23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

“ Y ou must be Iris,” a cool, elegant voice said as I stood up from the ground, brushing off my trousers at the end of the day. “I’m Oleta. Jonan’s mother.”

Ah.

Hopefully, my face was being cooperative and not giving away my lack of enthusiasm at meeting the Shade I’d heard so much about.

That wasn’t kind of me.

Then again, based on what I’d heard of Oleta, she wasn’t particularly kind either.

“Jonan talks about you nonstop, you know,” she continued, not waiting for an answer. “He’s very enamored with you.”

“He’s a wonderful child.”

Oleta was quiet for a moment. “I suppose. He’s very chatty.”

She said this like she wasn’t wholly convinced it was a good thing.

“He’s very enthusiastic and always willing to try new things. He’s really enjoyed the knitting we’ve been doing—he even taught Orabelle how to do it.”

“I didn’t realize he’d spoken to her directly,” Oleta replied in hushed tones.

“Oh yes. Jonan was really the only child she interacted with while she was here.”

“I see. And the king’s mother was, er, interested in what you were doing? This… knitting thing?”

“Orabelle is a friend of mine,” I assured her.

“Right. Interesting. I didn’t know that. And there are some… whispers that you and Prince Damen are courting?”

I let the silence linger just long enough to be uncomfortable—a trick I’d learned from Moriah. “I’m sorry, what does that have to do with Jonan?”

“Nothing, nothing,” she said hastily. “I’m just being curious, that’s all. Jonan talks about you so much, and all of your… quirks. And now I hear that you’re connecting with all kinds of influential Shades at court. One doesn’t know what to think.”

Ah, I think I got it now. Based on what she knew about me from Jonan, she wanted to dismiss me as beneath her notice. But because of the friendships I’d formed, she was worried that might not be in her best interests.

“I suppose you’ll have to make up your own mind,” I replied sweetly as Jonan came bounding across the room, relaying his day at the top of his lungs to his mother.

I didn’t think I was quick to anger—or even annoyance—but this conversation had me feeling distinctly negative.

The two of them left, the nursery clearing out for the day as parents came by to collect their children. Eadlin’s parents were nearly as quiet as she was, but they were very pleasant to be around. I could see where she’d gotten her sweetness from.

“Thank you so much for helping today, Iris,” Yara said, moving around me as she collected up wooden blocks. “The prince mentioned that you might be interested in working here on a more permanent basis? As an actual employee?”

When had Damen even found the time to say something? The way he prioritized the things I said and actually tried to make them happen made my chest ache in a good kind of way. If I thought too much about the pizza he’d made me, I’d burst into tears.

It hadn’t actually tasted very good, but it was just so thoughtful .

“Only if that’s okay,” I replied hesitantly. “I appreciate that I don’t have formal work experience or training or anything.”

“None of us did when we started. We’ve just learned along the way and you will too,” Yara reassured me. I could hear the smile in her voice, and it was a very soothing sound. “The children adore you, they’ll be so happy to hear you’re sticking around. And you’ve really added something special to the nursery, you know. This might be treasonous of me to say, but I was sad when the queen’s schedule got busier and she couldn’t visit very often anymore. I’d have been devastated if it was you.”

I hurriedly swiped away a rogue tear, embarrassed that I was getting weepy over her words. It was just so nice to be… wanted .

“Though that might still happen,” Yara added affectionately. “It seems to me like you might be on your way to becoming a princess, in which case your schedule will undoubtedly pick up.”

“Oh.” I laughed awkwardly. “I don’t know about that. But regardless, I want to be here. I’d never give this up.”

“Good. Are you heading straight to dinner in the dining hall? I can walk you there if you like. I don’t eat here myself—the king has said I’m welcome to, but I prefer to return home to my family.”

She told about about her much younger brother as we headed down to the dining hall, and the aging father who lived with her and spent his days gardening.

“You should come visit,” Yara suggested shyly. “It’s not as grand as the palace, of course. It’s just a small home—”

“I would love to visit, Yara. Thank you. That’s such a kind offer.”

