She only had one day after we were married, and yet she managed to set me up as though I were a nobleman, he thought wryly.
He mentally reviewed the last year in his mind as he walked. Thanks to his grandmother he didn’t feel much like a married man, for he hadn’t seen his royal bride since their first day of marriage, nearly twelve months past. He’d finished his first year at Wurthaven alone, and now he was right in the middle of his second year.
Several students waved at him as he walked. Will nodded and smiled politely but didn’t stop to talk to any of them. They weren’t friends. People had begun to treat him differently once it became known who he had married. Everyone was polite now, no one dared ignore him, and when he spoke, people listened. Having just passed his nineteenth birthday (alone—again), it felt strange to receive such deference, especially when he knew quite well that many of them despised him. Marrying the princess hadn’t made him any friends, merely enemies who didn’t dare do anything else but pretend at friendship.
Finally reaching the short walk through his private yard, he took a moment to study the place he had been told was his home. It was a three-story building with an elegant portico framing the front entrance. Marble columns on either side supported a second-floor balcony overlooking the small but well-kept garden that served as the front yard. Will advanced to the door and opened it without knocking, for it wasn’t locked. He threw the bolt home once he was inside, though.
“I’m back!” he said loudly, but there was no answer. Will glanced around anxiously, studying the open door to the cloak room and then gazing down the entry hall. There was no one in sight. “I swear to the Holy Mother if you’re planning on ambushing me, I’ll tie you up and strap you until you’re black and blue. Do you hear me? I’m not joking! It’s been a long day.”
There was no answer, and Will felt his blood pressure rising. Moving carefully, he took the right-hand doorway into the front sitting room. No one jumped out at him, but he didn’t relax. He called out once more, “Blake, where are you?” Blake was the servant that Selene had forced on him before she had left, though the term servant didn’t quite fit. Blake had made the arrangements for the house, along with everything else in Will’s life. His nominal title was butler, but Blake Word was a gentleman’s gentleman and it was his job not only to take care of Will, but to train him to be the sort of man worthy of being married to the king’s daughter.
“I’m in the kitchen,” came Blake’s answer.
“Where’s Selene?” responded Will, yelling back.
“Not sure. I’m sure she’ll find you soon enough.”
“Shit,” swore Will. She could be anywhere. He scanned the sitting room once more, studying the corners of the room. The turyn in the room seemed to be moving normally, but that didn’t mean much; his opponent was skilled in masking her presence. Will shifted his vision to enable him to see heart-light, and the room shifted into shades of gray. In one corner he could see a vaguely feminine outline.
As soon as his eyes focused on the figure, she launched herself at him, not as a woman would, but in the manner of a hunting cat. Selene leaped into the air, crossing the distance between them in an instant. She was stopped abruptly when her face met the point-defense shield that Will erected to halt her advance.
Selene’s head snapped back painfully as she met the force shield and she fell over backward. Will stepped forward and put his boot on her neck, forcing her down against the rug. The saber he had summoned from his limnthal was pointed at her chest. “I told you I wasn’t in the mood for this,” he ground out, his voice cold and angry.
Selene smiled up at him, her tongue darting out to lick away the blood from her split lip in a manner that somehow betrayed her non-human nature. “Survival isn’t about being in the mood.” Then she focused on the tip of his sword. “But the iron is rude. I’m only trying to help you.”
“If Blake sees you do something like that, he’s going to know you aren’t the real Selene,” Will warned quietly. The woman under his boot was Tailtiu, one of the fae, and technically his aunt.
“Don’t be a fool. He already knows. He’s playing along because his mistress ordered him to. May I get up?” asked Tailtiu, indicating the foot he still had on her neck. Her lip had already healed.
“I suppose.” Will sent the sword back to its place inside the limnthal, then removed his foot. As soon as he lifted it, Tailtiu’s hand came up, grabbing his heel and shoving his foot up and back, forcing him off balance. Will fell back, and the fae woman was on top of him in the span of half a second, her fist driving down at his face. Will smiled maliciously at her as he heard the bones snap when Tailtiu’s fist met his newest point-defense shield just before it could reach his head. His grin vanished when a sharp pain lanced through his skull. “Ow!”
His aunt shook her hand but gave no other sign that it hurt. “I’m the one with the wounded hand, or did I somehow hit you without knowing it?” She was still straddling his waist and she looked down. “Or did I hurt something else?”
“No, it was the spell I think,” said Will, gritting his teeth as his head began to pound. “I think I overdid it today.”
“You should have told me,” said Tailtiu reproachfully. “What if you hurt yourself?” Her hips were moving slowly. “Does this help?”
“Stop that!” snapped Will. “Get off me.” After she had complied, he added with a glare, “I did tell you, or I tried to.”
“The part about beating me black and blue? I thought that was just a tease.”
Will sat up, massaging his temples, but the ache refused to subside. “The dam we were repairing almost collapsed today. I used magic to brace it for ten minutes or more.”
“You’ve been learning earth magics then? You didn’t mention that,” she remarked.
He shook his head. “No. The only thing I could think to use was a force-effect spell that wasn’t really meant for that kind of thing. The turyn drain was almost impossible for me to keep up with.”
His aunt sighed. “Only a human would use something like that when it would be simpler to reshape the stone.”
“Can wild magic do that?” asked Will. He had seen her reshape her body in many different ways, her current disguise being one of the mildest examples, but he had never observed her using magic outside of her own physical being.
She nodded. “Some of my people can manage such things, usually those who are older, or if they have a special affinity with earth magic. None of us use the force magics that you seem to prefer. They’re unnatural.”
“What about Grandmother?”
Tailtiu waved a hand dismissively. “Mother was a wizard before becoming fae: it goes without saying that she can use your magics.”