Page 10 of The Poison of the Earth
“Commander Lonan,” she says pertly, turning back to her writing.
I step into the room further as I shut the door behind me. I stand awkwardly for a moment, feeling ridiculous.
I clear my throat. “Apologies for interrupting your very full schedule, but I wanted to ask you some more questions.”
Bollocks. I had had no thoughts on what I was going to do besides the driving desire to lay eyes upon her.
She finishes writing and closes the book with finality. She stands and I blink hard at seeing her in a thin chemise. She crosses to her bed and sits near me, hands in her lap.
“Yes, my lord?” She looks up at me through her lowered lashes.
“Do you not have any dresses?”
She giggles. “You wanted to speak to me of dresses?”
“Yes. No.” I run a hand through my hair. “I noticed...” I gesture at the nightgown she’s in.
“Well, I arrived wearing my only dress I could escape with. And one of the maids found me a simple shift dress as a spare but you see, I... spilled something on them both and had to ask the staff to launder them for me.” She pauses here, looking nervous, “Though I would much rather do my own laundry and pull my own weight, my lord.”
I groan inwardly at hearing those words slip out her plush, pretty lips. I look upward, trying to get myself together.
“I see,” I respond, my voice rough.
A tiny grin plays on those lips. “Are you ill, Sire? You seem... out of sorts.”
The vixen, she’s doing it a-purpose. She must be, surely?“Fine, fine. I came to ask you more about the Stonesthrow family.”
“Of course,” she answers quietly and she shifts on the bed.
“Alder has no heirs. No siblings.” I start.
She looks up, “No siblingsalive,” she corrects.
“Yes. Tell me what you know of his older brothers.”
In Faery, it is not the eldest that inherited the parents’ land or titles or money. It is the strongest. So Alder being born later did not exclude him from the throne, though it’s unlikely he’d have been choose as successor by his ruthless, bloodthirsty father.
Allie speaks, her eyes dark, “Ash died of a fall. A fall from a horse he’d trained himself. He, an experienced horseman. And Linden died in some silly honor battle. But he was a gentle soul, who barely knew how to hold a sword and would more like be in a tavern playing a lute. Lennox was poisoned. The cook was swiftly executed before they could be more... forcefully questioned.”
I nod. Stories and rumors I’d heard before.
“That’s not to speak of the babes,” she adds softly.
I blink. “The babes?”
She clears her throat, her face blank but I can still see the sorrow there. “Sylvan, Elm and Wyth. Born to the King Wells’ mistresses after the death of his older boys. He was inconsolable and sought refuge in the ladies’ skirts, trying to replenish his brood.”
I blink, wondering if perhaps one of the ladies was Allie’s mistress, and thus she had been attached to the babe. “And where are they?” I ask, though I have a solid idea.
“All died. Changlings, they said. Human babes switched with our strong Fae young.”
I drop to my knees in front of her. “But you don’t think so, do you, little maid?”
“I know so,” she whispers, rage flashing in her eyes.
I study her coral eyes, pupils ringed by a rich red before turning that orange-pink shade. I nod slowly. “We’ll speak more soon, Allie.”
I stand and stride out.
