The “smaller, worse” feast was held in a room that felt too shallow for how deep it cut.
It was long and narrow, with a ceiling low enough that the taller courtiers had to mind their antlers. The walls were stone, hung with dark tapestries where thorns and bare branches twined together in patterns that made Rowan’s eyes itch if she stared too long.
A single table ran the length of the room. No dais, no tiers. Everyone sat at the same height, elbows nearly brushing. Intimate, in the way of duels.
Candles burned in iron brackets along the walls, flames steady despite the faint draft. The air smelled of meat and smoke and something Cloying, like old perfume clinging to heavy fabric.
“Why do I feel like we’re about to be dissected?” Rowan muttered as she and Caelan stepped in.
“Because we are,” he said calmly. “Just…politely.”
“Court definition of ‘politely’ is very skewed,” she said.
“Agreed,” he said.
Eyes turned as they entered.
This was not the full crowd of the previous night. Fewer bodies. But each face here mattered more. High seats. Old blood. Creatures who’d outlived kings and would likely outlive more.
Maerlyn sat halfway down the table, her throne of thorns pared back to a chair with spikes. Beside her, Thorn of the North lounged, antlers scraping the tapestry. Across from them, the Mire representative toyed with a goblet, dark hair slick against her skull. Rian of Winter sat near the far end, pale and still, like a carved piece of ice.
Aisling, of course, had claimed a seat almost directly opposite where Rowan and Caelan would likely sit. She wore black this time, stark against her pale skin, with a slash of red at her mouth.
The King was absent.
Rowan blinked. “Where’s—”
“Coughing up something unpleasant in bed,” Maerlyn said bluntly. “He sent regrets. And orders to ‘play nice.’”
She rolled her eyes on the last two words, making it clear how little weight they held.
“So we’re unsupervised,” Lucien said from his place near the middle, one boot hooked on the chair rung, lean body draped bonelessly.
“Lovely,” Rowan murmured.
Caelan squeezed her hand once under cover of his coat, then let go. “We have an audience,” he reminded her softly. “Remember the game.”
She inhaled.
Smiled, just enough.
“Of course,” she said. “Let’s give them a show.”
He led her to two empty chairs near the center, across from Maerlyn and diagonal from Aisling. To Rowan’s faint surprise, he didn’t take the head of the table in his father’s absence. He sat where one more voice among many would—visibly central, but not presiding.
Power in humility.
She saw what he was doing.
She approved.
“Rowan,” Maerlyn said as they sat. “You look delightfully underdressed.”
Rowan glanced down at her simple black dress, then back at Maerlyn’s gown—layers of thorned green silk and dripping jewelry. “I thought the thorns would clash,” she said. “Didn’t want to confuse the décor.”
A sly smile ghosted over Maerlyn’s mouth. “Wise,” she said. “Some of us get territorial.”
Servants flowed around them, laying out dishes. Roast fowl, sliced thin. Bowls of something grain-like, steaming and fragrant. Platters of mushrooms that glistened with butter. The spread was less ostentatious than the previous night, but no less tempting.
Rowan eyed the food.
She caught Brann’s eye at the far end of the table, where the cook had somehow finagled herself a seat among the elite. The older woman jabbed a finger at Rowan’s plate, then mimed stabbing her own tongue with that same finger.
Taste carefully.
Rowan gave the smallest of nods.
Lucien poured wine into her cup from a shared jug, then his own.
“Just a sip,” Caelan murmured. “This isn’t about the food.”
“What is it about?” she asked.
“Positioning,” he said. “Territories. Testing your edges.”
“He says ‘edges’ like I’m not one big raw nerve,” she muttered.
“Then give them frostbite,” he said.
The first course passed mostly in silence, everyone too busy watching everyone else to risk speaking first.
It was Maerlyn who broke it.
“So,” she said, flicking a bit of imaginary lint from her sleeve. “We’ve all gotten a good look at the outer shell. Time to pry at what’s beneath.”
