Page 9 of Joy Guardian
“If you really think so, will you be willing to taste her joy?”
“Absolutely not,” I replied quickly.
She pursed her lips, catching on to my lies. “Well, if you refuse to do it, how can we be sure she is safe to connect with someone? After the fiasco with the poor Councilor Terent, I can’t risk disappointing another highborn.”
Of course, disappointing the highborn fae of the royal court was not why the humans had been brought here.
Queen Abeille granted me access to her precioussaraibecause the highly esteemed Master Guardian Arter humbly petitioned her for it. He claimed that my presence was beneficial for the Joy Vessels’ successful transition to their new roles as the endless source of joy and pleasure for the members of the royal court.
Instead of setting off on a pilgrimage to the Temple of the First Priestess while enduring sandstorms and crowds of commoners to connect to our one true Source of Joy, the nobles now had asaraifull of humans to tap into their positive emotions whenever they needed a break from the stress of their palace lives.
On the surface, my job was to ensure the comfort of the Joy Vessels and the smooth performance of the spell in their harnesses. My true mission, however, was to find a way to remove the humans from thesarai, from the City of Kalmena, and from Alveari Kingdom for good. The second portal was scheduled to be opened in just over three weeks. But instead of allowing the queen’s guards to bring more humans into our kingdom, the plan was to send those who were already here back through it. The Watchers counted on me to be inside the queen’ssaraiand open the gates when the time came. As long as any humans resided in my world, their joy would forever remain a threat to our Source. For that reason, they had no place here.
The proximity to one particular Joy Vessel, however, proved dangerously distracting to me.
“I can’t taste her joy,” I pointed at the golden strips around my arms, scrambling for an excuse. “Also, I’m not a member of the royal court.”
The purpose of the strips I wore in thesaraiwas largely symbolic. Gold represented the Joy and those who served it. It did little against the magic of our tendrils, unlike the iron clips that the Joy Vessel Keepers were required to wear. The Nerifir iron in the clips incapacitated their magic, making it impossible to connect to the Joy Vessels.
Sefri steepled her fingers, tilting her head in thought.
“You’re here by the special permission of the queen, Joy Guardian. Surely, Her Majesty will make an exception and allow for your connection to Joy Vessel Ciana. I will personally petition her, emphasizing the necessity to assess the Joy Vessel’s potential.”
Sefri’s petition to the queen would most likely be granted. As someone who’d played a large part in creating the harness, it made sense to allow me to test it on a human.
Except that I could never allow that to happen.
I could not pollute my emotions with those of humans and break the vow I’d upheld for a hundred years. My sole mission in life, my sole purpose, was to serve and protect our one true Joy.
But I also couldn’t risk losing the access to thesarai, not when the Master Guardian counted on me.
“What if this Joy Vessel will never be ready?” I asked Sefri.
She got a hold of my arm, steering me ever so subtly to the same place where I’d left Ciana three nights ago.
“We need to keep faith, Joy Guardian. Sooner or later, she’ll come around and be like everyone else. Meanwhile, we’re exploring other options to keep our Joy Vessels permanently happy, but I believe we’re on the right track with this one for now. She spoke to you once, didn’t she? I haven’t seen her talk to anyone since. Whatever you started with her is working. You just need to keep going. Make her joyful again. Please, do your best to cheer her up.”
My Joy Vessel was sitting in the same spot where I’d left her the last time.
My?
Did I just think of her as mine?
Dread tied my guts into knots. But as if cursed, my gaze traveled straight to her the moment I turned around a hedge and onto the path that led to the bench by the round fountain with a fish sculpture in the middle.
The woman cast a quick glance in my direction, then turned away, pretending she didn’t see me. What game was she playing, acting as if she hadn’t noticed me?
Probably the same game I played, pretending that I didn’t care about her, that I hadn’t spent days dreaming about her, and that just a glimpse of her honey-brown eyes made the world seem like a better place.
“Good evening, Sweet One.” I approached her.
“Oh, hi there,” she said casually, glancing up as if she’d just noticed me. She smoothed her hands down her skirt. Her long pink braids were draped over her shoulders and down her chest, hiding her breasts. “I didn’t think you’d be back after you ran away so quickly the last time.”
I had run. And I should be running again. But I couldn’t even stop and analyze my feelings objectively because my thoughts were filled only with her. I just knew that the strongest feeling I had was the all-consuming need to have her in my field of vision at all times.
I slid my gaze down her face, indulgently refreshing her every feature in my memory. Alarm needled through my heart at the sight of the bruise on her cheek.
“It’s not healing,” I rasped, my throat tightening with worry.
