5. Keira

Chapter 5

Keira

A roaring of voices combined with the fast-paced music of a multi piece band crashes through the great hall. It is alive with almost a hundred guests, dressed brightly in their finery and jewels, contrasting against the pale marble mosaic floors and mahogany paneled walls.

My father spared no cost for this feast.

Professional dancers move with fluid motions before us. Their vibrant skirts swish with each sway of their hips and strings of tiny bells chime, that are worn as belts, bracelets and anklets.

Movements of their arms and hips and legs are in perfect synchrony with the racy tune of the music, bolstered with flutes and trumpets. My heart rate quickens in time with that beat.

There are bouquets of flowers in immense vases on each table and garlands hang alongside the ribbons and banners that adorn the ceiling and walls. Expenses were not cut by using winter blooms, but roses and lilies and peonies, everything out of season and cut from a glasshouse.

We can’t afford this show of wealth, but we also can’t afford to show weakness.

The thought drags down my mood. It reminds me how much is at stake. Something else pulls at me. An intuition that something is off and I am filled with apprehension. I can’t quite put my finger on what I am missing.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Brianna askes, gesturing at the performers.

A smile lights up my baby sister’s face, framed by ringlets of spun gold. I swear it was only months ago that she still looked like a skinny child, all elbows and legs, but she filled out around her fifteenth birthday. Now, she is the most beautiful woman in the room.

Brianna sighs, and lops her cheek into her hand, elbow braced on the table. “I hope Prince Niall asks me to dance. He doesn’t normally notice me.”

“I am sure there will be plenty of men wanting to dance with you,” I say.

The music cuts off with a bang of symbols, the dancers bow to the applause of the crowd, then clear off the dance floor. The voices of our guests halt with the music and their attention becomes focused on our table, raised upon a dais and seating the king, the royal family and my family as hosts.

Father stands, raising his goblet of wine and surveying our guests, courtiers of both the royal household and ours. Minor lords of the North who owe their allegiance to my family have ridden in from the countryside to honor the king. Guards who distinguished themselves during the hunt join us.

I find Liam, Aiden and Brandan in the crowd, all beaming with excitement to be here. My favorite guards almost look strange out of their uniforms.

My father clears throat. “May our wine and harvest ever be blessed with magic. To those brave women who take the pilgrimage and bring magic into our realm from the Otherworld, we thank you. To our mighty warriors, who slay the fae who invade our land, so we can feast on the magic of their flesh, we thank you.” He takes a long swig of his wine, and everyone follows. “Let the feast begin!”

A resounding cheer erupts. I can’t help the brimming smile that forms on my lips and the pride of my people that fills my heart.

On cue, servants file into the hall carrying trays of steaming spit- roasted meat, with gravies and mint jelly. Dishes of root vegetables in butter and herbs, spiced eggs wrapped in thin layers of meat and a selection of preserves and pickles. My mouth waters at all the aroma and I heap food onto my plate.

It is divine, the meat juicy and tender, and the vegetables creamy and bursting with flavor. I lean forward to take a second helping, but cool fingers grasp my hand.

“Unfortunately, we women have our waistlines to think about,” my mother says from behind me, as she passes by to mingle amongst our guests.

I hate this. I really do.

Nobody cares if a man puts on weight, but I am expected to fit a rigid mold of beauty.

I am not the skinny, slip of a girl that our society prizes, like my sister Brianna. I have curves. Large breasts that I am proud of and rounded hips so Finan has something to take hold of. My waist may not be perfectly narrow, but he has never complained.

I have caught men’s eyes following my figure hungrily regardless. It makes me wonder who exactly writes these rules.

The platters of the main meal are ravished until they are empty, then cleared and replaced with trays of pastries filled with glowing fruit. People pair up on the dance floor and begin a waltz.

Niall stands, and poor Brianna’s faces lights up beside me, but he places a hand out to his mother, the queen, and takes her to the dance floor instead.

The king’s voice booms loudly over the gambled noise of the crowd, but I am thankfully seated too far away from him to hear what is being said. Caitlin has taken my mother's position at the table, and the slight scowl on her face as she follows the conversation is enough for me.

“Would my lady care for a dance?” Finan smiles wickedly down at me, his arm cocked for me to take.

