Page 16 of The Court of Secrets
Vahaga cleared his throat. “Lord Abor, may I remind you—”
“On one condition,” Lord Abor said and Vahaga’s frown turned into a smirk.
“What would that be?” I asked wearily.
“Your light fae friend must be sent away.”
I suppressed my amusement. Cedric would need to be leaving anyway after the coronation. They didn’t know it, which leaned in my favor. “Once the coronation is over, I will have him go back to Berovia.”
They looked at each other, then nodded. “It seems we are in agreement about one thing today.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Don’t bother,” I told Cedric, who tried picking up my staff. “It won’t work for you.”
“Fascinating.”
I grabbed it. Magic pulsed through the ground, vining up my ash-wood staff and into the bone handle. It tingled my fingertips and prickled my arms. “Want to see something intriguing?”
His eyes gleamed. “Always.”
We stood in the center of the courtyard. I pointed it in the air, muttering words through barely parted lips. Closing my eyes, I let magic flow through me. When I opened them again, rose petals were falling all around us.
“Nice.” He smiled, his genuine one where the corners of his eyes creased. “Why rose petals though? Feeling romantic?”
I rolled my eyes. “They remind me of death. We have them at our funerals.”
His eyes widened. “Always so morbid,” he said, half-joking. “You should try putting more energy into living as much as you do thinking about death.”
“I don’t think about death that much. Besides, it helps me appreciate life more. Being immortal, it’s harder to appreciate things will come to an end.”
“We don’t have the ability to end things though, do we?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Well, no.” I thought about how Blaise had the Dagger, meaning they could choose when to die, but we had the Sword of Impervius.
He sat on a stone bench. “I wish we could. There are many of us who grow weary of living. Growing old throughout centuries, eventually we become tired of life.”
“I hadn’t put much thought to the light fae not being able to die, if I’m honest.”
“Sometimes, death is a mercy. There are faeries who have been sunk, as punishment, to the bottom of the ocean. At least centuries ago… when the solises siphoned faeries.” He rolled up his sleeves, his face reddening. “They chained them with stones and sent them to the depths, never to be retrieved.”
“Do you think they’re still conscious down there?”
His tone sharpened. “Yes.”
My heart pounded. To be trapped drowning over and over was a fate worse than death. “Why has no one been tempted to steal the Dagger then? If you’re all so eager for a way to end things?” It was what I would do if I were in their position.
He shrugged.
“Majesty.” A priestess dressed in long robes entered the white-and-gray-stone courtyard. “It is time.”
I nodded and turned toward Cedric. “I’ll find out after.”
The gray, leaf-carpeted ground led to a part of the forest that was off-limits to anyone other than the priests, priestesses, and the reigning monarch. It was a sacred area, where Vahaga and the others came to worship and strengthen their connection with the ancestors. As queen, I was finally allowed to venture into the beating heart of Ash Forest. The trees gave the appearance of contorted bones strangling each other into knots. The leaves were dead, giving the name to the forest, but were tinged with black and white. Above the open canopy, a watercolor horizon of shades of gray blotted as far as the eye could see. Wisps of white clouds stroked the sunless sky.
I had presumed one day my brother would be allowed to meet with the ancestors instead of me, but it fate had decided it was his destiny to join them instead.
My stomach swirled as we ventured inside. The farther we walked over twigs, which cracked under my shoes, the more the magic came to life. A mossy mattress of shrubbery reached out as far as the eye could see. The forest swept into change. Time-chiseled trees narrowed into the sky.
