This is the dangerous part. I know he wants to know who rules over me.
“It won’t be an issue.”
“It won’t?” There’s a dangerous look in his eyes.
“My sister is missing,” I point out. “If I can find her… then my king won’t question it. He’ll think I merely went to save her.”
Keir examines my face and then gives a curt nod.
He believes me.
I turn away with the dress in hand.
I have little more than a week before the wedding takes place.
A week in which to locate the horn, find my sister, betray Keir, and escape an entire court who will most likely want my head for what’s about to take place.
A week to figure out a solution to the oath that binds me to Keir.
At least this time, he knows who and what I am. If I steal the horn out from under him, that’s his own cursed fault for trusting me a second time. I don’t have to worry about the entanglement of feelings or whether I’m going to break his heart.
He’ll hate you for this.
But it will be done, I argue with myself. He’ll never trust you again. And he doesn’t truly need the horn. He won’t suffer for any of this.
“Are you alright, my lady?” the maid asks.
“Just preparing myself for this torture contraption,” I reply, picking up the corset. I throw Keir one last glance over my shoulder. “Do you mind giving me some privacy?”
The heat in his eyes smolders. “You have five minutes.”
And then he and the footman vanish around the corner of the carriage.
Dressing swiftly, I accept some help from the lady’s maid he’s provided for the corset and other undergarments. Soon, I’m drowning in silk. It’s as blue as a field of cornflowers, and I can’t help fingering the little cap sleeve that sits on my shoulders. Dozens of silver mesh flowers are embroidered on the bodice, spilling into the skirts with such abundance it looks as though I rolled in starlight.
If I was to conjure a dress out of my dreams, it would be this dress.
You can’t afford this dress.
Still, it’s so pretty.
Keir falters as I walk out from behind the carriage, trying to haul my silken skirts out of the dirt. I can barely move my legs or breathe, and I don’t care one whit. There’s a look on his face that momentarily makes me pause. For a second I can’t identify it.
Hunger.
The realization makes my breath catch.
For all my faults, for all that’s come between us, he still wants me.
“It’s the same color as your eyes,” he whispers. “I wondered whether I’d imagined it the second I saw the silk….”
For the first time in my life, I can’t get the words out. They’re trapped in my throat, right along with the need to breathe. “You chose the silk?”
His face shuts down, all of his emotions locked away. “Someone had to. Shall we?” he murmurs, offering me a hand to assist me into the carriage.
I take his hand.
The horn awaits.
But I can’t help feeling as though I’ve just made a dangerous misstep in the game somewhere.
5
The Court of Blood is housed within the heart of a mountain. Long-ago fae chiseled halls and rooms from within the slate, and each gaping “window” looks like the mournful eye of a monster. Stars glitter like a shimmering cloak draped over the mountain’s shoulders, but it’s the blood moon in the sky that captures my attention.
Many years ago, the king of the Court of Blood was married to a daughter of the Court of Frost and Fangs. He despised his new bride and ridiculed her by parading a never-ending cast of hundreds through his bed. In retaliation, she fled to her father’s court and cast a curse on the Court of Blood by the power of the blood moon.
The waters of the court would run with blood. The stone of his mountain court would crack. And the king’s… ahem… would never flourish again.
He could look. He could admire. But he could never, ever rouse, even to a lover’s touch.
The only way to break the curse was for one of his lovers to sacrifice herself—willingly—to the bonfire.
It’s a little inauspicious to begin a wedding beneath such a powerful astral sign that did so much damage, but the Court of Blood have always been a little strange.
A maze leads toward the entrance to the court.
It’s formed of hedges of bloodstar, with their dark red leaves and silver branches. There are whispers they water the trees with blood, which gives the leaves their stunning color, and the entire effect is eerie.
The Court of Blood isn’t pretending to be anything it’s not.
It’s a malevolent trap. A warning. An imposing fort with an elaborate welcome mat and a trap door that’s prepared to slam shut behind you.
Getting in without an invite is impossible.
Luckily, I have the most delicious-looking invite a girl can find. The Prince of Dreams is the coup of any social event—a reclusive prince with enormous power, a gorgeous face, and, whilst my way in is on his arm as his betrothed, technically, until the ceremony happens, he’s still unmarried.
The hardest part of the entire affair is convincing the powers-that-be that I belong here.
Me. A wraith-born bastard forced upon my fae mother. A monster cut from her womb.
My fingers dig into my palms. I feel sick and shaky all of a sudden, though I could have sworn I banished these moments long ago.
She loved me. She had to have loved me, because she named me true, and named me thrice before they stole me from her arms. Every fae child receives the gift of three names from its mother. Without them you are truly Unblessed.
Zemira Ashburn. Gravekissed, the Black Hawk, Winterborn.
No one knows those names except for me and my father. They’re imprinted on my soul and bind me to my oaths. A fae’s true name
