The Coveted, page 16
I practiced my breathing exercises, my palms hot and itching to unleash more, until Taryn appeared in the doorway.
“Sorry for the intrusion, but I heard your tantrum all the way from my chambers,” she said slowly, narrowing her eyes. “You all right?”
I shook my head, but my power had at least cooled off. “It’s nothing.”
“Daelon?” she tried. “He can be a real dick, yeah? And hate sex can get old, trust me. But you have Sebastian now, and I’ve heard he’s excellent in bed. He does this thing with his tongue—”
“Right. Um, Taryn, I don’t want to talk about men.”
She perked up. “Excellent. I much prefer it that way, myself. Want to finally steal some of Daelon’s precious wine and get drunk in the gardens?”
I opened my mouth to say no. This is what she’d offered me the first time we met, when Daelon’s betrayal was still fresh and all-consuming. I looked at her for a moment, thinking. “Yes, I would.”
She bounced up and down like a child about to get candy. It made me laugh in spite of myself. “Yay. Okay, so here’s the plan…”
Chapter 14
The plan was basically for me to use my power for a wine heist, which made Taryn so giddy and delighted that I couldn’t help but have fun with it too. We sat cross-legged against the wall in a back corridor, our hands clasped together and raised between us.
“What in Aradia are you two doing?” Nathaniel asked as he appeared before us, but his tone was more bewildered than insidious. His sandy blond hair contrasted sharply with his midnight black uniform.
My grin faded at the sound of his sneering voice, and I almost lost my precious concentration.
“Keep going,” Taryn giggled. “None of your damn business,” she snapped at Nathaniel.
I closed my eyes again, focusing my intent. I opened the wine cellar, found the vintages Taryn desired, and then I followed the castle map she held in her mind. I held fast to my visualization, my free hand lifted palm up.
“Answer me, girl,” he spat, agitation rising. “What are—”
Soon two bottles of wine were bobbing up and down midair through the hallway, trailed by another confused guard. I recognized him as one of the men Lucius favored—Simon—whose job it had been to clean up the woman Lucius had murdered. Momentarily distracted, I lost my grip.
“Áine!” Taryn yelped, but I managed to catch the bottles before they fell.
They traveled safely into our hands, and the look on the men’s faces made us burst into laughter.
“Stop that,” Nathaniel said, but the other man appeared to fight back a grin of his own.
“Come now, Nathaniel. There’s no need to spoil their fun,” Simon said. He looked a bit like a thinner and shorter Abraham, with short, wiry black hair and medium-dark skin. His facial hair was trim and tidy.
So not all the guards were completely insufferable. Though I would not soon forget the time they backed up Lucius when he pulled a Darth Vader on me in the astrals.
“Watch yourself, girl,” Nathaniel said, but backed down and away from us. “I do hope you and Daelon recover from your little lover’s quarrel.”
Simon raised a dark brow. I stared blankly, even though my heart skipped a beat. He was no doubt shooting in the dark, desperate for confirmation of his convictions that Daelon and I were plotting and scheming. I hypothesized this assumption was based on Daelon’s inability to mask his moodiness when he left my chambers earlier in anger.
We had to make Nathaniel look like a paranoid fool, which I doubted would be too hard.
“It’s a little late for that. I’d say that’s old news, wouldn’t you?” I said, contorting my face in confusion.
“Oh, let it go,” Simon groaned, tugging on Nathaniel’s arm. “The King’s waiting.”
Simon practically dragged Nathaniel away, and Taryn and I burst into laughter again as they moved out of sight. Taryn snorted a little, which made us both laugh even harder.
I hadn’t realized how much I so desperately needed this.
How much I needed a friend.
We spread out on a picnic blanket in front of a tall maple tree that had pink tulips blooming at its base, as far as we could get from any of the castle entrances. The air smelled like eternal spring, and tall, meticulously manicured hedges surrounded us. Just in case, I had Taryn use sigil magick to seal the area from prying ears. She drew the symbol in the air, hesitantly proud to teach me this spell she concocted all on her own. She said it was necessary growing up with her adoptive parents, who watched her like hawks. They never stopped fearing she’d turn out to be a traitorous heretic like the people they stole her from.
