by Bec McMaster
I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she brought him into her court.
Though I can imagine.
I was young when my mother married his father, Reynar, and barely eighteen when Reynar died in a hunting accident. They say Reynar’s beauty stole my mother’s tongue the first time she laid eyes upon him, and she had to have him for herself, regardless of his wife or young family.
And Reynar, perhaps wise enough to see a path to power, tempted her and wooed her for years, before he finally succumbed to her bed.
Before the sun rose, my mother vowed to marry him, and jokes still linger about the size of the prince consort’s cock.
For years, Reynar was all she could see. He came from the Far Isles, and left a family behind to become her consort. I was ignored, as step-children often are—he had no use for me—but I do remember my mother constantly cajoling him to bring his son to court.
“We will show the Alliance that we are a family to be reckoned with,” she had said once, when I was allowed to brush her hair. “No more of these nasty rumors about your previous wife…. I will not suffer them to be heard.”
Reynar unleashed a dangerous smile upon her. “Let Letithia keep the boy. It’s safer for him to stay in Akiva. And I would not want to divert my attention from you. Not even for my dearest son. You are my sun. You are my heart. Let it not know another.”
Safer, always safer.
From the lies and vicious rumors that circulated about a handsome young fae male stolen from his faithful wife.
I remember the day it all changed.
There was a masked ball at court to celebrate my seventeenth birthday and a strange minstrel came calling, wearing nothing but black. He won the court with his voice, and my mother was delighted.
“Reveal yourself,” she cried, “for your beauty must echo the gloriousness of your voice and we must know it.”
I will never forget that moment—the horrible breathless feeling in my lungs as the stranger lifted his hands to slowly lower his mask. It felt like Fate trailed her frozen fingertips down my spine.
The stranger threw back his shining black hair, the mask in his hands, and every fae at court sucked in a single breath.
For the promise of his father was more than generously bestowed on the son.
“Father,” Edain said, a dangerously mocking smile on his face as he nodded to his adversary.
Reynar froze, a brief flash of horror flirting through his eyes as Edain turned toward Mother.
“And my dearest stepmother,” Edain purred, as he went to one knee and kissed her hand.
I don’t know why he came to our court—whether it was to strike vengeance into his faithless father’s heart, or whether it was tear them apart—but the second my mother laid eyes upon him, she could not look away.
“Andraste?” There’s no sign of his sneer now. Merely something rough I can’t identify.
And I’m left scrambling to remember what he asked me.
“Perhaps you’re here because you enjoy seeing me in this state.” I turn on my toes, and agony flares through the right arch of my foot. I’ve been balanced like this for far too long. “Or perhaps you’re here because my mother sent you to do her bidding, like her favorite little pet. I guess we’ll find out.”
He laughs under his breath. “I almost missed your insults. And yes, I guess you’ll find out.”
Hands toy with my wrists, and the heat of his skin warms mine as he stretches up to unlock me. After so long without comfort or warmth, I can barely resist leaning into him, even though I’m fairly certain I stink, and though the servants have doused me with buckets of water every now and then, my skin feels grimy.
“Have a care, my lord. You might soil your robes. I’m still covered in blood and dirt from the Queensmoot.”
He pauses, and I wonder at the hesitation, before his hands turn the key in the lock. “If you think dirt and blood concern me, then you’re most mistaken.”
I tense for the inevitable. My chains start loosening, feeling flooding into raw, bloodless fingers.
I’m finally allowed down from my toes, but my feet have spent too long arched into agonizing points. They’re not prepared for my weight.
As my arms fall, my body collapses like dead meat, and a scream escapes me, regardless of intent.
Somehow, I don’t hit the cold stone floor.
Firm arms catch me and draw me into an embrace, and I barely have the breath to protest. Everything hurts. Everything. My right arm is a blaze of agony, and I fear I’ve dislocated the shoulder.
“Easy” comes a gentle whisper.
I cling to him, quivering from shock as blood rushes back into my starving limbs. And to think that only moments ago, I was saying that pain would not break me.
“Shush.” There are hands on my back, rubbing firmly enough to steal my attention away from my arms and feet.
Oh, gods…. I don’t even have the strength to care if my mortal enemy is the one consoling me. No doubt I’ll pay the price for this later, but right now, I don’t care.
I can’t feel my fingers or move my arm. I clutch at it uselessly, trying to ease the weight of it, and then Edain sets gentle fingers to the socket.
“This might hurt a little,” he says. “On the count of three. One, two—”
He gives a sharp jerk, and I scream as the arm is shoved back into the socket. Mother of mercy. Trembles shiver through me. I think I’m going to be ill, but the last thing I want to do is vomit on his shoes.
Not in front of him.
I grind my teeth together and fight the urge, swallowing down the pain.
Pain is life. Pain is an old friend.
But it doesn’t feel like a friend now. It feels like a bitter enemy stealing the strength from my veins.
“You’ve been here for weeks,” Edain says. “So sit on your ass until you’ve got your feet beneath you.” He slips a waterskin from around his shoulder. “And I’ll pretend I didn’t see your knees quiver.”
He’s being kind.
Edain is being kind.