“It would be my pleasure. My family has already heard so much about you—they’d love to meet you. Anyway, I’ll leave you here now. The prince is heading your way.”

Oh good. I’d missed him today, which seemed silly since we’d spent so much time together recently. It just never quite felt like enough.

Yara laughed. “I don’t need to ask if you’re happy to hear that—your scent gives you away. Have a nice evening, Iris.”

“You too,” I replied, my face hot.

“You’re delightfully red today,” Damen said, gently touching my cheek with his knuckle. We were surrounded by Shades in the busy corridor, and I was surprised that he was touching my face so easily in front of the crowd. Pleasantly surprised.

It felt territorial in a way I didn’t hate.

“How was your day?” I asked, not wanting to explain why I was red in the face.

“Fine.” Damen took my hand, though I felt him bend down to greet Tilly, quietly cooing at how pretty she was. My heart could barely take it. “Theon complained about my presence, but he’d complain if I didn’t visit too, so I’m not worried. Oh, and I have more clothes for you—one of the staff delivered them to your room.”

“For me?”

“Yes. I mentioned to Verity that you had a penchant for flowy dresses and she had an abundance of spare ones on hand. Don’t feel guilty—I can see it on your face. She has a whole room devoted to clothing, and Astrid has been busy sourcing items for Elverston House. It may be a while before she can get you anything new.”

“I’ll just borrow Verity’s clothes until then,” I replied, chewing on my lower lip. It really did feel like a big imposition, and I hadn’t spent much time with Verity to develop a friendship with her.

“Sure,” Damen replied, a little too casually.

“Is it busier than normal?” I asked, noticing that the noise levels were much higher than usual. We usually filtered into the dining hall pretty easily, but we seemed to only be taking a step or two at a time today, with bodies pressed in all around us. Tilly was glued to my leg, and I scratched her between the ears in encouragement. I supposed the Shades who lived here must be getting used to her now since there were a lot less oohs and aahs than usual.

That was quite a nice feeling. She was becoming a fixture around the place too.

“Yes,” Damen agreed, suddenly sounding nervous.

I elbowed him gently in the side. “Are you not telling me things again?”

“It’s not like that,” he replied hastily. “The worry is for me this time, not you. I mentioned to Ophelia that it might be nice to have Ruvyn come in and present his findings from his research on Shades and the Hunted, and she made it happen a lot faster than I expected. And I guess the news may have spread… There are lot of Shades here from noble families who don’t actually reside at court. Calix is probably shitting himself at the sudden surge of extra mouths to feed,” he muttered, sounding faintly guilty about that.

It wasn’t like Damen to be so unsure. I wanted to wrap myself around him and cuddle those doubts away, but I wasn’t sure he’d appreciate that in front of all of his peers.

“I’m sure Calix knows you couldn’t have predicted there’d be so much interest.” Wasn’t this all ancient history now? I supposed I was interested in what had happened in the past, but I’d mostly been focused on what the future held.

“It’s more popular than I expected. Ruvyn and some of his colleagues at The Itrodaris have been uncovering and translating old documents that haven’t been seen before now. Apparently, they were looking in the wrong places before but they have a better idea of where to find things now.”

“That sounds like a good thing,” I replied, trying to figure out what the odd tone in Damen’s voice was. It wasn’t quite distress, but there was a note of discord.

“I guess it only occurred to me just now that whatever he has to say might be difficult to hear, and I’m the one who suggested it so I feel responsible. I’m not used to doing anything that has stakes. It’s a lot more pressure than I realized.”

I hummed in agreement, pressing my lips tightly together so I didn’t laugh at his bewildered tone.

“You’re smiling,” Damen chided affectionately, bumping me lightly with his shoulder. “Did that sound very spoiled and princely of me?”

“A little,” I admitted. “But I think it’s wonderful that you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. And maybe whatever Ruvyn has to say will be difficult to hear, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hear it. No good ever comes from hiding from the truth—that’s what Nana always used to say.”