In return I told her about my own stressful experiences in foster care, careful not to mention anything beyond the realm of what Lucius permitted. I couldn’t tell her everything I wanted to, but we still shared a genuine bonding experience over the feeling of being misunderstood and emotionally neglected by caregivers. We both had to constantly conceal our true nature and pretend to be different, less magickal versions of ourselves. In many ways, we were both still forced into hiding.
“Just between us girls,” she said, passing me the newly opened second bottle. It was human—a 2010 Bordeaux. Daelon did like his French wines. “How powerful are you, really?”
“Like on a scale of one to ten?” I asked. I never knew how much to say. Taryn felt safe. But I feared no one living under Lucius’s tyranny could ever be completely without risk.
She laughed. “I mean, I know you aren’t as powerful as the King, obviously.”
Um, we’ll see about that, I thought to myself.
“But what about everyone else? Could you take on the whole guard? I mean, you killed the garden. And, I assume, you also resurrected it. I’m pretty sure you caused that mini-earthquake at Christine’s, and you can also borrow everyone’s gifts… somehow. I don’t really understand it. Especially since Daelon and Lucius had to basically kidnap you—oops, sorry—but does that mean it wasn’t King-given? Which is impossible. Because nothing from the old ways is that powerful, of course...”
“Taryn—I—” I sighed and shook my head. I handed back the wine bottle. Half a bottle of wine was probably more than enough to consume here in the city of my enemies.
Her energy kept flashing bright, otherworldly white, the color of my own, before returning to its usual reds and purples. It was frenzied and muddled, as if caught between two worlds. I had to block it out of my perception before I got a headache.
She huffed. “I’m not stupid. I know there’s more going on than what everyone is saying. I just wish you trusted me enough to tell me. None of it adds up. And it’s been a very long time since something actually interesting and different happened around here.”
I lay back on the blanket in defeat, staring up at the overcast sky. The clouds rolled past like they were on a mission. “It doesn’t really add up to me either, if that makes you feel any better. I know you’re not stupid. You’re clever and amazing and deserving of all the trust in the world.”
“Aw, well,” she flustered. A pink flush spread across her cheeks. She sighed, corking up the bottle and laying down next to me.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” I said, and it was probably the most honest thing I’d said all day. “I don’t know a lot about the how. All I know for certain is how I feel. And I think you can feel it, too.”
“I saw it in the dress,” she said, quieter now. “I saw it the first time I saw you. I saw it in your weird ass painting. And your magick. I just don’t… I don’t understand… I’m afraid of what I feel, constantly. Of being something my parents always feared I’d be.”
I found her hand and gave it a squeeze. I wished I could ease her anguish. I wanted nothing more than to tell her everything, to bring her into the fold—but there were too many unknown variables. She believed in so many of Lucius’s lies. “I’m just a strange anomaly, nothing more.” I hated this. “Lucius and Daelon sensed me come into my power. They found me lost, scared, and alone, and they saved me. Now I’m exactly where I need to be. Here. Serving the King.”
Taryn rolled over onto her side and then pushed up to hover over me. Her eyes were ablaze, but at the same time seemed far away. “I don’t believe you.” She enunciated each word clearly and fiercely. She pushed a strand of copper hair behind my ear before laying back down. Her fingers brushed up against mine as we gazed at the clouded sky together, in a silence that felt crushingly loud.
Something in her energy stirred something in my own, like the first note in a familiar song, carried over tall fields of wheat, through a salty breeze, beneath the soil of charred lands, kept alive through whispers in kitchens, servants’ quarters, faraway cities, and hidden covens in the snow—and it rose and fell like the crest of a tall wave.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Taryn started, her mouth agape and her eye wide. “But are you sure you want to wear this?” She hadn’t taken her eyes off me since I’d slipped into the midnight blue gown, illuminated by constellations and all the splendor of the milky way.
