Page 34 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

After all, my father—and, unfortunately, my brother—couldn’t set foot outside a chamber or council room without being mobbed by subjects, fawned over by folks who had little genuine interest other than how they might gain favor.

“Thoughts?” Maksym asked, and my traveling vision settled on him.

“It’s…” I pursed my lips. “Quaint.”

His dark eyebrows climbed, and he coughed. “Quaint?”

“Mm. I’ve seen bigger. Far more impressive.”

Slowly, Maksym nodded, but clearly not in agreement. “We’ll see about that, Miss Wynn.”

He strode towards the staircase to our left and took it with the same graceful fluidity he’d flitted up the dungeon steps with, leaving me again to trail after him with one leg that didn’t enjoy such a motion.

At the top of the steps, where a railed landing overlooked the foyer below, Maksym stopped and gestured at the wide-open space. “Does this angle do it any better?”

What a strange, strange man.

I followed him to that railing, though, and took a glance out below. “Afraid not.”

“Shame,” he shrugged. “Must be the cold.”

Before I’d fully processed that the King of Grimmoria was making cock jokes with me, his fucking prisoner, his long legs had already carried him a dozen paces away, down an expansive hallway into the depths of the second floor.

There were fewer windows here than in the foyer, mostly small circular ones dotted along the hall’s length. Little change in the light, though, courtesy of sizeable nytefire lanterns strung up on nearly every dark wood rafter and stone ballast above us.

Perhaps most strangely, though, was how the dull buzz of noise from the atrium followed behind us, even though there was no traffic in this upper hall aside from a handful of posted sentries.

But when I’d turned to look over my shoulder twice, there was nothing but an empty hall behind us.

“So, where exactly are you taking me?” I asked to give my mind something tangible to focus on. “If you planned on giving me a tour, this has been mediocre at best.”

Maksym cast me an unimpressed glance, but it only lasted for a second before his amber gaze flickered up to the rafters, and his attention narrowed.

Good goddess, maybe I wasn’t losing my mind. “You hear it too?”

“I certainly do,” he rumbled before he growled, “Eilir. I swear to Mina, if you don’t come out right this second…”

Mina.

The mother of the lower pantheon, and not a name I heard often outside of lectures as a child.

But I had little time to consider the clear weight of her importance to the dark fae, because that damned buzzing went through a cycle of starting and stopping again, emanating from above us.

Maksym planted a hand on his hip as he scrubbed his fingers over his brow.

“No, Eilir, she doesn’t bite—” His attention flickered to me. “I don’t think she bites. Just come out already.”

My jaw slackened. “Of course I don’t bite. Why would I⁠—”

Something drifted into my periphery.

No, not just something—a plant with wings.

A fucking sapling with butterfly-shaped, translucent wings.

I backed up an uneasy step and was flat on my ass before I knew it, staring up at a goddess-damned sprite with my jaw nearly on the floor. A tree sprite, if its bark for skin and tufts of leaves sticking out the top of its head were to be trusted.

“Hello, Princess Enora,” it said with its squeak as it clasped its little woody hands and drifted down in front of me, its wings throwing off glimmers of rainbow light. “It is so very nice to meet you properly.”