Which means this is bad.
“Who are you? Because I’m fairly certain you’re not my evil stepbrother.” I have to work out what my mother has planned. It could be anything, it could be—
My mind shies away from that thought, because I don’t dare betray myself, even in the privacy of my own head.
“I’m the male who’s been forced to deal with a furious queen for the past month. What in the Underworld happened at the Queensmoot?” he growls, unscrewing the lid from the water skin.
Nothing else matters. My dry mouth salivates, and I grab at the skin.
He lets me drink, though he takes it away far too quickly.
“You’ll make yourself ill,” he murmurs.
I don’t care.
I just want more water.
“In a minute,” he says, and I realize he’s stroking my hair back off my face. “Tell me what happened at the Queensmoot?”
So that’s to be the price of his kindness.
I laugh, a dry, rasping sound. “My sister broke the curse Mother placed on her. She remembered her husband at the last second and then unleashed some kind of magic upon Mother. They drove us back.”
“I’m not talking about your sister.” His gentle touch is on my face again, though his eyes are as hard as ice. “Why were you sentenced to the oubliette?”
I bow my head.
“Please. Please! If there’s any part of you that ever loved me, please stop this.”
It doesn’t matter how many times I close my eyes, I see Vi begging me for help. “Because I dared ask for mercy. It was killing Vi. I couldn’t—”
You don’t admit your weaknesses to an enemy.
I shut my mouth.
Curse it. He’s caught me at a bad moment.
“Mother blames me for what happened,” I say instead and lift my head to meet his gaze.
His lashes shield his merciless blue eyes. “She does, though she
won’t speak of it. I wondered why she held you accountable.”
“How angry is she?” There’s no more strength left in me. I lean my head back against his thigh.
He laughs under his breath. “Angry enough to burn the fucking castle to the ground. I think you need to forget about your sister, Princess, and concentrate on keeping your own head. One daughter’s betrayal is enough. Two might tip her over the edge.”
“I thought you’d enjoy that. You’d be the one to reap the rewards. Perhaps she might even name you heir.”
He freezes, and his eyes are glacial as he looks at me. “You know nothing of what I wish for, but let me assure you—your mother would have my head if I even thought to place myself on a throne.”
“You’re ambitious. I know that. Perhaps she’ll give you a duchy. She’ll need a strong vassal without me at her side.”
“It sometimes amazes me that you’ve spent the past seventeen years living with me, and yet, you truly understand so little of me.”
I do?
My eyes narrow.
“I’ll save you the breath.” Slipping my arm beneath his shoulder, he helps me to my feet. “Time to stand, Andraste. You’ve had your moment of respite, and now you need to show the court some of that fuck you attitude I always see in your eyes.”
“I’m being summoned before the court?”
Not like this.
Not with my hair tangled and blood still staining my clothes. I can’t reveal an inch of weakness.
“You’re being summoned before the court,” he says grimly. “Your mother has need of you.”
“Why?”
Edain heads for the door, leaving me wobbling behind him like a newborn foal. “Because we’re going to war, Andraste. Let us hope your sense of mercy has died a swift death in the oubliette. Because the enemy we face is your sister and her husband, and your mother has a trap planned.”
“Trap?”
There’s only one thing Mother can mean by that.
I have to stop her.
But do I dare?
I force myself to take a step toward the door, and I don’t fall flat on my face, which is an improvement.
“Yes.” Edain’s eyes glitter as he holds the door open for me. “And apparently you’re going to be the one to spring it.”
Chapter Three
Iskvien
Word comes the following morning.
The meeting will take place at Ruthvien.
“Why Ruthvien?” I ask, as I follow Thiago toward the Hallow in Ceres. The portal is housed in the second-tallest tower of the castle, and of course we have to climb four thousand stairs to get there. Give or take.
Mother could have chosen a thousand places to hold this meeting.
All of them suspect.
But Ruthvien is the heart of the ancient ruined Kingdom of Taranis. A thousand years ago it was a prosperous kingdom blessed with forests and pastureland. Now, the soil lies dry and cracked with a thousand runnels as if even the land itself thirsts.
One of Taranis’s northern Hallows was obliterated during the Unseelie wars five hundred years ago, and the blast of energy wiped out half the kingdom and some of neighboring Somnus. Year by year the blight creeps wider, until both kingdoms now lie fallow.
Nobody lives there. The Alliance of Light simply pretends both kingdoms no longer exist.
“Because I wouldn’t agree to any Hallow within Asturia and she wouldn’t venture into Evernight. She preferred Mistmere, but I refuse to play Adaia’s game. Ruthvien was my best alternative.”
“Somewhere nice and isolated,” Finn mutters under his breath as he falls in behind me. Thiago’s tasked the lean warrior with my protection, while Eris looks ready to spill blood as she falls in behind Thiago. “Nobody will find our bodies.”
Baylor rests a hand on the hilt of his sword, towering over all of us as he scowls. “Adaia hasn’t had time to muster an ambush. Thiago only sent through the location of the meeting two hours ago.”
“You underestimate my mother.” I can’t stop myself from tapping nervous fingers against my thigh. “She only needs a minute’s notice for murder.”
