Page 36 of A Crown So Cursed
My beautiful, brave queen now rises, squaring her shoulders, her mettle showing at long last. “In my time, I have faced tyrants far greater than you, Mistress Lirael. Whatever your trials, I will face them.”
Whatever it was I hoped she would say, this is not it.
“Gwendolyn,” I whisper. “You needn’t agree to this. I will find another way.”
“There is no other way,” she says beneath her breath. “I know, and you know it as well as I. To be sure, they must be satisfied I am worthy to be your queen… and IknowI am,” she declares.
Then again, “I know who I am.”
Her eyes beg me to trust her, and I do. But my jaw clenches, a muscle twitching beneath my skin. I relent and sit down. “Very well.” My voice rings cold and clear as the caution within it. “A challenge has been issued and accepted. May it not be said I stood in the way of justice.”
Lord Elric nods, all pretense of concern wiped from his visage, and a rush of excitement flitters through the assembly, followed by another sluice of furious whispers.
He steps forward. “Very good,” he says, his voice carrying a trace of ill-concealed malice. “This trial shall be held on the morrow. May the gods bear witness to her test.” From beneath his robe he draws a set of iron shackles, advancing upon Gwendolyn. “Now you must surrender yourself to the court.”
“No!” I rise again, stepping in front of Gwendolyn. “You overstep, Silvershade! Your queen will not be treated like a common thief!”
“It is only tradition, Majesty,” he reassures, his voice gentle. “Any who face the Rite must surrender to the custody of the court until they are proven innocent.”
“No,” I say again. “The only place my bride will be sequestered this eve is within the confines of our chambers.” I snap my fingers to summon my guards, and before anyone can object or intercede, I seize Gwendolyn by the hand, then lead her from the hall, through the alcove, with my most loyal guards at our back.
Gods be damned! The Fae Court is as fickle as the seasons. Allegiances turn with the wind. But these few have bound their lives to mine by blood and bone. They will die before allowing any harm to befall their king or his queen. The moment we are through, I whirl on Gwendolyn, my composure shattering like ice against a spring thaw. “What the bloody hell were you thinking?” My hands find her shoulders, gripping too tightly. “You know not what you’ve agreed to!”
“All will be fine,” she argues.
“Nay, Gwendolyn,” I say, my voice raw with anguish as I touch a finger to her sweet, beautiful face. “The Rite is a rite of blood!” I pause, searching for words that might convey the magnitude of what she faces. “It is left to their discretion whence that blood should be drawn.”
When she still does not understand, I explain, “They will put the dagger to your heart, and not even Fae magic will heal that wound quickly enough! But if they had taken you now, there would have been no trial on the morrow!” My voice catches, and I turn away, unable to meet the storm in her gray eyes as she realizes for the first time the magnitude of the invitation she has accepted.
I pull her into my arms and hold her because the challenge has been issued and met, and there is nothing I can do but watch my beloved die.
ChapterThirteen
Málik’s bare feet padded furiously against the stone floor. Half-dressed, tunic discarded—or rather, hurled across the bedchamber—and his breeches haphazardly unlaced, he radiated a restlessness that Gwendolyn had never witnessed in him before. Not even on the eve of battle.
Moreover…they had been far more intimate than this, and far less dressed, but there was something innately vulnerable about him now, a temper that bespoke the depth of his love for her and the breadth of his terror over what his Shadow Court might now do. He looked like a cornered creature—wild and threatened, still frighteningly powerful.
I am safe now;she wished to say, but she didn’t believe it would assuage him at the moment, nor would he believe it when there were Shadow Guards begging entrance to Tech Duinn.
“Málik,” she whispered, intending to go to him, to soothe him. She rose from the edge of the bed where she’d been sitting, her feet touching the cool stone floor, but before she could reach him, he spun about, eyes blustering like a storm-laden sky.
“They will not be merciful!” he said.
I am not worried;Gwendolyn longed to say, but she did not, because she could see his consternation, and did not wish to dismiss his concerns. “Did you expect she would do such a thing?”
“No!” he said, turning to pace again. “I did not! Though should have!”
He was getting angrier by the moment, but it was difficult to say at whom, because his voice carried a measure of self-contempt with no small amount of regret.
“That girl has always been...so ambitious—her parents even more so. Her mother once offered me her body for the promise of her daughter.”
Gwendolyn grimaced over the notion—a mother bedding a daughter’s intended? “That is...revolting,” she said, and shook her head in disbelief. In all her days, no matter how at odds she and her mother might have been, she could never have imagined Queen Eseld offering herself to one of Gwendolyn’s intendeds.
Málik’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “Such is the nature of the Fae Court. Ambition and desire blur the lines of propriety. And though it is sometimes said that all is fair in love and war, amidst this court, those things are wholly interchangeable.”
“I am not worried.”
He paused, his eyes meeting hers across the room. “You should be. I may keep you safe within these halls, but to keep you here eternally will make me agaolerand no better than Locrinus. And if something should ever happen to me?—”
