“If you’ll follow me, honored Drady, I will lead you to request an audience with her. But, ah, watch your step. It’s slick in her quarters.”
“And why is it slick?”
“Better that you see for yourself, Drady. My warrior prince, if you’ll also follow me, your mother has been asking for you.”
“We can’t get out, remember?” Drake Milliand said. “How could you have forgotten? You must have the brain of a small bird.”
“Like dragonfire we can’t leave,” Baz growled, stomping to the doors, which had closed behind us without a sound. Thanks to the rope, I followed.
Both hands on the handles, he tugged.
Chapter 21
A Wall Between the Two of Them and the Rest of the World; It Has Grown Dark Everywhere But Around Her
Baz had come about his considerable strength the usual way: with dedicated training, and the good fortune to have been born with a brawny, athletic physique. Though his might had nothing to do with his fae power, there were many who believed it did. His choice to do nothing to dispel the rumors had been carefully made. The more the people and creatures of the Opalese feared him, the easier it was to keep them from violating the dominion. And the more they did as his father wanted, the less likely Junot was to order Baz to assert order, a process that was always brutal.
The irony was that Baz’s true fae power would have terrified Opalesians even more than his legendary brute force. But if they knew of it, then that would mean that Junot would also know, and Baz would never allow his sire to learn of his magical ability. With just Baz’s strategic brilliance for warfare, Junot had conquered most of the world. With Baz’s fae power as well? There was no one—anywhere—who would be able to resist.
Baz had taken a risk by pulling that specter into himself; he’d known it even while he was doing it. Worse than doing it in the first place was that he’d done it in front of an assassin of his family’s rival. It had been reckless and dangerous. But when Baz had stared into the phantom’s black eyes and sensed the depth of her darkness, he couldn’t leave her there, trapped and alone.
Baz knew all too well that in solitude the darkness within grew bolder and louder. Even so, it was a mistake. History had proven that someone always paid mightily for his errors, and it seemed always to be the ones he couldn’t do without.
The borrowed darkness was receding from his eyes; he knew that without looking. It was always the same. It took a few hours to properly absorb the worst of someone, before it became a part of him. The darkness that had traveled up his arm, that he’d felt throughout his body, had vanished from sight first. Regardless, Baz experienced the new ghost as a constant burning: through his veins and his organs, even in the marrow of his bones, where he presumed the woman’s darkness melded with his faithum, with the power that was supposed to remain pure—but that he had tarnished so long ago.
What had never happened before, not even once in all the centuries Baz had been messing with the darkness of others, was happening now…
Baz pulled on the handles to the double doors of the sitting room. Since he’d arrived at the castle, they had always been propped open. Now they were preventing him from reaching Moncho and Lev, which meant he was going to rip them from their hinges. And if that didn’t work, he’d take down the very walls.
But before he could quash Mauldrene and her most recent tantrum—because it had to be Mauldrene fucking with him yet again—the burning caused by the phantom was coalescing and taking the reverse trajectory from when Baz had sucked her into himself.
His forearms corded and his biceps bulging, he froze with his hands still wrapped around the handles.
“What is it?” Velle asked in a hushed whisper. When she leaned forward so the others wouldn’t overhear, her veil caressed his bare arms. He understood that the veil wasn’t real, only an illusion, but fuck if it didn’t feel sensual anyway. It made him want to lock her in his quarters, lift the veil, and consume all her secrets.
“Nothing,” he grunted under his breath. “It’s nothing.”
She leaned closer. Despite his burning, he smelled her scent: it recalled the sea, its immense vastness and power, its ability to so casually mesmerize and prioritize his worries.
“It’s not nothing,” she said. “Is Mauldrene not letting you open the doors?”
“No.”
Her hips nudged him out of the way. “Let me try.”
He didn’t budge. “No.”
She tsked, glancing over at the nobles first, then at his friends, everyone’s eyes on them.
“I might not be as strong as you, but I’m strong. Besides, this doesn’t have anything to do with brute strength. If it’s Mauldrene, and it’s gotta be, then strength has nothing to do with it.”
He closed his eyes and focused on pushing back the burning sensation—the phantom. His insides felt as if they were on fire, actual fire.
“Don’t be a dick,” Velle said, softly enough that no ordinary fae would hear. But they weren’t in a room with anyone ordinary. Several affronted gasps rang through their audience.
Didn’t Velle know better than to oil an aristo’s tongue, much less a vigilant group of the nosy busybodies? Dammit, she was a princess! She should know that the emperor and empress would only surround themselves with those sänglures who had the most influence and power. Their opinions helped sway the happenings at his father’s court, and Baz needed their attention far away from Velle—or a princess of Orania—not pinned furiously on her.
“Let me try,” she continued, either oblivious to the tension, or more likely, pretending she was.