A Veil of Moonlight and Madness (The Veiled Realm Book 3) by Analeigh Ford

Author:Analeigh Ford [Ford, Analeigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

18

DELPHINE

Nyx, however, was not the only fae out of place in Alderia.

There was once a time when I would’ve been shocked to find a fae at the right hand of the human king. But now, after everything, it wasn’t even a surprise. The glamour we’d felt, after all, had to come from somewhere.

I just hadn’t expected it to come waltzing out two steps behind King Rivval, leader of Alderia, when he entered the throne room.

Something seized inside me at the sight of him, and for a moment, I thought I was going to be sick. If it weren’t for the pressing crowd of courtiers and guards around us, I probably would have been. It was still everything I could do to keep myself upright when the walls and their aged tapestries, had started to feel like they were falling in on me. I tried to stare at the floor, but that was worse. That was a pit trying to swallow me whole.

All I could do was fix my eyes forward as a hand reached out to steady me, and though I couldn’t bring myself to look at which of my companions had done it, it didn’t matter. It gave me the strength to straighten up, to mask the disappointment and despair and that had started to flood through me once more.

All it took was one look at the fae whose glamour we’d actually detected.

No one else balked at his appearance, either. He stood like a part of the throne room itself, his hooded eyes sweeping across the room as if perpetually preparing to make some judgement.

I wondered how tales of Rivval’s advisor had never spread into the outer villages. Surely, that would’ve been something worth talking about. It was supposed to be ages since the last time a fae was seen in Alderia. At least in my village, it had been so long since we’d seen evidence of one in the flesh that I wasn’t the only human there who thought they were made up.

Right up until I met one, of course.

It would explain, however, how the people of the village where we’d appeared had treated Tethys and the princes when they arrived. They feared the fae enough to give them what they wanted, but weren’t so shocked as to fall into chaos at the mere sight of one.

The court—guards, courtiers, and peasants looking on alike—fell slowly into silence as King Rival stepped up to his throne but didn’t sit in it, yet.

The human king was far less impressive than I’d imagined. Again, I hadn’t spent much time thinking of him at all, but I’d always assumed he was a regal, if a little greedy, looking man. In the flesh, the king of Alderia only looked a little bit like one of those things.

He wore the trappings of a king, sure, but in such a way as to somehow cheapen it. Even the jewels that adorned the monarch paled in comparison to those of the Starlight Court. Compared to the stones of faerie, the human king looked like he wore nothing more than colored glass.

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