“Do you ever just…eat dinner,” Rowan asked. “Like, in silence, with a bad show on in the background?”
“What is a ‘show’?” Thorn asked.
“She means storytelling on moving paintings,” Lucien said. “With terrible writing and worse fashion.”
“Sounds like our Court,” murmured someone.
A few chuckles.
Maerlyn ignored the detour. “Tell us about your…attachments,” she said, eyes sharp on Rowan. “Who you will burn for. Who you will bleed for.”
Rowan’s spine stiffened.
“Starting subtle, I see,” she said.
“No point in wasting time,” Maerlyn said. “We are none of us young.” Her lips thinned. “Except you. For now.”
Rowan considered.
The instinct was to close up. To tell them nothing. To hide every soft spot like it was a vein.
But Lucien’s voice echoed in her head. *You tell the truth when it hurts them most.*
“My grandmother,” she said. “Harper. Zia. The woman who owns the bookstore. Probably the kid in the dinosaur hoodie if someone tried to shove him in front of a bus.”
“Strangers,” the Mire woman said, sounding amused. “Interesting.”
“Not strangers,” Rowan said. “People who made my life bearable when every thread of it was made of someone else’s choices.”
“So you would fight for them,” Rian said. “Against us. Against him.” He nodded at Caelan.
“Yes,” Rowan said without hesitation.
The air in the hall thickened.
Caelan’s jaw clenched.
“Good,” Maerlyn said, surprisingly. “At least you know where your line is. Too many of us don’t.”
“And for him?” Aisling asked lazily, chin on her hand. “Would you burn for our little fox?”
Heat climbed Rowan’s neck.
She shot Caelan a look.
He stared straight ahead, expression carefully neutral, knuckles white where they gripped his cup.
“I already have,” Rowan said.
The words surprised her as much as anyone.
Lucien choked on his wine.
Maerlyn’s brows shot up.
“What did you do?” Thorn asked, intrigued.
“Went into that seam at the lake,” Rowan said. “Reached too far. Nearly got stuck. If he hadn’t…pulled me, I would’ve…gone under. I did that to figure out if stepping into his world was worth the risk. It nearly killed me. It hurt him. It woke up things we don’t know how to name yet.” She shrugged, the movement small. “Seems like…burning.”
“That was reckless,” the Mire woman said approvingly.
“That was idiotic,” Rian said.
“Yes,” Caelan said quietly. To both.
Rowan’s fingers tightened around her cup. “You all keep referring to me like I’m some…theoretical object,” she said. “A concept. An ‘it.’ But I’m the one who nearly drowned. I’m the one whose skin still crawls when I think about that crack opening above my head.”
“You’re the one who chose to walk into it,” Rian said.
“Because you were already sniffing around,” she snapped. “Don’t act like this is a one‑sided game.”
The room went very still.
Rian’s lips parted just enough to show a hint of teeth. “Careful, little fire,” he said softly. “You play with forces that do not notice when they crush you.”
“Then notice,” she shot back. “Or I’m more likely to burn your tail than you are to freeze mine.”
Caelan’s hand brushed her knee under the table, a quiet warning.
She took a breath.
Loosened her grip.
Maerlyn’s eyes gleamed. “You see?” she said, addressing the table at large. “Spine. Not just mouth. That’s rarer than you’d think.”
“She’s mortal,” the root‑antlered Thorn said. “Everything is spine and mouth when your bones break so easily.”
Rowan glanced at him. “And yet I’m here,” she said. “In your Court. At your table. Not…smashed.”
“For now,” he allowed.
“Enough,” Caelan said abruptly.
Every head turned to him.
He didn’t often raise his voice in these circles. When he did, people noticed.
“You called her here,” he said to Maerlyn, to Thorn, to Mire, to Winter, to his father in absentia. “You made a bargain that dragged her into our story. You’ve all tried to kill her at least once.” His gaze flicked to Rian. “You. You had a wolf at her heel in a supermarket when she was twelve and didn’t know what teeth to grow.”
