Page 128 of Golden Queen
Radella's tent was equipped with several chairs grouped around a low table spread with maps. There was a cot in the corner covered with thick furs and a pile of assorted blades and weaponry that looked polished and honed to an obsessive degree.
The three of us sat at the table after the maps had been cleared away. When I asked Io why Aben and Britaxia hadn’t joined us, he rolled his eyes. "Radella and Britaxia have a long, bloody history."
That piqued my interest. Britaxia and I hadn’t necessarily always seen eye-to-eye, and I was keen to know if she was just generally a bitch to everyone—or if it was just me. There was no time to ask more, though, before the general was back in the tent.
Io filled her in on the new plan to stage at the Twilight Gap and the details of the exodus from Albiyn. Radella had received word of the landing of the Penjani armada at Gold Harbor, and she believed the Nightfall forces would have begun their march south by then.
"General Ozhun was already in the capital when I left Darkwatch. We had a bird from your sister detailing their plans." The general's name was unfamiliar to me, of course, but I surmised he was someone leading the forces south.
"Eyildr begging to fly with you, I imagine," Io said with a wry smile.
"You know your sister. She was probably already halfway to Darkwatch by the time I left—her violent little heart full of hope."
"Well, you can blame me for the refusal. She knows I would never allow her to fly with Darkwatch. My mother would kill me if I let her command a battalion in an actual battle."
At my look, he added, “Eyildr is fierce and highly skilled, but she is much too young and inexperienced for the command she seeks. And much too eager to go to war for my liking.”
"You should watch that one," Radella said with a grin. "She might just cut your throat one day and slide happily into place as Lady of Darkwatch."
Io laughed. "I would indeed guard my throat if I were anyone else and stood between Eyildr Aldur and Darkwatch. But she loves me most of all." He smiled affectionately.
I was more curious than ever about his sisters. What little I knew about them made me think they were exceptionally close. I had to admit to a little anxiety at the notion that I would face them and be found lacking as consort to their older brother.
The dinner dishes were taken away by a young man with wide-set dark brown eyes and pointed ears set in a face that was textured like the scales of a snake. I was reminded that the fair folk came in many different forms, most of which I had never seen. The fae did not usually travel into Windemere.
The boy smiled shyly as he took my dishes. I wanted to speak to him, but something in the way Io and Radella regarded him carefully—as though he might be spooked away by a too-quick movement, stopped me.
When he was gone, Radella poured a dark whiskey into three delicate looking crystal glasses. They looked completely out of place in the middle of an army camp.
I swallowed the liquor in one long drink, welcoming the burn as it slid down into my chest. It immediately began to fill the hole inside me with a calming warmth that I hadn't felt since all the world had gone to shit. And when the alcohol began to go to my head, blurring the edges of my consciousness, I began to think everything might just be okay after all.
"So, Aelia," Radella said after she had poured my third little glass of whiskey. "Do you want to know all of Behr's secrets? I assure you, I have them all." She pointed to her head meaningfully. "You should hardly go into a marriage without some incriminating evidence," she added, giving Io a wink.
"Perhaps we should let Aelia get to know him herself before you malign...."
"Tsk, tsk, Amon. Do not ruin my fun," Radella said, cutting him off. She had drunk considerably more liquor than either of us, and I thought she might just be drunk.
"Behr used to have quite a reputation for breaking hearts," she said. She put her hand up to shield her mouth and whispered loudly, "and maidenheads."
I raised a brow. With the liquor, it wasn’t even necessary to push aside thoughts of my own maidenhead fiasco. I simply lived in a cocoon ofI don't give a damnat that moment.
"So, when he was in school in the Tyrion, Behr met a girl named Britellsia. She wore a veil head to toe, and it was rumored that she was the daughter of some very important Brutan from Ko-oh."
I looked at Io in question, not recognizing any of her words.
"Ko-oh is an island nation north of Nightfall. Brutan is what they call their leader," he said with a pained expression that told me he was very familiar with this story.
Radella nodded, continuing her tale. I listened raptly, trying to imagine some version of a boy who looked a bit like Io in the school where most noble fae children were educated. "So, Behr decided he had to have Britellsia. He spent nearly a year trying to woo her. She refused, even though he was the heir.
By the end of it, the poor boy was madly in love with her without ever seeing a single inch of her. Even her eyes were hidden behind a dark veil. Behr was undaunted, though. He wouldn’t even leave school for breaks because his sweet Britellsia was so far away from her own family—in what we imagined was Ko-oh—butshewould never say.
Behr’s parents chastised him for being so serious with anyone, but little did they know, the little princeling had already proposed marriage to his Britellsia."
Io put his hand to his forehead and groaned, but a laugh shook his shoulders as Radella paused dramatically.
"So finally, finally, Britellsia relented. She agreed to allow Behr to see her face for a single minute. She claimed that she, too, had fallen in love with him. She would accept his proposal if he still wanted to marry her after he saw her face."
I gasped, feeling the romance of the story despite myself, and despite the knowledge that this was my future husband we were talking about. Obviously, the story did not have a happy ending.
