Page 42 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
Even Zev and Finch had caught on. They’d stopped their bickering and were drawing closer, both of them in fae form now—though only one of them was still clothed. I was too engrossed in Shiel and his words and the way they made his face crease with concern for it to so much as phase me, now.
“We have a fae king, now,” I said. “The king of the Eastern Court rules all of Luxia.”
“Yes, typically,” Shiel said, and for a moment he paused again, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “But that’s not the case, anymore, Aurra. The reason it took us so long to get to you, and the real reason we travelled in such careful secrecy, was when I felt the glamour on that token, I began to suspect that something wasn’t right in the Eastern Court. It took weeks to uncover the truth, a truth that has yet to spread to the rest of the realm. It’s a truth that I don’t believe even Icarus is yet aware of.”
“He wouldn’t even be pretending to be treating us as guests if he did,” Zev said, any sign of the mirth that had passed between him and Finch now lost in his hollow tone.
Shiel took a deep breath, and then let it out, slowly. “The king, Aurra, is dead. He died the day the glamour returned, the very moment we met, when it struck you and I down in the middle of that market square.”
All three of them looked on at me in such solemn silence that I couldn’t help but feel the weight of what they were trying to tell me, even if I didn’t yet understand what it meant.
“But then…then what does that have to do with me? With Icarus? With my so-called powers?”
Shiel licked his lips again. “The moment the king died, his power would have transferred to his heir. To his daughter, the princess.”
He glanced over at Zev and Finch, and then once more around the room, his voice dropping even lower.
“But Aurra, it didn’t. Without the king’s power, at this very moment, the Eastern Court sits completely unprotected. Any lord who wanted to take it could do so easily. There’s no power there to challenge them.”
He took another breath. At long last, I was beginning to understand why the weight settling over me felt like lead.
“That is why news of the king’s death hasn’t spread. It’s a secret so tightly guarded that…that the only fae in this kingdom who know the truth are the Queen, her daughter…and the fae sitting here, now, in this very room.”
“Once word gets out, it’ll be a bloodbath,” Zev said. He’d finally sobered enough to realize his own nakedness and had the decency to cover himself with a bundle of flowers he’d snatched from Shiel’s basket.
“Icarus is right about the courts being on the verge of destruction,” Shiel said, though his gritted teeth told me he was far from happy to admit it, “but he’s focused on the wrong thing that’s about to do it.”
I processed what they said for a long moment.
“So, you think that the reason the power never transferred to the princess…is because she isn’t actually the princess.”
It took a second for Shiel to nod. “The way we discovered you, Aurra, in that moment…it was too convenient, Aurra. And when it comes to the glamour and its ways, nothing is ever justconvenient.”
I once again found myself staring down at my hands. Shiel still held one of them in his, but even his warmth couldn’t stop the ice that chilled them until they started to shake.
“So, the reason the glamour struck me harder than it did you that day, was because it wasn’tjustthis new wave. You think it was my father’s glamour, his power that surged into me, too?”
I looked up, finally understanding…everything.
I understood why Shiel had left his court and risked all to come find me on his own. I understood why he’d been so cautious, so careful, so on edge at every turn.
I even understood why they’d kept this from me, the burden of it alone was overwhelming. He’d told me just enough to make me understand the weight of my own position, of my own potential, but not so much as to make me run from the path fate had so treacherously laid out for me. He’d kept this from me…to protect me.
Sure, there could be—and almost certainly was—some alternative, more selfish reason he’d kept it from me, but here he sat. He could have taken the information he’d learned and taken his own army straight to the Eastern Court, but he didn’t. Instead he remained with me, doing his best to figure out if I was who he suspected before he plunged the whole kingdom into chaos.
“Now you know the real reason we were taking you to the Southern Court,” Shiel said. “They’re masters of illusion. I’d hoped we might find someone there we could trust who might help us see through the one that’s over you now.”
“Though trust…” he trailed off, our eyes meeting.
“It seems a hard thing to come by in these courts,” I finished for him.
We all sat in silence together for a moment as the reality of our situation sank in.
“For now,” Shiel said, “we focus on keeping you safe while I find out how to get you to that oracle.” He let go of me only to brush back some of the hair that had fallen forward into my face. “But in two days’ time, we’ll be free of this place, for good. That’s my promise to you,Princess.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
I understood,now, why the oracle had enticed Shiel into the court in the first place.
