Changeling Illusion (Thirteen Realms Book 3) Read online

  We passed more guards as we climbed the wide marble steps and entered the main building of the castle. The sound of Kyrrim’s boots on the white marble floors echoed as he strode through the hallways to the throne room, but when we got there, it was empty.

  He stopped a man in the corridor—a higher-ranked servant, judging by the elegance of his dress. “Where is the king?”

  “Walking in the gardens with the queen, I believe, Sir Hawk.”

  Kyrrim made a noise of impatience. “Which part of the gardens?” They were huge, of course. Searching for the king would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  The man drew himself up. “I’m afraid His Majesty doesn’t keep me apprised of his movements, sir. I merely observed him leaving the terrace earlier with the queen on his arm.”

  Kyrrim glared at him until the man dropped his gaze, then he offered a grudging thank-you. We turned at the next intersection and followed a new, smaller hallway that ended in a pair of glass doors. These opened onto a terrace, the same one Raven had plucked me from the night he kidnapped me. Kyrrim hurried me down the wide steps onto the path that led away, into the trees.

  “Are we just going to wander around until we find him?” I asked.

  “More or less. We’ll try the rose arbour first; that’s a favourite spot of his when he wants somewhere more private than the palace. If he’s not there, we’ll move on to wandering and hoping.”

  “Aren’t there meant to be armies of pages whose job it is to run around finding people?”

  “Well, yes—but this way I get to enjoy the gardens in the company of a beautiful woman.”

  His tone was light, but his eyes were constantly roving, keeping watch. It was certainly no leisurely stroll. He was a man on a mission, and I suspected at least part of that mission was keeping me away from hostile elements in the palace.

  In the twenty years the king had been missing, the queen and her brother had stacked the place with Summer sympathisers. There was no knowing who was watching, or who they were reporting to—the best thing to do was assume that anyone you met within its marble halls was probably an enemy. The haughty way that servant had spoken to him, bordering on insolence, was a sure sign he was on Summer’s side. He was probably already reporting to Kellith—if the Lord of Summer was still in residence—that the Hawk and the changeling scum were back, seeking the king.

  We walked beside a creek that burbled cheerfully over a smooth, stony bed. Ancient willows hung their graceful fronds over the banks. A pair of swans glided by, and I realised the sun was rising. Bird calls filled the trees around us.

  It was a very pleasant setting, and I relaxed a little, despite the pace Kyrrim was setting. Any time I got alone with him was time well spent in my book. I was disappointed when the path curved away from the restful creek, though everywhere I looked, new beauty greeted me. We passed through a wood where hundreds of bluebells filled the spaces between the trees, then the creek reappeared, grown wider. Here, it fell in a series of small waterfalls into a lake. Stepping stones picked a path through water lilies in full bloom across the lake to a small island. I itched to explore, but our path led in a different direction.

  At last, the rose arbour came into view. I’d been expecting something small, but the “rose arbour” was the size of a football field and contained a lot more than just roses. Artfully placed hedges formed privacy screens for the paths that wound through the gardens, and trees shaded small, hidden nooks where stone benches invited the wanderer to sit and admire the flowers.

  Rising from the centre of the arbour was something that looked like a Spring pavilion, but made of a thin framework covered in climbing roses. The sweet scent of roses was everywhere, reminding me of Willow’s magic as we worked our way along the winding paths. There were no straight lines here; visitors were clearly meant to take their time and enjoy each new vista as it opened up.

  I heard the king before I saw him. A row of camellias, old and tall and absolutely covered with enormous pink blooms, blocked our way, but evidently the king was on the other side. He was making no attempt to keep his voice down.

  “I see no reason to rush into this,” he was saying, and there was a note of frustration in his cultured tones that I’d never heard before. Usually, Rothbold kept his cool whatever the provocation, at least in my limited experience of him. He had “kingly” down to a fine art. Now he just sounded exasperated and thoroughly pissed off with whomever he was speaking to.