I glance at the dance floor, where people are in two columns, dancing in fast, swirling motions, constantly changing partners to the beat of rowdy music .

“I’m not in the mood for dancing.” I sigh.

Finan raises his eyebrows. “You? Not in the mood to dance with me? There’s not some other man here you’d prefer to dance with, is there?” A self-assured smile grows on his face, as though the joke were both hilarious and ridiculous.

I huff out a breath of air and deflate a little more.

Finan grabs me by my hand and pulls me up from my chair. “At least come sit next to me. I can hardly see your pretty face over here.”

I turn to ask Brianna if she will be lonely on her own, but she stares up at Niall, who takes her hand and leads her to the dancefloor in time for the next song to start. The expression of pure wonderment on her young face brings a smile to mine.

Finan deposits me in the queen’s seat, right next to the king. For a moment, I wonder if he did it to put a buffer between himself and his abrasive father.

“Ah, Keira. We were just talking about you,” King Willard announces with flakes of pastry falling out of his white beard. “One would expect you are keenly awaiting Finan’s announcement on who his bride will be. It will be made after the Beltane Festival. Better play your cards right girl, to make sure his eyes don’t rove before then, to a sister perhaps.”

King Willard bellows a laugh but I don’t take his bait. It would give him too much enjoyment if I stammered or cried.

Finan stiffens beside me. His hand squeezes my thigh, hidden under the tablecloth, but he doesn’t say anything.

“No betrothal period?” I ask.

“No need.” The king sucks sugar off his fingers as he eats another sweet. “The wedding will take place in Sunbright City after the pilgrims return from the Otherworld.”

“I do not see why we need to wait, father.” Finan bristles. “Why not have the wedding now? Why not years ago? I know who I want to marry. I always have.”

“We’ve had this conversation, boy.” He growls.

“I - I would like to know too.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop myself .

The king laughs again and turns to my father. “Ah the passion of youth, eh. Don’t you remember those days, Edmund? And then their tits sag and their bellies go round and they don’t dote on your every word anymore.”

The king stares straight at his wife across the room as he speaks, dancing with her brother, missing the twisted look of disgust on my father’s face.

King Willard speaks over my head to Finan. “It is uncustomary to marry a woman before the first crossing of her youth. It is the right of every woman to take part in the pilgrimage to the Otherworld if she chooses it.” Those watery blue eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows land on me. “Tell me, Keira, do you want to take this insane pilgrimage?”

The breath catches in my chest and for a crazy moment, I don’t know what I want.

“No!” Finan stands behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “No. She doesn’t want to go.”

I don’t say anything. When I glance at my father, there is a deep sadness in him. He searches my face for any hint that I want to take the pilgrimage, because he would fight with everything he had to give me that chance.

The pilgrimage had once been my dream, but that was a child’s folly, not the desire of a future queen.

“Good,” the king says. “The danger is too great, with all the vicious monsters in that realm, not when Caitlin is already putting herself at risk. My own cousin came back disfigured from hers. Shame. She was pretty before that.”

He turns to my father. “Perhaps your oldest will return carrying a child to the magic and will do a great service to our realm.” The smile that creeps onto his face is sinister. Loaded, but I don’t understand the ammunition.

Father stiffens at the suggestion. “Caitlin will make her own choice in life, especially if she returns with a magical pregnancy.”

There are undercurrents here that I don’t understand. I hardly hear the rest of their exchange .

Finan’s shoulders slump as he returns to his seat and frowns deeply. He becomes lost in a sight across the great hall, and his dark mood slowly clears. Those eyes light up again in an expression he usually reserves for me, as though he is appraising a fine work of art.

I double-take when I realize the subject of his attention.

Caitlin dances a fast-paced gig with the captain of the guard. The curls of her bright auburn hair bounce with each leap and her cheeks are flushed prettily. I turn to Finan as he leans back in his chair, a half-smile on his face.

I need to lure him back with sweet nothings or dirty promises. To grasp his attention by dragging him out of the ballroom to a dark, private part of the keep and taking him again. To blow his mind so that when he leaves for the capital, I will be the only woman he will think about.

But I just don’t want to.

