Page 256 of Kingdoms of Night

Her father, a descendant of night shade plant varieties, fairly glowed under the setting sun. Gyges preferred the moonlight to the sun. Though her own leaves thrived on the phosphorescence from the sun, Enid had adapted. Such was her life in her father’s court. She'd learned the importance of adaptation before she'd even come out of the soil of his garden and learned to walk on wobbly stalks.

“You take it,” said Gyges. “The oath was made to you. You take it and give it to me.”

The palms of her hands itched. It was all the power contained in that sword. In the knight’s hands, it was a force for good. In her father’s hands…

“Are you thinking of defying me?” asked Gyges.

“I would never,” said Enid.

"I gave you the opportunity to decide your own fate back at the ring tournament," said her father. His gaze dipped down to the sword in the ice, then back up at the knight who looked down at the pod in his hands with wonder.

Enid bit her lip to keep her mouth closed. Her tongue was already in motion to call out to Geraint. To demand that he hand that piece of her over to its rightful owner.

Instead, she reached for his property. The sword hummed as her fingers glanced over it. She couldn’t be sure if that was a hum of warning or welcome.

“I’d had high hopes that you would catch the eye of Leonidas.”

Enid snatched her hand away from the sword, only barely managing to mask her shock at her father’s words. She had not known that that had been his plan all along. A fae such as herself married to a human, and a subordinate one at that. Leonidas Barros had once been the king of Sparta during his natural born life. Then his life had been extended when he’d given his soul to the Greek gods.

“We could have forged an alliance with those Athenian brats,” her father continued. “Luckily, we routed around that barren field. I had no idea Barros had fallen out of favor with Zeus.”

Leonidas had been on the cusp of winning her father’s tournament when the Athenian gods had come to collect him for crimes against their own kind. Had she been married to him, she might’ve faced the same fate, and her father’s power would’ve been diminished. It would’ve almost been worth it.

Almost.

“Thor is still lusting after that blonde witch,” Gyges huffed.

That blonde witch was Lady Loren. Was the female knight playing with both a thunder god’s heart as well as her knight’s? No, not her knight. Geraint was a means to an end. It looked like he’d changed that end by winning the impossible task she’d set before him. Now he carried her fate in his hands. Literally.

“It looks like fate has dealt us a superior hand.”

Another thing Enid had learned before she'd left the nurturing warmth of her birth soil: Do not ever play in her father's games. There were no winners. Just as she saw now. Even as her normal chess piece as a pawn, she was fighting a losing battle.

Geraint came to stand before them. At his back was his brother knight. In Geraint’s hands was the only power Enid had been born with—a power that had been taken from her by her father and used to keep her in service to him.

“I believe this is yours, my lady,” said Geraint.

Enid held her breath, too afraid to breathe. She kept her hands at her sides, too afraid to move. This couldn’t truly be happening.

“Yes,” she said. “It is mine.”

"What is this?" asked the knight.

"It's mine," Enid repeated. "Will you give it to me?"

Beside her, she felt her father bristle. Gyges made no move to stop the knight. He also made no further play for Geraint’s sword as he watched a new match develop.

Enid saw Geraint try to do as she bade. He lifted his hands, but instead of extending them to her, he brought the object in his hold close to his heart. He gazed down at it, completely mesmerized.

“My dear daughter,” said her father, “I see you've given away your sacred flower to the man you will entwine with."

Helplessness. That's what Enid felt in this moment, surrounded by all of these males. She had no power over herself. Not the power of where her roots were to be planted, which her father held in his hands. Not her power over her future, which Geraint held in his hands in the form of her unfertilized seedling.

Enid's back was against the wall. There was nowhere she could run, nowhere she could turn to gain any autonomy over her life.

"Sacred flower?" Geraint said, looking down at the pod in his hands.

"You didn't tell him?" Gyges smiled in the way he did when his victims didn't understand the extent to which he held power over them.

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