“I will let you know as soon as I’ve discovered something worth sharing. Researching shall be my sole focus. But, in the meantime, restore your bond with this land. Strengthen your own innate magic before you inherit the power of kings.” Vena smiles in a fond and almost maternal way. “Relish in our safety and comfort before you go and reclaim your throne with battle and bloodshed.”
Davien sighs heavily. For a second, I think he’s going to put up a fight. I can see by his expression he wants to. But, to my surprise, he doesn’t.
“Very well. I leave this matter, for now, in your care, Vena.”
Vena looks to me. “And you, enjoy all Dreamsong has to offer. Places like this of peace and safety are rare in the fae wilds. Seeing it as a human is even rarer. Relish in it to your heart’s content.”
“I will, thank you.” I give a small curtsy to Vena as we leave. She has a twinkle in her eye and nods in reply. I don’t know if I should be showing her respect. But it feels right to do so.
With a few quick steps, I catch up with Davien. He glances at me from the corner of his eye. The silence between us is heavy and more awkward than it’s ever been.
I clear my throat to break the quiet and say, “For what it’s worth, I don’t mind a short reprieve here. I haven’t really had a chance to catch my breath over the past few days. It’ll be nice to feel safe.”
“You can feel safe among the fae?” he asks.
We come to a stop in the short antechamber between Vena’s audience hall and the gathering room. I bite my lip and run a hand through my hair.
“To be fair, I’ve always felt safe around you,” I admit. Even when I haven’t wanted to.
“Until you knew I was a fae.” He moves to leave.
I catch his hand. It’s as warm and soft as it was that night in the manor—the first time I wore a blindfold. “Even after…I never thought you would hurt me.”
“Yet you tried to run the first chance you got, regardless of what I vowed to you.” He hasn’t pulled away, not physically at least. Yet I can see I’ve wounded him. The deep hurt resonates dully within me, echoing from his palm to mine.
“I could trust you but not the others,” I point out. “They did spend the first day talking about how I was going to die.”
“Didn’t I betray you, though?” He steps forward, wings twitching with his agitation. “Didn’t you say that how I concealed the truth from you turned into a wound? Can you trust someone who betrayed you?”
“I…”
Davien comes to a stop a hair’s breadth away. I can feel every inch of his tall, lean form. He stares down at me with an intensity that no one has ever given me before. He waits for my answer, our hands still locked.
“You can’t have it every way, Katria. You tell me one thing. You do another. You trust me, until you don’t. You’re interested in understanding my predicament but do little once you know it. What is it that you really feel?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, admitting to both myself and him. That’s likely the root of all our problems. “I don’t know what I feel about you. I don’t know how to reconcile the man standing before me now with the Lord Fenwood I knew back at the manor. Because that man… That man…” I was beginning to develop real feelings for. The confession is a quiet, begrudging whisper across my mind. And the second it’s heard, every barrier I’ve ever built is strengthened once more.
I will never let myself fall in love.
To love is pain. Even just the start of it has me aching. Confused. Torn apart at the seams by conflicting interests. Was this how my father felt? Did he know Joyce was terrible for him and yet something…something refused to allow him to leave? Even when he knew she was wicked, he called her his light.
Now I’m falling into the same trap. This man began to spark feelings in me I never wanted and I have to stop them now, otherwise I might follow him to my demise in this world that threatens to kill me at every turn. I must, at all costs, ignore the emotions brewing in the depths of my heart.
“I am that man,” he says.
“Lord Fenwood was a lie.”
“I am fae, I can’t lie, no matter how much I might want to. Everything I told you—everything I was then—is who I am now. You cannot pick the parts of me you enjoy and abandon the rest.” He releases me. “I am both the Lord Fenwood who enjoys mead as a nightcap with a brilliant conversationalist, and Davien Aviness—fae and rightful ruler of the Kingdom of Aviness, which I have every intention of restoring. You trust me as I am, want me as I am, or don’t.”
I watch as he leaves, struggling for words. It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? He’ll get his magic out of me and then we’ll be done. I’ll go back to my world and live alone in that manor he bequeathed me, far from where anyone could ever harm me. He’ll stay here and be king of all the fae and forget I ever existed.
He doesn’t look back once.
I hover in the antechamber, not ready to reemerge back in the main hall. I can hear them talking in hushed tones. I wonder what’s being said but think better of trying to listen. I don’t want to hear it…not really. They’re talking about me. No, they’re talking about Davien’s magic within me and how they’ll get it back. I’m just an unwanted vessel. An extra step everyone loathes. A burden, yet again.
Hanging my head, I bite back a bitter laugh.
A door opening across the hall startles me. I see a young boy step through. Two tiny horns are perched just above his temples. A small, wiry tail twitches behind him as he heads toward Vena’s audience hall, a plump messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