I shouldn’t have to work so hard. To remind him it is me he wants every few hours. It is exhausting. Maybe it is different because he is a prince and his options are vast. Maybe it is my own insecurities at play and there is nothing abnormal about a man enjoying a glance at another woman.

My head spins, thoughts and convictions slam from one direction to another.

It's okay. It’s very much not okay.

The room closes in on me. I struggle to draw in each breath. The voices around me are indistinct roars, so loud they bounce around inside my head, but I cannot make out a single word over the rushing of blood in my ears.

I need to get out.

Finan and King Willard talk over the top of my head.

I stand so fast my chair clatters to the ground, and it draws the attention of everyone at the table.

“Keira, sit down, sweetheart. Have more wine.” Finan gives me his most dazzling smile, but it doesn’t work on me, not tonight.

“I have a headache.” I say. “I’m going to retire early. ”

He nods, patting me on the arm, then returns to his conversation with his father on racing horses.

I take a single wobbly step away from the table, and then another, before a strong arm wraps around my waist. “A migraine?” my father whispers in my ear, as he leads me out of the room.

“Yes. I feel overwhelmed,” I utter.

He leads me through the foyer of the ballroom and into an empty sitting room. A fire whooshes to life in the fireplace and multiple orbs materialize and rise to the ceiling, all without my father taking his attention off me. He guides me to a couch.

I take a long breath in, hold it, then release one out in a drag. Each breath is slower than the last. I focus my attention on them, on easing the pounding of my heart. Bit by bit, I release the tension in my muscles. Caitlin taught me how to take control of my body and release anxiety. It is a battlefield technique, but also an essential one for life.

“How are you feeling?” Concerns etches my father’s features. There are furrows on his forehead and subtle crow’s feet at his eyes, but he hardly looks old enough to be my father, more like he is in his mid-thirties rather than past sixty. The magic in his veins will extend his life beyond a common person’s. He has always said it is why he married late in life.

“How can I be queen, if I cannot manage a simple feast?” I hold back my tears, but not because I am afraid to cry in front of him.

He sighs. “You will not go to that court alone. Diarmuid will be your druid adviser and he will always be at your side. It is what he has been training for. You will learn, I have complete faith in it. You have a large, open heart and a tremendous capacity for empathy. It means you are more vulnerable to getting hurt, especially in a royal court, but it will make you an excellent queen who will protect her people.”

A laugh escapes me. “How do you always know the right thing to say, to make me feel better?”

“It’s my job. I'm your father.” He tips his head at me. “Besides, King Willard is callous enough to make a grown man cry.” He gives me a searching stare. “You just say the word Keira, and you won’t have to marry him. It will always be your choice.”

Calls suddenly erupt from down the corridor, with gasps and shouts and loud applause.

“The firelight show has started.” My father looks over his shoulder to the doorway. “I better go. They need my contribution to get the colors intense enough. Will you be okay, or should I send in your mother?”

“I’m okay, thanks. I might spend a couple of hours in the library to unwind.”

I walk through the dimly lit, winding corridors until I leave the chaos of voices and music far behind. The familiar calm and quiet of the library is a balm to my soul. The orange glow of the firelight is like a waiting embrace.

I am immediately wrapped up by the scent of old leather and aged paper, making my heart rise.

Mahogany bookshelves reach from floor to high ceiling, occupying every wall, with sliding ladders that allow access to the highest books. A rich assortment of colors pop on the shelves, and many leather spines have gold titles embossed on them that glitter in light.

Orbs hover at the top of each bookshelf and there are multiple fireplaces still lit and roaring.

My footfalls click on the mosaic floor as I leave the first room and come out into the main body of the library. In its center, there are couches for lounging and broad desks for research. There is currently a druid and two scholars reading tomes instead of remaining at the feast. I nod to each as I pass.

More rooms branch off this one. There is an entire section for fiction, collected by generations of my family. Another completely dedicated to war, with a tactile table in the middle with maps of both the human realm and the Otherworld. It is in this room that fae history books are kept, but we have precious few, and many are contradictory, especially around the Great War.

I sit down at my regular table and take in my surroundings. This place is full of opportunities; escapes to different fictional worlds and an immense amount of knowledge.

