Heir of the Fae

by Linsey Hall

  He dropped my arm.

  As I walked away, the truth about us became obvious. We’d either end this thing madly in love or dead by the other’s hand.

  In the crowd of the wounded, I found Aeri. She looked like hell, her ghost suit dirty and burned, her hair a mess.

  “Thank fates.” She hugged me tightly, then pulled back. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look like hell.”

  “In fact, I feel like hell.” I looked around. “Is everyone okay? Any casualties?”

  “Injuries, no deaths.”

  My shoulders lightened, as if a thousand-pound rock had been removed from my back. “Oh, thank fates. I can’t believe I caused this.”

  “But you fixed it.”

  “Barely.” The road was still a mess. Everything was.

  “But you did. And the Council of Demon Slayers covered for you all the way. No one knows it was you. Not even the Order of the Magica.”

  “Good.” The last thing I needed today was a prison sentence.

  “You got your magic under control?”

  “Sort of. I can use it, but I need a lot more practice. Met my mom, though.”

  Aeri’s jaw slackened. “No way. What’s she like?”

  “Total bitch. I’ll tell you all about her.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Let’s clean up. The road looks like hell.”

  Aeri nodded. “Then we’re going home, getting a shower, and getting a really stiff drink.”

  I slung an arm around her shoulder. “You read my mind.”

  As we started toward the middle of the road where the asphalt was pressed up in a ridge like a giant scar, I caught sight of Tarron standing on the roof across the street.

  Just like the night I’d created this crevasse.

  Had he really been watching me that night?

  Was he hiding something?

  He gave me one last long look, then turned and disappeared. As I watched, a memory tugged at my mind. The vision of the future that I’d had while in the Unseelie Court.

  I would kill him one day. Put a dagger right through his chest.

  It hadn’t happened yet.

  Briefly, I’d thought that the scene in my mother’s castle had been what I’d envisioned. She’d tried to get me to kill him in the same way. But I hadn’t been crying then.

  In the vision, I’d cried. And I’d done it. I’d killed him.

