David chose to avoid me today, even going as far as to miss Court, with a very valid excuse, of course. I’d been looking forward to that moment when I might sit beside him on the throne, though, perhaps gauge his reaction to me, maybe see if there was any hope at all for forgiveness, even one day, years from now. But the way he looked at me as we sat down to dinner killed all that hope. I swallowed each bite of my meal with the massive lump that had formed in my throat, not sure anything of substance was actually hitting my stomach. I felt wildly sick and hungry—about as hungry as a pauper roaming winter streets, and every time I tried to join conversations, either David just flat-out ignored me, or Morgaine cut me off whenever I opened my mouth. She’d taken a side long before this Jason business began, and it clearly wasn’t mine. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I woke to find her leaning over me in the dark with a dagger in her hand.

David looked up from the other end of the table then, and raised his glass, bowing his head as if to say, “I welcome the idea.”

Stay out of my head, I thought.

I’m not there by choice, he thought back. I’d rather lick Walt’s moustache than be forced to listen to anything you have to think.

I slinked lower in my seat, looking to Jason for a single moment of reassurance. But his seat was empty, its occupant now assigned to stable duties until David decided what to do with him. Even Arthur was too distracted to offer a quick smile. In fact, the whole room was full of life and laughter, vampires and Lilithians freely interacting and getting along, but the yellow of candlelight and the peaceful hum of conversation slowly turned into grey clouds and pouring rain above me, spitting my own misery out all over the table—wetting the food and the tablecloth, and flattening the hair to the head of each guest. But none of them noticed.

David performed as his usual kingly self, talking with members of the Upper House, his charming smile and glittering green eyes holding a captive audience as if everything he might say could be of great value. He was glowing, even though the night around us was otherwise shadowed with doom. No one would’ve known by looking at him that he just had his heart ripped out of his chest. And that only made me love him more: he was always so good at playing the game—hiding things away on the inside for the greater good of the world outside. I could learn a thing or two from him. If he’d ever speak to me again which, judging from the last twenty-four hours, I no longer existed as far as he was concerned. Which one would expect, anyway—after what I did. But it still hurt so amazingly bad that everything we had just blew away in the wind, like the flash from a camera. Just gone. Never was. Never will be again.

None of that mattered to me, though, not the way he’d acted today, or anything cruel he’d said to me. I knew, deep in my heart, that love couldn’t die overnight. He still loved me somewhere in that soul of his, and I wasn’t about to give up on him. Not yet. Not while—

“Morgaine?” David said, laying his wineglass on the table just above his plate.

“Yes, Sire?”

“Our queen looks rather ill, wouldn’t you say?”

Morgaine appraised me critically, then nodded in agreement. “I think she does.”

“She looks fine,” Blade cut in.

“No, in fact, I rather think she looks as if she needs to lie down,” David said, and winked at Morg. “See that she makes it safely to her room.”

“Of course, Sire.” Morgaine wiped her mouth and stood, huffing impatiently at me. “Amara?”

I looked at Mike, then at Falcon, who stood and pushed his chair in.

“Oh, you needn’t follow, Falcon.” David said, raising a hand. “Morgaine will attend to the queen.”

“The hell she will,” Falcon snapped, bowing politely after. “Your Majesty.”

The fire of authority flamed in David’s gaze. He practically scorched Falcon with it, clearly plotting a million punishments he could inflict on my overprotective guard for daring to go against him—in public especially. My heart beat so fiercely in my chest I could taste the blood in my throat. I knew David wanted to challenge Falcon, but he calmed himself instead and took a more honourable approach.

“Very well.” He offered me to Falcon. “See that she stays in her room for the remainder of the evening. Wouldn’t want anyone else catching whatever she’s carrying.”

A few dinner guests nodded and chattered in polite agreement, not seeing David’s dismissal for what it was.

“Come on.” Falcon appeared at my side, shoving Morg away as he hauled me gently to stand by my arm.

“No.” I slammed my hands on the table. “I’m not sick, David. And I’m not going to bed.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Ara. You are sick, disgustingly sick. And unless you care to tell our guests what your ailment is, perhaps you should take my advice.” He presented the room full of people, flashing me a grin so smug I wanted to hit him.

I grabbed a potato off my plate instead and ditched it hard toward his head, realising what I’d done only as it left my hand and flew past the stunned guests, making the flames on the candelabra’s flicker momentarily before exploding on the back of David’s chair, right beside his ear.

“How dare you!” He stood up, tossing his napkin down, but before he could storm over here and punish me, Mike, Blade, Quaid, and Ryder stood, too, ready to challenge him.

