Piper immediately released her, face twisted in concern. “Oh.”
“Oh?A warning would have been helpful,” Lilac snapped, nearly falling off her side of the bed, cradling her hand and pressing the wound into her gown. “Asking for permission, even better.” It was as if her body had acted of its own accord, recoiling from Piper’s movement before she could even think. Her skin crawled, the same sensation she’d felt while kissing Casmir—even if the motion hadn’t been intimate. “What’s that look for?”
“Why do you taste like that?” Piper’s lip lifted in disgust. She made a violent sound and wiped at her mouth. “Eugh.Youarehis thrall.
Lilac stared at her.
“You weren’t before, when I first saw you two together. But now you are. Right?” Piper was astoundingly astute for someone who was once juvenile staff, then imprisoned underground. “Is that why you're not so…frail anymore? Why you’re quicker and stronger?”
“How do you know what a thrall is?” Lilac asked, cautiously sliding back under the covers. Garin might’ve mentioned it when he and Bastion had argued in the Mine vestibule.
But Piper nudged her elbow at the bedside table. “Before your handmaidens came barging in, I’d started skimming the manuscript once I’d realized what it was. I thought, well, how useful—a guide for the monstrosity I’ve become thanks to your plaything-turned-master. I thought I’d wait for you to return from whatever you were doing, assuming you were at supper. ‘Another’s thrall becomes unappetizing to others once the process iscompleted’,” she quoted. “Evidently true, though I didn’t expect it to be that bad.” An expectant glare followed.
Lilac’s silence was confirmation enough. “Even if I am his thrall, that is all I am to him.”
Piper’s look of scrutiny faded to annoyance. “Your Majesty, there is no use in lying. Even when you first wake as a vampire, you have a different sense for things. A deeper knowing. I knew I had to consume human blood without any prompting, knew I had to do it to survive. I tore into the person nearest me, an old man snoring against his cell door. He was weak, there wasn’t much to him and he didn’t fill me for long. Shortly after leaving the Mine, I sensed you in the woods and intended to seek you out for help, but my hunger got the best of me. Tonight, I could tell something was off the moment you bit into that apple and all the blood and dirt appeared.”
“It was an illusion. Eating made my glamor wear off.”
“That’s why I asked you if he was here. It is why I left the Grand Hall. He is everywhere you go, less an aroma and more an essence, a dark veil of warning for other vampires to heed. Even when I first saw you with him, I could tell he’d wouldn’t ever let you out of his sight. The only reason he didn’t sense me after I escaped the vestibule was because he was distracted looking for you.” Piper stared at the ceiling. “My desire to find you was easily overwhelmed with the urge to feed. Too easily. I would’ve never hurt you had I known.”
“None of it is your fault,” Lilac said firmly, remembering it all. Garin was at her side within moments of the fledgling vampire finding her. She’d assumed she hadn’t made it far enough from the grotto, and that Garin had heard their scuffle. She didn’t know he’d followed her. For what? To protect her? To tell her he’d changed his mind—to drag her back to the mine?
Lilac turned to Piper; her friend was tracing the patterns on the ceiling with her faraway gaze. “How do you feel now? Do you need more blood?”
“No,” said Piper quietly. “Definitely not from you. I actually haven’t felt that way, that unnameable thirst, since last drinking from you. I was so distracted by how hungry I was, I suppose I hadn’t realized your taste. The bad hunger pangs, the burning in my throat and gums…None of that has resurfaced, even in the days I spent at home.” Piper looked somewhat defeated. “Our discernment is strong. You know—sometimes too much—the things you wish tonotknow. Who people truly are. Where your place is in the world. It’s how I knew I had to leave Krenn Farm and return here. From the moment I arrived, my parents’ cottage no longer felt like home.”
“They didn’t welcome you as they should have. They didn’t celebrate your homecoming as you deserved.”
