Page 45 of Heir of Autumn
“I only ever meant to raise you to be good people, and good rulers,” Queen Aurelia said, sniffling.
“And you have, Mother,” Sylvain said, smiling across the table. “You know that you have our love and gratitude.”
Queen Aurelia returned his smile with one that was even sweeter and warmer.
Yvette sipped her wine, sighed, and shrugged. “To be fair,” she told me, “Mother has relaxed the rules somewhat over the ages. Why, we’re even allowed to leave the Verdance these days.”
The queen’s laughter was strong, but joyful, the first I’d heard her sound so happy. “I have grown soft in my dotage. Did you know, dear Lochlann, that there was a time I wouldn’t even allow them to leave the palace? And then one day I realized how much more peace and quiet I would have without them wreaking havoc all over the bloody place.”
Brother and sister laughed, and the queen and I joined them. Queen Aurelia wore a stern face and a cold demeanor, which lived up to everything Sylvain had ever told me about her. Yet beneath it all, her formalities and her royal grace, here was a woman who loved her children with all her heart.
And through the rest of dinner, it became clearer and clearer to me that the feeling was very much mutual. So this was how it felt to be a family. I never once thought that the realm of the fae would be the place to remind me of what it was like to sit at the same table, laugh over silly jokes about nothing.
Not once did the subject of Sylvain and Yvette’s father come up at dinner. The absence was familiar, yet unremarkable. Here was a family that had always done without. I watched as Sylvain served his mother more food, as she pelted him with a single pea, launched from a spoon like a catapult.
I recognized the sparkle in his eyes, the love he held for his mother, the unabashed fondness in his smile. If someone had taken a picture of me gazing at my own mother, in those last days, those final moments, they might have seen me wearing the same expression.
19
A soft breezerushed through the trees, their boughs tinted bronze in the afternoon sunlight. I stood next to Yvette outside the Amber Pavilion, watching as she nocked her bow. To the residents, this fenced enclosure would best be compared to the palace’s backyard. To the rest of us peasants, this thing was a sprawling hedge maze, enormous enough to get lost in.
Yes, I lived in an actual castle myself, and only as a renter. But the Amber Pavilion’s majesty made the academy of the Wispwood look like a lump of barren rock in comparison. The air was cool, though not so cold that I’d need a heavy jacket. The foliage painted a multitude of warm colors across the grounds, a spectrum of browns and reds and golds, the trees adorned in lush coats of autumn leaves.
Princess Yvette exhaled. She loosed her arrow. It whistled through the air, thunked into the wooden target. Bullseye, yet again. I shook my head, clapped, and chuckled in disbelief. She swept her arm to one side as she made a low, graceful bow.
“Wow,” I said, nodding at the longbow in her hand. “You really do know your way around that thing, huh?”
“Oh, this?” Yvette shook back her hair. “It’s nothing. Mother’s influence, more than anything. I suppose Sylvain and I should both be so thankful. Her draconian mothering forced us through daily bouts of martial training, on top of all our studies, too.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “That explains why he’s so good with a sword.”
“Well,” she said, grinning. “I wouldn’t say ‘so good.’ Here. Why don’t you have a go? Have you ever shot an arrow before?”
I gawped at her, unsure of what to say. Her longbow was so ornate and beautiful, definitely crafted for her use and her use alone. A personal weapon, clearly, and here she was offering it to me for a turn. But everything I’d learned about the Verdance from both Sylvain and Satchel suggested that turning the opportunity down would be the ruder option.
“Never tried it,” I said. “But would you be willing to teach me?”
“Oh, gladly.”
Yvette handed me the bow as she stepped closer, patiently explaining the basics and gesturing at the wooden target at the far end of the lawn. She slipped an arrow into my hand, the feather at the end of it so odd in texture, like something between a quill and a leaf.
“And you draw. Yes, like that. Then you focus on the target. Right. And whenever you feel ready, release.”
This was nice. I didn’t know what Sylvain was so worried about, or why he’d waited so long to introduce me to his family. Yvette was kind of a badass, someone Namirah would easily get along with. And Queen Aurelia, while a bit aloof, was still far more personable than I ever expected the high fae to be.
Where was all the arrogance I was supposed to expect from Yvette, for example? Or maybe I’d gotten so used to Sylvain’s quirks that her rougher edges no longer had a chance to rub me the wrong way, all my own edges already sanded down by my fae prince’s abrasive nature.
“Can I loose it now?” I asked, both the bowstring and my arm muscles pulled taut.
Yvette didn’t say a word, only nodded, her eyes still on the bullseye. I let go of the bowstring. Twang, whistle, thunk. Holy crap. I couldn’t believe it. The arrow struck the ring just off the bullseye. Not perfect, but not so bad, either.
“Whoa,” I breathed. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
She laughed, retrieving the bow from me. “Are you sure you aren’t lying to me, Lochlann? It looks to me like you’ve indulged in a little bit of archery before.”
I flapped my hand at her, smiling. “No, no. Lucky shot, I promise.”
In one swift motion, Yvette pulled another arrow from the quiver on her back, nocked it, loosed it. The arrow zipped toward the target, but this time it didn’t hit the bullseye, like all her other shots. This time it struck my arrow, clean down the middle, shattering it as it slammed into the wood.
