“A woman?” I asked, though I didn’t know why I cared. Perhaps I held onto the hope that he would fall in love with me, that our marriage would be more than a power play for both of us.
At the same time, I toyed with the idea that Cris would choose someone else. That Castillo was wrong about Helena’s prediction, and we could somehow escape this compound and live the rest of our lives getting to know each other, weaving our magic into a bond that could survive the sharp claws of death. I quickly dismissed such ridiculous thoughts. I wasn’t in love with Castillo. Making ice cream and strolling through the streets of Umon as we laid sinister plans didn’t equate to love.
Infatuation, I thought, even as I gazed upon Cris’s handsome face. I reminded myself that he was touching me and likely influencing me with his magic.
Cris planted a kiss on my temple. “Not a woman,” he said. “Come, I suppose you’ll have to meet him sooner or later.” He slipped one arm around my waist and led me toward the hallway that snaked further into his apartment. “Though I would prefer it be later.” When we passed Bo and Gibson, a subtle growl ground through Bo’s throat.
Every sense sharpened as Cris pushed open a door to reveal a sitting room fit for kings. Black leather couches and chairs sat next to gold-and-glass tables. Crystal dripped from the ceiling, from the sconces on the walls, from the drapery hardware. The curtains were drawn and gas lamps glowed, giving the room a muted feel.
I stopped breathing altogether when a man separated himself from a lounger, and stood. I volleyed my gaze back and forth between him and Cris, placing the long nose, the dark eyes, the square jaw. They were practically mirror copies of each other.
“Your father.” I hoped my voice carried more awe than fear, though both coursed through me. “The High King.”
“You must be Echo,” the High King said. His voice could paint pictures. I lost myself inside the tonalities of it, at once realizing the magical qualities swirling within. No wonder he was disappointed in his son’s limited abilities. My understanding of Cris clicked into clarity. “My son said you were busy this evening.” He pierced Cris with a look that spoke of his extreme displeasure.
“She was,” Cris said feebly. The reason Cris had arranged for Castillo to get me out of the compound tonight made perfect sense—he’d been protecting me.
I squeezed Cris’s arm, crossed the room, and extended my hand to the High King. Anxiety bubbled beneath my skin. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“My son speaks very highly of you.” He spoke with a Nythinian accent, subtle yet pronounced. He took my hand and raised it to his lips. No sizzle accompanied his touch, as had happened when Cris kissed my wrist. Now, only an extreme coldness seeped toward my elbow.
I let my hand drop after he released it. “Cris speaks compliments about you as well.” A lie, but his father need not know that. I smiled like there wasn’t anywhere else I’d rather be than trapped with the High King of Nyth, the man who would steal my magic just as easily as smile at me. I wondered how many hunting parties he’d sent to Iskadar. I wondered if his eyes burned orange in the dark.
“You call my son by his first name.” He said it as a statement of curiosity, not a question. He didn’t look at me but at Cris. The expression on his face spoke of challenge. “Why does she call you by your first name?”
Terror sang through me. I stepped between Cris and his father. “We’re quite friendly,” I said, needing to lessen the tension choking the room. “Your son is quite the champion at cards.” My head felt too light and my limbs too heavy, but I kept talking. “We also share a love of horses, of flowers, and of watching the sun set over the river.” I sounded like an idiot—and Cris and I had never discussed horses or played cards.
The High King yanked his gaze back to me, and I didn’t like him looking at me with such malice any more than I liked him glaring at Cris. I migrated back to Cris’s side, and as I did so, I noticed the supreme surprise in his eyes. They screamed a single question: Why?
I brushed my fingers across his eyebrows, willing them to lower. Thankfully, he complied, and when I tucked my arm in his and we turned back to his father as a single unit, I was certain we looked every bit the happy couple falling for each other, though I couldn’t help but swallow hard.
“Perhaps you should introduce me properly to your father,” I whispered. I wanted to know the High King’s first name, too.
“Echo,” Cris said, his voice gravelly and strained. “This is my father, High King of Nyth, Javier de la Fuenta. Father, Echo del Toro, of Iskadar village.”
“Iskadar village?” the High King asked, too much interest in his voice to be friendly.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” I buckled my knees into a curtsy.
“The girl is from Iskadar,” the High King said to Cris as if I weren’t present and did not deserve to be called by my name. “Iskadar! Do you know what kind of people hail from Iskadar?” He raised his hand as if he might strike his son, but the High King stopped himself.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth, not sure if my annoyance stemmed from his insults of my village or because he was willing to hit Cris in my presence.
Cris said nothing, though the irritation in his eyes spoke volumes.
“I believe we discussed the proper heritage for your wife,” the High King said, continuing to ignore me. “Though I’m not sure why I believed you’d be able to get it right.” He cast a sour glance in my direction.
I transferred his disdain of Iskadar to all Umonians, and the fact that he’d taken reign of our land angered me. My magic rose within me, a spell-song swelled in my throat. A small voice in my mind whispered, I will liberate my countrymen.
I suddenly had new purpose in becoming Cris’s wife. I imagined the power I would have to set precedents and establish new laws. I could ensure the outer villages remained free. I could separate Umon from Nythinian rule. Perhaps I could rule Umon.
