The Fae King's Ruin

The Princess and a Secret

“What problem?” Aislin demanded, brows furrowing and her spine straightening in attention. “What happened?”

Aelthrys pulled up a chair dragging it across from where Aislin sat. Although the way he moved showed nothing but an air of calmness and an aristocratic breed of insolence, Aislin has had almost a lifetime of studying her cousin’s every tic and slight difference in his demeanor, even if he was so skilled in hiding his emotion. She knew when he was pissed or growing irritated with a matter he was handling, she knew all the subtle tells when he wanted to be saved from a conversation he did not particularly enjoy. This particular skill of hers was just one of the things one learned to do or look for in a person that one had grown up with.

So, no matter what kind of lounging he did on the chair he picked, her worry started to increase ten-fold and he hasn’t even said anything yet.

Aislin clutched her robe around herself tighter, keeping her hands from shaking. “It’s Elrin, isn’t it?” she whispered. She swallowed the bile that rose her throat. “We should not have put him on the Council.”

His lips pursed slightly. “Putting him on the Council was the best course of action, Aislin, and you know it. Besides, if he was not on it, I would not have come across the information that I hold as early as I did.” He sucked in a breath, blowing it out in a huff. “With these sort of things, you would not want to be one of the last people to know.”

“Then what is it?”

He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Aislin. She unfolded it and read its contents before crumpling it quickly in her tight fist.

Voice hard, she asked, “What does this mean?”

“A time and meeting place,” Aelthrys murmured, crossing his thick arms. “Elrin and the other surviving nobles of our people feel quite differently about what we’re trying to achieve here.”

Aislin rolled her eyes and thrust the crumpled-up missive in his hands. “Of course, they don’t want freedom,” she said acidly. “They never want anything that’s good for them.”

“They are worried, Aislin. At the moment, their lands, their holdings, their coffers—even their titles—are all frozen by the Seelie Fae. Mhoryga is being patrolled by Orcs and Werewolves and the people don’t know what to make of them.”

“Has anyone been mistreated in any way?” she asked.

Aelthrys blinked and shook his head. “No, but there is rising fear among them.” With one hand he levitated the paper and set it on fire, leaving nothing but a trail of floating ashes that the wind carried away into the quickly darkening night. “If Elrin gets it into the nobles’ heads to start an uprising, then that thing you pulled off at the meeting today would lose its desired effect.”

She shot him a look. “Then foil the meeting, Aelthrys. Do whatever you can to stop them. The old bastards will not take the chance to live a peaceful life from our people away.”

He shook his head, his inky hair falling to his forehead. Aislin’s eyes widened. “You agree with them?” she asked in shock.

“Of course not!” he hissed. Aelthrys glared at her; the silver core of his eyes flashing brightly. “But I’m not saying we should let this opportunity pass us by. I only meant to spy for you.”

“You want to spy on them rather than take them down?” It seemed rather counterproductive for her, not to mention the added risk of angering the Unseelie nobles.

Her cousin’s sharp exhale was filled with irritation. Aislin tried not to rise on her own hackles.

“To stop them, we have to know what they are planning on doing,” he said through gritted teeth. “Trust me, I know these nobles quite well. They will respond well to me. It will give them just enough confidence to know that I am there, seemingly supportive of their plans. And once they fall prey to their idi*otic tendencies, they shall be easier to catch red-handed.”

Aislin sighed, her shoulders falling. Everything was always a game, especially when it came to the world she was now unwillingly thrust into. Every word, every smile; there was always a hidden meaning behind it. Drakos once told her after a particularly unpleasant visit in the home she occupied in Cetha, a rural fortress in the south of Mhoryga, that politics was just a giant game of chess. It was always about moves and countermoves. He’d always brag about how he was better at it than most people and often invited Aislin to play the board game with him to prove his point.

Aislin could remember a particular match that she played with him, his hands still bloody from the person he killed that still lay in the room they were playing in.

She could also remember hurling up her guts afterward and never playing chess from that day since.

“Should we tell King Avery?” Aislin asked quietly.

Her cousin gave her one long look that she could not decipher and said, “Not at the moment, no. The whole point of making you aware now is so you know what is happening under your rule. I’ll see what else I can find out but, Aislin, you need to be careful around Lord Elrin.”

