Chapter Three: The Banquet of Thorns
The dress they gave me was made of midnight.
Black velvet with sleeves that wrapped around my arms like coils. Embroidered silver stars shimmered across the hem, and a choker of onyx beads clung tight to my throat. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't recognize myself.
I looked like one of them.
But the hollow ache beneath my ribs said otherwise.
"You'll be presented tonight," said the servant as she finished braiding my hair. She was fae pale eyes, no pupils, voice a song that never smiled. "Don't speak unless spoken to. And if they laugh, don't cry. He hates that."
"Who?" I asked.
She paused.
"The court," she said. "But especially… the Prince."
The ballroom shimmered with cold fire.
Chandeliers of ice hung from the arched ceiling. Guests filled the space inhumanly beautiful, cruelly elegant, and far too still. Their skin glittered like frost, and some had wings, horns, or eyes that glowed.
And all of them turned when I entered.
A hush fell.
I walked slowly, as I'd been told, toward the long table where Kaelith sat at the head unmoving, clad in black and silver, his gaze unreadable.
He said nothing as I took my place at his side.
But his eyes they lingered.
On my neck.
On my hands.
On my breath.
The courtiers whispered like silk.
"Is that the bride?"
"She looks mortal."
"She won't last the week."
"She's rather plain, don't you think?"
Laughter. Soft and cutting.
I gripped my goblet tightly.
"She's not even marked yet," one woman purred a serpentine creature in a crimson gown. "Or perhaps he's finally tired of breaking them in?"
My cheeks flamed. Kaelith said nothing.
I stood, ready to leave.
But then the woman added: "I wonder how long before he feeds her to the Well."
That was when he moved.
In an instant, Kaelith rose. The air froze.
The goblets on the table shattered. Candles extinguished. Shadows curled toward him like hungry beasts.
"Speak again," he said softly, "and I will feed you to it."
Silence.
The woman paled. Everyone else looked away.
And Kaelith… he turned to me.
His voice dropped.
"Sit. You're mine to torment, not theirs."
The rest of the night passed in stiff silence.
He didn't speak to me again. Didn't look at me. But I felt him every inch of him like he sat inside my bones.
When I finally escaped to my chambers, I couldn't hold the words back anymore.
I didn't knock.
I burst into his study like a storm, trembling.
"You humiliated me," I said.
Kaelith didn't turn from the window. "I protected you."
"By claiming me like I'm your pet?"
He faced me. "You are claimed. Do you know what this realm would do to unclaimed things? They devour weakness."
"I'm not weak."
"No," he said. "But you're breakable."
He took a step forward.
I took one back.
He kept coming.
"Every moment you're here," he murmured, "your light calls to things that should never wake. I'm the only one who keeps them from you."
"Why?" I asked, voice cracking. "Why do you care?"
He stopped inches away.
"I don't."
Lie.
I could feel it unraveling between us like thread pulled tight.
Then his fingers reached up so slowly I stopped breathing and brushed the air near my cheek.
Not touching.
Almost.
"You smell like warmth," he said. "It's maddening."
"Then stay away from me."
"I can't."
And then
He bent his head. His lips hovered above mine.
The air trembled. My knees buckled.
And just as his mouth ghosted over mine he vanished.
The shadows swallowed him.
Gone.