Page 7 of The Lord of Whispers

He righted me, his touch dropping to the curve of my lower back until I proved myself steady. I proceeded walking up the stairs with as much dignity as I could muster.

When we arrived at my room, Jay opened the heavy wooden door for me, holding his arm out for me to lead the way in. As I passed close by him, through the doorway, I thought his look lingered on my legs peeking out of my black, fitted skirt that hit just above the knees. Self-consciously, I reasoned that the high lord probably was just noticing the heels I wore because, as I looked around the room, I noted that my heels must be the most worn thing to have ever set foot in the bedroom.

That evening, I climbed into my gloriously overlarge, soft bed, having changed into my usual nighttime attire consisting of an overly large, comfy t-shirt and cheeky panties. Like most nights, I closed my eyes and the events of my day replayed in my mind.

The headless high fae lord statue… Luke’s smile… The way the high lord’s large hand wrapped around the knot at his neck…

I heard something like heels clicking on the marble floor and a woman’s giggling coming from the top of the staircase between the east and west wings of the house. I think the noise faded toward Jay’s wing. I drifted off to sleep thinking that there were definitely less-handsome lords I could have been assigned to as a liaison.

3

Alarie

The next morning, I woke up, reveling in the feel of the cool, cotton sheets brushing over my legs. And then I just lay there, contemplating giving myself some credit, for once, for how hard I’d worked to get there. Not in that bed specifically, but House Vitruvian and the High Court.

Unlike most people who made it to the High Court just by being born into the right family, I’dearnedmy place at the High Court by graduating at the top of my class at university. Each year, the top student of the graduating class at my university in Harborview was given the opportunity to serve as liaison to a House in the Azure Court. Once, all the Courts of Valencia had a liaison program. But now, the Azure Court was the only Court that kept the initiative alive with any regularity.

Along with the one-year liaison position, the top student earned their title—lady, in my case—a small stipend, and a bit of land somewhere in the Kingdom. To officially complete the liaison program, there was a written test the liaison had to pass during their first year at Court. However, there was no guarantee of employment after successfully completing the first year as liaison. The liaison had to secure a position at the High Court on their own by the end of their first year.

So, yes, I’d earned my spot at the High Court. But, if I was giving out credit, then I guess I’d have to give some to my mother. After all, she was at least partially responsible for my drive to get where I was. Growing up, my mother had made it all too clear to me that I had no safety net. So, if I missed a step, there wouldn’t be someone there to catch me. In my world, if I failed, failure was my only option. So, I didn’t allow myself to fail.

I’d felt an overbearing need to escape from my hometown and everything I knew since I was a small child. Every decision I’d made from a young age was made with the intention of earning that liaison spot. Otherwise, I never would have found myself with the unbelievable opportunity to serve under Lord Vitruvian’s tutelage. Because my family was poor, and I had mixed blood, and the people from my hometown just did not make it to the High Court that often.

I’m not pure high fae. My mother is an alluring lesser fae, a few inches shorter than me, with bright brown-and-gold eyes and beautiful fire-red hair. My mother’s beauty had drawn the attention of a high fae soldier traveling through Harborview one evening many years ago, ensnaring them both in a single night of all-consuming passion.

Or,at least, that was how my mother liked to describe the night she met my father. I was skeptical of it really being the fairy tale she made it out to be. If it were, then I thought she would have wanted to talk about my father more than she did.

I never got the opportunity to know my father. And my mother had only spoken of him a handful of times in my entire life. On one such occasion, my mother had explained to me that I was part high fae in response to my question as to why I looked different from many of the other children in my small hometown, which largely consisted of lesser fae. I used to get teased by the other girls in school about my distinctly high fae features, but the boys never seemed to mind. I was thinner than the average lesser fae girl, which translated, as I got older, into a less voluptuous figure than that of a lesser fae woman.

“They’re just jealous, Mandy. Ignore them,” my mother had said coolly one evening after I came home from school upset.

The girls in my class had chosen to give me the cold shoulder and exclude me from their group that day—as they had done the day before and the day before that. I’d gone and played kickball with some boys instead.

“Mandy” was what everyone called me back home. I’m not sure how my grade school soccer coach made the jump from Armand to Mandy, but he did and everyone else did too. Even my own mother. I’d never cared for the nickname as a child, and I’d grown to dislike it even more as I got older, feeling that it was too bubbly and did not match my personalityat all. But the nickname stuck. At least, until the day I moved away from it and everyone who knew it.

Maybe my mom was right, and the girls were “just jealous.” But that had never made me feel any better. My mom wasn’t exactly the coddling or maternal type. In fact, she’d rarely ever said or done anything during my entire childhood that could be considered comforting. My mother wasn’t unkind. She just didn’t really have it in her to dole out hugs and kisses and affection like the other mothers I saw. My mother was kind of distant, and even when I was a young child, she had treated me like a mini adult.

As a result, I grew up quick, and I grew up tough. Instead of trying to get to the bottom of whatever it was that kept me from making friends with the other girls my age, I’d taken my mom’s advice and ignored them. So, I didn’t have any girlfriends.

I didn’t really have a lot of friends, period, back home. I had mainly hung around with boys growing up. But once I decided to go for the liaison spot, my ambition placed a wedge between me and any hopes of real friendships. I consistently had to choose to do what I needed to do, not what I wanted to do, and that level of responsibility was just not relatable to most of the people my age, especially not the boys who just wanted to spend their afternoons at the beach crushing beers.

I rolled out of bed with a sigh, running my fingers through my long, silky brown hair. I threw on a pair of shorts under my oversized t-shirt and walked out onto the veranda adjacent to my bedroom. I saw one of the House’s lesser fae servants, Jena I assumed, using a broom that hovered in the air to beat the dirt out of several large rugs. I guessed that Jena, like many lesser fae, had some kind of magic that was particularly suited for caring for a house the size of the Vitruvian manor.

Even such a small showing of magic enamored me. By the time I was born, every fae’s magic, high fae or lesser, was diminished. It was not uncommon for fae born around the same time as me and after to exhibit no showing of magic at all. I’d never exhibited any kind of magical ability in my entire life. Whether I had specific abilities or not, all fae were said to havesomemagic, because magic was what made us immortal. At least, wehad beenimmortal, before the fading started.

Looking out at the garden from my veranda, I thought about how in school and in life I’d always been good at doing what I needed to do. I decided right then and there that the High Court would be no different. I would do whatever it took to prosper as a lady of the High Court. I walked back into my room and started to get ready for my first day as liaison to House Vitruvian.

* * * *

I finished my morning routine, dressing in a fitted, black pencil skirt that hit below my knees and a stretchy light-blue buttoned blouse, paired with nearly transparent black thigh-highs and black pointy-toed heels. The heels were a necessity for every outfit. I was a few inches shorter than most high fae women, so I wore heels that were a few inches taller than normal to compensate. Also, I hated the way pantyhose felt, so I usually opted for thigh-highs instead.

I felt myself flush under the gaze of his gray eyes as I walked into the breakfast foyer.

“Good morning, Jay,” I greeted him confidently, pretending that I regularly greeted high lords first thing in the morning.

He sat on the top of a stool at the breakfast bar, lounging in a three-piece blue suit like other men lounged in their favorite pair of sweats.

“Morning, Alarie,” Jay replied casually.

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