Page 86 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
Her arm rises from the dark water, the mark shimmering softly.
“I can’t even see it,” she mutters, swiping a washcloth over the skin and shivering. “Can you?” She aims the question at Caed, who nods.
“Still there,” he confirms. “Not as ugly as I thought it would be, though.”
We fall back into silence until I push gently at her shoulders. “Rinse.”
She dunks obligingly, and when she comes up again, I sigh. “Cressida took things too far. She shouldn’t have meddled, even if you did want it.”
“Damn straight she shouldn’t have,” Prae mutters. “But what do I do now? I can’t ignore him. He’s right there, under my skin. I can even feel how stupidly sorry he is. It’s like ignoring a kicked puppy.”
Caed raises a white brow. “When have you ever given a shit about kicked puppies?”
“Where do you want to go from here?” I ask. “From what I’ve heard, mates don’t do well when they’re separated.”
It’s why fae law prohibits them being kept apart, but I don’t add that part.
Prae shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
I pass her a towel, and she’s barely finished wrapping it around herself before her shoulders stiffen and a dark look passes over her face. An instant later, there’s a gentle knock at the door.
“Go away!” she snaps, before I can ask who it is.
The knocker doesn’t try again.
“Want me to hold him still so you can cut off his balls?” Caed offers, a dark glint in his eyes.
“Do I look so pathetic that you think I need help with that?” she counters.
He holds his hands up in surrender. “No. But I’d enjoy it.”
Prae’s posture loosens, then she sighs. “We can’t. The moment a pair of Fomorians tortures a fae prince, we lose all the progress we’ve made at convincing the fae that we’re not evil barbarians.”
“I don’t care—” I begin, but she stops me with a look.
“I do. When this war is over, if Caed lives, you’ll be the queen of more than just the four courts and Elfhame. And if one sixthof your people are hated by the rest, that’s not going to go well for them.”
My gut turns to ice. “What are you…?”
But she doesn’t explain, just looks at Caed.
Caed, who’s Elatha’s heir. The heir to the crown of the Fomorian Mountains. My mate.
And if Elatha dies and Caed lives… she’s right. I would become Nicnevin to the Fomorians and the fae. I probably am already, given that I connected the mountains to Danu. How can I be the high queen of a court built around a metal that makes me sick?
“How would that even work?” I ask myself, pacing away, before realising I’ve been distracted entirely from what’s really important right now. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. If we get to that point and I have to order the Autumn Court into line, I will.”
Prae smirks. “As much as I love the backbone you’re developing, that’s a shortsighted approach. My point is, Illidwen has seen you walking the streets with your Fomorian mate without any of your other Guards. They’ve seen Caed and Jaro sparring almost every single day this week, and they’ve watched me and Gryffin flirting openly. Until this mess happened, we were doing really well at proving co-existence is possible.”
She heads for her closet and pulls out… a normal dress. One which covers every inch of her down to her thighs.
If that wasn’t an indication that not quite everything is as right with her as she’d like to have us believe, I don’t know what is.
“Do you want to stay?” I ask, but the idea is disquieting. “I don’t. This pilgrimage has gone on long enough.”
“You’re not ready to leave,” Prae and Caed say at exactly the same time, and I have to resist the urge to bang my head against the wall.
“I know that.” Deep breaths. “But Mab’s reports from Elfhame aren’t good. You said Elatha was bringing an armada, and we’ve already wasted months… What’s worth more to Florian? Four armies, or one Nicnevin?”
