Sea Fae Trilogy

by C. N. Crawford

  Sea Fae: Full Series

  Dark King, Falling King, Rising Queen

  C.N. Crawford

  Dark King: Book One

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 1

  “He’s here to kill me.”

  I stared at the image reflected in the scrying mirror. The assassin stood aboveground: a beautiful fae with sun-kissed skin and hair the color of flames. Death had arrived in one handsome, golden package. Within an hour, he would have a knife to my throat. Twenty minutes later, my dead body would be swinging from the bough of a hawthorn tree.

  Gina stood next to me in our cluttered shop, her hands in her pockets. “Don’t overreact. Americans are always overreacting about everything.”

  I chewed my gum and blew a pink bubble. It popped. “I’m not American.”

  “You sound American. And anyway, the whole point of living literally underground is that the assassins can’t find you, right? He doesn’t know where the trapdoor is. We’re fine.”

  “Maybe.”

  A pulse of fae magic made me shiver. His power was intensifying.

  The fae assassin had about a dozen blades strapped to his body. The only thing stopping him from killing me was that he had no idea how to find us.

  “How do you even know he’s here for you?”

  “Because he’s directly above our shop, and I’m the only illegal supernatural in this part of London.”

  Gina blew one of her dark curls out of her eyes. “I’ll tell you what, though, he does look bloody terrifying.”

  “Yep.”

  I should have known this would happen.

  At some point, the assassins came for all us supernaturals. They hunted down the witches and fae, the demons and shifters. They delivered death from glamoured palaces. Only the assassins—the elite fae—were allowed to use magic.

  The rest of us? We hid in tunnels, pretending not to exist.

  Pacing on the earth above our shop, the assassin pulled out his sword.

  My breath quickened, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “I need to stop him before he finds us.”

  “Can you do some kind of magic from here?”

  “I don’t think so.” I rushed for the spell books anyway. I wasn’t wealthy enough to have books of powerful spells—nothing for making armies burst into flames or reaping souls out of bodies. I had many agricultural spells that had no point whatsoever in modern London, and a really nice book of curses, but those generally took a long time to get going.

  I pulled it off the shelf anyway, flipping through the pages as fast as I could. At the back, many of the curses had been damaged by water, but I found one that could turn someone’s thoughts into gibberish. Not the best spell in a life-or-death situation, but maybe it would confuse him enough that he’d just wander away, no longer able to remember why he’d come.

  “I’ve got one,” I said, hope blooming. “I’m going to make him go insane.”

  “Good. Just … don’t aim it at me.”

  I began chanting the spell, but the ink smudges over the words made it hard. I wasn’t sure if I was reading the spell correctly.

  Then, to my horror, the letters rearranged themselves on the page, until they made no sense at all. I whirled, finding that the books around me now all had gibberish writing on the spines.

  I hadn’t made him go insane. I’d made the books go insane. Son of a gun. I’d have to fix that later.

  “That didn’t work, Gina.”

  “What else do you know?”

  I slammed the book shut. “I mean, I can make him hear music. I don’t think that will scare him away.”

  “It’s worth a shot. It would be creepy.”

  “Guess I’ll try anything right now.” I crossed back to the scrying mirror.

  Standing before it, I closed my eyes, singing Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” in my eeriest voice. The sound wended through the enchanted glass, all the way to the warrior above us. This was Gina’s favorite song—at least the way I sang it. When she got upset or couldn’t sleep, I sang it to her like a lullaby. I’d been doing that since I found her on the streets two years ago, when she was only fourteen, living rough. She’d been with me ever since.

  But singing Miley probably wasn’t going to scare the killer away. After a few verses, I let the song fade out.

  The intruder still stood above us, gripping his sword.

  “It appears he still wants to kill me,” I said. “Probably more violently, after that song. I’m going to have to face him head-on before he kills us both.”

  “I have an idea,” said Gina. “How about you just … don’t go above ground? We’ve got Pot Noodle and custard creams in here. That’s basically all we need for at least two days. And there are zero fae assassins inside the shop, so that’s a win for staying in here.”

  I lifted my sea-green eyes to her. “He’s not going to go away.”

  “He might. Don’t be such a pessimist.” She stared at the mirror again. “Wait, he’s writing something on a piece of paper. Maybe this is a good sign. He’s open to communication.”

  “I know you like to see the best in people, Gina, but I don’t think the armed assassin is a nice person.”

  “Maybe he’s seen you around and he’s here to ask you on a date. You could use one. Look at his big manly arms! And you’re both fae, right? He’s a fae, you’re a fae. You both have magic. Perfect. You’ll have beautiful fae babies.”

  My gum was losing its flavor. “We’re both fae, but we’re not on the same side here, Gina. My magic is illegal and his isn’t. He’s going to snap my neck in a hasty execution, and then he’s going to drink beer in a castle to unwind.”

