Page 4 of A Court So Dark
“Your Majesty!” she exclaimed as if I’d said something ridiculous.
I took several steps forward and approached my mate. I raised my fingers to her cold hand and stared into that beautiful face. “I have learned much from her. When she wakes up, I will marry her. She will be my queen, and together, we will change things.”
Starting with the statute that said a Seelie monarch was not allowed to wed someone who wasn’t of pure Fae blood. Such nonsense.
Reluctantly, I pulled away from Daniella. “I must go now. The Sub Rosa awaits. I leave her in your hands.”
“Go with ease, my king. I will take good care of her.”
I retrieved the transfer token and willed it to take me to the spot where I’d agreed to meet my friends.
“You’re back!” Arabis shot to her feet as I materialized, a dagger in her hand with a skewered piece of roasted meat at its tip.
I found them sitting by the light of a campfire, enjoying a fresh kill, from the smell of it. Cylea had been at work with her bow and arrows, no doubt. She could always find something to satisfy our appetite.
“I thought you’d be gone much longer,” she added, sitting back down.
In previous visits, I had stayed with Daniella for hours, unable to leave her side, but right now, I needed to talk to them, to find out what they thought of the bit of news we had acquired.
I found an empty rock next to Kryn and sat down. Silver offered me a plate with pieces of meat on it. I waved it away.
He shrugged. “More for me.”
“We’ve been wasting our time searching for Cardian,” I said without a preamble. “He has a transfer token.” I smack a fist into my hand. “I should’ve guessed.”
Transfer tokens were not common. They weren’t necessarily rare, but due to their high price, they were given sparingly. As a Seelie Prince, my brother would’ve naturally been allowed one. However, Father had denied him the privilege right after his first visit to the human realm, where he made a fool of himself, causing an embarrassing incident in a nightclub and landing himself in jail. Still, it had been stupid of me to assume he would be traveling by regular means.
“He could be anywhere now,” I added, fighting my rising anger once more. I cracked my fingers as a way to focus my attention on something else.
“Do you think he escaped to the human realm?” Cylea asked.
I shook my head. “I seriously doubt it.”
Cylea worked on tightening her bow. “You don’t think he went to Mythorne, do you?”
“A Seelie Prince in the Unseelie Court?” Kryn said. “I don’t think that would be very smart.”
Arabis nodded. “I agree. Besides, Cardian is paranoid, not to mention a coward. He may have an alliance with Mythorne, but I doubt he trusts him.”
Cylea nodded. “True.”
They all looked at me. “I’m not sure. He’s been known to doverystupid things. Honestly, I have no idea where he could’ve gone.”
Since we left Elyndell proper a week ago, we’d been following a path that led to some of Cardian’s closest allies—a list given to us by Naesala Roka. Since we had paid a visit to five lords to whom my brother had pledged prominent positions in court. Clearly, we’d been following a cold trail from the beginning.
Cylea plucked her bow string. Ittwangedsatisfactorily. “You don’t think Naesala sent us on a purposeless chase?”
She often asked questions that others might consider dense or unnecessary, but she got us talking, reflecting on every possible angle, no matter how unlikely.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
The others shook their heads.
“She now has a direct and important link to the Seelie King,” Kryn said. “It wouldn’t serve her purposes as a human spy to upset the Seelie Court.”
“True,” Cylea agreed.
“We have to assume Cardian had a contingency plan,” Arabis put in. “He probably procured some sort of hideout in case things didn’t go the way he planned.”
