Page 23 of The Curse of a Kingdom
Devon’s face brightened with delight. “Smart man.”
Arkimedes ignored their words. “You two can sit next to me.”
“Next to your father? I’d rather stab my hand with a fork, repeatedly.”
For the first time, Nava agreed fully with the Crow.
The king entered the room then, followed by a group of women and a couple of guards. His aura billowed out of his body like smoke in a campfire, and his gaze landed on the three of them. However, his steps took him all the way to the head of the table.
All the fae at the table stood and bowed. “Your Majesty.”
“Sit,” he commanded, but his attention never left them. “Orion, would you join me?”
“Father.” Arkimedes dipped his head, and at that same time, his hand actually touched the skin on Nava’s back, jolting her as a wave of warmth traveled through her body. She swallowed and met his gaze, finding she had lost all the air from her lungs. “Stay out of trouble.”
She very much intended to do so, but Devon spoke instead. “And where is the fun in that?”
Arkimedes’s lips tilted up into a shadow of a smile before he walked away
They sat away from the royals, in wooden chairs with thin but tall backrests that were meant to accommodate wings. The king’s attention never came to her directly, but she knew he had been the one who’d sent his guards to kidnap Arkimedes and was likely plotting a way to get rid of them.
She picked at the flaky butter bun that had appeared on her plate soon after. Nava peeked behind her hair to where they sat and wished that she sat next to Arkimedes, even though he didn't remember her. She missed the warmth his presence gave her.
Roasted pork, salted fish, and a casserole of peas and golden roasted potatoes appeared next. Her mouth watered as she took it all in before she followed the rest of the party and served herself a heap of food.
The idle chatter stopped when the king stood. The black fabric of his tunic billowed with an unnatural movement that mixed with his shadows. “We gather today among my court to celebrate the fortune of our kingdom. This year we welcomed my heir back home.” His eyes shone across the table, and he raised his glass in the air. “To our prosperity. Our forces will take out those who try to break us apart, again.”
Nava swallowed as the king’s aura grew and the candlelight flickered under the constriction of his power. Even though his words were light, the ambiance of the room was anything but. As everything grew darker by the moment, the wood of the table shrieked and trembled under the pressure building around it.
“Father.”
The king’s hard gaze fell upon Arkimedes. “Orion’s good friend from his past life, and hisfiancée, join us today,” the king continued, and Arkimedes stilled in his seat. His magic billowed around him, so similar to the king’s. No one would be able to deny they were related.
Nava’s back crawled with an icy touch, and her stomach contracted as it grew more suffocating. Her knuckles whitened around her silverware, but just as it had started, it stopped. The room's darkness retracted to the man sitting at the head of the table, and the candlelight stopped flickering as it settled into a gentle dance.
“Please enjoy your meal. We will do a full celebration in a week’s time during the summer solstice.”
The room’s ambiance shifted as the king took his seat. Nava let out a breath and focused on the plate in front of her. She had been so hungry a moment ago, but now her stomach churned with nausea.
The message was loud and clear: stay away from the heir or die a horrible, suffocating death. She guessed she knew where her life was taking her.
They ate in silence, and slowly everyone forgot what had transpired a moment ago. The idle chatter resumed once again.
Nava took a sip of her wine, her gaze fixed on a nonspecific point by the wall. Her hand came over her heart, massaging an ache that didn’t go away. It had been easy to forget, if just for a breath, what had happened in her travels here. Tossed inside a palace to find out her soulmate was a prince and had completely forgotten her.
But now that she had filled her stomach and the looming pressure of what she needed to do weighed on her, it was obvious she had not only lost Arkimedes, but something else as well. Someone important she couldn’t place.
She faced Devon, lowering her voice below a whisper. “Is there any way to regain what was taken from me when we crossed the portal?”
He shrugged, his cool, calculating gaze crossing the room, following the shapes of a couple of court people who were excusing themselves from dinner. “Not that I'm aware of. It wouldn’t be much of a price to pay if you could take it back.”
The weight inside her chest grew heavier, her breaths coming shorter as the world suddenly became too small. She had lost it forever—him, her? What? “Well, who took it . . .?” She hesitated. The shadowy shapes in the portal felt different from the voice that had spoken with her when she’d released Devon from his cell. “There was someone there with me—multiple people. Did they speak to you as well?” There was one in particular who’d been more interested in her.
Devon’s attention snapped back to her as he dipped his head closer. “You saw someone when we crossed?”
She nodded, moving her mashed peas across her plate with her brass fork. “It was a shadow." But was it? No, it was a male, pale and familiar. "It— Heknewme.”
More importantly, he knew she was a Beekeeper.