Rowan’s stomach dropped. “What?” she whispered.
“We don’t have to discuss that,” Maerlyn said sharply.
“Yes,” Caelan said. “We do. You want to talk about attachments? Let’s talk about *ours.*”
He pushed his chair back slightly, enough to be seen, not enough to be dramatic.
“You are all very brave,” he said coldly. “When she is sleeping. When she is six. When she is alone in a mortal park and thinks the shadow under the bench is just a shadow. You send your whispers. Your hounds. Your half‑baked assassins who think stabbing a child will avert a line in a prophecy.”
Rian’s jaw flexed. “You’ve interfered with our attempts to keep your Court safe,” he said. “Repeatedly.”
“You tried to keep your *Court* safe,” Caelan said. “Not her. Never her.”
“Why should we?” Thorn asked bluntly. “She is not ours. Still isn’t.”
“Yet you would all like to decide whether she lives,” Caelan said. “And how. And where. And for whom.”
Murmurs.
Rowan sat very still.
“You want to test her?” Caelan went on. “Test her here. Now. While she can answer. While she can see the knife. Not from behind woven dreams and half‑glimpsed teeth.”
He looked at Rowan.
His eyes were bright. Fierce.
“If you have questions,” he said to the table, “ask them. If you have curses, throw them. If you want to whisper old prophecies in her ear, be my guest. But from this point forward, I will gut anyone who tries to put a blade to her throat without looking her in the eye while she’s awake.”
The air shimmered.
The wildwood, somewhere deep, listened.
Whisper, perched in the corner like an ill‑tamed gargoyle, chuckled. “So romantic,” it purred.
Rowan’s chest hurt.
“Caelan,” she said softly. “You don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” he said, but there was no heat in it. “I’m enjoying myself.”
Lucien smirked. “He’s been waiting for an excuse to make that speech for years,” he stage‑whispered.
The Mire woman leaned forward, elbow on the table. “So what,” she said lightly. “We all sit around and poke the mortal for our own amusement instead of from the safety of our armchairs?”
“Yes,” Caelan said. “At least then she can set you on fire if she gets bored.”
Rowan choked on her drink.
Maerlyn’s laughter, sharp and genuine, cut through the tension. “Very well,” she said. “You heard the boy. Let’s prod the dragon.”
“I am not a dragon,” Rowan muttered.
“You are to us,” Maerlyn said.
The next few hours blurred.
Questions came from all directions.
Some were simple. Almost harmless—about her world. Electricity. Cars. The internet. What it felt like to stand in a place where iron didn’t hurt.
Rowan answered those easily.
She’d spent her whole life explaining her weirdness away. It was almost fun, now, to lean into it.
Other questions cut.
“How did your mother die?” from a woman with hair like spun glass.
“In a car accident,” Rowan said flatly. “She fell asleep at the wheel. The truck driver lived. She didn’t. It had nothing to do with magic. Unless you count the fact that you all kept her alive three years longer than she was supposed to be and then took her out in a more mundane way.”
Silence.
“Do you resent *us* for that?” Maerlyn asked.
“Yes,” Rowan said.
“And your grandmother?” someone else pressed.
“Yes,” Rowan said again. “And the drunk driver who hit them. And the doctor who discharged her when she was exhausted from working double shifts to pay the medical bills. My resentment is…egalitarian.”
A startled laugh from Lucien.
She didn’t flinch.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” Rian asked, eyes narrow.
Rowan stiffened.
“Not…like you mean,” she said. “I haven’t stabbed anyone. Or…set anyone on fire on purpose.” Her hand twitched. “But I know my existence…has killed some things. Some people. Choices. I know that if I stay, some of you will die. If I go, different ones will. I don’t have the luxury of a body count of zero anymore.”
Rian’s gaze sharpened. “Good,” he said. “You’re not deluded.”
“Comforting,” she muttered.
