eyes on me.
Was he beautiful? I hadn’t noticed it before. Had I been with someone more beautiful…? I couldn’t remember his name now. He wasn’t important.
“Emperor,” I heard myself shout as though from a distance, “make the fairies sing again!”
“May I dance with you?”
I smiled. “As much as you’d like.”
Was I flirting with him? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I just wanted to keep dancing. To listen to the fairy song.
The Emperor moved across the circle as if in slow motion, never taking his eyes off me. Now, the fairies swirled around him like a beautiful, glowing, glistening cloak.
In seconds, he was by my side, his hand at my waist. At that moment, my legs gave way, and I sank into him. The fairies surrounded us.
I could hear them whispering, “You’ve won the Emperor. You’ve won the Emperor.”
I was victorious!
They begin to sing again, a new song I didn’t know, but it was beautiful, and the Emperor spun me around as we danced, his hand firm on my hip. He was grinning at me like the cat who got the cream. But I’d won him, hadn’t I?
And he was… I wanted him.
No. No, not him.
There was something… something rotten about this.
The fairy singing grew louder, until it drowned out my own thoughts. The Emperor gripped me by the waist and pressed himself to me. I could feel his firm grip on my lower back, his hips moving against me.
My heart was beating fast, but he was the wrong one.
Insistent, the music throbbed. The wings of a thousand tiny fairies, beating in unison.
I turned, and then I saw him. The right one—Marroc. His name came back to me, and he stared at me with ice-blue eyes. Even from here, I felt the pulse of his seductive magic rippling over my skin. That one. He might be a lich, but I was safe with him, and his beauty was like a blade right to my heart.
“Help me,” I tried to say, but no words came out. I couldn’t speak. I could only sing with the fairies.
The Emperor swung me around the fire toward the table. It was empty of food now—the fairies had consumed every morsel, every bite of sustenance. Only bones remained.
Then he pushed them aside, pressing me onto the wood. His breath was hot on my neck. He licked my cheek, whispering, “You will be the mother of my children.”
Nausea rose in my gut. “No!” I tried to fight him, but my body was not my own, and I was compliant in his hands.
Marroc’s eyes were fixed on mine, burning with rage. It wouldn’t kill him to step in here, would it?
Then I saw the dozens of cords binding him. Ahh…
Well, I was the North Star, and I could find a way to save myself. I’d bring Skalei through this man’s neck.
I just needed to think clearly under this haze of music and dancing and confusion.
“You are mine,” whispered the Emperor in my ear. “I will never let you go.”
Oh, I would enjoy killing him.
But with that phrase, those words, a distant memory sparked in my mind. Something important.
Never let you go.
Tiny fairies bobbed and weaved and danced around us, singing the Emperor’s song. Vainly, I tried to struggle, but his grip was like iron.
And as the look of rage on Marroc’s features faded, he looked like he was weakening somehow. He was under an enchantment of his own.
“I will never let you go,” said the Emperor again, his voice raspy with desire. His hand was on my thigh, pushing up my dress.
And then I remembered. It was like that song that Marroc hated.
In my mind, I implored the fairies, Sing Rick Roll.
Chapter 31
Marroc
Through the fire and smoke, Ali stared at me, her expression fierce. But she seemed so distant, and fog clouded my mind. I’d wanted to get up and rip off the Emperor’s head, but the ropes were enchanted with a magic too powerful even for me. And worse, they weakened me.
At my feet, the pixies danced, even as they tossed more of their magical cords over me, binding me tighter and tighter. The bonds wrapped around me like a cocoon. A magical sleep crept over my mind like a blanket of night.
Distantly, I could hear the voices of the fairies, but they were fading. Quiet and pleasant. And even as I closed my eyes, I knew there was nothing I could do. The Emperor had won.
But then the fairies launched into a new song, a tune