The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(10)
“I was happy to see Nessa too,” he said, and dearly hoped they were done talking.
She tapped her fingers against her legs impatiently, opened her mouth, shut it, and then opened it again.
Kellan’s words were rushed. “Before you say anything—”
“Try not to do anything foolish this summer,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him.
He glared. It was one thing to have to sit through her interminable lectures when he’d actually done something to deserve them. But to have her preemptively decide he was going to be a fool—never mind the fact that several very tantalizing and possibly foolhardy ideas had already occurred to him as the noose of his responsibilities tightened—was too much to bear.
“Try to give me a little credit, Blue,” he snapped.
Her lip curled. “I give you exactly as much credit as you deserve.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve known you backward and forward since we were kids. The only thing that still surprises me about you is how often others seem charmed by the things that come out of your mouth.”
He took a step closer to her, and she fisted her hands on her waist and tilted her head back to meet his gaze.
“Maybe people find me charming because I am charming.”
“Or maybe they act that way because you’re the prince, and they don’t want the consequences of getting on your bad side.”
He barked a laugh. “What consequences, Blue? If there were any, you’d have been locked in the castle dungeons years ago.”
“Hard to lock someone up for being right.”
“In your case, I would find it remarkably easy.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know, you were named for Kellan the Great, the heroic warrior from the sea who arrived to rescue Balavata during desperate times centuries ago. Maybe that means nothing to you, but it means a lot to your people. Not the ones whose tables you sit at for tea or whose pretty little hands you hold while you dance at balls, but the ones who struggle each day just to find enough food to eat. They need a hero. Someone to rescue them. If you weren’t so busy trying to get yourself killed with your pranks and your dares, maybe you’d see that.”
The words he’d marshaled in his head to throw in her face dissolved, and he took a small step back from her as Gen came out of the mansion, her wide smile lighting up her face.
Maybe Blue was right. Maybe the ordinary citizens of Balavata needed a hero. But Kellan wasn’t a hero, and he knew it. He was a pawn in a political game that was centuries older than he was. He was a piece of meat to be fought over by the head families who hungered for the power of the throne.
He was all that stood between his family and the wolves snapping at their door, and he couldn’t lose focus on that for an instant. Not even to prove Blue wrong about the man she thought he’d become.
FOUR
BLUE WAS EXHAUSTED by the time she returned to the farmhouse she shared with Papa. The deliveries had taken her the rest of the afternoon. She was annoyed that one of those deliveries had included a conversation with Kellan. He was still insufferable. Probably still planning some sort of stupid, risky adventure for the fun of it, regardless of the consequences.
And definitely none of her business. Not anymore. She washed her hands of him, his charming smile, and his reckless nonsense.
A shiver went up Blue’s spine as far to the west of the city, the iron bells closest to the blood wraith’s fae prison rang, a faint discordant melody that traveled through the perfect funnel created by the road that cut through the hills.
Sometimes she went months without hearing the bells. Sometimes they rang every day. The sound didn’t carry throughout the entire city, but those who lived on the western fringes, like Blue, heard it often enough. It was a stark reminder that even though the wraith Marielle was locked away, no one had figured out how to kill her, and so no one felt truly safe.
And it was a stark reminder of the woman on the market stage and what was at stake for Blue if she wasn’t more careful.
Lanterns cast a welcoming glow in the front windows as Blue turned up the little lane that led to the farmhouse.
The farmhouse was painted a warm yellow with white trim. Flower boxes filled with cat’s paws, pansies, dalliosas, and a sprinkling of wildflowers hung beneath the downstairs windows, and two large pots with herb gardens growing in them graced the wide front porch. Ivy climbed up one of the porch pillars and covered half of the veranda, and a wildly overgrown garden hugged the sides of the house. Blue had always thought it looked like the house had sprung out of the ground from a seed, just like the garden that surrounded it.
A dark streak launched itself off the porch and raced toward her. She laughed as her cat twined himself around her legs, managing to look furious with her for leaving him behind for the day even as he purred his joy at her return.
“Good evening, Pepperell, my handsome boy. Did you get into plenty of trouble today while I was gone?” Blue crouched to run her hand over Pepperell’s fur.
His body bore the testament to his younger days as a street brawler before Blue had found him injured in the alley behind their shop and nursed him back to health. His gray fur always looked slightly unkempt, with a longer strip of brilliant white tracing the scar that started at his mouth, moved over his cheek, and ended where his left eye should’ve been. The tip of his right ear was missing, and one of his front teeth refused to stay hidden when he closed his mouth, but Blue thought he was beautiful, and Pepperell knew it.