Dusk of the Realm

36

Serena heard the creaking of a branch above her then, like a heavy weight had been applied to it. She tried to resist the urge to glance upwards, not wanting to draw Iliss' - or Cade's - attention to the sound. Neither of them seemed to notice, but she narrowed her eyes in thought. They were inside an enchantment that Iliss and Cade had become adept at creating together. While within its boundaries, no one dwelling in the forest outside of it would be able to either see nor hear their meeting. Conversely, they should not be able to hear outside sounds, either.

Which meant that whatever had moved that branch must have found its way inside of the protective enchantment.

It was just a feeling, but if it happened to be accurate, Serena could not let the opportunity go to waste. She - inconspicuously, she hoped - sent a tendril of her magic into the air, trying to sense what kind of creature she was dealing with. In the past week, her magical skills had increased tenfold as Iliss had trained her; the lady needed her to be capable enough to fool the castle guards and other Fae of Azure that she came into contact with, and so had no choice but to teach Serena some tricks of the trade. The princess had snatched any morsel of knowledge she could, hoping in some repressed corner of her heart that she would be able to use her newfound power to find a way out of Iliss' grasp.

"He told me once that you were obsessed with him," Serena said, trying to think of anything that might distract Iliss from noticing what she was doing. "This rejection must be really hard on you."

Iliss snickered, though her eyes narrowed into angrier slits than before. "I wouldn't feel too special, little princess. I'm not the one who will die by his hand."

Serena was about to make a snarky retort, something along the lines of we'll see, when her magic finally made contact with the magic of the Fae squatting up in the nearby tree. She yelped out loud, so surprised that the magic snapped back to her like a rubber band - though not before she had felt an invisible caress brush against her cheek.

She swallowed her cry and let loose a soft breath.

Tarin.

She struggled to regain her composure, but it was so hard when she knew that he was so close, that he was listening. But why was he not intervening? Did he think he was outmatched by Iliss and Cade? Did he know something that she did not?

She cast the thoughts from her mind. He was here, and he was hearing everything. That would be enough for now.

"And what if he finds out about all of this?" Serena asked, trying not to make it sound too deliberately loud. "What if he learns that the blood magic wears off every night, or figures out that you two are involved in all the Infernal events that have been happening?"

Iliss snorted. "He thinks I'm dead, little princess. We made sure of that. Besides, you don't know nearly everything; just what information we have deigned to give you."

Serena steeled herself, her mind going a million miles per second. She had to think hard about what she knew - what the most significant pieces of information Tarin could use were. It was just so difficult, with the hodgepodge her mind had become over the span of the past week.

"Well, I know some things," she countered, feeling her eyes light up as she remembered facts she knew to be true, not just some imagining caused by Iliss' tampering of her thoughts. "I know that your army base is under the water of that pond Tarin found, where you captured me and first forced me to drink the blood potion." She took a small step away from Iliss, though the latter had not moved; she seemed as though she was willing to humor Serena. She was so sure that her plan was foolproof...

"And I know that Pevana is on your side," she added, feeling sick at the thought. The queen of the Eternal Ones, the ruler of Perpetuum, the ally of the Realm of the Fae based on the new treaty, and the woman contracted as Serena's future mother-in-law... a traitor. A fraud. An Infernal.