I would restore beauty to magic, re-establish magicians as valued citizens of a flourishing society, and ensure freedom for everyone now currently under the High King’s reign.
Such thoughts and visions were dangerous to have in the High King’s presence, but in his seething fury he didn’t seem to notice how my shoulders squared and my chin lifted. I quickly forced myself to appear more like Cris—subservient.
“My grandparents aren’t natives of Iskadar,” I blurted in an attempt to appease the High King.
He blinked. “Do you think that improves your station?” He rolled his eyes. “If anything, it stains your heritage further.”
“Father—”
“Our people require a specific type of ruler,” the High King barked. He scanned me from head to toe and definitely found me wanting. “She—”
“My ancestors hail from Relina,” I said.
The silence that followed doubled my anger. How had this man reduced me to a puddle so effectively? I would’ve said anything to please him, and I couldn’t find fault with Cris and his naivety any longer.
The High King stared at me like I should continue the story. I didn’t speak of Grandmother’s travels across the sea when she was a little girl, of the brother she lost in a magical typhoon a wicked sorcerer had conjured. He had been exiled by the ancients for an act Grandmother did not detail. She’d rarely spoken of her immigration, though I remember it being a fantastic tale.
When it was clear that the High King wouldn’t concede, I took a deep breath. “Well, I won’t keep you from your family evening.” I extracted my arm from Cris’s and took a few steps toward the door, thinking I’d go straight to Castillo and tell him of my plans to restore magic and liberate my countrymen.
“I’m the one who’s leaving,” the High King said. “Cris and I are done here.”
I pressed my eyes closed and inhaled deeply. I turned around and pasted on a smile. “Well, once again, it was a pleasure to meet you.”
The High King didn’t spare me a glance. He paused next to his son, leaned in close, and whispered.
If Cris wasn’t already standing straight and tall, he did then.
I stepped to the side to let the High King pass and only then did he pin me with his gaze. “You are a beautiful girl.” A dangerous edge sat in his obsidian eyes, and his voice hissed with barely contained venom. “I’m sure you will make a wonderful princess for my son.”
Before I could respond, he pried open the door and left.
#
I sat nursing another drink, this time something much stronger than water. A few sips of thick red wine had soothed my nerves ten minutes ago, but I couldn’t release the crystal goblet. Cris stood at the window, staring into the darkness. Every few minutes he threw back a tumbler full of amber liquid, moved to refill it, and repositioned himself at the glass. We hadn’t spoken.
I worried for Castillo, and if his father would seek him out tonight. I didn’t want the High King anywhere near Castillo without me acting as a buffer between them. I didn’t want Cris to go through that either.
The High King despised anyone who was not Nythinian, that much had become clear. But, oh, how he’d reacted when I’d mentioned Relina . . . The ancients there possessed great magic, even more brilliant and powerful than the High King’s. Surely they knew of his tyranny; surely they had sent a convoy across the seas to let him know the way he’d polluted his magic did not conform to their guidelines.
I shook my head and gulped my wine. I hadn’t made it through a whole glass yet, but I still felt woozy and too warm. I slapped the goblet down on the end table, cringing with the resulting clack of glass on glass.
“I should go.”
“You should not,” Cris said, but it didn’t sound like a command. It was a plea.
“It’s very late.”
“And you have nowhere to be tomorrow.” Cris joined me on the couch, not too close, not too far away. It reminded me of how Castillo and I had sat on the bench in the park. I didn’t fear Cris, yet I dreaded what he might know about me.
“My maids—”
“Are used to being called out of bed to attend to their superiors.”
“I’m not their superior.”
He laughed and swept his arm across my shoulders. “You should amend that thinking, Echo. Queens think they are superior to everyone.”
“Then I will never be a queen.”
Cris quieted his laughter and studied me. “You truly do not think yourself better than Greta or Lucia.”
Surprise warred with horror. He knew my maid’s names. He knew Helena had left. “I do not. I’ve been in their position. I’ve washed another’s hair and blushed their cheeks. Are you suggesting I’m different now?” I gestured to his immaculate apartment. “Because I’m here and someone else isn’t? Because I wear silk and someone cooks my meals?”
“Such fire,” he said, running his fingers lightly through my loose hair. I didn’t wholly dislike it.
“Do you think you’re better than other people?”
“Kings must,” he said simply.
“Why? So you can treat the soldiers with indifference? So you can order the execution of your chef if he serves the steak too rare? So you can look the other way when innocent people are shot?”
Anger flared in his eyes. “You know nothing of what you speak.”
“Neither do you!” I stood up, the wine clouding my movements. “Do you think you’re better than other people? Better than Castillo, or Matu, or any of the others who labor to support you?”
“I am a king.”
“Do you?”
He gazed up at me, halfway between admiration and fury. “Echo, I don’t know what you wish me to say.”
“I wish you to speak candidly with me. Do you or do you not think you are better than your servants?”
He swallowed the last of his liquor, and his eyes drifted half-closed. “I do.”
