The Fae King's Ruin

A Clear Schedule

Having three days as a break from all the administrative duties that came with his position— even if that three days did include his engagement party and the wedding they just attended— had resulted in a rain of hell. He actually felt guilty that after telling Aislin he loved her— which felt great, by the way— but then having to hole himself in his office immediately right after. He wanted nothing more than to just pass on his responsibilities to Res, but the day he started doing that when he feels overwhelmed would be the day he would resign from office.

And so he pulled his sleeves up and started sorting through the mountain of paperwork before the sun was fully up to get a headstart on it. So when the maids started bringing in breakfast, he felt a jolt of shock and mortification as Aislin entered soon after.

“Pretty busy day?” she asked lightly, looking around his office with curiosity yet keeping her hands firmly clasped in front of her. “Have you been up all this time?”

He immediately stood up, rubbing a hand down his face before going over to kiss her cheek. “No, I got a few hours of sleep. But if I wanted to not be crippled by work for the rest of the week, I had to get an early start on it.”

She smirked at him. “I got a sense of that. Must be why I thought to have breakfast here.”

Avery smiled at Aislin, sitting down with her on his couch. “This means a lot. Thank you for remembering me.”

“Always,” she promised. “Now, eat, then tell me what you’re up to.”

He picked up a plate of eggs and a fork. “Do you really want to know?”

Aislin frowned at him, glaring softly as she picked up a folder. “Are you not expecting me to learn the ropes of this entire enterprise before we get married?”

He paused, the thought just embarrassingly coming to him now. “I don’t have any expectations, honestly, but if you really want to help…” She nodded excitedly. “Great. As soon as we are done with breakfast, you can help me sort through everything.”

Her wide, dark eyes glanced at the literal stacks on his desk. “Good thing my schedule is clear, then.”

Avery laughed loudly before handing her a plate. “It is a good thing.”

***

Catteline of Montfoltier had always lived a charmed life, or at least that was how people often saw her. She was blonde, beautiful, smart, and had chosen a profession that could put her in the running as the Fae’s Florence Nightingale or something. But while all those are true, she never forgot the weight of the responsibility that came with all the duties she had.

She smiled at Lady Camilla and Lady Tryn as she passed by them in the corridor. The two dropped to an immediate curtsy before going on their own way. At the next turn, she saw exactly whom she was supposed to meet with today.

“Hello, brother.”

Gris turned, one hand on the hilt of his sword, his hair catching the light from the open windows, and smiled. “Late as always,” he remarked drily. “If you are going to live here, you’re going to have to at least have somebody track time for you.”

“Three things,” she said to him as she held up the appropriate number of fingers. “One, a lady is never late. Two, I don’t need someone to track time for me. And three, my soon-to-be cousin-in-law wears a watch.”

Her brother glanced at her with confusion as she took his arm and they began to walk to the gardens. “What does that third one have to do with you?”

She said simply, “Just in case you get it in your head that I should wear a gaudy little thing that dictates me where I should be and what I should be doing at a particular hour.”

He sighed heavily, frowning. Despite the fact that her brothers favored their mother’s genes in the looks department, everything else about them was patterned after their father. In fact, their mother often used to say that all three of her children had the misfortune to take after her husband in temperament and countenance. She even added that Catteline had gotten the worst of it by practically being her father’s little copycat.

It was Gris, however, who had nailed their father’s disappointed look down to a tee. She used to have a hard time processing that it wasn’t actually her father that was giving her the Look of Doom. Now, the glare had come down to just a chill down her spine.

“Catt, we have to talk about this… mess you are in,” he said quietly, avoiding the small party of nobles having tea under the shade of a big parasol. “You cannot possibly want to marry the Princess’ cousin.”

Great. It was this same discussion, again. She had a feeling that this topic of conversation will keep popping up whenever she talks to her family for the foreseeable future, or until she gets married to Aelthrys. Honestly, it was tiring already and kind of wasting their visit to Alfheim.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Gris?” she whined. “It is not about what I want, but what our kingdom needs.”

“And you know I think that’s bullshit.” He shook his head. “Wait until I get an audience with the King. I will put an end to all this nonsense.”

Catteline turned on her brother with a glare as fierce as his own. “You will do no such thing!” she hissed. “Avery already has a lot going on for him and as his family and liegemen, we have to do all we can to support him.”

“And I do,” Gris said firmly. “You know Avery always has our family’s support. He is my cousin, too. But from the start, I never liked how he made you his heir. It always had the potential to put you in situations like the one you are in now.”

Catteline upped the ante of her glare. “So this is the real crux of the matter. See, this has been your problem with me for the longest time. You don’t think that I can be Avery’s heir.”

