Akyran's Folly (Love and Other Sorcery #3)

Chapter 2

　　They aspired for him to marry me. I exactly fit the requirements for Akyran's bride – my family was pure brethren, having never mingled our blood line with mankind, and were well placed and influential in the court. Our parents had been friends for centuries, planning our union since my birth and we had been raised together, with the expectation that our friendship would become a marriage.

　　"I hate court," I complained. We both knew I would go because he asked it of me. It was how our friendship worked, how it had always worked.

　　"Yes, but you'll go for me," Akyran grinned at me. He stole my flask off my hip and took another swig before replacing it, handling me with casual familiarity as he did so. His touch sent a heat through me the burnt fiercer than the spirits did. How I could be so affected, and he so indifferent, was a source of endless frustration.

　　I blew out a breath in mock annoyance – I was not as averse to going as I let on. I had a new dress, one that I was eager to wear. The ball at Court of Light would be the perfect opportunity. "Very well. But you'll owe me."

　　"Yes, but you never make me pay my debts," he replied lightly, and stood to help with the manticore corpse. Its fur would go somewhere in his quarters. The barbs on its tail and various other parts of its body would be harvested for spell components. I would get my share, as I had felled it.

　　I watched him move amongst the hunters with easy camaraderie and grace. So beautiful this Fae prince, I through ruefully, tall and broad of shoulder, narrow of waist, long of leg and strong of arm, combined with the dark fall of hair and his blue eyes, and a face many bards had waxed lyrical over, he was many a courtier's fantasy, something he took advantage of with regularity, keeping his bed warm and his heart cold.

　　When he had supervised the removal of the fur, Akyran returned.

　　"Let's go," he offered me his hand and pulled me to standing. "We can catch a few hours of sleep before tomorrow," he decided, looking up at the moon speculatively as we made our way through the trees. The pages, squires and servants would deal with the rest of the corpse and bring it to the castle.

　　The Court of Light was crafted of white stone harvested from the mountains upon which it perched, and its beauty was lauded by poets and bards alike although I always found the polished veined stone and the gossamer fine curtains that drifted in the ocean breeze that drifted through the landscaped and paved terraces to be unapproachable and fussy.

　　I could never understand why a person would want to see themselves reflected in the floor, and the etiquette of undergarments beneath the flowing gowns of the courtiers was complicated and coquettish.

　　I much preferred the Dark Court. Named for the deep grey stone that it had been crafted from, the castle of the Dark Court did not amble along the mountainside, but stood rigid and firm on its clifftop perch, its curtain wall looking out across the land it guarded.

　　The castle was not a labyrinth of weaving corridors navigated by the art that decorated its walls, but a square formation, each level laid out exactly as the one below. Except for the ground floor, which was not given to accommodation like the levels above it, but to the business of the Court, with large audience rooms, and smaller meeting rooms, the kitchens, scullery, and other spaces where the servants laboured.

　　The way to the castle took us out of the forest, and up a well-maintained road, through the village walls, and the village itself. At the castle gates, we were waved in by the guards – we were well known to them, our comings and goings making us frequent passers-by and Akyran was, after all, the heir-apparent. We travelled through the second wall, into the gardens. An ancestor of Akyran's had a penchant for roses, and the gardens overflowed with them, their perfume rich in the air.

　　We crossed through the gardens, our cloaks caught by the thorns, towards the side entrance. Akyran paused and plucked a night-blooming white Fae-rose, a bloom rare and highly sought after for its perfume and as spell components and protected in this garden by the king. Only Akyran would dare to pluck one of these blooms so casually. He pinched off the thorns and handed it to me.

　　"Part p*****t," he said with a grin.

　　I laughed and lifted it to my nose, breathing in its aroma. He held open the turret door and we began the tight curve of stairs towards the top floor. Only the archers who watched over the keep from the upper turret chamber, the occasional page or servant running errands, and Akyran and I frequented these stairs.

　　With the King in attendance at the Court of Light, those courtiers who had not accompanied him had returned to their own estates, and the castle echoed hollowly as many of the chambers were empty, the servants taking advantage of the reduced demand on their time and sticking close to the comforts of the kitchens with their chores. Only Akyran's and my squires and pages, manservants and maids attended the fourth floor.

　　If we were so inclined, Akyran and I could conduct a sordid affair with no one the wiser of it. But, of course, the closest we got was the occasional late evening drinking and gambling before the fire in one of our apartments and crawling into bed next to each other to sleep off the drink, still fully dressed. I had spent many such night imagining what would happen if only he reached out for me, or me for him, but the separation between us of less than an arm might as well have been that of the continent.

　　At my door, he paused, and tucked a lock of my hair back from my face. "Get a few hours of sleep. We won't go until after the midday meal."

　　"Fiena will need that long to pack anyway," I said with a grin. "Good night," I watched him continue down the hallway to the next chamber door.

　　His apartment and mine shared a wall between the bedchambers. He had me moved to these chambers when we had both reached adult hood. It was easier that way, he had said, to abscond with me on adventures in the middle of the night, rather than search me out in the lower levels. My parents had held hopes that the move meant he intended to take me as his wife soon after, but centuries had passed between with no sign of any inclination from him to do so.

　　I tiptoed into the chamber so as not to wake my maids who slept in the recessed bed in the dressing room. I stripped out of my hunting gear, leaving my clothing over the back of a chair, and crept into bed naked. Akyran would wake his manservant and make him pour him a bath and attend him whilst he took it, before he went to bed for the night - but I would let my maids sleep, and bathe in the morning.

　　Doing so also allowed me the luxury of privacy, and I closed my eyes as I slid my hand between my legs, imagining Akyran naked and bathing, the water running across his skin, sticking his dark hair to his neck and shoulders, his muscles moving as he... I found release and curled onto my side with a sigh.