At some point, someone refilled her wine. She barely tasted it. Her focus ping‑ponged from face to face, words to nuance, trying to keep up, trying not to drown.
Through it all, Caelan sat at her side.
He didn’t answer for her.
He didn’t speak over her.
He interjected when lines were crossed, when questions veered into outright cruelty.
He was there.
It mattered.
Hours later—she had no idea how many—the King’s absence pressed more heavily against the room. Whispers grew sharper. Glances more pointed.
“We’re wasting time,” Thorn said finally, impatient. “We know where she stands. With him. With her ghosts. The real decision is what we do when the three months end.”
“We watch,” Maerlyn said. “We listen. We see which way the roots creak.”
“Or,” Rian said, “we cut the branch before it falls on our heads.”
Rowan’s fingers dug into the table.
“Do we get a say?” she asked. “Me. Aisling.”
All eyes slid to Aisling, who’d been unusually quiet, watching, sipping her wine slowly.
She set her cup down.
“I have a say whether you give it to me or not,” she said. “You all built this cage with my life and hers. If you think we’re going to sit inside and let you poke us with sticks until one of us obligingly explodes…you’ve forgotten who raised me.”
“Us,” Rowan said.
Aisling’s eyes flicked to her.
“Us,” she corrected.
Maerlyn sighed. “Of course you two would become a problem,” she said. “I should have drowned you both at birth.”
“You tried,” Caelan said softly.
Silence dropped like a stone.
Maerlyn’s face went blank.
Rian’s fingers stopped tapping.
Lucien’s smile vanished.
Rowan’s heart stuttered. “What,” she whispered.
Caelan didn’t look at her.
His eyes were on Maerlyn.
“When the prophecy first came,” he said, voice calm, “you argued that killing both babies would be the safest course. One of them was in our Palace. The other in a mortal hospital. You had plans. Poison. Glamours. Swapped vials. I…interfered.”
“Interfered,” Maerlyn repeated slowly. “You dragged me into a bramble patch and threatened to feed me to Whisper if I lifted a finger.”
“I was fourteen,” Caelan said. “My metaphors have improved.”
A humorless huff escaped her.
“I remember,” she said. “You broke my nose.”
“I reset it,” he said. “Badly.”
She touched the bridge of her nose unconsciously.
Rian’s lips curved, humorless. “So the prince has been choosing his side for longer than we thought,” he said.
“Yes,” Caelan said. “You all just didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.”
Rowan stared at him.
She’d known, intellectually, that he’d been part of this story since before she could speak. That he’d watched. Nudged. Protected, when he could.
Hearing *this*—that he’d physically put himself between her and an assassin before she’d even taken her first steps—hit different.
“You never told me,” she whispered.
He glanced at her then.
His eyes were tired.
“You had enough to hate me for,” he said quietly. “I didn’t feel the need to add ‘took your agency before you could spell it’ to the list.”
“I don’t—” she started, then stopped.
She didn’t hate him.
Not like she’d expected to.
He’d lied. Omitted. Stalked. Yes.
He’d also bled.
For her.
Before she’d known his name.
Her chest hurt.
“We’re done,” the King’s voice said from the doorway.
Rowan turned.
He’d come in without her noticing.
He leaned on a cane of twisted black wood, mantle of leaves thrown over one shoulder. He looked worse. Paler. But his eyes burned.
“Leave my Court alone for one afternoon and you all start brandishing knives over dinner,” he said. “Very on brand. I’m proud.”
“Your Majesty,” Maerlyn said dryly. “We were just discussing your legacy.”
“Don’t,” he said. “You’ll jinx it. I’m not dead yet.”
He eyed Rowan.
“You’re still standing,” he said. “Impressive.”
“I’m very stubborn,” she said hoarsely.
“Good,” he said. “You’ll need it.” He lifted his cane. “Now all of you, out. Go brood in your own corners. I want a word with my heir and his hinge.”
“Stop calling me that,” Rowan muttered.
The King smiled faintly.