I frowned. “You think it’s too much?”
“I, um, well…” She just stared. She was donning her full Amazonian goddess outfit, her golden, smoky eyes fierce and her lips a daring, ombre red.
I moved toward her and placed my hands on either shoulder, forcing her to look into my eyes. “Taryn. What is it?” I laughed, but the moment I touched her, the sound of my laughter was drowned out by a rushing of raw power through the crown of my head—power that I had not summoned. It moved past my temple, throat, and chest, and it spread out through my arms and into my fingers.
Taryn and I locked in a confused gaze, but I was compelled to keep my hands on her at all costs. Her eyes grew more and more unfocused, and soon she stared at something behind me, or through me, and her body relaxed.
Um hello? What’s happening? I asked into the void, but I was met with silence.
“No,” Taryn suddenly said, breaking away from my grasp. The rush of power halted and dissipated back out into the realm.
I pulled my hands away. “What happened? What did you see?”
She took another step back, her face twisting up into shock, then anger, then a firm resolve. She put up a wall, one I’d seen Daelon construct many times before. “I want nothing to do with any of that. I’m sorry.”
My heart pounded hard and loud in my chest, like the onslaught of a freight train. “To do with what?” What had my power just done? What had she seen?
“Oh, drop it, Áine,” she spat. “Drop the act. It’s just not me.”
“What’s not—”
“You’ve made a mistake.” Her energy curled back into itself like a frightened animal, hissing and spitting.
“Okay,” I said slowly, my hands raised in defeat. How in the hot hell was I supposed to damage control this? I didn’t even know what this was. It felt like some screws in the foundation of our cosmic plan were loosening, threatening to topple the whole thing. “I don’t know what you saw. I’m sure it was scary and new. Maybe it shook your view of reality. But you need to calm down. Let me explain. You—”
“Don’t you tell me what to do. Just be grateful that I’m not running to the King right now. And that’s only because I have a healthy sense of self-preservation.”
I swallowed. I watched helplessly as she backed out of the room. The way she looked at me, frightened and repulsed, drove shards of ice right into my heart.
The sound of the door slamming sent a shiver down the length of my spine.
Well, that’s just great. Is that what was supposed to happen? I asked into the depths of my power. Again, I was met with silence.
I was told so many times to have faith and to trust the unwritten plan. This song carried in pieces scattered all over the realm and in my enemies’ lair, but what about free will? What about people who wanted nothing to do with this secret coup for balance? Whatever Taryn saw, she clearly had no interest in. What was I supposed to do now?
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and it stopped me in my tracks. My copper hair fell in full, loose curls, and Taryn had expertly matched my makeup to the outfit, with full, pink lips and a more subtle smoky eye. The dress was captivating, utterly entrancing, like a piece of the higher realms come to life. When I looked deep into its hues, the feelings of confusion melted away. There was something buried in the threading of this gown—magick that language held no words for.
Soon Sebastian was at my door, and when he looked at me, I wondered if Taryn had been right about the dress, after all. Maybe it was too much—too strange in the face of a castle consumed by empty pleasures and shallow lust. Sebastian wore a more traditional tuxedo. It was accented with the color of my gown, but even if it was the exact same shade, it didn’t match. Not quite. There was something missing.
“There are no words,” he said, his voice thick. “This has to be Clarice’s best work yet. She’s been telling everyone what an inspiration you were, and I, of course, had to agree. You’re a muse,” he said, and I had to consciously remind myself not to flinch when he raised a hand slowly to my face. I smiled politely. “You’re also quite… chaste.”
I raised a brow.
He put up his hands quickly with a dimpled grin. “Not a bad thing. I’ve actually quite enjoyed the change of pace.”