  “Or maybe he’s lonely? You know, a bit of romance might help you enjoy life a bit more; maybe a walk by the Thames at sunset, get a Cornetto from the ice cream van. Get you out of the ol’ dirt hole a bit more.”

  Gina was a people person. I was not.

  “I like our dirt hole,” I snapped. “It helps me avoid people, and particularly men. Also, I prefer the term natural earthen domicile to dirt hole.”

  “There are nice people out there. Even men. The old man who works at Pizza Express gave me a free meatball yesterday.”

  Gods have mercy. It was clear to me at this point that Gina did not understand the gravity of the situation. “But this man is not here to give me a free meatball. He’s here to cut my head off. Do you get where I’m coming from with my concerns?”

  In the scrying mirror, the fae held up the paper. In perfectly formed, elegant letters, he’d written: Aenor, Drowner of Islands, Surrender or Die a Painful Death.

  I spat my gum into the trash. “Well, then. Doesn’t he seem lik
e a catch? I’ll just put on my best dress for when I let him murder me by the Thames after our Cornettos and meatballs.”

  “Shit.” Her forehead crinkled. “Drowner of Islands? What’s that about?”

  “No idea. Swear to gods I never did that. But it’s an amazing nickname, isn’t it? I might adopt it.” I pointed at the scrying mirror. “Look at that sign. Do you see it? Not only is he threatening to kill me in a painful manner, but he did a weird thing with capitalizing all the words. That alone tells me he’s the worst sort of psychopath.”

  “Is that blood on his sword?” Gina asked, apparently no longer charmed by him.

  “It is, yes. Not ideal.”

  “He didn’t even wash it off before showing up here. That bit seems a bit off, you know? I mean, give it a good rinse first, at least. Showing up to a kill with other people’s blood is just not on.”

  It creeped me the hells out that he knew my first name. Also, yes, the fresh blood wasn’t endearing him to me.

  “How did he know he was being scryed on?” Gina asked.

  “You can feel it,” I said. “On the back of your neck, like someone’s watching, you know?”

  Gina ran her fingers over the magical glass. “So, he’s here to kill you. But what exactly are you gonna do about it? You can’t fight him. He’s trained to kill outlaws within seconds.”

  A powerful pulse of his magic vibrated through the walls. My stomach clenched at the dark music of it. What exactly was he brewing up there on the surface? Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  Goosebumps rose all over my skin. “Have some faith in me. I can kill him.” I pointed to the dried demon hearts nailed to our rickety underground walls, as well as the other demon body parts crammed between shelves of potions and magical amulets. “Look. You see that? I’ve killed before. Plenty of times. That’s why I’m known as Aenor, Flayer of Skins, Scourge of the Wicked. Boom.”

  Gina gave me a sympathetic look that was frankly patronizing coming from a sixteen-year-old. “First of all, you gave yourself that name. Second of all, those guys you scourged weren’t as scary as this blood-sword motherfucker.”

  “Language!” Perhaps I carved out hearts and broke bones, but I had some standards for proper behavior, and I expected those under eighteen to follow them. In theory, at least.

  “Fucking hell, Aenor.” She pressed her hands on either side of the mirror, ignoring my admonition. “He’s, like, eight feet tall and, well … murdery. Third of all—was I on point three?—your demon kills were extreme circumstances. You didn’t have a choice. Those were demons beating their girlfriends, or vampires hunting teenage girls through the streets. You intervened to save lives. There’s no, like … immediate emergency right now. As long as we stay in the shop, no one has to die. Like I said. Zero assassins inside the shop. We’re perfectly safe underground.”

  I could tell she was reassuring herself more than she was making a coherent argument.

  The magic intensified around me, setting my teeth on edge. “You’re wrong, Gina. If I don’t act, we both die. He’s fixing to do something nasty.”

  “I don’t see it that way. You could stay in here and wait till he gets bored enough to leave. He’ll slink off home to watch Doctor Who at some point and have a spliff or something.”

  “That’s not how this works. Assassins don’t get bored and leave.” I stood, my body buzzing with adrenaline, and crossed to the desk behind the counter. I rolled it open and pulled out a handgun. “And anyway, I have a little advantage. They’ll be expecting me to use an attack spell, not a gun. Traditional fae like him never use modern weapons. It’s a whole taboo thing for no good reason whatsoever. Lucky for us, I don’t care a lick about tradition, so I’ll just shoot him in the heart with iron bullets. Unlike lead, they actually kill the fae. Job done.”

  “But he has magic.”

  “So do I.”

  “Right,” she countered, “but you just have sad dirt hole magic, and he looks like his would be better.”

  “Anyway,” I said a little too sharply. “Waiting until an assassin gets bored enough to wander home isn’t a real solution.”

