Page 6 of A Promise of Peridot
“Bastard fathers. The only thing we’ve ever had in common.” Ilifted my bottle to hers in facetious cheers. She clinked mine once and we both drank.
“Eryx seems even more intent than usual on wedding you off to the highest bidder,” Griffin said.
“Don’t remind me.” Amelia wrapped her white fur tighter around herself. The cold weather was especially hard on the Peridot folk. Amelia was well-traveled, as royals often were, but a childhood spent in the most tropical ecosystem on the continent meant she struggled through a slight chill. Tonight she was bundled like a puff pastry, her warm bronze skin a constant contrast to that severe, stark white hair. “Being a chess piece in your father’s political game isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Did you ever discuss your court position with him?” I asked.
Amelia hoped orchestrating the wartime alliance between Peridot and Onyx might prove her use as more than a human bargaining chip.
“He said he’d marry me himself if he thought it would ‘benefit the Provinces.’ ”
Griffin coughed. “That’s sick.”
“At least our kingdom’s pillaging has briefly taken his mind off my vacant ring finger.”
“No bidders?” I teased.
“You did, once,” she snipped.
Amelia had an arresting sort of beauty, but looking at her now, I couldn’t imagine how I had slept with her so many times.
It hadn’t been bad. We were friends, so there had been a comfort, a familiarity, when we finally fucked. But now... Now I couldn’t fathom bedding anyone but Arwen.
Lightning colored the cabin in a flash of pale blue before a smack of forceful thunder rocked the sea.
Just a few hours now, I guessed.
“When we arrive...” I trailed off. I wasn’t sure what exactly we were walking into with Citrine. My standing with the kingdom was... tense. At best.
“I know,” Griffin said anyway.
“Oh, no... What did you two idiots do?”
“What will you say to them?” Griffin asked, ignoring her.
I scratched at my stubble. “I’ll come up with something.”
“Hello.” Amelia waved at us both. “What happened?” She was beyond drunk now and needed to be put to bed.
“If we have to enter the city,” Griffin continued, disregarding her question again, “we should finally pay Crawford a visit.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. We hadn’t ever interrogated the noble regarding the blade, as it went missing from my kingdom’s vault about a year after I was banished from Citrine. My spies had kept an eye on him, though, and his renowned stash of unique and rare objects. “If he had acquired the blade for his hoard, we would have known.”
“What if he only has information?”
“Citrine won’t help facilitate an audience with him.”
“Well, they better at least offer refuge to the people on this ship,” Amelia said. “They’re innocents.”
I had no idea if they would. But it would be the least of our asks. “We’ll also need their mermagic.”
“And their army,” added Griffin.
“Right,” Amelia slurred. “Because mine was destroyed by demonic Fae soldiers. You know,” she said, raising her bottle as she pointed at me, “I actually tried to save her.”
My eyes cut to hers as she took a gulp and thumped the glass back down onto the table. “How so?”
Amelia hiccupped. “I told her, back in Siren’s Cove, that you were full of it. Using her. I would have wanted someone to tell me.”
