Page 31 of Upon the Riven Throne
He felt more dangerous in the moonlight, but when his words came, they were not in the tone he’d used before. If anything, they seemed pained. “I do need a princess.”
“But not me. Why? What is it that I cannot offer you?” He turned away, and her hands balled into fists. “This is absurd. You said yourself we have a common enemy, and she’s out there, right now, in your own ballroom.”
Alder’s shoulders sagged, a weight like the one she’d watched her father carry for years. He said, “It must be a princess of Westrende. The Rive split the land, but we are bound still. Our kingdoms can only be united with a union of the two.”
After a moment, he turned to face her. “There is more, but I am bound from discussing the details.” He pressed a palm to his chest, one of his long fingers tapping slowly over his heart. “Suffice it to say, a match of convenience would do me no good.”
A very unpleasant sensation danced in Mireille’s belly, writhing dread and nervous energy, and a strange sort of anticipation. She began to pace. “Then you refuse me because you are certain I cannot break it. Yet, you agreed to entertain the offer because you are required. And as a fae, you cannot break your vow, so your wish must be that I will terminate our agreement before the ceremony. You must have some plan in place, some way to prevent it, otherwise you would have been wed by now.” Pacing ceased, she turned toward him, slowly lifting a hand to her collar. “Except, that choice surely belongs to me.”
His eyes narrowed. “You would trap me in a curse? Knowing what that means?”
She shrugged. “Why, who’s to say I would not prefer a life at court? What if I spirit my father away and we let her have Norcliffe?” It was evident that much, at least, he did not believe her capable of. Her voice dropped. “The queen has threatened my kingdom. I am my father’s heir. If she is to take control, she will need me dead.”
“Or married to a prince from another kingdom.”
The terrible sensations inside her belly flipped. “Yes, or that. I would become queen of my husband’s kingdom and would relinquish my claim to Norcliffe.” And she could never become queen of Rivenwilde if the Rive held.
He asked, “Whose decision was it to bargain you to me?”
“Mine. Maeve had no hand in this. We would not have been fool enough to trust anything we had not devised ourselves, not after she infiltrated the council and the royal advisors. I knew no one could protect me from a fae queen but a fae from another court. And the only place I might find a way to beat her was within your court, your library, your home. I had connections to Westrende—” She swallowed. “Friends who knew of the fae. But even then…”
“Your options were few.”
She nodded, but guilt and shame had her glancing toward the window as she did. “There was nothing noble about it.”
He was suddenly close behind her.
“Am I to understand you planned to find a way to defeat her first? That you hoped to never have to marry me?”
She forced herself to look at him. “I would do anything to save my kingdom.”
“And to turn the Riven Court against your enemy queen?”
Mireille hesitated. She had not thought that far ahead. Throwing herself to Rivenwilde had been an act of desperation, likely a fool’s errand that would only buy more time. She supposed she never believed, truly, that she could overcome the queen. But Norcliffe was worth the risk. “Yes. Whatever it took. Even that.”
His chin dipped. “I will not pretend any of this was done for the safety of your kingdom, only mine. But I spoke the truth. Our enemy is the same. And I have every intention of besting her.”
Mireille’s lips parted. “Are you suggesting a truce?”
“Agree not to marry me. We will find a way to defeat her before the next moon.”
The breath that huffed out of her may have sounded like a laugh. It was not. “I will agree to ally with you. Until then.” She held a hand forward to seal the agreement and Alder took it. They stood, studying one another, the unlikeliest of partners, hand in hand.
A distant scream sounded, reverberating off the music room walls, and Alder’s hand pulled from hers. He ran and it was all Mireille could do to catch up.
When he realized Mireille was chasing after him, he came back to her, a firm grip on her arms. “Stay far away from this. Find a room to hide in and lock the door. If you are in danger, just speak my name.”
“But—”
Another scream sounded and Alder pressed her a step back. “Go. If you call me, I will come.” He released her and rushed away.
He was right, and she knew it. Mireille had no power to fight against the fae. She hurried in the opposite direction, searching for a place to hide. As before, the palace layout seemed to shift, and she was not certain which way to run. But a landing of narrow stone steps led upward, and the scream had echoed from the lower floor.
Lifting her skirts to her knees, she sped to the higher level and down another long corridor. She gripped the lever of the door at the end of the corridor, but it would not turn. Words were carved into the wood in a language in which Mireille was not fluent, something about balance being kept—or possibly paid. Another distant scream rang through the palace and she moved to release the lever, but something sparked through her palm. Her hand yanked back, and the door creaked inward. When footfalls sounded on the stairs, Mireille hurried inside.
The moment the door swung shut behind her, she knew she’d made a mistake.
The only light in the room came from its center, the same unnatural glow of her moonlit dreams. But it was not a dream. She was awake, the floor solid beneath her feet, and before her stood an hourglass atop a table that was nearly as tall as her. The room smelled of hawthorn flower, thick, and sticky, and sweet. Dread rose through her, every fiber of her being begging her to step away, but Mireille’s slippered feet drew her forward.
