Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

She may not trust my glamour, but she trusts the hopelessness of my love. That crushing, icy pressure finally relents, and sweat beads my brow as she backs off.

“Very well. The ceremony will occur on Samhain. In the meantime, you can begin training our newest army recruits this week. I’m sure you’ll want to settle in tomorrow before you begin—”

“I won’t be training the new recruits yet,” I inform her. “I won’t be moving into the sídhe tomorrow either.”

She stills, surprised at my defiance. “Why not?”

“You have my promise. The Knighthood on Samhain. Until then, life continues as it has. I live at Mathers. I report to you.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but I’m not finished. She may kill me for my impertinence, but the risk is low now that she has what she wants.

“We can’t tip our hand to the Seelie yet. My absence would be seen as a prelude to immediate war.”

She frowns but doesn’t reply. Good. That means she heard what I said.

“Mother, let me stay these last few weeks. We’ll withdraw our people from campus, we’ll finish gathering supplies, and come Samhain, I’ll reside permanently in the sídhe. What are a few weeks to our immortality?”

“I fear the day you decide to rise up against me,” she says quietly, but I know it’s a compliment. And a surrender.

I have a few last weeks of freedom before my fate is sealed. A few last weeks to help Smith. I fought for his life and won, but also set the end of our time together. I can’t pretend to enjoy my hollow victory.

I manage to sit across from Mother for another ten minutes, picking at my food while she eats the choicest morsels from her dinner. There’s no point in my eating anything else with this nausea churning inside me. There’s no point sitting here when I could be back on campus.

My knife and fork chime as I set them on my plate. Mother raises a brow when I stand and place my napkin on the table. “I forgot I have a meeting about a project tomorrow morning. I’ll take my leave tonight.”

I’m nearly to the door when she calls out, “Roark, send my regards to the human.”

My skin pebbles with goose bumps. “Of course, Mother.”

I don’t allow myself to shake until I’m safely hidden in my room, packing for my early return to Mathers. When the shudders do roll through me, I have to sit on the edge of my bed and wrap my arms around my ribs to keep myself from rattling apart.

The Queen of Air and Darkness rules through subtlety and misdirection. I know the game she and I currently play. By threatening Smith, she thinks she’ll coax me into obedience. She thinks I would risk myself to protect him.

I would. I just did.

But I didn’t give in to her demands completely. I left myself a tiny space to parry her next move by refusing to move home. That condition is bound to come sooner rather than later. Mother measures her world by end results, not the means employed to reach them. The longer I refuse to take on the mantle before Samhain, the more she’ll casually threaten Smith. She’ll tease and poke and prod that open wound to motivate me, but she won’t act. She won’t risk losing me by harming him.

But the moment she learns that he may feel something for me, that the spell might have a chance of breaking, she’ll focus her full energy on him. The chance to win a Knight of his power while keeping me as one of the heirs to the Court will be too much for her to resist. Smith won’t stand a chance. He’ll fall before he realizes he’s at war.

The thin line on my palm mocks me when the firelight plays over it. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Hasn’t hurt for years. The protection spell cast all those years ago when I dragged Smith from the sídhe has settled into my skin and bones.

He doesn’t remember my interference that night. He doesn’t remember my mother’s offer, the temptation she placed in front of him when he was mindless from pain: Knighthood for his family’s permanent security, for an end to his suffering, for near-immortality. He doesn’t know I ripped the words of binding from his memory. I didn’t want there to be a single chance that he would repeat them by accident, only to find himself chained by a fae promise, like so many other foolish humans had before him.

Our laws are absolute. My mother offered it to him, told him how to claim the position, but could do no more than that. The Knight must choose to serve of his own will. She never dreamed I’d find a loophole in the process. She underestimated my desperation.

I hid the litany from him, tied it back with ribbons of love and bitterness and ancient words as strong today as they were at the dawn of time. Like all fae spells, mine can be broken with the power of true love. Were he ever to acknowledge that impossible emotion for me, he’d remember everything. Remember the offer, remember the words. Could choose to say them.

Until then, he’s safe from my mother. He can learn and develop his power since no one else knows that he’s the first choice for the Unseelie Knight. With that secret buried, there will be no serious assassination or kidnapping attempts on him. He’ll be viewed as an anomaly instead of a threat, humored instead of feared.

He’ll leave Mathers after he graduates, forget about me, and have a chance for a normal life. As normal as his life could be.

It’s the best I could do to make up for spying on him. For piquing my mother’s interest in the first place. A paltry offering, it seems.

I force my fingers to curl and cover the line. I only have to outlast him for a few more weeks. In the alley, he made me forget everything. He made me want to ruin him utterly, damn the consequences.

Years of planning nearly destroyed by a kiss.

“Enough,” I whisper, praying to the Goddess that hearing the word echo through my chamber will make it true.