  “What will I do if you die, Aenor? I’d have no one to take care of me. I get scared at night, and I can’t run the shop on my own.”

  Sometimes, Gina seemed surprisingly worldly. And at other times—like now—she seemed more like the sixteen-year-old human that she was.

  From above, the killer’s magic grew stronger, thrumming over my skin in a dangerous warning. I breathed in the heavy, sea-smelling air, and my heart started pounding harder against my ribs.

  He was going to hit us with an attack at any moment. Then, our bodies would sway from the hawthorn tree.

  I had to stop this murderer before he got the chance.

  Chapter 2

  Cold, wet magic skimmed through my cluttered shop, growing so powerful it rattled the floorboards beneath my feet. Gina’s dark eyes went wide, and she stared at me, looking lost.

  Suddenly, I wanted to protect her with a fierce intensity. Humans could break so easily.

  Gina gripped the mirror tighter, staring into it. “Oh, bloody hell. There’s a second one, Aenor. At least I think I saw him? He sort of glowed from the shadows for a moment, like a … I don’t know, a creepy angel. There’s no way you can go fight both of them.” She looked up, forehead creased. “Maybe we can escape through the underground tunnel. It goes to the river, right?”

  It wasn’t the worst idea. We couldn’t go straight up through the hatch in the ceiling, but there was a second route out of here. An old tunnel led south from here to the Thames, carving underground through the most ancient parts of London.

  I threaded my fingers into my blue hair, pacing now. “We might be able to get to the river. I’ll have more power there anyway.”

  That’s when it hit me—the heavy scent of the river, slamming into me like a fist. When I looked down at the old floorboards, my stomach dropped. Dark water seeped through the cracks, pooling in my shop.

  “Change of plan,” I said. “They want to drown us. They’re going to flood us out. They’re flooding the tunnel as we speak.”

  These creeps wanted to destroy my home, my livelihood.

  This was exactly why I had a gun loaded with iron bullets.

  “Bollocks. Bollocks!” Gina looked frantic. “Let’s run. Now.”

  “No. You stay here for a few more minutes. You’ll drown if you go further down that tunnel. Unlike me, you can’t breathe underwater.”

  Dark river water pooled beneath my feet, soaking the bottoms of my high heels.

  I shoved my hand into my pocket, running my fingertips over the mother-of-pearl comb I kept there.

  The gun was one of my most useful weapons. Believe it or not, the comb was the other. It would help lure the assassins to me. Then, I’d simply shoot them.

  “I’ve got this, Gina,” I said. “Just keep the doors shut. If the water fills up too fast, you can escape through the hatch in the roof. I’ll lure the assassins away from that opening, so they won’t notice you. Sneak out from the ceiling hatch and make a run for it. In five minutes, they’ll be totally gone. They’re not after you, anyway. They just want me.”

  “Please be careful.” She pulled a plastic ring off her finger and shoved it at me. “Take this for good luck.”

  “Thanks.” I slid the gun into the belt on my shorts, then the ring onto my finger. A cartoon donkey on the top grinned at me. I was pretty sure it had been a prize from a Happy Meal, but I’d take all the luck I could get.

  By now, the water had risen up to my toes. Powerful magic skimmed over my body.

  I crossed through the silk curtains that hid the tunnel door. It led to an ancient, earthen tunnel. Here, dirt particles filled the air, and I couldn’t see a thing. Already, the water was turning the dirt walls to mud. Not ideal. In another life, I’d once had total power over water. Not anymore.

  Magic electrified the air. I broke into a fast run, pumping m
y arms as I sprinted through the tunnel, my feet splashing in the rising water. I might be crap at powerful magic, but I was great at running in heels.

  If I could kill the assassins fast, maybe I could save the shop.

  Long ago, priests had used these tunnels to escape Henry VIII, sneaking down to the Thames to flee the city. Now, I was using them to save my own rear.

  Water streamed in heavier, now, and running was getting harder. Still, the river called to me.

  If I ended this fast, I’d keep Gina safe. I’d promised years ago to keep her from harm.

  It had been two years since I’d found her running from a demon predator. He had been about three hundred years older than her and rotten down to his bones. He’d broken her jawbone and nearly choked her to death behind a dumpster. I’d put him out of his misery.

  Gina had lived with me since.

  The icy water was flowing faster, now, chilling my calves.

  I was one minute away from the Thames. One minute till I could lure the assassins to me.

  My breath grew ragged in my throat as I fought my way through the rising water. Another powerful wave of magic set my teeth on edge. The water rushed up to my hips, now.

  When the water reached my ribs, I dove under, sinking into its cold embrace. The water was my home, and I moved through it swiftly. I held my breath, and the river rushed over my skin as I swam, faster and faster, moving toward my target.

  The assassins were fae like me, but they had struck a deal with the humans long ago. They could live in the world, in exchange for killing all the other supernaturals.