Page 23 of A Courage of the Chosen

“Forgive me, Father.” The plea is like acid on my tongue. “I have been distracted with training our newest recruits and testing their abilities.” That’s the thing about lies, pepper them with enough truths and they become easy to tell, even easier to accept.

“You will give the orders today.” His shadows curl tighter around him, veiling everything but those eyes that are more monster than man.

“Of course.” I dip my chin low in feigned respect. He can’t know what I’m up to yet. I need more time. I wait, head bowed, willing him to believe my subservience.

A moment passes. Then another.

“Our sources at the palace tell me the council are more scattered than ever,” Father says, after another long pause where his assessment rakes over me.

Keeping my relief firmly locked away, I rise to face him again. “That’s good, it means they won’t be prepared for us to strike now, since they’re too busy arguing.”

“There’s no use calling all our forces back, it’s a waste since you have failed me.”

I let the comment wash over me, not flinching under the way he spits it like he has every other time he’s perceived me to have disappointed him as heir.

“Redirect them to smaller villages. Ones that we know grow the crops for the larger towns. If they’re going to wage war against us, they need to know that they will lose. We know their weak spots.”

My reply is immediate. “It will be done, Father.”

He comes close again, shadows rippling to him and slithering beneath his skin as he graces me with his Seelie presence. He stands inches away, nose to nose. “Fall short again, and there will be consequences, boy.”

The threat is empty, we both know it. He needs me more than I need him. I stopped feeling the pain at his hands and power so long ago I can barely remember it now.

“Do you understand me?” Father attempts to loom over me, icy tendrils of his magic coiling around my ankles and snaking up my legs.

Something shifts in his eyes. “This is my army. My kingdom. Remember that.”

“I am loyal to you. I always have been.” Stroking his ego like this is an unfortunate necessity for the foreseeable future. I need him blind to what I’m really doing for as long as he can be.

“That’s not true, though, is it?” There’s a soft, deceptive lilt to his voice, and a sliver of wariness worms through the barriers I maintain around him. “If you were loyal to me, you would have stayed away from her when I’d told you to. You would have killed her when I asked that of you.”

He begins to prowl around me while his magic keeps me rooted to the spot, his steps slow and measured. I’m briefly a ten-year-old child, mourning the loss of his mother, scared of the magic he possessed in a world crumbling around him, and left to the care of someone who knows nothing but cruelty and pain.

“If you were loyal, you would not have allowed Màiri to escape. You were too distracted. Loyal subjects aren’t distracted, Tavish.”

Another lap. My eyes stay focused on the wall ahead.

“Your distraction, this obsession with her, has cost us. Fix it.”

“Yes, my king.”

He stops in front of me, more magic pressing up my legs.

“Fix it. Or I will find her, and have you watch as I give her to our armies. I will make her death more slow and painful than you could ever imagine.”

On instinct, I step forward, breaking his hold on me for a second time. “Lay a single finger on her . . .” I pause, and curse internally.

The manic glee residing in what’s left of my father tells me that he’s just discovered I might not be as loyal as I say I am. That he’s stumbled on the only weakness I have left. The one thing he could use against me now.

Elsie.

Chapter 7

Elsie

Settling in my chair at the head of the table in the council room, my eyes are puffy from the tears that didn’t stop coming, and I hope it goes unnoticed by the others.

I’d spent the night tossing and turning, replaying how Callahan completely shut down after I told him the Craobh was gone, and how he hadn’t even glanced back as he closed the door behind him.