Page 5 of A Bride for the Winter King
I freeze, my heart about to explode. “You talked to him?”
“I might be called the prince of nowhere at all, but I’m still a prince. Crown or no crown, I could help you clear his name. Or at least save him from the noose.”
I slip inside a shadow and dash over to Seth, the edge of my dagger soon grazing the soft skin under his jaw. “Noose? What are you talking about?”
He glances down at the weapon and extends his neck to taunt me, almost daring me to slice his throat. The motion causes the tip of the blade to pierce his dark brown skin, and I let the dagger fall to my side.
Seth rubs the blood from his neck and licks it off his thumb. “Your little brother has been marked for execution as part of the winter solstice celebrations.”
My stomach lurches, my palms clammy and numb. “That’s not— Why?” I squeak. “Selling arrows on the black market hardly justifies a public execution.”
A contemptuous scoff quakes him. “Selling arrows on the black market? Is that what they told you? Lori, your brother associated with rebel dissidents and carved aforbiddenarrow. I could get his sentence remediated…if you help me.”
There’s no way…
The urge to kick and scream and curse Seth and his family to the seven hells is almost impossible to quell. But even if the crown fabricated false charges, it doesn’t change the facts. And the wordrebelpicks at painful, old memories.
“And how would I repay the favor?” I ask, stunned.
“Do you know that you’re a ringer for a woman called Iris Lovatt?”
Iris Lovatt…The name sort of rings a bell, but I can’t remember why. I squint at Seth, trying to see past his princely exterior and into the wicked inner workings of his brain. “You think I look like her?”
His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You don’t justlook like her. You’re the spitting image of her.”
Fae can’t outright lie, but most of them are very good at twisting the truth and omitting important information, so I can’t quite believe his claim. “Who is she?”
“My cousin by blood—my aunt Irene’s only daughter.”
My grandmother was a Spring Fae, but she didn’t have anything to do with the royal family. “And you want me to pretend that I’m her? You need me to kill someone or steal something?—”
He cuts in. “Oh no. Iris dieddecadesbefore you were born.” The light in his eyes dims, and he looks me over like he’s seeing his cousin in my place. “I was truly fond of her.”
The obvious grief in the tremble of his voice makes me pause. Perhaps I’ve got this all wrong.
“She was a Spring princess?” I ask softly, stowing all my quick assumptions away.
“Yes. Irene’s only child. Her father was the headmaster of Summers’ Royal Academy. Have you heard of it? Almost all the royals in history have studied there.”
“I’ve heard of it, but I still don’t see what you hope to achieve. If she’s dead, why does it matter?”
“Iris wasn’t just any princess.” He takes a dramatic pause, clearly stretching the suspense to rile me up. “She was the Winter King’s first wife.”
Holy fuck!I start shaking my head before Seth is even done talking. The gossip making its rounds through the Shadow Court about the Winter King’s romance with his first wife makes Romeo and Juliet’s fate sound like a fluffy fairytale ending.
“Why— Why would I look like her? My Fae heritage doesn’t run as high as the lowest barony. My grandmother was a maid in a provincial town, for Morpheus’ sake.”
The platinum mask of the Winter King comes to mind, and I tremble at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t crawled into the deepest shadow to avoid him.
“Who knows?” Seth shrugs like the reason for this resemblance isn’t worth discussing. “But I suspect the Winter King is harboring a mutualfriendof ours. If the woman responsible for that scar”—he grazes my bitten rib—“is hiding out in Wintermere, we catch her before she even realizes what’s coming.”
Jeez. Am I walking around with an “I almost died” neon sign written on my forehead?I look down at my side, but my jacket and shirt are still there, covering the mark. A dark hole at the pit of my stomach stirs to life. Revenge fills my blood, as slick and enticing as Feyfire wine.
“How would that work, exactly?” I ask, the sharpness in his voice too obvious for my taste.
His lips stretch in victory. “Every year, my mother sends in candidates for the Yule pageant. Your resemblance to Iris presents a rare opportunity for me to infiltrate Elio’s court. I would present you along with the others, as nothing more than a Spring seed longing for a taste of immortality.”
“You wantmeto enter the Yule pageant?” I paw at the front of my jacket, ready to melt into the floor.