A small smile spread upon Piper’s face. “Yes, but that’s not why I left them. I knew you needed me, Your Majesty. I had no choice but to come.”
“I do need you.” Lilac laid back, urging the tension in her shoulders to release, struggling to accept it all. Piper’s presence. Artus’s reminder, contrived or not, of the very real threat looming over her head. Garin’s fury and overwhelming influence, their new bond. The absence of the heaviness she’d dreaded—strangely, even with her change of heart at the thought of marriage.
“Piper, do you think great kings have ever questioned their destiny?” Lilac whispered.
The vampire hummed. “Several have abdicated. We learned in your history lessons, of Richard II of England. Sweden’s Afonso V. Then, comes your father.”
That was fair. Lilac’s father’s decision to pass the throne down in the prime of his reign, good health and all, still baffled and irked her. “I mean in their early days at the throne. Or even before they’re officially crowned.”
Piper’s head snapped down to her. “Why? Don’t think you can back out now, in the limbo between your accession and coronation. The throne is yours, you already sit upon it and wield its power, the crown and ball are merely the end of the formalities. Don’t tell me you’re questioning your place.”
“If you suggest such a thing again, I’ll have you banished to that manor house,” Lilac replied, matching Piper’s frosty tone. “I’m not questioning anything. It’s just…” She shrugged, her worries seeming silly as they rose to her tongue. “I wonder if these kings ever question their own qualifications to lead? Do you think their minds are clouded with concern over their roles as sons, friends, and new leaders of a country? Do you think they fear letting their kingdom down?”
Piper took her time digesting the question as she sank onto her pillows, too. “I am not born of royal blood, Your Majesty. I have only touched a silver spoon and known a hint of privilege because of your parents bringingme here, plucking me from my farm. I was not allowed to accompany you on your journey to the town or the Le Tallec estate with Marguerite, nor attend the soirées you did. But I do know from my observations—from comforting you and watching thatboysend you letter upon letter when you wished to be left alone—that by your gender and birthright, you have been subject to the pressures of not only leadership, but etiquette, kinship, education, daughterhood, and the growing pressures of marriage and creating an heir. Among other things. So, I say your fears are valid.”
“Fears? Piper, I am terrified.” Lilac closed her eyes, chest aching, eyes burning. She scowled, chills shocking her body at the truths Piper had spoken aloud—and the others compiling at the back of her mind. She might have been queen for less than a month, but she knew better; she was already scrutinized enough within her own kingdom, and any wavering determination might seem like hesitation or weakness. “I am terrified of making the right decision for my kingdom and the wrong one for myself. My heart should be with my people, and with any good-hearted ruler intent on offering me his name and aid. I should be grateful.”
“Gratefulness for all he offers doesn’t mean you will come to love him.” Her friend smiled grimly, reaching down and giving Lilac’s hand a light squeeze. “I am in no position to advise you on alliances or marriage, but one thing is clear: Regrettably, you belong to Garin, whether you are queen of this country, or the next, or both,” Piper said, swallowing the disdain of her sire’s name. “You belong to Garin in a different manner than I do. It is merely an issue of hierarchy for me, I am his fledgling. His subordinate. You arehis.”
“I am his thrall.” The realization said aloud made her tremble beneath the duvet.
“But your place is beside him, and he will ensure it is known. The way he spoke of you, to you in that vestibule in front of Bastion. That wasn’t real. You were playing along with him.” At the look of dread on Lilac’s face, Piper laughed unexpectedly. “I could tell, even before being turned. I know you. You detest the idea of marrying Maximilian for this very reason. Sometimes your heart, your blood, knows before you do.”
Lilac bit her lip, willing her body to calm. Enthralling herself to Garin had indeed changed everything in the blink of an eye, including the concepts of marriage and belonging.
To whom. With whom.
Her kingdom was threatened by annexation and the only clear solution was one she detested. She’d caused this. But she’d done what she had to in order to survive, just as she had time and time again, and would continue to.
