Page 104 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Oh, we both knew that was a bald-faced lie.

I may not always have had the sunniest disposition, but I’d never gone bald from worrying or had my bark—or lack thereof—peel off in sheets, all things Eilir had done repeatedly in my life. I was about to volley that back to them, but the sprite’s look of frustration fell, and they sighed.

“You don’t really think something bad is going to happen, do you?” Their head leaves rustled as they glanced between me and the arena. “Her brother, I mean. You said…”

“I said we need to be attentive and diligent, that is all.”

It was the unfortunate truth, given how none of Enora’s situation sat well with me. Not the attempt on her life, nor how she’d been dumped over our borders, and I had told Eilir as much in the strictest confidence. It wasn’t anything to do with my doubts about Enora either. I was positive she’d just been caught in the crosshairs of something, even if I didn’t know what that something was.

All I knew was that I held no trust for her brother and his motives.

More reasonable kings had used less to strike war.

“Not that I think something will happen, but…” I sighed. “I’ve upped bodies at the border posts, and I gave a little extra to the wards, so—” I shrugged.

Eilir gaped at me. “You didn’t.”

Easy for them to pass judgement. The ward stones of Grimmoria were a necessary burden for whoever wore its crown.

Built deep beneath the Keep—even deeper than the underbelly we called Jasper’s crypt—they were imbued pieces of azurite set directly into confluences of aether few knew any precise details about, and even fewer knew how to access. I, of course, had first been brought to see them when I was a child, during a brief span of my life when my father actually took an interest in preparing me to succeed him. The room the core stones were housed in fascinated younger me, with its endless glyphs inscribed on every visible surface and the green-blue glow of aether that reflected up through the stones.

I found them far less fascinating now, when my only time with them involved an annual visit to replenish the magic that left me bedridden for days, all in the name of protecting my people through a barrier that was thousands of years old.

Across our kingdom, smaller pieces of azurite were buried, from our mountainous border with the high fae lands to the plateaus that separated us from the Wastes. There was even a mighty obelisk hundreds of feet beyond our border gate. When the large ward stones were properly imbued, they acted as an aetherical net cast across the kingdom, a blessing from a bargain an old and desperate king made with Mina herself.

With no additional influence, the wards prevented beings without dark fae blood from passing through the boundaries unless they were bound by a blood bargain—like Enora now was to me—or brought through by someone of dark fae descent and well-documented. Though the latter was a little tedious to manage, it was necessary for prosperous trade.

Out of an abundance of caution, I’d taken a trip down to the ward stones a few days earlier, just to ensure they were one less thing I’d need to worry about in the coming months.

Half a year had barely passed since I last let them draw all the power they needed, so the pull was nowhere near its usual severity, but I’d still felt like shit the entire next day. And for my dinner with Enora—something I’d apologize for one day.

The utterly displeased and equally concerned look Eilir was giving me was exactly why I hadn’t bothered to tell the sprite or Jasper.

Despite being usual sticklers for their traditions, most denizens of the woods felt the wards should be left to lapse, that it was a practice long past its expiration. My mage had adopted a similar opinion, though he was adamant it had nothing to do with how he fussed worse than my mother would when I’d take ill.

Unfortunately for the sprites and my mage, in the tumultuous few years since I’d taken my throne, I’d already made a lengthy list of changes to my home. Too many changes, many liked to argue loudly, but they were ones of absolute necessity. Laws, rights, freedoms. Conversations about the barrier could come in another year or ten.

“I did,” I replied to Eilir with a half-hearted shrug. “Peace of mind never hurts, you know. If her brother had the gall to try anything, the scouts would see them across the Wastes anyway. The wards just help me rest a little easier.”

Eilir gave me a look that said they did not believe an ounce of what I said.

“Peace. Of. Mind.” Sometimes, you had to repeat yourself until you were blue in the face with Eilir. “Scouts will see them. Barrier will⁠—”

“Enora, wait a second! That’s not what I—fuck!”

Jasper’s shout echoed up from the arena, and my attention snapped back down just as the princess threw her quarterstaff to the side and charged towards my mage. He dropped his own weapon just as hastily and threw his hands up as she cocked her left arm back and swung at him. Clearly, his mind was anywhere but on his magic, because Jasper only managed to just block her hit before her right fist came swinging in and she punched him square in the nose.

My entire body tensed.

“Oh no,” Eilir whispered as Jasper staggered back, a hand clasped over his face, and the faint metallic tang of blood hit the air.

Oh no, indeed.

But what came next was far, far worse.

Enora took two determined steps forward and sent her knee directly into his groin with a slew of words that sounded awfully unpleasant. Jasper sank to the ground with a pained groan that traveled up through the stadium, and I cupped myself with a commiserating curse.

That poor, poor man.