Page 23 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
Or, perhaps, not unbothered—but uncaring.
She nodded her head at him, too, but it was decidedly curt in comparison. “The healers inform me that you are healing well from your fiend bite.”
“Yes,” he agreed, his own voice dripping with an undeserved enthusiasm. “Your healers are very skilled. I, we all, appreciate all of your assistance.”
The exchange was straightforward enough, but there was a menace to it that was hard to pinpoint. The lady’s smile didn’t change as she looked at the rest of us, her eyes moving over eachone in turn, scathing in its thoroughness. “How have all of you enjoyed the festivities? Nothing compares to Midsommar in the Southern Court, does it?”
She doesn’t give the others a chance to speak, not before her head swivels to stare my down, her intense glare a wordless order to respond.
So, with a small nudge from Finch, behind me, I do.
“I—I’ve never been to one before, so I have nothing to compare it to,” I stammered out, before feeling another far-less-gentle nudge from behind me and quickly adding, “But I anticipate that it will be the best I’ll ever attend.”
However practiced this interaction, the gleam of pride on Lady Phyrra’s face was so genuine, it was almost alarming. Especially when all niceties vanished now that she’d been paid her compliment, that glow vanishing too as she fixed a steely glare back on Shiel.
“Now, to business. Icarus. What was that dark fae doing in the house I so graciously lent you?”
The sudden drop of pretense was so jarring, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
She leaned forward, her eyes scathing as they searched Shiel’s face, watching him closely for any sign of a lie. “No one passes through the Wilding Court on accident. As far as I know, no lord has willingly entered there in…well…as long as I can remember.”
Her eyes settled, at long last, on me. I felt compelled to answer, to come up with something, but my voice kept catching at the back of my throat.
“I…we…”
Shiel’s hand brushed the back of mine again, just for a second time, before he stepped forward slightly, chin held high.
“We were visiting the Oracle.”
The truth in his words caught me off guard—as it did, it seemed, Lady Phyrra as well.
She narrowed her eyes at Shiel for a moment before something shifted in her gaze. She was suddenly sitting up, her hand waving to dismiss first the servants waiting dutifully for her next demand, and then the guards standing at the ready. The guards were the only ones to hesitate, but one more sharp glance from their lady, and they too were gone. Soon all that remained off them was the slowly dwindling echo of their boots on the tile floor.
Once more, Lady Phyrra leaned forward, this time with interest—not suspicion—shining in her eyes.
“Then the Oracle is back,” she said, her voice that of a co-conspirator, now.
“Well, she was,” Shiel said, glancing once at me. “But Icarus burned her part of the forest.”
Lady Phyrra sat up, half disappointed, half more intrigued than ever. Her eyes landed on me again, this time looking over me as if she was seeing me for the first time.
“This was about you,” she said. “What did you ask her?”
“I… I asked her why my mother abandoned me.”
“And what did she say?”
My cheeks burned hot, but I jutted out my chin and answered with all the dignity I could muster.
“My mother abandoned me because she hated me. And she hates me still.”
Lady Phyrra’s eyebrows knitted together in a show of pity, but the look didn’t spread to the rest of her face. She was still looking at me too carefully, too calculatingly.
“And this mother of yours?”
It was Shiel who stepped forward again, this time shifting slightly so that he stood between me and the lady before he answered.
“Your sister, the queen.”
