we get going?”
Indigo pushed her cat eye glasses farther up her nose. “You’re willingly going to see the first king’s artifacts?”
“The sooner I get it over with the sooner I get back to work—and I really need to meet with the chef. I’m a bit concerned we won’t have enough food for the party-banquet-thing,” I said.
Skye extended her arm and pointed to the shabby castle before she led the way up to it. “I doubt it will be a problem,” she said. “You already have enough food to cover all the guests on the list I made for you.”
“Yes, but I invited some other people, too,” I reminded her. “And they RSVP-ed with me.”
“Perhaps.” Skye tried to yank open a wooden door, but it didn’t move. “However, it saddens me to say this, Queen Leila, but I highly doubt any of the other Court monarchs will come, even though it’s tradition and you sent them invitations.”
Although I’d been officially crowned—and married because of those annoying laws from that stinking first king—almost two weeks ago, my official first royal banquet was in three days.
Technically I’d been made queen and bound to the Court months ago—the Night Court monarch was picked out by magical horses called night mares. Usually they just found the next monarch, but six of the night mares had decided they liked me enough to use their magic on me, inescapably binding me to the Court and making me queen long before I usually would have been crowned.
It was complicated.
The important thing was the other Courts wouldn’t recognize me until I was officially crowned—and to be officially crowned I had to be married, hence my unusual ceremony with my assassin-husband. On the bright side, said assassin-husband seemed to be tolerating my presence well enough these days that I didn’t think he was going to kill me in my sleep—and now I was crowned.
But, as I said earlier, fae were all about power plays.
I’d learned since being made queen that, to the fae, everything was a game for power.
They would cheat, kill, and betray one another to obtain more power—both in their own Court, and among the others.
I’d fought to subdue my Court enough that I could reasonably say they’d follow me and wouldn’t betray me—especially not when my dear husband, Lord Rigel, the famed assassin known as the Wraith, would inherit the throne if I died. But my power place among the other Courts?
Hoooo boy, that was a different basket of crazy.
Not that I care. My personal goal is to destroy these games of power. They only divide the fae and make everything worse.
But saying that out loud would make Skye guzzle all the antacids in her mint tin in one go. So, I kept the conversation a little more…limited.
“Yeah, I’m counting on the other monarchs playing mind games and skipping my banquet,” I said. “That’s why I’m actually planning fun stuff. But with my personal guests it’s still going to be a pretty large party.”
I helped Skye pull the oversized door open, then let Indigo through. When I turned around to close the door behind us, I saw Lady Chrysanthe.
She was sitting on one of the crumbling stone bannisters, the picture-perfect night fae with her blond hair, tapered ears, olive toned skin, and expressive hazel green eyes. She was wearing a dress—she always wore a dress—that was artfully ruffled and accented with fresh flowers, and was gazing up at the moon like a heroine from a tragic ballad.
I furrowed my eyebrows as I studied her.
Lady Chrysanthe had been downright antagonistic to me for most of our acquaintance. She and her family thought she would be named the next Night Monarch, and they hadn’t taken kindly to a half human occupying the throne instead.
But she’d been…weird ever since I’d uncovered a plot laid out by one of her so called “friends” who tried to take her down by making it look like she was attempting to kill me. Yeah, fae went for nine layers of confusing with their plots and schemes. It’s what made them stretch the truth and interpret it differently since they couldn’t outright lie
I’d seen her at least half a dozen times since I’d been married/crowned. She was always standing or sitting by herself, looking beautiful and soulful. She must have had some kind of goal in mind—fae did not act without a reason—but there was nothing logical about her actions that I could see.
Fae are weird.
I shut the door and followed Skye and Indigo through