She’d always said it in a muttered, unhappy sort of a way, though. And mostly when she was mad at Moriah. In hindsight, I wondered if she hadn’t been referring to me. In her own way, she’d stuck up for me as best she could.

“I hope all the Shades in the crowd are as wise as your Nana.”

“You should probably hope they’re a little wiser than that,” I admitted, knowing that for all Nana’s mostly good intentions, she’d hated change and hated Shades even more.

Damen laughed, giving my arm a gentle squeeze. “You’ve got a real talent for cheering me up, you know.”

“Do I? You seem cheerful most of the time as it is.”

Damen hummed. “You might be right. I might be cheerful most of the time—that’s just my temperament, the same way that my brothers are always surly and miserable. Maybe what you make me feel is happy . That’s something different.”

There was a fluttering feeling in my stomach, and I imagined my scent was broadcasting something sickly sweet and interesting for everyone to pick up on and analyze.

“Was Allerick supportive of all of this?” I asked, feeling suddenly flustered and wanting to change the subject.

“Yes,” Damen said, sounding surprised. “I guess I always knew that he thought I could be more industrious with my time, but I didn’t really expect him to be so supportive of it when I did. Maybe I didn’t give my big brother enough credit.”

I gave Damen’s arm a gentle squeeze.

Our quiet moment of conversation in the chaos came to an end as Shades greeted Damen, though a surprising number seemed to recognize me now and wanted to say hello.

“Would you mind terribly if we sat at the top table tonight?” Damen asked once we were already in the dining hall.

I blew out a long breath. “You couldn’t have mentioned that when were standing outside?”

“I probably should have.” He squeezed my arm lightly. “I don’t think I can get out of it—Ruvyn is technically my guest and he’s going to be up there. But I can walk you to where Meera and Verner are sitting if you like, and meet you afterward.”

That was a very thoughtful offer. But I didn’t want Damen to be the only one who was being thoughtful all the time.

“Would you feel better if I sat with you?” I asked.

“Of course, but—”

“Then I’ll sit with you.” I paused for a moment, taking a steadying breath. “Just don’t let me embarrass myself, okay?”

“Never,” Damen replied fervently. “You never have to worry about that with me. We were technically supposed to wait until everyone was already seated before making our grand entrance, but that felt like a little too much pressure for your first time on the dais. We’ll just head up now while everyone is busy finding seats and let Allerick and Ophelia do the formal stroll.”

“Will they mind?”

“Probably not. I don’t much care either way. Come on, Tilly,” Damen said, securing my arm in his grip and leading us up the length of the room. There were conversations all around us, as well as bouts of raucous laughter, and the clinking together of goblets. Damen knew everyone, and he made a point of introducing me to every Shade he spoke to. It was the first time I considered how much of his social life he’d been giving up in order to spend time with me.

“Okay, four steps up,” Damen said quietly, holding my arm tightly. “Want a cane?”

“Yes, please.”

One made of shadows materialized in my hand immediately, and I impressed myself with how gracefully I navigated the steps.

“You’re going to be seated between me and Ophelia. Ruvyn will be on my other side, Allerick on Ophelia’s other side. Usually he sits in the middle, but Ophelia wanted to sit next to you and apparently the queen gets to do whatever she wants so now he’s sitting on the end.”

I giggled quietly, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself than I had to.

“Is everyone staring at me?”

“No,” Damen lied.

“That was very unconvincing.”

“They’re simply admiring your beauty.” I went to nudge his ankle with my foot, but bumped into Tilly’s side instead. She adjusted her position with a long-suffering sigh, half draped over my feet as if to keep them in place.

“Tilly is very relaxed,” Damen remarked. “There’s no equivalent beast in the shadow realm—everything we have is far more… wild. Theon and Verity have a cat. Her pet from the human realm. He is perfectly adequate, I suppose, but far inferior to Tilly.”