I eyed my Guard nervously, looking from each one of their stern gazes locked to David, then back at the king. It was a standoff. None of them had the right to challenge him, but all of them were more than willing to. And I loved each of them so dearly in that moment.

“David,” Arthur said softly, wiping his mouth before slowly standing up. “It seems our young queen is overtired. I’ll take her up to bed.”

“Best you do, Uncle,” David said coldly, dusting potato mash off his shoulder. “Before I do.”

“Ara.” Falcon took my arm, leaning in close to whisper, “You better just go.”

I nodded, stepping away from my chair, walking backward a few steps until the guests slowly began their gentle, polite chatter again, acting as if nothing happened, while David stood at the head of the table, his eyes black with fury.

“I won’t say he didn’t deserve it,” Arthur said, catching up on the other side of the doors. “But you should have more self-control.”

“I’m a human-being, Arthur, in part. And I have rights. He can’t order me to bed like some child just because he doesn’t want to listen to my thoughts.” I pointed back toward the Great Hall. “Imagine if I tried to do something like that to him.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said with a nod. “He was being petty, but you mustn’t stoop to his level.”

“Easier said than done,” I scoffed.

“Besides, I think she went a little below his level, Arthur,” Falcon said, holding back the obvious humour in his tone. “But she gets points for the look on David’s face when that potato hit the chair.”

Even Arthur laughed then. “It’s safe to say no girl has ever been brave enough to do that before.”

“I feel bad now, though,” I said, hugging myself.

“Don’t.” Falcon guided me along with a hand to my shoulder blade. “He really did have that coming, Ara.”

“If it were me,” Arthur said, “I’d have thrown the steak.”

“Yeah, it was a bit tough tonight, wasn’t it?” Falcon agreed, both of them laughing again. But I couldn’t laugh. I didn’t even want to.

Chapter Twelve

The majesty of life made the ancient trees feel taller, the wind cooler, and the nakedness of my body pure and unsullied. I was never any freer or any more beautiful than when I left the confines of human convention behind and wandered under the great evergreens of the Enchanted Forest. Nothing changed about my physical appearance when I came here: my feet still connected with the earth, my toes sticking to the dewy leaves carpeting the floor, but somehow I just never felt quite as solid.

The night still owned this part of the forest, daylight only showing in small flickers here and there in the distance, or through waving leaves in the canopy above. The sun was well and truly up now, but my heart, I think, kept the forest shadowed, hiding things inside me that I wasn’t ready to awaken. Fears. Worries. Heartache.

I walked on, taking the long way to the stone altar, in no hurry today to get back to my life, but it came into sight up ahead before I expected: a simple grey boulder, seemingly unremarkable, yet as I reached the clearing, the warmth emanating off its surface, rising from the very core, reached out to greet me, healing broken parts of my soul in a way no other living thing could. Ideas and thoughts that had previously only been suspicions felt like shiny marbles behind glass partitions—finally visible. None of it looked as confusing. And while I hadn’t drawn any conclusions about the questions I asked when I came to visit the Mother, I did get the sense that they were leading me down the right track to the answer. Sometimes, Jase had told me once, reaching a conclusion is not so much about seeking the answer, but knowing which questions to ask.

“He always was a smart boy, that Jason.”

I looked down from the treetops to a pair of shiny black eyes, set on the sides of a very scaly face. “You.”

“No. Jason.”

“No, I mean, it’s you: you’re the one who was—”

“Guiding you on your Walk of Faith.”

“Who—” I stepped closer. “Who are you?”

It looked off to one side like it was exasperated, shifting its long body then from where rested on the Stone to an almost standing, kind of human position, changing, reshaping until wings popped out on its back and its body shrunk before my eyes, resembling a butterfly. “I am the mother of earth—of all life, young goddess. You’ve spoken with me many times.”

“But I’ve never seen your face.”

“And you are still yet to be allowed that privilege, Auress,” she said, changing again, her form wavering like heat on pavement at a distance, and when my eyelids shifted up from a blink, a tiny blue bird sat before me. “I have many faces. Some you have seen before, some you will see again.”

“Why have you come here today?” I asked.

“Child, you understand so little of the world you rule.” She looked around. “I have not come here today. I am in all things. I am life, breath, I am the trees and the grass. I am you.”

“Well, yeah, but what I meant is…” I walked a little closer. “Why have you chosen a physical form for me to address?”

“I am here to give an answer.”

“To what?”

“The question you just asked.”

“I asked a question?”

“Yes.” She leaped off the Stone with a graceful flap of her wing and appeared behind me as a butterfly again. “Follow me.”