The answer to any question must be in these books.

Except…I can’t seem to find the greatest answers I need.

Something doesn't feel right. It curls within my gut. Something BIG that I am not piecing together. My mind keeps replaying that look Prince Finan gave to Caitlin. The smug smile on King Willard's lips.

Maybe it’s nothing.

What is there in a single look? A smile?

I have a tendency to overreact.

But why are we not betrothed? Unless he wants to keep his options open.

No. It is the king who is being fickle.

I glance down at my table, in desperate need of a distraction. There are stacks of books piled high all around me, and more spread open at different pages. All are on the fae, and what our historians knew of their world when travel between realms was common in both directions, and people of both races migrated across the veil.

None are original volumes, and that has always bothered me. Information can get lost or twisted when paraphrased.

It is pure insanity that a human would have chosen to live in the fae realm, amongst those cruel people. What could their lives have been like, to live as an underclass to the high fae?

But maybe they spent their lives hidden away in the wild parts of that world, where magic flows through the water like tiny bright lights and mists in the air. Where the low fae live their lives bonded to trees and flowers and lakes, and every day is a celebration of nature and a festival without limitations or formalities.

The fae realm has been described as a place where a person can be whoever they want to be, with absolute freedoms. So long as they do not end up in the clutches of the wicked and possessive high fae.

A deep longing rolls through me.

Absolute freedom to make my own choices is so incredibly enticing, but I would need to make too many sacrifices .

My vision blurs as I stare off at nothing. I rub the fatigue from them and study the maps propped open on my desk.

There are four of them, one for each of the fae courts. They are copies of maps almost five hundred years old, and I am painfully aware of how out of date the data is.

In the very center of my desk, sits a book bound in crimson leather and embossed with silver flowers and leaves and hearts. It is a romance between a human woman and a high fae lord.

The idea seems preposterous.

Completely implausible that a high fae could love anything, especially a human, but something keeps drawing me into picking it up. Curiosity perhaps.

It must be a complete fantasy.

The utter passion and devotion between the pair, it couldn’t be real, and the world shaking sex. It doesn’t sound possible. But I can’t stop reading it.

I tap my fingers on the cover of the romance. It is another relic from before the war. I cast it aside for a history tome. The pages crinkle beneath my touch, and I hold my breath as I turn each one, afraid of tearing the relic.

If Caitlin will take this pilgrimage to the Otherworld, I will ensure she is as informed as possible.

I read the same line again and again.

It is a passage about a powerful fae overlord who once controlled the lands of an entire province in our kingdom, then began harboring soldiers from the Summer Court of the fae realm. He accrued an army, began attacking human merchants to weaken our trade, before he brought his threats upon the king himself. It is one of the many instances that brought about the Great War.

I rub at my temples.

Finan’s expression as he leers at Caitlin flashes in my mind. I’m sure he has done it before, on previous visits. Glance too long here, a touch too intimate there. I grind my teeth and push the tome away.

I am driving myself insane.

Footfalls chime through the library, and I glance up at my approaching mother. Her blond hair has been pulled out of its updo, and the glossy waves reach her waist. She carries a tray with three cups on it and I make some space on the desk for her to put it down.

She hands me a small ceramic cup. “Am I right to presume this tea is required?”

I scrunch my nose at the foulness of the steaming liquid as I take it. “Yes. I was going to take it tomorrow.” The contraceptive tea is so bitter I almost gag, but I finish it.

“Tell me what is wrong,” she asks, sitting opposite me and moving a pile of books. Research on the politics and history of our realm. The things a queen should know.

“I, um—” I shake my head. “I don’t really know. Sometimes, I fear Finan only sees me as a pretty thing to hang off his arm and the king a potential breeding mare. That neither will ever take me seriously.”

Mother exhales in a long, tired breath. “Every time the prince visits, you fret and worry and pick out all the things that are wrong with him. When he is gone for long enough for you to miss him, you forget your insecurities and pine over the idea of the prince. You remember him differently from the way he is, and when he doesn’t measure up to those standards, you get upset.”

My breath catches in my chest.

