The Queen's Choice. Cayla Kluver

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СКАЧАТЬ its predictability.

      “Anya, your father has warned against Fae traveling that far west. He says there’s been a resurgence of piracy over the past year.”

      “I’m aware of my father’s warnings.” I gave his hair a playful tug, making it difficult for a scowl to emerge. “But pirates surely don’t lurk around every corner in Sheness, waiting to attack. They have their business, and I would have had mine. I do know what I’m doing out there. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I didn’t go near the port.”

      “You’re not invincible, you know.” He was looking at me sideways, not yet pacified. This was a variance we’d had before—he meant well, but he had a hard time trusting anything if it was beyond Chrior’s borders, including me.

      I chuckled. “Of course I’m not invincible, but Fae are more powerful than humans, and we have our elements to protect us. Anyone who tried to hurt me would be swept away by a wall of water before they could blink, while I flew away to the rooftops.” My point stood even though that wasn’t exactly how Fae connections worked. We had to rely on physically present matter that we could move and manipulate rather than conjuring our elements, but for me that matter could include blood and mist as easily as rain or river water, leaving me with a lot of power at my disposal. “Try not to be such a killjoy when everything is, at present, perfect.”

      He rolled his eyes, but I felt his body relax against mine. I plucked at the fabric of his shirt, nervous about the confession I was about to make. “I was a little worried, though, that something might be wrong when I felt your call.”

      Davic and I had been promised by a mage, the same mage who had wed my aunt and her husband, and the aura that bound us let us reach out to one another no matter how far apart we were. I’d felt the tug from Davic in Tairmor, the capital of the Warckum Territory, and had started home at once.

      He chewed his lip, looking adorable as he made a bid for clemency. “Are you annoyed? I was thinking about you, and next I knew I’d signaled you before I’d even decided whether or not I should. If you’re upset with me, I’ll say I’m sorry it happened. Really.”

      “Aww, you’d say whatever I’d like to hear to save your own hide? You’re so sweet.” I shoved him, not upset in the least. Our bond was still fresh, and it would take time to adapt to its intricacies.

      He let out a relieved breath, then played with my hair. His thoughts traveled over his face in what he believed to be a private course, though his ultimate expression told me he had landed on the matter I’d hoped he’d leave alone until the morning at least.

      “Do you ever get homesick out there? I mean, you stay away for so long. I just wonder if...you don’t like coming back.”

      Without fail, this conversation followed my returns and preceded my departures. Unlike me, Davic was content in Chrior, with no interest in journeying. He hadn’t even been on his Crossing, the traditional rite of passage for young Fae. Following my Crossing, I’d developed a taste for the human world, a wanderlust that not even my promised’s pleading could overcome, and certainly one that he had trouble understanding.

      “The fact that I enjoy being in the Territory doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy being here.”

      “You spend more time in the human world than you do here.” Preempting my response, he added, “I’m not trying to stop you from traveling, but it seems to me that spending time with me and your friends, with your father, is something you just tolerate until you can leave again.”

      Why couldn’t we have a pleasurable reunion and leave it at that?

      “It’s not being away from you I enjoy, Davic. It’s seeing what’s out there, what’s different about how the humans live. How the politics move and shift.” I frowned, lost in thought. “For instance, there’s something different about the mood in the Territory right now. I don’t know what exactly, but I was seeing more Constabularies and military units. Maybe the Governor is just cracking down on crime. If he keeps it up, my father won’t have much to warn about in a few months.”

      Governor Ivanova, elected conservator and custodian of the Warckum Territory, was known for the strict and swift enforcement of his laws. He was also known as King Ivanova by his detractors, because the governorship had been in his family for so long it was practically an inherited position, with no sign of change on the horizon.

      “Then perhaps you should wait for the all-clear before you head out again. All right?” He kissed my forehead, then sought my eyes. At my grudging nod, a tease at last entered his voice. “You know, it sounds like I called you out of potential danger. Doesn’t that mean I deserve a thank-you?”

      “No, it means you’re off the hook for cutting my trip short,” I laughed, and he rolled over, trapping me beneath him.

      “In that case, I should probably tell you that I didn’t do it for me. The Queen asked when you’d be back and seemed disappointed in my answer. She didn’t actually tell me to interrupt your travels, but it was clear that was what she wanted.”

      I pushed myself up on my elbows, Davic scrambling back to accommodate my sudden movement.

      “Why?”

      “She didn’t tell me that.”

      “It must be urgent.” My heart was thumping a little faster as I tried to imagine what could have led Ubiqua to summon me.

      Davic shrugged. “I doubt it. She didn’t try to talk to you at Court tonight.”

      “I should still go to her. At once.”

      Davic’s brows shot upward, and he bent closer again.

      “Or you could wait.” He pressed his lips lightly to my neck, and, against my better judgment, I allowed my mind to cloud with the sensation, slipped my hands into his hair and slid back underneath him, indisposed to argue.

      * * *

      Davic and I slept in longer than we—or rather I—intended. Though he awoke when I rose and we spoke briefly, he was asleep again by the time I left, laying there still dressed from the night before. There was something about him that was angelic. Yes, he frustrated me when our differences came head-to-head, but my trust in him ran deep. He was solid and predictable, like a form of gravity. He would never hurt me, and his arms would always hold me whether my behavior was rational or nonsensical.

      In the light of a new day, the snowfall had stopped, and everything was bright and glistening. Though it was cold, the air was crisp and fresh, not like in the human world where the people destroyed and polluted in the conduct of their lives. Many Fae feared that same pollution would seep like a dark fog across our borders and ruin our way of life. I figured if it came to that, it wouldn’t be right to blame those who lived in the Territory; instead, the fault would be ours. The only chance for the humans to befriend Nature rather than dominate it was through us and our elemental connections, and we’d locked their race out of our Realm. They had to survive somehow. That was what Illumina and the others who were part of the Anti-Unification League overlooked: the humans’ right to live.

      I flew to the palm—the large knot that made a landing pad before the Great Redwood’s main entrance—then hovered up to my aunt’s private dwelling. I waved to the guards on the ridge, making sure they recognized me before I softly dropped to my feet.

      Like closely stitched netting, thick green vines composed the floor of this part СКАЧАТЬ