Slowly, reluctantly, the others filed out.
Maerlyn first, thorns rustling.
Thorn next, antlers scraping. Mire. Winter. Aisling, with a backward glance that held too many emotions to parse.
Lucien lingered.
“Don’t die,” he said to Rowan, very matter-of-factly. “It would ruin my week.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
He smirked and left.
Whisper remained, clinging to the ceiling like a shadow-shaped fungus.
The King didn’t bother telling it to go.
He lowered himself into a chair with a soft grunt.
“Sit,” he said.
Rowan stayed where she was.
Caelan didn’t sit either.
The King sighed. “You’re both going to make this more difficult than it has to be, aren’t you,” he said.
“Yes,” they said in unison.
He smiled.
“Good,” he said. “It would be terribly dull otherwise.”
He rested his hands on the cane.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “I am dying.”
“Everyone keeps saying that like it’s news,” Rowan said.
He snorted. “Fair,” he said. “The difference now is…when. The wildwood has started taking its due. I have…months. If that.”
“Meaning,” Caelan said slowly, “you won’t be here when her three months are up.”
“Very good,” the King said. “You can count.”
“And your Court,” Caelan said, “will be…leaderless. Right when the bargain comes due. Right when the prophecy peaks.”
“Yes,” the King said simply. “Chaos. Opportunity. Blood. All the good things.”
Rowan stared. “You’re…happy…about this.”
“‘Happy’ is a strong word,” he said. “Resigned. Curious. Mildly amused at the symmetry.” He looked at Caelan. “You will not have a smooth coronation, boy. They will come for you. With teeth. With bargains. With her name in their mouths.”
Caelan’s jaw flexed.
“I know,” he said.
“And you,” the King said, turning to Rowan. “Will have to decide whether to help him. Hurt him. Or walk away and let the story eat him while you burn something else.”
“I’m not your protagonist,” Rowan said through her teeth. “Stop framing my choices around your son.”
“I’m framing *his* around you,” the King said calmly. “Your story has always been wider. He is the one narrowing his.”
Caelan’s hand curled into a fist.
“Why are you telling us this now,” he asked. “Why not…let it play. Let the pieces fall.”
“Because,” the King said softly, “I made too many choices in the dark. And I’m tired of pretending I’m the only one who should bear their weight.” His gaze sharpened. “You both deserve to see the abyss you’re walking toward.”
Rowan swallowed.
“What abyss,” she asked.
“Power,” he said simply. “Crowns. Prophecies. The kind of love that makes you tear a world apart and then wonder why there’s nothing left to stand on.”
The room went very still.
“I don’t—” Rowan began.
“You will,” he said. “Or you won’t. That’s the fun part.” He leaned back. “Three months, girl. That’s all the time you have to learn how to hold your own power without slicing your fingers on it. Three months, boy. That’s all the time you have to make this Court something worth her saving.”
He smiled, slow and dangerous.
“I look forward,” he said, “to watching you try.”
Then he pushed himself to his feet, cane clicking, and shuffled out of the room without waiting for a response.
Whisper dropped from the ceiling, landing lightly on the table.
It tilted its head.
“It’s going to hurt,” it whispered happily. “For all of you.”
Then it oozed after the King.
Silence fell.
Rowan stared at the empty doorway.
Her heart pounded.
“Caelan,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“We’re fucked,” she said.
He laughed.
It sounded a little wild.
“Yes,” he said. “We are.”
She huffed a breath that was half a laugh, half a sob.
“Good,” she said. “At least we’re fucked together.”
His eyes met hers.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and took her hand.
Not in public showmanship.
Not as a prince.
As a man.
Fingers warm. Grip firm.
“Together,” he said.
Her magic hummed, answering.
Behind the weight of prophecy, beyond the jaws of Courts and kings, something sharp and fierce rooted itself in her chest.
Resolve.
Not to be their hinge.
Not to be their bomb.
To be her own damn story.
Whatever it cost.
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