Gris’ blue-gray eyes were like gathering storms that darkened. “That. Is. Not. True. Catteline, I have done nothing but support you since you took up that position!”

She crossed her arms. “Then why can’t you support me in this one? Why does it have to be such a big deal? People get married and get divorced all the time.”

His jaw went slack for a beat as he hissed. “And you want to perpetuate such a thing? We are Fae. That means we get to live a very long time! We shouldn’t be getting married and then changing our minds about it after a turn in the century! Or when Avery had finally managed to secure an heir of his own.”

Catteline rolled her eyes. “This is ridiculous.”

He straightened the lapels of his dove-gray jacket. “You’re right. It IS ridiculous. This is why I am asking you to reconsider your participation in this whole fiasco. Avery can look for another capable Fae to take up your position.”

But she shook her head adamantly. “No. If it so happens that something unfortunate befalls Aislin and Avery, I would never be able to forgive myself if I was not there to pick up the pieces like my King had asked me to.”

Gris’ eyebrows furrowed as he pulled Catteline closer. “Is there a plot against the King’s life?”

She stilled. “No. I don’t know, I do not think so.” Catt swallowed thickly. “Why? What do you know, Grishan?”

“You don’t think it odd?” he asked, a bit uncertain as he scanned her face.

Sometimes, she really did want the chance to stab her brothers just a little when they asked stupid questions. “Think what to be odd?”

“Some say that the Princess Aislin’s presentation of the Proxy Clause to the Great Council had taken even the King by surprise. A few of the members I have talked to had said that not even General Aelthrys, who also sits on the Council, was privy to the princess’ plans. His own vote had been a very vocal ‘No’.” Gris clicked his tongue. “Some had even seen the General haul the Princess to the privacy of her accommodations with such haste and a murderous look on his face.”

Catteline muttered that the General had a perpetually murderous air about him and that it wasn’t relevant to anything. But what Gris revealed did have her mind racing to understand what, exactly, had transpired for the princess to add the clause.

Of course, she knew next to nothing about the finer details of the Great Council’s proceedings but she knew enough to know that before the proposal, the Treaty was already close to being done.

And everything had been too sudden. This only leads to mean one thing: something had indeed forced the princess to act on her own.

Gris continued. “And if it is not Avery that is in trouble, maybe it’s the princess.”

She shook her head, eventually deciding that what Gris was proposing could not be. “If they were being threatened, security would be heightened. Not just for them, but for me as well. The King and the General would never let anything happen to Aislin and, well, Aislin would certainly unleash her cousin upon anyone who has any ill-intent towards our cousin. It just isn’t possible.”

Her brother harrumphed. “I’ll try and see what I can learn from the King on my visit. But whatever it is, Catt, you better keep your guard up, got it? You’ve always had a target painted on your back, but this is different Aislin. It’s a whole different world now that we are living in and it has not decided yet if it is for the better.”

Catt looked at him. “It IS for the better. This is the first we are ever hearing of a Seelie-Unseelie alliance in our histories. If it does go off a bit rocky at first, that is because no two great enemy courts had ever attempted to reconcile before and there is nothing to pattern it to.”

“Exactly,” Gris said with a smile that held no satisfaction at all. “We are all teetering on the edge of a great legacy and oblivion, Catteline. And now you have just found yourself right in the middle of it.”

Despite her conviction, Catteline could not help but shudder as a cold feeling of dread dripped down like sweat down her back. She had always known that one day she would be called to serve, and when that time came, she had been convinced that she would not have an ounce of reservation doing it. She knew how court life went, after all. 

But Grishan was right. This was not the court she had once grown up in and thought could be manipulated by her pretty smiles and quick wit. It’s all different now. The threats she had imagined before were all real now, and if she was not deadly herself, she would get trampled underneath the rubble.

And what would a lady of the land and a healer know about being cutthroat? Because of the peace in the Seelie court all her life, her father and brothers had never once given a thought about making sure Catteline could defend herself to a physical capacity before. Sure, she could make anyone eat dirt with her intellect and charm a lot of tough males to do what she wanted, but if she would be dealing with danger, she needed to be capable physically as well. She would never ask her brothers, but Avery just might have someone else train her.

Catteline needed someone who understood what she was dealing with. A female born and bred to a life that was not as easy as hers had been. Luckily, however, she knew just the person for the job.

“I have to go,” she mumbled to her brother. “I shall see you for dinner!”

“What?” her brother shouted behind her. “Catteline!”

But the Lady of Montfoltier was already gone, and he might as well have been talking to the wind.