Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(36)
It was that thought that led me to add, softly, “I am sorry that we should meet under such circumstances.”
The girl turned to me, and her inhuman eyes widened in astonishment. “Such a plain little mouse!” she exclaimed. “I had heard my brother had strange taste, but I wasn’t expecting this. And they have dressed you up like one of us—how embarrassing for you.”
She began to snicker, and to my dismay, I felt my face grow hot. “I merely came to see if you were comfortable,” I said stiffly.
“How sweet!” she said, her eyes glittering with amusement. Her voice, though, was kind as she added, “Well, since you asked, if you could fetch me one of those flowers, I’d appreciate it ever so much. I would like to have something to wear in my hair, as my brother hasn’t let me have my jewels.”
I looked down at the flowers she was indicating. They lay by the side of the path and resembled a meadowsweet, but in a vivid shade of red. I gave her a suspicious look, thinking she meant to kick me, but the flowers were just out of range of her boot. I knelt and plucked several blooms, and as I did, I felt something brush the top of my head. Thinking it was merely one of the errant leaves scattered by the wind, I rose and handed the girl the flowers.
“Thank you,” she said, pressing her hand to her mouth. It was only when I had gone to sit upon a bench to wait for Wendell that I felt something wriggle in my hair.
Choking down a shriek, I yanked the thing out, coming away with several strands of my hair at the same time. It was a fat, spotted centipede. A shudder wracked my body as I tossed it aside.
“How on earth did she get her hands on that?” I grumbled to Lord Taran, who had come to see what I was fussing about.
“Hold still,” he said with a sigh, and plucked three more centipedes from my hair. “There.”
“Thank you,” I said, my cheeks hot.
“Perhaps, my queen,” he said in a dry voice, crushing the insects under his boot, “you might enlighten me: why we are bringing that charming little moppet along?”
“We cannot kill her,” I said. “Doing so may harm Wendell. And yet she is Wendell’s main rival for the throne, and has already come close to assassinating him once, so we must destroy the risk she poses to us somehow. Therefore, I would like to try to win her to our side. Perhaps if we show her evidence of her mother’s wickedness, and the damage it has done to the realm, she will reconsider her loyalties.”
“My,” Lord Taran said, “just listening to that has given me a headache. That is the benefit of old age—one loses all interest in politics.”
I examined him, his glossy dark hair and smooth skin, the perfect bow of his lips. He looked to be a man in his early twenties—an age at which there remained a hint of boyishness in his face, and I wondered if he had chosen it as a joke. “How old are you?” I said, just to see how he would sidestep the question.
To my surprise, he said simply, “That question doesn’t apply. I am from an era before time.”
It took me a moment to comprehend what he was saying. “You are—older than this realm?”
“I am older than any realm.” His gaze slid to my cloak. “Save one.”
I had to remind myself to breathe as dozens of questions swarmed through my head. “You cannot mean that.”
“Can’t I? Well, I suppose you’re right, Professor Wilde—you can never trust the Folk.” He raised his eyebrows in mock innocence and turned to attend to his mount, a towering black stallion. I stared at the back of his handsomely tousled hair—surely it was impossible. Wasn’t it?
“Yet you are not so old as to be above tormenting scholars,” I muttered.
He gave a surprised laugh. “You know,” he said musingly, “I was not enthusiastic at the prospect of my nephew inheriting the throne, and for the most part, I remain unimpressed by him, even if he is not quite so feckless as he once was.”
“He will make a better ruler than his stepmother,” I interjected. “A kingdom perpetually consumed with war is no kingdom at all. Your soldiers were dying; the small Folk were terrorized night and day. Do you truly not care about such things?”
He adjusted his horse’s saddle. “I truly do not. As I was saying—as highly as you esteem your husband, I have never seen anything exceptional in him. As a child, his magical talents were ordinary, and certainly there were many wiser and braver—and less indolent—candidates for the throne, including at least two of his siblings. But you, Emily—you appear to be an entertaining queen.”
“I am not truly a queen, for Wendell and I are not married yet,” I said, flustered. How I wished this man would simply ignore me, like the rest of his court! Perhaps his attention would have inspired less anxiety had I not recently watched him cleave a tree in two with a single blow.
Something in my tone summoned that familiar malicious gleam in his eyes. “Oh dear,” he said. “Does someone have cold feet? Is our king perhaps a disappointment in other respects?”
“No,” I said, growing only more flustered. “My feet were never warm to begin with, on the marriage subject. It has nothing to do with Wendell.”
He made no reply to this, but I could see from the delight in his gaze, like a cat spying a wounded bird in the grass, that this was not the last I would hear on the matter. You’ve put your foot in it now, I thought with a sense of impending doom.