  We turned and followed the path to the end of the row of camellias. I glanced at Kyrrim, unsure if the king would welcome an interruption, but my knight didn’t seem at all perturbed. If Rothbold was arguing with the queen, I’d rather be almost anywhere else. The queen already didn’t like me; I couldn’t imagine she would welcome me walking in on a private argument with her husband.

  “We’re not rushing. This has been arranged since I was born. The world didn’t stop just because you weren’t here, you know.”

  Well, that wasn’t the queen’s voice, which was something. The speaker was female and youngish, though “young” was often hard to pin down with the fae. She sounded just as exasperated as the king, but there was an added helping of outrage that made me suspect her identity. Besides, who else would have the balls to speak to the king like that?

  We rounded the last of the camellias, me hanging just a little behind Kyrrim’s broad back. Okay, maybe I was a coward, but royalty already made me uncomfortable—they were so far outside my experience. I’d grown up in a cottage in the woods, with no contact with any nobles apart from glimpses of Eldric, Lord of Autumn, and his brother a couple of times a year at festivals. Royalty in the middle of an argument was a whole new level of awkward.

  The king stood beside a fountain, its gentle trickle totally failing to soothe any of the three people in front of us. His royal fists were firmly planted on his hips in the universal attitude of a man laying down the law. Queen Ceinwen sat on the stone coping surrounding the fountain, her hands folded decorously in her lap, but the black expression on her face spoke volumes. A third fae faced them both. She had dark hair halfway down her back, and wore a dress of palest pink, tiny pearls scattered all over the gossamer fabric. That was all I could see, since she had her back to me.

  The king was too intent on her to acknowledge our arrival, but the queen caught sight of us and scowled. Great.

  “Rothbold,” she murmured.

  Distracted, the king nodded at us. The woman in pink threw a glance over her shoulder.

  I was right, she was young. Though I’d never met her before, the shape of her face and her blue eyes made it clear whose daughter she was. This was the child who’d been born and grown to womanhood while her royal father was trapped in a dementia unit in the mortal world. She looked a lot more like him than her mother, the pale ice queen. I wondered if that bothered Ceinwen.

  “That doesn’t mean that every decision taken in my absence must stand, Lily. The disposition of your hand is no small matter for the kingdom. I will not have my choices dictated to me.”

  “What about my choices? Merritt and I love one another!”

  Whoops. Looked like we’d walked into a major family battle. I remembered there’d been talk of a betrothal. The name Merritt rang a bell, though it took me a moment to place it. Right—he was the son of Kellith, Lord of Summer, which made him the princess’s cousin. And she wanted to marry him?

  Eww. I’d lived long enough in the mortal world to find that more than a little off-putting.

  “We will speak more of this later,” the king said firmly, glancing again at Kyrrim, who stood patiently waiting at the princess’s back, his modern clothes an odd juxtaposition against the fae splendour of the royal family’s garb.

  “I don’t care what you say. I’m marrying Merritt. Mama and I both want it. Everyone in the family wants it.” Except the king, obviously, and that was no surprise. He would hardly be on board with a move that brought Kellith even closer to the centre of power. Lily
glanced at her mother for support, but the queen only rose gracefully to her feet.

  “Hush, child. Not in front of these people.” The way she said these people made it sound as though Kyrrim and I were roaches. “Come back with me to the palace and leave your father to his visitors.”

  I was surprised she wasn’t putting up more of a fight, since I was sure the idea to marry her daughter off to her brother’s son suited her view of Summer as the supreme Realm nicely. And if she and her brother had hatched this scheme when the princess was born, she wasn’t likely to give it up without a struggle. But the scowl was gone, her face closed off into her usual cold expression.

  Lily threw us a scornful glance, as if our visit could have no value to the king, but she went with her mother, all but flouncing down the path away from the fountain. I watched her go. She was only a couple of years younger than me, but she made me feel old with her flounces and her scorn.

  If this was what a real princess was like, I would never call Willow a princess again.

