went utterly still.

“I saw the enchanted hourglass. You needed her to believe that you loved me, and I you. You needed her to because you cannot marry for anything less.” But he had no intention of falling for Mireille. He only meant to trick the queen.

His expression was a mask. “You saw the clock.”

“The night of the ball. I was not certain of the details, but it felt of her magic. And there were hints, indications that you were bound by something more.” What a fool she was to admit it, because he would know how she had discovered the truth. There was only one other person aware of the details, and that person was the queen.

“She got to you.”

The words hurt, and more than they should. “She attempted to call it a ruse, certain that you could not be in love with me.”

Alder was silent for a long while. He did not accuse her of betrayal, though surely the thought crossed his mind. He was clever enough to know what Maeve would offer. When he finally spoke, it was to say, “It seems she is no longer certain. She would not have risked coming for you again if she were.” He looked at her, his gaze darkening with remembered anger, possibly of the real Mireille, feeble in his bed, barely able to sit up. “If you wish to continue, you will remain at my side. You will not be out of my sight again.”

Something in her chest tightened. “And if I do not wish to continue?”

He looked away, brushing a shiny ladybird from his sleeve. “You have done everything I have asked. I will consider your promise fulfilled and your price paid. You will be free to go.”

The queen would kill her in an instant without Alder. Norcliffe would be lost. And still… “You would truly set me free, when I am your only chance of beating her?”

His jaw shifted. “I can never truly beat her. She has removed any chance. My only hope was a default, to spur her into breaking our laws—had she openly and intentionally violated hospitality, I could move against her. But she has proved too canny to be baited into such a violation.”

Mireille met his eyes, finding only truth in them. He would let his last opportunity slip through his fingers. He was trapped. He could not marry without love. It was the same as her friends in Westrende had always said, the price of breaking a bargain would be too dear to pay.

Mireille found, when she searched deep within her heart, that she did not truly have any other choice. She only hoped Norcliffe would survive her decision.

“We will go through with your plan.”

CHAPTER21

Mireille rested as the day wore into night. Thomas visited her, as did Kin and Noal—the latter of whom had taken the queen’s act as a personal slight and was possibly plotting his own private revenge. Mireille made clear that she held no ill will toward the man, and that she herself had been under the queen’s spell.

She did not admit it had happened in Alder’s chamber.

The strength of the queen’s influence continued to surprise them all, but they seemed more angered than unsettled, made worse by Maeve attempting to use the fae closest to Alder to see her work done.

Throughout Mireille’s visits, Alder had stayed seated in a corner of the room, book in hand. His eyes remained on the page, but his fingers never lifted to turn one. Seeing her ready to drift off to sleep, Thomas had collected the playing cards he’d brought—a favored pastime of their youth—and had departed with a promise to remain only one room away. All had agreed that while Maeve was after Mireille, it would be unwise for Thomas to roam the palace on his own, so Kin had been assigned as his protector.

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