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I sigh. “People can see her, if she lets them, but she often doesn’t.”
They start eating slowly.
“I’m not crazy.” I feel like I need to say that. Although, does that make me sound more crazy?
Lady Scarlet laughs. “Of course not. And who is Baldemar?”
“He’s the blacksmith.” I swallow around the lump in my throat as an image of him forms in my mind. “I spent a lot of my time in his shop making weapons. My favorite memories are there with him.”
“Who is he?” Prince Drogo asks, and I might be crazy, but he sounds a little jealous.
“He was like a second father to me,” I say.
That calms him down, even though I still can’t tell if he was jealous.
“Do you miss him?” Lady Scarlet asks, studying me.
I nod, feeling that lump in my throat get bigger. “All the time.” I swallow. “I wish he could come here. He’d like it. I know he would.”
“Even with us shifters?” she asks, sounding skeptical.
“As long as he had a forge to work in,” I say, smiling.
Lady Scarlet continues asking me questions, eyeing the guys, trying to pull them into the conversation. I’m not sure why. They’re not interested in me or my life. She’s smarter than me, so surely she sees it.
But the thing is, as I talk, they actually seem to be paying attention. I’m not sure if it’s out of boredom or curiosity, but it’s kind of nice.
I wish it was always like this between us.
TWELVE
Tara
I’ve changed for bed, wearing another nightgown with a high back to hide my whip marks. Because, well, all my outfits were chosen with my scars in mind. That was important to my mother, but it also made me feel less embarrassed about the marks. I used to think it was some character flaw that even at night I didn’t want to see what my mother had done to me, but now I’m glad for the assortment of nightgowns that conceal my embarrassment from my husbands.
Going to the chest at the foot of my bed, I pull out another magic book and lay on the bed on my stomach, my legs in the air behind me. I find my bookmark and start reading more about illness and how it’s cured. There are the simple things I know how to do, for the most part: easing fevers, increasing hunger on patients, removing nausea. And then there are the harder things. The things they tried to do to my father. The things that only work sometimes.
“Magic is not all things,” I read aloud. “It is not a solution to every problem. Just as magic cannot cure death, it cannot cure all illnesses. Some witches believe that it is because some people are marked for death, and the gods will not allow those marked souls to escape. Others believe that the illness infects so many aspects of the body that even with the best healers, they cannot eradicate all traces of it. Either way, when humans contract illness, witches must be prepared that even if they do their best, it might not be enough.”
The words ring through my soul, making something deep inside of me ache. I see my father’s face. I see the healers all around me. Their magic felt like a building storm, swirling around him, moving within him. Sometimes it was painful. Sometimes he begged them to stop.
When it got close to the end, he sent the healers away. He told them, “No more,” and then he held me close. I asked him why he was stopping. He wasn’t better yet. And he told me that sometimes death is a relief, not a curse.
I never understood. Or did I?
It’s strange the way I blink away tears as I read the next section of the book. “Even fae cannot cure death. The Death Fae can make the dead rise, but that is not the same thing, and is not something that witches can do, or are willing to do. Death Magic is beyond us because it’s unnatural.”
A shiver rolls down my spine. Death Magic. It’s not something I would want to do.
Outside, the clock tower chimes, and I tense, realizing how late it’s gotten. This is around the time one of my husbands makes it to my room each night. I think. I’m trying to find a pattern to make my life make a little more sense.
Not that anything makes sense right now.
True to my expectations, the door opens, and Prince Rinan steps in. Instantly, I know something’s wrong. He’s not the beam of sunlight he usually is. Instead, he’s sullen and somber, and it makes me anxious. What’s wrong? Something has to be wrong.
Usually, he smiles at me and greets me when I see him. This time, he hasn’t even looked in my direction, heading straight to the fireplace like I don’t exist. I watch him as he kneels down by the fire and stares into the flames while he adds wood to the fire. The light dances on his face, making the sharp lines of his cheekbones seem even more prominent.
Prince Rinan is beautiful in a way the others aren’t. Classically handsome, his golden hair cut flawlessly, his blue eyes like polished stones. He’s not big the way Prince Drogo is, or as impossibly tall as Prince Arlys is. He’s like a sculpture of a god, flawless and untouchable. Only his smile usually distracts from how impossibly beautiful he is, making him seem more lifelike and less inhumanely perfect.
