Chapter 9 The first dinner
He studied me for a long moment. The winter-storm scent of him drifted across the room, sharp and cold and strangely grounding.
"You're not what I expected," he said.
"No," I agreed. "But I'm much worse."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But close.
"Fine," he said. "A truce. But I have conditions."
"So do I."
"I'm sure you do."
"Condition one," I said, holding up a finger. "Your family stops insulting me in public. I can handle it, but it's tedious, and I will eventually stop being polite about it. Trust me when I say you do not want me to stop being polite."
"Noted."
"Condition two. I have access to your libraries. Unrestricted. If there is a loophole in this Oath, I want to find it, not to escape, necessarily, but to understand what we're dealing with."
"Agreed. I'll grant you access immediately."
"Condition three." I hesitated. This one mattered. "My people. My handmaidens. My dragon. They are under my protection, and by extension, yours. If anyone in this court harms them or threatens them, I will respond. And you will not stop me."
Cardan held my gaze. "Is that a threat?"
"It's a promise."
The moment stretched. Then he nodded.
"Condition four," he said. "Mine, this time. You attend court functions. All of them. We just must keep up the appearances of being married to the court."
"Fine."
"Condition five. No more public comments about eating hearts."
"Only on Tuesdays is harmless and you know it."
"Princess."
"Fine," I sighed. "No heart-eating jokes. You're stripping me of all my best material."
"Condition six." He stepped closer. He was tall, taller than I liked. I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "If we are to be allies, I need to know I can trust you. No secrets. No hidden agendas. If you discover something, about the Oath, about my court, about anything, you come to me."
"Only if you extend the same courtesy."
"Agreed."
We stood there, close enough to touch, close enough to fight, close enough to do something entirely different.
I extended my hand.
"Truce?"
He looked at my hand. Looked at my face. Then he took it.
His grip was warm. Firm. His skin was calloused in a way I hadn't expected, the hands of a warrior, not just a king.
"Truce," he said.
And for the first time since I had arrived in this blinding, golden world, I felt something that might have been hope.
\---
Later that night, after Cardan had left and my handmaidens had helped me undress and the palace had settled into uneasy silence, I stood at the window and watched the moon rise over Aurelia Prime.
Ash purred on the pillow behind me. The obsidian pendant lay warm against my chest.
Somewhere in this palace, Cardan was probably standing at his own window, looking at the same moon, wondering what he had just agreed to.
We are trapped.
But perhaps, just perhaps, trapped together was better than trapped alone.
I closed the curtains and went to bed.
_____________________________
Three days passed in the Aurelian Palace.
Three days of darkness and silence and blessed, beautiful sleep.
I had discovered, to my immense satisfaction, that the curtains in my quarters were enchanted. A gift from a long-dead mage who had designed the room for a light-sensitive ambassador from the Shadow Realms. The enchantment was simple, draw the curtains, and the room plunged into complete, absolute darkness. No sunlight. No moonlight. No insufferable golden glow creeping through the cracks.
It was pure bliss.
I slept for eighteen hours the first day. Fourteen the second. Twelve the third. My handmaidens began to worry. Liriel checked my pulse twice. Thalia brought food I didn't eat. Sera stood guard at the door and turned away three separate messengers from Princess Elowyn with increasingly creative excuses.
"The Princess is indisposed."
"The Princess is recovering from her journey."
"The Princess is communing with the ancient spirits of her ancestors and cannot be disturbed."
The third one was my favorite. I would have to give Sera a raise.
But on the fourth day, the summons came. Not a messenger this time. A letter. Hand-delivered by Captain Aldric himself, which meant it was officially Unavoidable.
Princess Nyx,
Your presence is requested at a formal family dinner this evening. The entire court will be in attendance. Attendance is not optional.
—His Majesty, High King Cardan Oberon Ashryver Windsor
I read it. Then I read it again. Then I held it up to the candle flame and watched the edges curl.
"Princess?" Liriel asked cautiously. "Are you burning His Majesty's letter?"
"Only a little."
She gently plucked it from my fingers. "Perhaps we should prepare your gown instead."
"Perhaps we should flee back to Hel."
"Would you like me to fetch the obsidian pendant?"
I considered it. For a long, shameful moment, I actually considered it. But then I thought of Elowyn's smug face, Cressida's poisoned-sweet smile, Adrian's too-interested eyes. If I ran now, they would win. They would spend the next century telling stories about the cowardly Princess of Hel who couldn't handle a single dinner.
I would rather swallow glass.
"No," I said. "Fetch the bone-silk gown. The black one. And the dagger with the opal hilt."
"The one that's poisoned?"
"That's the one."
Liriel smiled, a small, fierce thing. "Yes, Princess."
\---
The formal dining hall was smaller than the throne room, which was like saying a hurricane was smaller than a typhoon. It was still enormous. It still had clouds near the ceiling. It still gleamed with enough gold to fund a small kingdom for a decade.
But the table was long and narrow, seating perhaps thirty guests, and the lighting was softer, candles instead of chandeliers, their flames casting dancing shadows across the faces of the assembled court.
I paused in the doorway, my hand resting lightly on Ash's head. He had insisted on coming, and I had not argued. A dragon on one's shoulder was an excellent deterrent to unwanted conversation.
The room was already full.
At the head of the table sat Cardan, resplendent in a deep blue doublet that made his silvery blue eyes look almost luminous. To his right sat Elowyn, her golden hair piled high and studded with sapphires. To his left, an empty chair, mine, presumably. Further down the table, I spotted Cressida and her husband, a blandly handsome man who looked like he had been carved from a block of mild cheese. Adrian was there too, already two glasses into his wine and grinning at something a young courtier had whispered in his ear.
And then there were the others. Lords and ladies I didn't recognize. Cousins, perhaps. Advisors. The inner circle of the Aurelian Court.
One of them caught my eye. A woman seated near the middle of the table, her dark brown hair cascading over bare shoulders, her gown a deep, daring crimson. She was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that made you look twice. The kind of beautiful that knew it.
She was looking at Cardan.
More specifically, she was looking at Cardan the way a cat looked at a particularly delicious canary.
Interesting.
"Princess Nyx." Cardan had risen from his seat. The entire table rose with him, a rustle of silks and scraping chairs. "Thank you for joining us."
"I wasn't aware I had a choice."
His expression flickered. "You always have a choice."
"Then I choose to sit down. This gown is heavy."
I swept past him and settled into the empty chair at his left. Ash hopped from my shoulder to the back of the chair, his tail curling around the wooden finial. His eyes, burning faintly orange, surveyed the table with reptilian disdain.
The courtiers stared at him. Some of them looked faintly nauseated.
"Must that creature be at the table? It's impolite and unsightly to look at." Elowyn asked, her voice carefully pleasant.