Page 100 of I Summon the Sea

My attempt to kill the king has failed. It was a long shot, but it was my best shot.

My twisted dagger has been confiscated, and I doubt I’ll be allowed so close to him ever again.

Besides, what use would it be when he can throw up that wall of magic, when he can disarm me with a flick of his fingers, sending those shadows at me with a thought?

Why didn’t he kill me on the spot? Why didn’t he call his guards to throw me in chains and drop me into the sea?

He treated me like a child, sending me off to prepare for the ball. Humiliating. Embarrassing as all hells.

Frightening.

How? How did he gain shadow magic? What is going on here?

A knock on the door startles me out of my rumination, and I stagger to a stop.

“My lady, it’s the seamstress!” a pleasant female voice calls out. “Are you decent? May I come in and fit your gown for the ball?”

With a sigh, I go to open the door, and the seamstress enters, stressed and sweaty. She’s a middle-aged human with her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun. She has crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, but also smile lines around her mouth, and she does smile.

In another life, I’d have smiled back. Tried to become friends. I like the motherly pat she gives my cheek.

But I also abhor it. I’m not a princess. Not a girl. And certainly not friend material.

Funny how many humans the fae employ when they consider us vermin only fit for extermination. I’ve also heard of artists invited to the palaces and manor houses, painters and portraitists, and even sometimes musicians and dancers.

The fae like visual art, but they seem to not possess the talent for it. They are gifted in music and dance, and with their magic, they transform spaces and objects, but drawing and painting? Not their forte.

They are such strange creatures, looking so much like us and yet alien in ways you don’t expect.

“We didn’t look like this before crossing.”

I thought I knew a lot about the fae, and about how they conquered us. I thought I knew all I needed to know, and here the fae king comes, confusing the hells out of me.

“Our journey isn’t ended. We must forge on.”

How does this affect humans? Is he planning on taking us with him as hostages to cook his food and paint his portraits? Or is he leaving not to return?

Is it even possible? The fae broke into this world after the last Reversal, and Reversals happen every thousand years, give or take. It’s only been three hundred since the last one. How does he hope to open a gate?

Does it really matter, though, a voice asks inside my head,if he goes and never comes back? If he takes his soldiers with him, his armies and guards and sneering nobles, and leaves us in peace at last?

He’d never do that, though. He’d never give up on this world, despite his talk of taint and rot. He’s only looking for excuses to conquer the universe.

“Let’s see what we have to work with,” the seamstress says, interrupting my morose thoughts, bustling about the room. “Oh, here we are.”

Daria has left a light green gown, obviously chosen for the ball, on a chair by the window. It’s similar to the one I wore last night at the banquet.

The seamstress places her sewing basket on the desk and examines the gown with a frown on her face. “No, this isn’t the one,” she mutters, turning it this way and that, as if looking for something. “Not the one.”

What is she talking about? Her words make me stir. I point at the gown, gesturing at it.Not the one?

“I was told that the king will be sending a gown for you.”

Is she serious?

I shake my head. After what happened, the king won’t bother to send a thing. Why would he send a gown to me in the first place? It has to be a misunderstanding.

But another knock comes on the door, and Daria enters together with the younger maid, Peri. They are carrying between them a white and gray gown, glittering with gems.

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