Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
But I have questions for him. One, in particular. “Why?”
His chest rises beneath my back, holds, then slowly falls. “I don’t know. I suppose because you looked so lost. I felt your misery call out to me, so I followed.”
“You followed me all the way from the palace?” I sit up slightly in alarm. “What if you had been seen?”
“I wasn’t seen.” He states it so assuredly, it’s difficult to doubt him. “It’s one of my abilities, inherited from my father.”
“Arcus can move around the palace unseen?” My heart beats frantically against my ribs like an animal trying to escape a snare. How often have I had conversations that he’s overheard? Could he have gotten past Luthian’s wards?
“That isn’t what I meant.” He pulls me back to him, to sit on his knees and face him. “I was able to feel your sorrow, and it drew me to you.”
It seems too empathetic a power for someone like Arcus.
“I don’t usually find that kind of sadness here at court,” Kathras goes on. “Envy. Rage. Jealousy. Hatred. Those emotions run high, but rarely true sadness. The courtiers are deliriously happy, most of the time.”
“I can see why they would be.” It would be easy to lose oneself in a life dedicated solely to sensation. Even pain, I’ve learned, can be euphoric. “But why bother to follow me? When you know the risk of the king catching us?”
“The king will be unconscious for days, judging by how much of that enchanted wine he drank.” Kathras’s voice drips with contempt. “I came to you because I know what it’s like to live under my father’s tyrannical rule. Not just as a courtier, but as someone he views as a possession. I’ve seen him break even the strongest fairies. You’re human. You can’t withstand the torment he would inflict upon you.”
“I can withstand far more than you’d think,” I argue, but if he doesn’t believe my words, I can’t blame him. I don’t believe them, myself.
“I’m sure you can,” he placates me. “I felt your pain, and your loneliness. I don’t know what kind of a life you had with...”
His voice dies away, and he swallows as if he would be sick to say the name.
“With Luthian?” I ask.
He nods sharply. “As I said, I don’t know what kind of life you had. But the emptiness within you was too much to bear. And this was the only way I could show you kindness.”
Of course, it was. If he’s lived his whole life at court—with the exception of his time in the Sorrowlands, which I ache with curiosity about—then how could he have learned anything of gentleness or tenderness that didn’t involve sexual pleasure?
Still, it rankles to hear him admit that he’s just fucked me senseless out of pity. “I thought it was because you desired me.”
“If you think I could have managed this without desire, then you have a very high opinion of me.” He smiles slightly, and it transforms his serious, brooding face into something more boyish. I see the resemblance to Cassan that I didn’t notice was missing, before.
There is such a difference between the two brothers. I wonder how that came to be.
“I do desire you, Cenre,” he says, his eyes roving over my face, my neck, my breasts. “If a single faery at court says they don’t, they’re lying. You can’t possibly see yourself the way we do. There’s a light around you, an energy of youth and newness that we rarely see.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed there are no children at the palace.” Obviously, that’s for the best, I think.
His brow crumples. “There are no faery children at all, Cenere.”
This isn’t something my mother ever told me. “I’m not sure of what you mean.”
“We’re the mingled essences of our parents, born of wisps of light.” He seems truly astonished to have to explain this to me. “We come into being in the nursery hives, grow through the seasons, and are delivered back to our parents fully formed.”
“Through the seasons?” I shake my head. “You mean, one cycle of the seasons and you’re… like this?”
“We’re immortal creatures, Cenere. We’re born with all of the knowledge that we need to survive. From there, it’s matter of refinement to fit into your court. If that’s how you choose to live.” He pauses. “You didn’t know any of this?”
“I assumed there were children…” My mind wanders to my mother’s wish. Why, if faeries didn’t have children, would my mother have wished for one? “My mother never told me. And I don’t understand. Why did she want a baby, if that was never to be a part of her life, anyway?”
Kathras’s brows rise as he considers the answer. “Perhaps she simply saw the way humans are with their young, and wanted it for herself?”
I wish I could ask her. I wish I could demand an explanation for my birth, for Luthian, for her expulsion from the Court of Seasons. She died and left me nothing but unanswered questions I never knew to ask.