Child Of Darkness. Jennifer Armintrout

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СКАЧАТЬ way Mabb had. Tying the ribbons of her bedrobe, she went to the passage in the wall, the one that Cedric had begged her to seal off, rather than risk dying as Mabb had. She had refused for a number of reasons that had sounded sane and logical on the surface. Truly, she had done it because the way to the King’s chamber, now the chamber of the Queene’s Consort, was too public, and she did not wish her servants to know her comings and goings. Mabb, though she had never had an official Consort, nor a King to rule at her side, must have felt the same.

      Ayla slipped out of the secret door and walked cautiously, looking for guards. Revelers from the party would not be in this part of the Palace, but she did not wish to listen to another report of her missing daughter, or be reassured that she would be found.

      She went through the passage to Malachi’s chambers and fished the door key from her sleeve, where she wore it loosely tied at her wrist. The door opened and she stepped through just as the main door to the room slammed open and against the wall.

      Malachi stood in the doorway, his expression changing from surprise to anger. Ayla moved to quickly close the door behind her, so that no passing servant would see.

      They stood in the antechamber. Malachi had been Garret’s prisoner there, until Ayla had come to save him. She remembered how she had trembled that night, in fear and uncertainty, and the feeling crept back to her now.

      He stared at her, his face gray with fatigue. He looked different now than he had when he’d first come to live in the Palace. Since his fall from his former, Angelic nature, he’d aged as a Human, rapidly. In what had seemed a blink of an eye, his features had become sharper, etched with hard lines. A streak of silver stood out from the ink-black of his hair, and though he was as large and physically powerful as he had been twenty years before, he did not exert himself with the vigor that he had in his youth. Every day he seemed older, the way mortals, distressingly, became. Ayla did not wish to dwell on it, and she looked away from his hard expression.

      “How could you do this?” he asked in a raw whisper.

      Ayla snapped her head up, glared back at him. “Cerridwen has run off on her own! If you wish to blame anyone, blame her governess, blame her guards!”

      “I am not talking about her running off!” He slammed the door closed behind him, and it shook as though it would fall from its hinges. “Do you have any idea what you have done? To her? To Cedric? They have both run off now, and if I were him I would never return!”

      This stunned her. Over the past twenty years, they had disagreed. And how they had disagreed, and over such petty things. But while he’d raged at her—his emotions ran high, another mortal trait—what he said now was somehow more hurtful.

      Most hurt was her pride, and she sought to defend this crumbling wall without reason. “I did what I had to do! Cerridwen is out of control. She runs from me, she runs from this Palace. At this very instant she is out of the Lightworld altogether. She needs someone who will be better suited to keeping her here, and safe.”

      “And she won’t run from Cedric? He is centuries old! She is a child!” He swallowed, and looked as though it pained him. “And what is to say that Cedric would not run from her? And from you?”

      “Cedric will do as I command. I am Queene!” It sounded so meaningless, like a child threatening during a tantrum.

      Malachi laughed. “Yes, he will bow and scrape, as all of your Courtiers do—because he must. How does that feel, Ayla, to know that those closest to you only do as you ask because they are accustomed to being ruled? To know that they do not do these things out of any love or respect for you?”

      “My Court respects me! If they did not, I would no longer be Queene!”

      “You would not be Queene if Cedric had not willed it so!”

      A knock sounded at Malachi’s door, and they both fell silent, not wishing to continue the fight, but not wanting to admit defeat, either.

      “Malachi, I have news.” It was Cedric.

      Ayla’s anger had not abated, and she glared at Malachi, defiant, as if daring him to open the door, warning that if he did, she would not relent in her argument with him.

      “Come in,” Malachi said, all the fight gone from his voice. He looked tired, as if every mortal cell of his body were weary. And in that moment, Ayla lost her anger with him, and it was replaced by that fear which had become all too familiar. Fear that he would succumb to his mortality soon, and that she would waste the time they had in petty arguments. They had already wasted so much time.

      Cedric entered, and, spying Ayla, carefully masked his expression. “She has been found.”

      Relief weakened Ayla’s knees, and Malachi uttered a quiet, “Thank God.”

      “Where was she?” Ayla would not allow even the ghost of the earlier tension to remain. She would not discuss the betrothal now.

      “She was on the Strip. Disguised as a Human, watching a game of Human gambling.” He cleared his throat. “I found her there, and brought her here.”

      “Thank you.” The fear in Ayla’s breast loosened its hold a bit. She had not ventured into danger, not as much as she could have. “Malachi, do you have a way to contact your search party? To call them back? I do not wish them to go far.”

      She did not wish them to go into the Darkworld, where their presence could begin a war.

      Wearily, Malachi rose. “I know where they plan to search. I will go to them.”

      “No,” she said, realizing too late how commanding she’d sounded, and how little Malachi would appreciate her tone. She forced herself to soften, willed away the anger and anxiety of the night. “You are tired. Send someone, but do not go yourself.”

      He should have argued with her; it alarmed her that he did not. He waved a hand to Cedric. “Can you find someone?”

      “I will see to it myself.” He turned toward the door, and paused. “Your Majesty, I did not tell the heir of what transpired at the feast tonight. I sent her to her chambers…I thought perhaps you would wish to speak to her, before she heard it from another source.”

      “I will speak to her. About your betrothal, and about her disappearance.” Ayla loathed the need to apologize that clawed its way up her throat. She forced it down. “I hope you realize that I am only thinking of what will be best for my daughter. And for you.”

      His wings, confined by his robes, rustled under their fabric prison. She saw the movement, a furious shrug, and again the apology that some regretful part of her knew should be delivered tried to escape.

      She was Queene. She would not let him force his guilt onto her.

      Cedric did not face her. The weight of his words was measured carefully. “I realize that you believe you know what is best, and that you are acting under that belief.”

      When he left, he did not slam the door, but it was, without a doubt, closed.

      “I do not do this to hurt either of them,” Ayla said helplessly, turning to Malachi. He’d already removed his robe, revealing his now-scarred skin and the metal-patched black wings that had not been seen by the Court in over twenty years.

      He looked up at her, not bothering to conceal his anger СКАЧАТЬ