Page 37 of Destined for the Fae King

I could kick myself for not thinking of it first.

Memnon rises to his feet. He was the one who had been so strongly anti-Unseelie the last time. Not that anyone was pro-Unseelie, but his opinions were a little stronger than some of the others. “So, now the question is—what do we do about their little foray into our lands? Surely such a thing cannot be ignored.”

He stares at Vasilius, awaiting a reply.

But the king is unruffled and turns the question to the rest of us. “Ladies?”

A debate erupts over whether to go on the offensive or defensive. Katherine is a clear offensive proponent and keeps steering the conversation that way, though most of the women and myself prefer a defensive approach.

“If the Court of Fire attacks the Unseelie, people will get hurt. That’s for sure,” Zoe says. “But if you all don’t, then maybe they’ll just leave you alone too.” She’s not always the brightest bulb, but I murmur my agreement.

Bailey raises her hand. Elaine is the first to notice and encourages her to speak.

“Prince Lysandir,” Bailey starts, “you see the future at times. Have you been given an insight on what the Unseelie plan?”

All attention in the room focuses on him. I assumed if he had, we would have heard about it already, but it’s a fair question.

After a moment, Lysandir says, “I’ve meditated on the Unseelie’s intentions toward our court several times over the past weeks, but each time I’ve seen only the same brief vision, flickering flames.”

“Fire like the court symbol? A campfire?” Grace asks.

He shakes his head. “I wish I knew. I simply see flames no matter where I look, nothing else.”

Adeline clears her throat. “Fire could be a good thing.”

“A sign of our victory,” Memnon adds, though Adeline frowns at that, as if it’s not what she’d meant at all.

Lysandir turns his palms up over the table. “Only the fates can say, and they did not. I have no more than that.”

“But it’s got to be a good thing, right?” Katherine presses, tossing her long hair over one shoulder. “This is the Court of Fire.” An unspoken ‘duh’ lingers in the wake of her words.

“Visions are not always that clear,” I say. “If Lysandir, who has seen it himself, is unsure what it means, how can we think to know any better?” I hold his gaze across the room. “We can learn more by looking at the past than we can from uncertain visions of the future which we might misinterpret. The past is set. The future is not.”

Lysandir goes eerily still, his gaze boring into mine as if seeing me in a new light.

Advisor Danai picks up the thread where I left off. “The past, even recent days, has shown the Unseelie to be unpredictable.”

Lysandir blinks and the look is gone. He shifts focus to the woman speaking at my side.

“No one expected them to try to incite war between the courts,” Danai says. “It’s too subtle for the brute force we’ve seen them employ in ages past.”

“The Unseelie King has not been able to fully recharge his sword and has done no more than make this one cut in our wards, right?” I ask. Several advisors nod. “So, it would stand to reason that he doesn’t have what he needs to empower it further and hopefully cannot hurt the court more than he has already.”

“Unless that changes, the Court of Fire should be safe from the Unseelie threat,” Danai says at my side.

“Except they have a null,” Avara points out.

“One,” I argue. “Only one.”

“A powerful one though,” the captain replies. “The Unseelie King’s sister, from what we gather.”

“And therefore, he won’t want to endanger her with some reckless mission,” I say. My brothers and I aren’t exactly close. I wish we were. Things were different when we were younger, but the older they get, the more time they spend together and the less with me. It doesn’t hurt that they share the same hobbies and are really close in age. But even not being that close anymore, I would never send them into danger in enemy territory.

“She already snuck deep into the Court of Air. You think she would not do the same to our court?” Memnon says.

I purse my lips. He has me there.

Thankfully, Grace runs with my idea. “To what end? We are bound. Safe.”

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