Page 35 of The Fae Queen's Captive
She mounts her horse and then accepts a fur-lined cloak from a servant with hair made of thorny yellow gorse. As Morgana clasps it at her neck, Morven comes into the courtyard, dressed all in black and glowering at his sister.
“Don’t do this,” he says as he approaches her horse.
“To whichthisdo you refer, Brother?” Morgana asks as she finishes fastening her cloak. “You sulk and fume about everything I’ve done for the past two years, so forgive me if I struggle to identify what’s bothering you today.”
His jaw is tight as he looks up at her. “You may wear the crown, but that doesn’t save you from being a fool. You know she’ll eat this entire kingdom whole if given a chance. And when it comes to tonight…”
He doesn’t finish, but I guess he doesn’t need to, because the queen gives a slow nod, as if she knows what he wants to say. She almost looks…sad.
“I have more laid in my lap than where I should melodramatically prowl next, Morven,” she says tiredly. “I need to go make sure the gifts are packed and ready. Janneth, stay with Idalia, and I’ll rejoin you soon.”
“You wanted this!” Morven calls as she rides out of the courtyard to the stables. “You fought me for it!”
But she, of course, doesn’t answer.
He turns to me, his beautiful face a pale gold in the autumn sunlight. “Did she tell you whom she’s meeting? Whom she’s treating with?”
I shake my head silently.
“The Court of Thistles,” he says. He is angry, cold, spitting the words. “The same fae who killed our mother. The same fae who war on us, prey on us, pluck at our borders and send assassins into our halls.”
“Maybe she thinks a peace treaty will stop all that.”
I think I detect something like pity in his obsidian eyes. “A peace treaty? Is that what you think this is? The Queen of the Thistle Court wants marriage, Janneth, and she won’t settle for less. She wants to be wedded to my sister so the Thistle Court and the Stag Court will be reunited. Two queens, one court. A single crown of bone and thistle once again.”
I stare at him, a strange, urgent tearing in my chest, like all the vessels around my heart are spilling blood all at once.
Morgana is getting married.
Morgana is getting married, and she didn’t tell me.
Morgana is getting married, and now I am confronted with all the shameful, half-formed fantasies I’ve been harboring since I met her.
“Your precious queen is dragging you to her betrothal,” Morven says. “Her betrothal to her mother’s murderer. Not,” he adds darkly, “that any of it will matter after tonight.” He turns to leave.
“Wait, why won’t it ma—”
But he’s already striding away, fast and angry.
I look down at my hands, tight on my reins, and try to think. Try to reason past the pulpy, gashing hurt of it.
She’s getting married.
It’s one thing to be a pet, a consort, but a mistress? Do I think I’m made of stern enough stuff to watch Morgana sit next to someone else, converse with someone else, place trust in someone else?
Do I think I’m strong enough to watch her fall in love with someone else?
It could hardly be a love match, I try to reassure myself.The Thistle Court literally just tried to kill her.
But does it matter? When someone else would have first rights to her time, her bed, her thoughts? It might not be love, but it would mimic it, and it would kill me to watch.
I find Idalia by her cloud of moths, fluttering in the sunlight, and ride toward her, doing my best to look poised and cool and not on the verge of tears.
Not utterly humiliated.
But as we start on our ride to the market, all I can see is the queen’s head bent between my thighs last night, her eyes right before she kissed me with blood on her mouth.
Her voice as she said,I have wanted you for a very long time.