Yet another piece was unscrewing. I was running out of time in this faux relationship, and I feared there was no easy way out. “Sebastian, I—”
He raised his hand to my face again, stroking my cheek delicately. “You’re getting over someone. I know. We’ve all been there.”
I nodded. Was Lucius the one he had to get over? Nope. I couldn’t think about that if I wanted to dance the night away with Prince Charming without losing my lunch. “I think I’m still getting used to this realm.”
“I think this realm is still getting used to you,” he said with a grin. “There’s just something about you…”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes at the line. It looked like human and witch men weren’t so different after all. “It’s my sharp wit.”
He eyed me for a moment, bemused. “As much as I’d love to spend more time alone with you, we have dancing to do. There will be time for that after,” he said with a flirtatious smile.
Oh no.
“Speaking of alone time, where in the heavens is your lady’s maid?”
Taryn would absolutely gut him if she heard him call her that. I tried not to make a face. “She said she’d meet us there,” I lied.
He shrugged, offering me an arm.
If I hated all the eyes on me before, I was downright stupid for wearing a magickal, shimmering cosmos dress, especially when there were already whispers and rumors flying about. Like, seriously stupid. But just as I had been called to the shattered remains of my people’s land, something ancient and transcendent—something I was keeping safe inside of me—created this dress. The least I could do was show it off. It felt like an act of resistance, maybe even worship.
The throne room had been transformed again, this time revealing a witchy winter wonderland theme, complete with sparkling crystal chandeliers, grand ice sculptures of animals that could move, and ethereal golden and white art on the ceiling and walls. There was a golden carpet laid out in front of the entrance, so that everyone could take a look at each guest’s outfit.
Sebastian and I nearly silenced the room, but my heart was thunderous in my ears. I looked out into the sea of faces, with their elegance and theatricality—dulled by pleasure, witch drugs, and lies—and I realized I didn’t fear them. I pitied them. I kept my chin held high, hoping my small smile didn’t look more like a grimace as I fought against reading the entire room’s energy.
I spotted Daelon, and I nearly froze. He frowned as he stared at me, Renata at his side. She wore a red gown that strongly resembled the one Daelon gifted me, and Daelon wore an all-black tux.
Close your mouth, I whispered into his mind.
He glared. What the fuck are you wearing?
“Isn’t there supposed to be music at a ball?” I whispered to Sebastian to distract myself from all the stares.
“Soon, darling,” he said.
We stepped off the carpet to join the rest of the attendees, and I noticed that Lucius was up on his throne, alone save for Nathaniel and two guards. His favorites among the nobility were in the crowd with everyone else, albeit in their own obvious cluster. Abraham and Serena wore matching forest green and gave us beaming smiles. Christine’s face was sour, her silvery dress leaving nothing to the imagination, as it was sheer in most places and cut out in others. I wasn’t really sure how the fabric stayed put on her skin, or if it truly qualified as a dress. Taryn looked pale, refusing to look at me. Jasmine wore a sky-blue gown that complemented her light brown skin beautifully, her long black hair falling in waves around her. Daelon and Renata were looking at each other, and her aura was red and sultry, teeming with yearning, which tested my already strained self-control.
Sebastian and I stepped forward to join them, but a sudden movement in my periphery stopped us in our tracks. On instinct, I turned just in time to see a man dressed in plain white stumble as he stared at me, his mouth agape. The tray of elixir in his hands lurched and fell forward. I reached out a palm.
Stop. I caught the tray and the glasses in midair, and the servants around him scrambled to pluck each glass from their levitated position. He averted his gaze finally, muttering something to them. I quickly turned back around to meet the bewildered eyes of the elite.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Christine said.
Sebastian cocked his head. “She’s right, you know. He knew better than to stare at a lady in that way. They need to learn from their mistakes.”
I pursed my lips. “If anything, it was my fault,” I said. “For wearing such a distracting dress.”
Serena laughed, jumping in to save me. “You look divine, Áine. Abraham and I were just saying how no one has ever worn something so bold. It suits you.”