The princess chewed on her lip. “I don’t know, Aelthrys. We’re only beginning to form the backbone of the peace treaty with the Seelie Court. It’s a bad omen what you’re asking me to do. I can’t lie to them about something as serious as this.”

“I know,” he replied with a hard voice, like he was straining to try and sound sympathetic but had given up halfway through the phrase. She would have laughed if the conversation had not been so serious with the undertone of espionage. They were still, technically, prisoners, for Ilyn’s sake! “But if you tell him now, blood will flow, and the nobles who would replace those you have now will be unlikely to be wholly loyal to you.”

“And you think I can still turn the scheming bastards?”

Aelthrys’ smirk was humorless. “I never think of such impossible things.”

Aislin sighed again, glancing at the dark skies beyond her balcony. Alfheim was truly pretty, even at night. Faelights dotted the entire city, setting the streets, houses, and establishments all aglow. She wondered what kind of shops were open at this hour. Pubs, for sure, like the ones she and her friends sneak off to when nobody was looking too closely. But were there theaters? Concerts? Underground, high society soirees?

If given the chance, would she even be admitted?

“What do I say, then?” she murmured, hugging herself to protect from the cold night. “That is, should Lord Elrin decide that I must be roped into whatever he is planning?”

“I highly doubt that he would do such a thing. But if he does, then play along. From there, I trust you’ll do the right thing.”

That made her chuckle darkly, eyeing her cousin with amusement. “I believe you are the first and only person who is loyal enough to say that to me in this lifetime, Aelthrys.”

A smile ghosted on his lips. He stood, heading his way to her door. But before he opened it, he said, “Loyalty is not what drives my confidence in you, Aislin. Try and remember that. Good night, cousin. Sleep well.”

His last request was going to prove a bit difficult with the secret he had just unloaded on her, but Aislin bid her cousin a good night as well and returned the gesture. Aelthrys smirked at her this time, and she knew that sleep would be the last thing on his mind tonight as well.

But he must have cast a spell on her before he left, because as soon as Aislin’s head hit her soft, down pillow, she fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

***

Aislin took breakfast in her room, as she always had done with her meals since coming to these foreign lands. There had been no indication that she could roam the palace freely and honestly, she was afraid to ask and was terrified what rejection would do to the self-confidence she was only beginning to unfurl within the knots of her spirit.

She tried to be brave when it mattered; going outside to sightsee hardly seemed like a thing of importance.

For the most part, no one bothered Aislin’s days and she had grown to like the quiet it brought. Her days back home in Cetha were always characterized by her friends popping up to take her somewhere on a shopping spree or being summoned to the Capital for royal duties.

Here, imprisonment had let her get settled into a routine: a handful of hours after dawn, her maids would push aside the curtains and gently wake her up. A warm bath would be drawn for her while someone helped her undress. Then, they would be in charge of lathering her hair with shampoo and then conditioning it, as well as scrubbing her skin with soap and a washcloth. They would dry her first with a towel before magically drying her hair so it wouldn’t drip all over the carpets.

Although they would give her choices for what dress she’d wear for the day, everything else had been up to them, or perhaps depended on whatever set of instructions they had been given. Aislin didn’t mind, nor did she have to lift a single finger from start to finish. While she did have personal maids back at home, making her used to the attention, the Seelie maids given to her took it to a whole other level.

For breakfast, there would always be a spread of the finest artisan breads, pastries, marmalade, and compound butter. Carafes of coffee and juice would accompany it, but she would always end up with just toast and a cup of tea. She never did have an active appetite in the morning.

Most days, Aelthrys would come and visit. How he gained permission to move about while she was stuck in her room, she had no idea. She’d always try and attempt to ask him, but then her mind would simply become occupied by whatever report he’d leave on her lap. And then, she’d be too tired from crunching numbers and writing resolutions and proposals to remember at the end of the day. She’d take her dinner, quietly as always, indulging in a glass of wine, before turning in.

Then, she would dream.

In her dreams, her day would always start the same, with her maids getting her ready and dressing her in one of her gowns. But then there would come an interruption to her routine, great enough that it would permit her to leave her room, and she would be grateful for whatever reason the interruption had come.

In her waking moments, she would never admit to anyone— not even to the pages of her journal— that the interruption was always the same; always the golden-eyed, blond-haired, kind-hearted King of the Seelie Fae.