“I’ll try, but…” He ran a hand through his dark auburn curls, avoiding my eyes. “He hasn’t been at home much. Ever since you two fought, he’s been spending his time alone in the forest.”
The knot inside me sank like a heavy stone. I needed to make things right with my father. The years we had left together now felt urgently fleeting.
“I should go.” I sighed, glancing at the stairwell. Somehow I felt safer and happier in the gloomy dark of the dungeon than the bright sunny hallways that awaited me upstairs. I pulled him in for a final hug. “Teller,” I started, and my voice cracked.
“I know,” he murmured, squeezing me with all his strength. “I love you, too.”
“Even if I’m a soulless Descended monster like the rest of them?” I whispered.
“Even then.” He pulled back and grinned. “Can I see your magic before I go?”
Using my magic was the last thing I wanted. The reminder of the loss it signified was still too fresh. But when I looked at Teller and saw a glimmer of curiosity shining through his sadness, I knew I had to at least try.
“Of course,” I mumbled, forcing a smile. “You’ll have to stand far away. I can’t control it yet.”
He obeyed, crossing the room and bounding halfway up the staircase, his face excitedly aglow.
I focused on the space in front of me and tried to remember what I’d done to pull the magic out, what trigger had finally uncorked the voice’s bottled wrath.
It had been silent ever since. The thought of inviting it back into my head set my hands instantly trembling.
I flexed my fists, trying to conjure the icy heat I’d felt or the tingling thrum of the magic’s energy, but my palms only felt clammy and bare.
I remembered how Luther had provoked me, how he’d played on my own guilt and insecurities until I’d snapped. I tried to summon those feelings again, internally goading myself for every stupid, reckless thing I’d done over the past few weeks. The list of options was long.
Nothing happened. Not even a flicker.
And I loved it.
No angry voice, no pounding magic. I felt blissfully ordinary. Not a Queen, not even a Descended, just… me.
And as much as I wanted to make Teller happy, I couldn’t bear to let go of this feeling, however temporary, of being a normal, forgettable, wholly unremarkable mortal. The very thing I had once feared becoming, I now clung to with feverish hands.
“I think I used it up last night,” I lied. “I guess I need more time to rest and restore it.”
“Oh. Right, of course.” He gave a casual shrug, though his disappointment was clear. “Another day, then.”
“Sure.” I offered a tight smile. “Another day.”
I couldn’t help hoping that day never came.
Chapter
Fourteen
With the funeral a day away, the hallways and gardens were teeming with visitors desperate to corner me and stake their claim before the Ascension Ball.
I’d taken refuge in the Crown’s personal reading room, a sprawling wood-paneled salon on the top floor of the palace with a ceiling made entirely of glass. A drizzly storm bathed the room in a soft grey pallor while a lullaby of thick raindrops pattered against the windowpanes.
I had made a tentative peace with my predicament. After Luther surprised me with another breakfast tray in my suite—it was becoming a morning tradition—we’d even managed to have a pleasant meal together while he delivered his daily report on the status of the realm.
I’d grilled him on the key Descended of Lumnos, prodding for details on their relationships and weaknesses. I still felt a flutter in my stomach from the impressed look that had slipped through his flinty veneer.
My insecurity was far from banished, forever hovering in the wings, but between my budding friendship with Eleanor, the support of Henri and my brother, and Luther’s claim that my mother was alive, my smile was feeling genuine at last.
After some bonding time with Sorae and a long lunch with Eleanor to go over the latest rumors surrounding the mysterious new Corbois Crown （apparently, I had either been kidnapped as a baby and raised by elk in the forest, or I was so hideously deformed that Remis had locked me away in the dungeon until now）， I’d spent the afternoon curled up in front of a crackling fireplace with a soft quilt, a pot of steaming tea, and a stack of books on Descended culture.
“I understand I have my Queen to thank for the lecture I just received from my father.”
I bit back a smile at the sound of Luther’s voice.
“Oh?” I called out with feigned ignorance, stretching and sitting upright on the tufted divan. “How odd, I’m sure I told him how very helpful you’ve been.”
“I thought you and I had finally called a truce,” he muttered as he perched in an armchair beside me.
His face was solemn as always, but his muscles were bunched with tension. It seemed my chat with Remis had accomplished its goal of getting under Luther’s skin as well as his father’s.
“I wouldn’t dare go to war with His Royal Highness Prince Luther Corbois, Keeper of the Laws, Warden of something-or-other, Member of the Council of Self-Important Men, High General… wait, was it Grand General Supreme?” I frowned, stroking my chin.
His mask slipped briefly as he shot me a good-natured glare. “I’ve been instructed to beg forgiveness for failing to inform my beautiful Queen of certain ‘vital information’ that she would ‘dearly like to know.’”
I tried, and failed, to suppress my victorious grin. At least now I knew Remis could be trusted to deliver a message.
“Well imagine my surprise at hearing from your father that I’m to spend the next three weeks meeting with the Twenty Houses. All this after learning of the ball from Aemonn.” I tutted in disapproval. “If this is your candidacy to be my advisor, Prince, you’re going to have to do much better.”
“I never intended to keep those things from you. I only wanted to give you some time to adjust rather than overwhelm you.”
“Overwhelm me?” I sat up straighter. “So you thought I couldn’t handle it?”
His knuckles whitened where he gripped his armrests. “That’s not what I meant.”
I snapped the book in my lap closed with a loud thump. Through the glass panes, Sorae’s watery outline paused from her rain bath to cast a watchful amber eye our way.
“It sounds like you believed I was too fragile to be informed of my own schedule,” I said testily.
“I, more than anyone, know how not fragile you are,” he growled, his calm slipping. “But it is my sworn duty to protect you in whatever ways I can.”
“Protect me from what, myself?” I narrowed my eyes, expecting him to back down, but his gaze danced with a stubborn fire that matched my own. “I’m not a child, Luther, I am a grown woman.”
“Believe me, Your Majesty, I am well aware.”
His voice was low and rough, heavy with implication. My body flushed, tightening deep in my core. The want in his tone felt nothing like Aemonn’s empty flattery, and all at once I was too hot, too sensitive, too breathless.
I shoved the quilt from my lap, intending to storm off, but the fabric tangled with my skirts and lifted them away, exposing my bare skin from ankle to thigh. Luther’s eyes lingered there, branding my flesh, until he caught himself. His back straightened as his gaze jumped back to mine.