“Tilly is in a league of her own, but I always wanted a cat.”

Damen sighed. “I’ll add it to the list.”

“That wasn’t a request!”

“You don’t make requests. I have to use my initiative—and it’s very out of shape.”

I shook my head. “It seems to be guiding you just fine.”

The noise died down to a respectful murmur as the king and queen made their entrance, and Damen informed me that Ruvyn was following along behind them looking terrified. I knew how he felt. At some point, I’d grabbed Damen’s hand under the table and was clinging on for dear life, though I couldn’t even remember when I’d done it.

“Hi, Iris!” Ophelia said cheerfully, pulling her seat back and lightly touching my shoulder as the noise levels rose back up again. “I’m so glad you’re here. How are you?”

“Nervous,” Allerick replied for me.

Ophelia tutted. “It’s bad manners to comment on someone’s scent like that, Allerick. You know better.”

“It’s fine,” I assured her. “I probably wouldn’t have answered honestly anyway.”’

“I’m going to introduce Ruvyn now,” Damen told me, carefully extricating his fingers from my iron grip. “I’ll be right back.”

I nodded, feeling slightly bereft without him even though he was only standing up next to me. When had I gotten so needy? Worse still, I didn’t even want to change. Not really.

“Settle down!” Damen called out, a smattering of laughter following his words before the room went quiet. “We’ve got a special guest today—an old friend of mine and full-time scholar at The Itrodaris. Ruvyn has come to share the new developments from his ongoing research into the history between Shades and Hunters. Or, rather, the Hunted as they were known then. Thank you, Ruvyn.”

Damen sat back down, picking up my hand again and linking our fingers together to rest on his thigh.

He had a very nice thigh.

It was distractingly strong.

Don’t think about that, the king can already smell you.

Ruvyn cleared his throat, and his nerves were palpable, even from here. My impression from movies was that being an academic wasn’t exactly the same as being a public speaker. Perhaps Ruvyn was more comfortable with the former than the latter.

“Um, I would like to thank Prince Damen for inviting me here today,” he began uncomfortably. “My name is Ruvyn. I am one of the scholars at The Itrodaris who has been studying the recently uncovered Torlen Papers—so named for the family estate where they were discovered. These records are many centuries old and were housed in a private library at the Torlen Estate. They have kindly donated them to The Itrodaris for study and preservation. To date, these are our most extant records of the relationship between Shades and what were then known as the Hunted . They also point to some evidence of when and why the relationship deteriorated.”

Ruvyn paused for a moment as murmurs of interest broke out among the crowd, and his voice sounded a little more steady when he spoke again.

“The translations are still a work in progress, however, I can share some of what we’ve found so far.” He cleared his throat. “From what we understand, the Hunted mostly resided in Mistwood, Bremrus, and Bolsfort. Now that we’ve started looking in those parts of the realm, we’ve seen a significant increase in the evidence we have available.”

The words meant nothing to me, but they clearly did to the rest of the hall.

“What am I missing?” I asked, leaning in closer to Damen. There was a surge of noise in the room as everyone spoke over each other, and while I couldn’t make out the words, some of them definitely sounded heated.

“Um,” Damen began, sounding more uncertain than I’d ever heard him. “It would appear that the parts of the realm that had the most Hunters are the parts of the realm with the Shades who… er, with the Shades who have the least capacity for channeling power,” he finished awkwardly.

The least capacity… Like the weakest Shades? That sounded logical enough. Hunters couldn’t do what Shades could do. If they’d had children together, then it made sense to me that the shadow-wielding abilities of those children might be diluted in comparison to their Shade parent.

But no matter how much I thought it through, it was clear that I wasn’t getting the full picture because I didn’t understand why everyone was suddenly so agitated.

“One theory is that the residents of these areas share more traits with the group we now call the Hunters due to their shared lineage.”

The noise level in the room increased while Ruvyn valiantly tried to regain their attention.

Share more traits… As in, they were more human? I thought of little Eadlin, curling up in my lap whenever she was overwhelmed while young Shades like Jonan wildly flicked shadows everywhere.