Disgust clawed at my stomach, already ripe with the sloshing wine. “That, Your Majesty, is why you will be a weak king.” I hated myself then, for saying such things to him. His father surely verbally berated him at every opportunity—even when they weren’t alone, as I’d just witnessed.
“You’re right,” he said, stopping me in my flight toward the exit. He stumbled as he caught my arm.
“Excuse me?”
“I will be a weak king.” Cris turned and motioned me back to the couch. I stayed rooted to the spot, too tired to reason through his riddles. “It’s why my father thinks I need a bride with more backbone than I possess.”
Seeing him drunk and broken by his father softened my heart. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I don’t think before speaking.”
“It’s one of your best qualities,” he said, the words slightly slurred. “Don’t stop, please. No one tells me what I need to hear.”
“What’s going on here?”
“Here in this room? Or here in this compound?”
“Both.”
“Come sit down, and I shall tell you.”
I made my way over to the couch on numb legs. I sat farther from Cris than I had previously.
“I’m choosing a bride. I need someone with strength at my side, for as you so eloquently pointed out, I’m weak.” A half smile danced across his lips. “Right now, in this room, I’m learning how strong you are. It’s incredible.”
“Don’t patronize me, Your Highness. There’s more going on here than that.”
“Not for me.”
“What did your father say to you before he left?”
“What he always says. ‘Don’t mess this up, son.’” Cris pitched his voice slightly lower to imitate his father. “I’m a complete disappointment to him.” He raised his glass to his lips and lowered it with a frown when he realized it was empty.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my shoulders drooping with the memories of Olive’s occasional disdain. “You don’t need my disappointment heaped on top of his.”
Cris leveled his gaze at me. “The difference, my dear Echo, is that I actually care about what you think.”
I raised my eyebrows. “A simple servant girl? You just said you thought yourself better than people like me.”
“Not you,” he said, frowning. “Echo, I want you to be my wife. If I didn’t think of you as an equal, that would never work.”
Maybe the wine had muddled my brain, or maybe my mouth really had a mind of its own. “If I believed you, which I don’t, I might say that was a romantic thing to say. But, Cris, all the evidence points to the contrary.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you treated your servants as equals, you’d be a much stronger king; a stronger person and a force to be reckoned with. Your father wouldn’t dare to breathe threats down your neck, because he’d know you had two magicians waiting to sing him into the dregs of death if you asked them to.” I lifted my half-full wine glass to my lips. The liquor buoyed me up and gave me the courage to keep going. “If you treated Gibson and Bo as equals, they wouldn’t be the ones giving soldiers the go-ahead to murder people. They wouldn’t be terrorizing the very girls you’ve brought here to be their next queen. They wouldn’t be planning to overthrow you behind your back.”
I hiccupped and put my glass down. The color drained from Cris’s face, but mine felt hot.
“Bo and Gibson threatened you?” He spoke much too soft for one with so much anger harbored in his face.
“They did. I doubt I’m the only one.”
“You think they have a secret plot to dethrone me?”
My chest squeezed, realizing I’d said too much. “I don’t know. But I do know they’re looking out for themselves. Enemies don’t bond for any other reason. They like working for you, because you’re the future king. What they do, they do for them. Not for you. Never for you.”
He bowed his head and fiddled with the fabric of his suit coat. “I didn’t know about the situation in the courtyard. If I had, I would’ve stopped it.”
“Yet you didn’t. A strong king who didn’t underestimate his enemies would have known about it, and would’
ve stopped it.”
“I will be stronger.”
“You will try.”
He glanced up at me. “Curse that mouth.” He smiled and put his hand on mine. “Yes, I will try. For you, dearest Echo, I will try.”
“Good,” I said. “Now I need you to do one more thing for me.”
“Name it.”
I took the empty tumbler from his hand. “It’s about the other girls . . . ”
Eighteen
Several mornings later, I found Castillo in the courtyard along with breakfast. He sat at the table, wearing casual clothes I hadn’t seen before. I hadn’t seen him once since our outing, since he kissed me, since I’d snuck down the hall and met the High King. As far as I knew, that secret still belonged to me.
“Good morning.” I sat across from him, glad I’d changed from my nightclothes into the house dress I’d finished the morning before. I enjoyed his company, and while Matu made a friendly escort, happiness filled me at Castillo’s return.
“You slept late.” He handed me a plate with an already rolled crepe.
“I was out very late.” I’d dined with Cris, and afterward, he’d taken me to the edge of the compound where the Burisia River touched. The slivered moon didn’t lend much light, and in order to tread without falling, I’d clutched his hand. I didn’t find it terribly disconcerting. In fact, there was little about Cris I did not like, a thought that had kept me awake long after Matu had escorted me back to my suite.
“Ah, yes, another one of your midnight rendezvous.”
I froze with the crepe halfway to my mouth, finding Castillo’s eyes and seeing the accusation within.
“I thought we’d agreed to wait, and watch.” He folded his arms, one eyebrow cocked.
I took a large bite of my breakfast and looked away. His sigh said it all, and none of it was nice.
I swallowed. “Who told you?”
“No one had to tell me,” he said. “I know everything that happens in this compound.” He leaned forward. “I know everything that happens to you—including meeting the High King and then getting drunk.”