  The king sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I thought fatherhood would be easier than this.”

  “Most people have more time to get acclimatised, sire,” Kyrrim said.

  “True.” The king gave a rueful laugh. “I missed all the teething and the toilet training. All I get is the teenage tantrums.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking like a man lost. He’d been running the kingdom forever, but fatherhood was a whole new experience, and feeling like an amateur probably didn’t sit well with him. He was trying to make a joke of it, but I’d been there when he’d discovered that he’d missed his daughter’s whole life, and I knew how much it had hurt him. He sighed. “She’s a lot like her mother.”

  That was hardly surprising, given that the queen and her brother had had complete control in Lily’s upbringing. She was a Summer creature through and through, and, judging by what I’d just seen, she saw her father as a hindrance to her plans.

  Moved by the baffled misery on his face, I said, “She’s the spitting image of you, sire.” I bet that ground the queen’s gears, too. She might have moulded her daughter into a Summer pawn, but every time she looked at her, she’d be reminded of the princess’s Brenfell heritage.

  “Do you think so?” he asked, his face softening. “She’s so beautiful. I’m trying so hard to tread carefully with her, to build up some kind of a relationship. Yet I can’t help feeling she would have preferred her father to stay missing.”

  “I’m sure she’ll feel differently once she gets to know you,” Kyrrim said.

  “Perhaps.” King Rothbold didn’t look sure at all. “But it might take her a few years to get over me breaking off her engagement.” He snorted. “As if I would allow Kellith to get his claws any further into this kingdom than he has already. I sometimes wonder if I should have made a different choice of wife. It seemed prudent at the time to ally myself with Summer’s might, but …”

  He shook his head, letting the thought trail off. I’d never seen him so uncertain before. The argument must have really unsettled him.

  “It’s ridiculous, anyway. She’s not even of age yet. These negotiations should never have been allowed to begin so early.” He glanced at Kyrrim and straightened his shoulders, the grieving father replaced by the monarch. “Still, I’m sure you didn’t bring our lovely Illusionist here to listen to my family woes. Has something happened?”

  “Yes. The Vipers struck at Willow’s sith tonight.”

  Rothbold stilled. “Casualties?”

  “The servant they used to gain entrance.”

  “What happened?”

  Kyrrim gave a brief report, and the king’s expression grew thunderous as he listened.

  “Any survivors?”

  “No, sire. But you know they wouldn’t have talked, even if we’d managed to take one alive.”

  “Who was their target?”

  Kyrrim glanced briefly at me. “We can’t be sure, of course, but it seems likely that it was Allegra. This is not the first attempt on her life.”

  The king turned stormy blue eyes on me. “Our Lord of Summer grows impatient for the crown. We must find a way to put an end to his ambitions.”

  That was fine with me. I was kind of over having arseholes popping out of the woodwork attempting to put an end to me. Interesting that the king had jumped straight to assuming Kellith was the one behind the attack. We were all going to look stupid if it turned out to be someone else entirely. But I suspected we were pretty safe on that score.

  “Perhaps a meeting with the Illusionists on Arlo,” Kyrrim suggested. “Bringing Illusion back into the game will weaken him.”

  “Yes,” the king said decisively. “Set it up for tonight. The sooner my dear brother-in-law is reminded of his place, the better.”

  5

  Back through the gardens we went, retracing our steps to the gate. The sun was fully up now, and the pale walls of Whitehaven did indeed glitter in the light. Fortunately, the day was overcast, so my eyeballs weren’t seared from my head by their glow. I’d gotten used to wearing sunglasses in the mortal world, and the fabled faerie palace would have been too much for me on my present lack of sleep. It had been a busy night.

  And no sign of slowing down yet. I was eager to return to Arlo to see Squeak and to find out more about my family, but I hadn’t forgotten Morwenna’s attitude last time, and that tempered my excitement somewhat. I was also worried about what condition I would find my little bondmate in. Hopefully a lot better than when I’d last seen him, but even fae healing magic couldn’t work miracles. I was trying not to think about it, because I didn’t want to admit that a miracle might be required to restore poor Squeak to full health.