“You’re not helping, Princess,” Finn mutters.
“Why are you so on edge?” He’s been dueling with me every day in the yard for the past three months. I’ve never seen him slip the casual mantle he wears. Finn always pretends he’d laugh in the face of a screaming horde.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he mutters. “One murderous queen who can’t be trusted. A peace offering who just happens to be the one person we desperately want back. Did I mention your mother? And peace? Those two concepts together just scream ‘trap.’”
“Yes, but I thought you had balls of solid steel.”
“He’s always like this,” Eris snorts. “The second steel is bared he’ll be so cool he’ll make a glacier look like it’s sweating, but until then….”
“I just hate surprises,” Finn grumbles.
I steal a glance at Baylor. Lysander’s his twin brother. I’ve only ever met Lysander…. Curse it. I can only remember meeting him in bane form, but I saw the flare of desperation in Baylor’s eyes when Thiago said that my mother was offering Lysander back as a peace offering.
And I have to say it. “I agree with Finn. This is going to end badly. Why would my mother propose a peace offering? She wants our heads. She wants war.”
“She’s stalling,” Thiago murmurs. “This is merely a distraction. I also suspect she’ll present Lysander to us, and then have a guard drive a sword through his heart.”
Lysander and Baylor can die, but as long as the Grimm is still alive—even if he’s trapped in his prison world—the second the moon rises they’ll be resurrected.
“He’ll rise.”
“Still hurts like a bitch. And with every death….” Baylor’s face turns to stone. “With every death, it becomes a little more difficult to remember who you are.”
“As long as we’re near the Hallow we’re safe,” I mutter, as we enter the Hallow’s chamber.
The enormous chamber is round, and thirteen huge standing stones mark the edges of the Hallow. They were built to contain the energy that will rise when we activate the runes carved into their enormous columns.
Everyone takes their place inside the circle, a squad of a dozen guards falling in beside us, and nervousness runs through me.
The ley line calls to me, a soft whisper that stirs over my skin. I’ve always felt it, but it wasn’t until three months ago that I realized no one else can.
Thiago shoots me a grim look, slicing his finger and pressing it to the rune that marks Ruthvien. A discordant buzzing shivers over my skin as the Hallow begins to draw power from far beneath the surface. “I’m not afraid of your mother. If she has an ambush planned, then we will destroy it.”
I wasn’t talking about fleeing.
He thinks I used my fae magic to overthrow my mother at the Queensmoot, and I haven’t dared tell him the truth.
The Old Ones who ruled Arcaedia before the fae arrived are the ones who consecrated the Hallows and bound the power of the ley lines to the stone henges that litter the countryside. The fae might be able to use them as portals, but the Old Ones could access the power and wield it like a whip.
Until the Seelie locked them away in prison worlds that are tied to the Hallows.
Somehow, I accessed that power.
And when I made a deal with the Mother of Night, she told me I was the leanabh an dàn—the child of destiny that is bound to release her and the other Old Ones from their prison world.
Thiago said we couldn’t allow the leanabh an dàn to live, in case they fall into the wrong hands.
He loves me. I know he loves me.
But at what point do I become too much of a burden? Between my mother and her war, my bargain with the Mother of Night, and now this, how far will he go before he starts to regret marrying me?
“Vi?”
I realize he’s holding out a hand toward me as th
e Hallow starts vibrating.
I reach for him, curling my fingers through his. Thiago’s my anchor in any storm. I spent my entire life wishing someone would love me, and even now there’s a part of me that thinks he’s too good to be true.
“We’ll be all right,” he murmurs, giving it a squeeze. “We’re ready for anything your mother has planned.”
I’ll tell him the truth one day. I swear I will.
But right now, I force a smile and rest my other hand on the hilt of my sword, prepared for anything.
The Hallow ignites, plunging us into darkness.
Every part of me feels stretched thin. Whirling. Set adrift.
And then we land with a shudder in Ruthvien.
“No ambush,” Finn mutters as we spread out from the Hallow.
“Find them,” Thiago commands, and the handsome hunter vanishes into the trees that loom around us.
“It won’t happen here. My mother likes suspense. She’ll want to see your face as her trap encloses us.” Even so, my heart races as we scour the ruins of Ruthvien, searching for a hint of danger.
Nothing.
Just a broken city, snarled over with brambles. The forest is slowly reclaiming it, but I catch a glimpse of polished white marble. Ruthvien used to be the Pearl of the West once.
Waves crash against a distant shore. And the jagged remains of a castle perch atop a hill, reaching desperately for the sky as if to escape the forest’s clutches. This is no new forest. There’s a malevolent feeling to the trees, and little blinking eyes watch us from the shadows. I’m used to demi-fey fluttering through every inch of Ceres with callous disregard for the fae that tramp through their city, but these demi-fey lurk.
And I swear the trees shift, as if to keep us within their field of awareness.
It stands to reason. When the Hallow in the north imploded, the energy transformed everything around it. They say there are packs of deer with sharp teeth that hunt the plains of Taranis, and birds that breathe fire. The fae didn’t survive—something about their magic is incompatible with the Hallow magic—but the creatures did.