That wasn’t to say that she’d never have shadow magic of her own, but from what I gathered, it wouldn’t be as powerful or present in the same way that Jonan’s would.

“So, you’re saying the Hunters dilute our bloodlines?” someone in the crowd called out. “They make us weaker?”

“Shit,” Damen muttered.

“Shit is right,” Allerick agreed dryly.

Okay. I understood the issue a little more clearly now.

“Should we say something?” Ophelia asked hesitantly. “Will it make things worse if I talk right now?”

“It would be very unwise for anyone in this room to take issue with my wife,” Allerick replied darkly.

“What does this mean for the realm?” someone else yelled, their tone slightly more hysterical.

“I’m not quite sure why they’re so upset,” I admitted quietly to Damen, though it was Ophelia who answered.

“There are some Shades who feel that the opinions of those with less ability to channel power are less… relevant. I guess there had been an assumption based on how compatible Shades and Hunters are—with the mating bites and so on—that any children we had would be, well, strong . They might be having some buyer’s remorse about their Hunter queen now,” she finished with a nervous laugh.

“Do not for a second believe that attitude is going to be tolerated in my court,” Allerick replied smoothly, though his voice had an edge to it that I’d never heard before. “I’m going to say something—”

But Damen was already standing, releasing my hand again as he cleared his throat. It wasn’t a grand gesture, but the seriousness in his tone was obvious, even from that. The fact that Damen usually wasn’t so solemn probably helped—the room fell eerily silent in an instant.

“Who of you took a walk around the gardens today?” Damen asked casually. “Doesn’t have to be the palace gardens—any will do from what I’ve heard.”

There were a few strained murmurs.

“Did you enjoy the colorful flowers? The green leaves? Things we never thought would exist in the shadow realm?”

Silence .

“Who fed from the energy stores today?” Damen asked. How did he make his tone casual and steely all at once? “I know plenty of you did. We’ve been wholly dependent on them for a while now. Very kind of our ex-Hunters to keep those topped up for us.”

The silence grew a little more tense.

“Mistwood, Bremrus, and Bolsfort provide almost all of the food in the realm. The ex-Hunters are currently providing almost all of the power. If anyone is laboring under the impression that we— the courtiers—are the valuable ones here, I would urge you to do some serious self-reflection on what it is you think are you contributing to the world. We’re not fighting any battles against one another. Our physical strength and the strength of our connection to the shadows are meaningless when we’re in the human realm—an equalizing arena where every Shade is vulnerable. What makes you superior, hm? Stand up and tell me now if you have an answer, I am more than willing to hear it.”

A shiver ran down my spine, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that I wasn’t the only one.

“I thought not,” Damen said lightly after a long moment where no one responded. “Ruvyn, thank you for coming and sharing your findings with us. Everyone else, enjoy the meal that has come courtesy of the food-growing regions of the shadow realm and shut the fuck up. If I hear a single muttered complaint about weakened bloodlines, it will be followed by a duel. Let’s put those so-called superior skills of yours to the test.”

And with that, he sat down, dragging a platter loudly across the table and leaning in to load up my plate first.

“Cheers to that,” Allerick drawled—sounding almost pleased by his standards. There was the quiet clink of goblets, and I wondered if Ophelia had raised hers in toast. Her breathing had gotten very shallow over the course of Damen’s impromptu speech.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Damen, giving Ophelia a moment with her husband. “That was very brave of you.”

“Do you think so?” I heard him swishing the wine in his cup. “It didn’t feel brave. It felt obvious.”

I could pinpoint down to the exact second the moment I fell in love with Damen, and it was right then. There was no doubt in my mind any longer, no hesitation. I knew it all the way down to my bones, and it was the best feeling in the world.

If only I hadn’t already rejected his declaration of love. I blew out a shaky breath, absently chewing on a piece of meat despite the fact that I’d lost my appetite.

What was I meant to do now?