  Kyrrim was leading me around the bulk of the palace, since there was no need to go back inside, but a figure on the terrace called out, “Hawk!” and hurried down the steps towards us as we passed.

  Kyrrim stopped and waited for the man, though I could tell he was reluctant. I recognised the figure as he came closer; it was the Dragon, one of the other knights who served as the King’s Chosen. There were only four of them at the moment: the Hawk, the Dragon, the Lion, and the Wolf. The Bear had been killed when the king was kidnapped.

  The Dragon was taller than me—hey, wasn’t everyone?—about Kyrrim’s height but of a slimmer build. He had warm brown eyes that had a friendly smile in them as he reached us. I’d only seen him in his ceremonial armour before, and he looked much more approachable today, in a more informal tunic of soft green over brown trousers tucked into tall black boots. Despite the lack of armour, he still carried himself like a military man, and I imagined there was a weapon or two tucked away under his clothes somewhere. As Kyrrim had once said to me, knights didn’t live long by being trusting.

  “Is all well with you?” he asked Kyrrim. “I haven’t seen you around the palace for a couple of days.”

  “Quite well,” Kyrrim replied. I managed not to give him the side eye. If he didn’t want to tell the Dragon of the Night Vipers’ attack on us, that was his affair. “I’ve been on the king’s business. Still am, in fact.”

  That last was so clearly a get lost, I’m busy that the Dragon gave a small half bow and stepped back. “I won’t hold you up, then.” He smiled at me. “But I wanted to ask how your bondmate is. I heard he took some bad wounds.”

  “Yes.” All my anxiety over Squeak came rushing back at the concern in those brown eyes. “He was burned quite badly, especially on one wing.”

  “Wings can be tricky things.” His face was grave now. “Who has the care of him?”

  I just stared at him, not sure how to answer that one. Clearly “a healer on the lost island of Illusion” wasn’t an acceptable option. He might be one of the King’s Chosen, but I was fairly certain that the king hadn’t shared that information with anyone. I glanced at Kyrrim for support.

  “The king’s sister is an excellent healer,” he said.

  Well, he wasn’t exactly lying. My heart swelled with p
ride at his quick thinking. Yriell was indeed an excellent healer—just not the one who was working on Squeak.

  The Dragon looked troubled. “No offence to the Princess Orina, but I’m not sure she has the right skills for something so critical. But I will not interfere, other than to say that if you need my help, you know where to find me. Dragons have had more experience than anyone over the years in healing wing damage. You might say that it’s something of a specialty. Our wings are our whole identity.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  He gave that little half bow again as Kyrrim nodded at him and resumed walking. I hurried after my dour knight.

  When we were far enough away, I said, “That was nice of him.”

  “Very nice.” His grim tone belied his words.

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  It was true that the Dragon, the Lion, and the Wolf hadn’t been supportive of the Hawk in his years-long quest to find the missing king. Perhaps he was right. Who knew whose side anyone was really on these days? Though the King’s Chosen were sworn to the protection of the king, that was no guarantee that they were, in fact, on Rothbold’s. If we were only going by what people were supposed to do, one might expect the queen to be on the king’s side also, and we all knew that wasn’t the case.

  Once outside the walls of Whitehaven, the Hawk drew Ecfirrith and took my hand. Three bright slashes glowed in the air, springing from the sword’s point as he wielded it and hanging like the arc of a child’s sparkler. The glow flared, then coalesced into a doorway, throbbing with power. Mist swirled within the opening so that I couldn’t see what was on the other side, but I didn’t hesitate to follow Kyrrim through the magic gate.

  A tingle of threshold magic crept over my skin as we passed through, the gate winking out of existence behind us. I found myself on a pathway in another place, the sky above bluer than the overcast skies above the palace had been, but we were still in the Realms. At the end of the pathway, a castle stood proudly on a hill.