  I swallowed hard, praying that the vision was false but knowing it wasn’t.

  ~~~

  Mari’s next book will be here in a month. While you wait, CLICK HERE to try out Aeri’s series!

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

  I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews are so helpful to authors. I really appreciate all reviews, both positive and negative. If you want to leave one, you can do so on Amazon or GoodReads.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Heir of the Fae! If you’ve read any of my other books, you might know that I like to include historical places and mythological elements. I always discuss them in the author’s note.

  Most of the historical and mythical elements that appear in this series were discussed in the author’s note for book one, Trial by Fae. There was only one new thing in this one, and if you’ve read some of my author’s notes from the FireSouls’ series, you’ll be familiar with it, so feel free to peace out now and I hope to see you at the next book!

  Now onto the archaeology and ethics bit! (It’s more interesting than it sounds, and really important to me as I am also archaeologist). One of the things that I worked hardest on in this series is how Cass, Nix, and Del—owners of Ancient Magic—treat artifacts and their business, Ancient Magic. Mari explains the situation to Tarron, but there’s a bit more to it…

  Tragically, archaeology isn’t quite like Indiana Jones (for which I’m both grateful and bitterly disappointed). Sure, it’s exciting and full of travel. However, booby-traps are not as common as I expected. Total number of booby-traps I have encountered in my career: zero. Still hoping, though.

  When I chose to write a series about archaeology and treasure hunting, I knew I had a careful line to tread. There is a big difference between these two activities. As much as I value artifacts, they are not treasure. Not even the gold artifacts. They are pieces of our history that contain valuable information, and as such, they belong to all of us. Every artifact that is excavated should be properly conserved and stored in a museum so that everyone can have access to our history. No one single person can own history, and I believe very strongly that individuals should not own artifacts. Treasure hunting is the pursuit of artifacts for personal gain.

  So why did I make Nix and her deirfiúr treasure hunters? I’d have loved to call them archaeologists, but nothing about their work is like archaeology. Archaeology is a very laborious, painstaking process—and it certainly doesn’t involve selling artifacts. That wouldn’t work for the fast-paced, adventurous series that I had planned for Dragon’s Gift. Not to mention the fact that dragons are famous for coveting treasure. Considering where the deirfiúr got their skills from, it just made sense to call them treasure hunters.

  Even though I write urban fantasy, I strive for accuracy. The deirfiúr don’t engage in archaeological practices—therefore, I cannot call them archaeologists. I also have a duty as an archaeologist to properly represent my field and our goals—namely, to protect and share history. Treasure hunting doesn’t do this. One of the biggest battles that archaeology faces today is protecting cultural heritage from thieves.

  I debated long and hard about not only what to call the heroines of this series, but also about how they would do their jobs. I wanted it to involve all the cool things we think about when we think about archaeology—namely, the Indiana Jones stuff, whether it’s real or not. But I didn’t know quite how to do that while still staying within the bounds of my own ethics. I can cut myself and other writers some slack because this is fiction, but I couldn’t go too far into smash and grab treasure hunting.

  I consulted some of my archaeology colleagues to get their take, which was immensely helpful. Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, were immensely helpful with ideas. My biggest problem was figuring out how to have the heroines steal artifacts from tombs and then sell them and still sleep at night. Everything I’ve just said is pretty counter to this, right?

  That’s where the magic comes in. The heroines aren’t after the artifacts themselves (they put them back where they found them, if you recall)—they’re after the magic that the artifacts contain. They’re more like magic hunters than treasure hunters. That solved a big part of my problem. At least they were putting the artifacts back. Though that’s not proper archaeology, I could let it pass. At least it’s clear that they believe they shouldn’t keep the artifact or harm the site. But the SuperNerd in me said, “Well, that magic is part of the artifact’s context. It’s important to the artifact and shouldn’t be removed and sold.”

  Now that was a problem. I couldn’t escape my SuperNerd self, so I was in a real conundrum. Fortunately, that’s where the immensely intelligent Wayne Lusardi came in. He suggested that the magic could have an expiration date. If the magic wasn’t used before it decayed, it could cause huge problems. Think explosions and tornado spells run amok. It could ruin the entire site, not to mention possibly cause injury and death. That would be very bad.

  So now you see why Nix and her deirfiúr don’t just steal artifacts to sell them. Not only is selling the magic cooler, it’s also better from an ethical standpoint, especially if the magic was going to cause problems in the long run. These aren’t perfect solutions—the perfect solution would be sending in a team of archaeologists to carefully record the site and remove the dangerous magic—but that wouldn’t be a very fun book.

  I think that’s it for the history and
mythology in Heir of the Fae. I think it was probably my favorite to write, and I hope you enjoyed it and will come back for more Mordaca and Aerdeca.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, Ben, for everything. There would be no books without you.

  Thank you to Jena O’Connor and Lindsey Loucks for your excellent editing. The book is immensely better because of you! Thank you to Aisha for your helpful comments about typos.

  Thank you to Orina Kafe for the beautiful cover art.

  About Linsey

  Before becoming a writer, Linsey Hall was a nautical archaeologist who studied shipwrecks from Hawaii and the Yukon to the UK and the Mediterranean. She credits fantasy and historical romances with her love of history and her career as an archaeologist. After a decade of tromping around the globe in search of old bits of stuff that people left lying about, she settled down and started penning her own romance novels. Her Dragon’s Gift series draws upon her love of history and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include.

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All reference to events, persons, and locale are used fictitiously, except where documented in historical record. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright 2019 by Linsey Hall

  Published by Bonnie Doon Press LLC

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form, except in instances of quotation used in critical articles or book review. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.

  ISBN - 978-1-942085-88-1

  Linsey@LinseyHall.com

  www.LinseyHall.com

  https://www.facebook.com/LinseyHallAuthor