She continues mercilessly, “Most men are fools, and they find it hard to take the intelligence of a young, beautiful woman seriously. It takes subtlety and years of work to become such a man’s ruling partner. First, simple suggestions that slowly nudge him in the right direction, convincing him that your idea was his. Then advice in private, until he becomes so dependent on it, he asks for your opinion in front of others. After months or years of gentle manipulation, a woman might rule at his side. It is a very gradual process, but extremely effective.”

I nod vigorously.

“Should I worry he might pick another as his bride?” I ask.

“Yes.”

That single word drives home like the force of a battering ram.

“Yes?” I repeat dumbly .

“The marriage has never been guaranteed. We must do everything we can to sway the prince and the king.” Mother gives me a long look, and it softens as she grabs my hand and holds it in hers. “But it also means you are not trapped in this relationship.”

“But we need the political alliance!”

“We do,” my mother answers, patting my hand before releasing it. “But we will manage without it. There are other alliances that can be made. I will not sacrifice my daughter’s happiness for riches.”

“This is what I want.”

Mother leans across the table, stroking back the loose strands of my hair, and pinning them down. Her eyes glow as she takes me in.

“I am incredibly proud of the woman you have become. Know that I love you, and everything I do is with your best interests in my heart.” She takes in a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. “Your father is in his study, and he requires you to join him.”

It comes as a surprise. The night is deep, past midnight. Mother ushers me out of the library, then makes her excuses to retire.

As I walk through the empty corridors, an ominous feeling settles upon me. It is almost palpable.

Disembodied voices float toward me as I near my father’s personal library. They come from his study beyond. King Willard’s words boom as I step into the library, hardly absorbed by the columns of books.

“If Caitlin returns from her pilgrimage pregnant to the magic, she will marry Finan. If not, then he can marry, Keira. One daughter can be risked to the Otherworld, but the other must remain here as a surety. Keira will not be allowed on the pilgrimage. This is non-negotiable!”

I freeze at his cruelty, halfway to the study. The room spins around me, a blur of bronze and mahogany and leather spines. My chest constricts painfully, making it a struggle to breathe. Something claws within me, tightening around my windpipe.

“Caitlin will not marry Prince Finan. I cannot make that clear enough. No child of mine will be forced into a marriage. And you cannot forbid Keira from making the crossing!” My father roars, and it spurs me on, toward that room.

I should run away and cry. To never let them know what I overheard. To gaslight myself into believing that surely I misunderstood.

But I will not be that girl.

Everything fades from my vision except the open doorway of the study and the glow of light that seeps from it. Anger burns red-hot within me, crackling and consuming until no rational thought is left.

“Your girls will do as their king demands!” the king bellows.

I reach the threshold of the study, and the light and heat of multiple blazing fireplaces almost blind me, but I still see enough. Father stands before his chair and leans over his desk, his weight poised on two muscular arms and his face is flushed with rage. The imposing figure of the king sits in an armchair opposite, but my father stares at the prince, slumped in the other couch.

“And what do you say, Finan? Have you not told my Keira that you love her? Have you not promised for years that you will marry her?” My father tosses those barbs at him and makes him flinch.

Prince Finan looks to his father, then shrinks into himself. “I will do my duty. I will marry Caitlin if my kingdom requires it,” he mumbles.

Mumbles! His betraying words break my heart, and he doesn’t even bother to articulate their treachery.

The pain that twists within my chest, that curls out its tentacles and poisons my blood, it immediately fuels the fire that burns within me.

Fury is all I can see. It is all I can taste.

Wind howls through the room, knocking pages to the ground and whipping at clothes. It whirls around me, as its source, and sheets splinter and form a small twister filled with debris.

My hair surges upwards, carried by all that magic, forming a red crown dancing in the air. Sparks crack in the storm around me.

All eyes turn to me, but it is Finan’s gaze that I seek. Fear blooms on his face. He stands and staggers away from me, but slips on a book and lands on his arse .

“Keira! I didn’t mean…” he stammers, hand raised and arm outstretched toward me.

My temper flares at his lies and the scraps of paper encircling me combust into swirling embers. How many lies has he fed me over the years?

“I will make the pilgrimage to the Otherworld.” My voice echoes throughout the room, intensified by my air wield. I turn and point a finger at the king. “And when I return, I will decide if I want to marry Prince Finan.”