by Bec McMaster
He shouldn’t be forced to bear this burden. “You’re not tainted.”
Thiago smiles bitterly, holding out his hands. “You’ve barely seen a glimpse of the truth, Vi.”
I take them and stretch up onto my toes to kiss his lips. “If you were tainted then you wouldn’t have spent thirteen years patiently trying to win my love, only to have me forget you the next time we met. And I’m more than a match for your darkness.” I smile at him. “Evil mother, remember? Possibly an evil father too.”
It steals a half smile from him.
“Oh, Vi. Everything is so easy when it comes to you. Come.” He drags me toward the fountain in the center of the courtyard, where the moon hovers, fat and bloated, on the silvery waters. We walk hand in hand until Thiago gestures for me to sit on the edge of the fountain.
He seats himself beside me, our knees touching, and then he dips his fingers into the fountain. “Do you remember Cian? The unseelie prince I met in the wyldwoods near Valerian last winter?”
I have more recall of my most recent stint as his prisoner in the north—before we broke the curse—than of earlier years. “How can I forget? I thought you were working with Angharad and he was her spy.”
“He’s my foster brother,” he says, “and he’s my spy, not hers.”
“Your foster brother?”
Thiago looks down at the waters. “We were both raised by Old Mother Hibbert. Cian was shunned by the other children, and I made them uncomfortable, so we bonded together. When it came time to leave—when I was forced out—he came with me.”
“Why were you…?”
His smile twists. “My father came looking for me. My kind live alone, but they can sense another from miles away. We were never born to interact; we were born to kill each other and claim their souls. It gives us power and strength, but it also increases the… the killing urge. And my father sensed me.
“Old Mother Hibbert kept us on the move for months, and we were always one step ahead of him, but I knew he was out there. I knew he would kill all the younger children, simply because he could. If I stayed, I was sentencing them to death, and when she looked at me one day, I knew she knew it too.
“She does her best, Vi. But she was no match for my father, and so it wasn’t a choice. She gave me an old sword she had wrapped in the bottom of a trunk, a warm cloak, and as much bread and cheese as she could spare. And when I left, Cian came with me.
“We were on the run for years. I could always sense my father over my shoulder, but if I kept moving, sometimes he would lose me for a few months. And that’s when I went to the Morai for the first time. I needed to know if I could shield myself from him. I needed to know how to escape him. I needed to know how to control the creatures inside me.”
And they’d cast him out, prophesizing ruin if he ever returned.
“The Morai live in the south of Unseelie. Further south than I’d ever been. And for the first time, I felt another sort of pull.” Our eyes meet. “I thought it was you at first. Or the woman who would one day be my wife. It was always an itch I couldn’t escape, but it meant crossing the borders into Seelie, and my kind are hunted down and killed the second they pass the northern wall. But one summer, the itch grew too strong, and I left Cian behind and rode south.” He shrugs, but his face darkens. “I knew I couldn’t ride into Seelie wearing my Unseelie visage, so I vanished my wings and claws. I locked the darker half of myself away, and then I followed the call on the wind.
“The first time I saw her….” He closes his eyes. “I was walking through the markets of Ceres when the royal family rode past. My mother rode at the head of the party on a white palfrey, and the second I laid eyes upon her, I knew she was the one I was drawn to. Perhaps she felt it too, for our eyes met and…. The next thing I knew, her guards had me surrounded. I was going to fight my way free, but she insisted upon an audience.”
“And?”
He glances down, trailing those fingers through the water again. “She cried once she realized who I was. And I….” His hand stills. “I was angry with her for abandoning me. I stormed out of the castle and got blind roaring drunk. But she came for me the next morning, wanting to explain. She knew what I was. She knew the dark urges that rode through my veins, and she’d hoped to spare me from my father’s attentions. If he learned I’d been born, then he would have either killed me or chained me, she said.”
My heart aches for his mother. “And so she gave you away.”
“And so she gave me away.”
A shadow lashes against his throat. I’ve always wondered what they mean—what they are.
“Look at them,” he whispers, and so I slowly unbutton his shirt.
I place a hand against his chest, watching as those tattoos swirl and writhe across his skin. Sometimes they look like hungry wolves. Sometimes they look like monsters hidden in a dark forest. And sometimes they’re simply faces, watching me as I lie in his arms at night.
“The word you’re looking for is darkyn,” he says softly.
“What?”
Our gazes meet, and I feel the kick of his heart beneath my palm.
“In the ancient tongue, it meant dark kind. Over the centuries, that was shortened to darkyn.”
“What are they?” I whisper.
He holds his arm out, and as I watch, those tattoos crawl beneath his skin, little eyes forming and a hungry mouth gaping—
I jerk my hand back as teeth clash shut.
It was instinct, and even though the tattoo creature is contained within his skin, I see the look Thiago gives me.
“Darkness,” he whispers before tugging his shirt closed again. “Pure, utter darkness, and let me assure you, Vi. You don’t want me to lose control of them. Not even for a moment.” And then he leans forward and presses a kiss to my temples. “Is that enough for the night?”
It’s enough.
But I capture his face in my hands and steal a proper kiss from his mouth. “Thank you for sharing your truth with me.”
Thiago lowers his forehead to mine, our fingertips touching. “Thank you, for loving me, despite the shadows on my soul.”
Chapter Twenty
A bound queen can make the lands yield to her whims. A bound queen can heal her people. A bound queen can shatter an invading army with a single click of her fingers.
I stare at the cell in front of me.
This was Thalia’s suggestion.
The hexbreaker managed to shatter Lysander’s curse long enough for him to regain his fae form, though every night he shifts again as the moon overrides his instincts.
Baylor steps forward, lifting his torch. “Brother?”
A shadow separates from the wall, a man prowling out of the darkness. He’s completely nude, and even though he’s been provided with every amenity Baylor can offer, Lysander clearly hasn’t bothered to wash in days. His silvery-blond hair is bound back in a ragged knot at the back of his head, his jaw lined with several days’ worth of scruff.
His eyes are a brilliant, flaring gold.
A wolf’s eyes.
“I can smell her,” Lysander whispers, his gaze raking the shadows for me. “Are you here to torment me again, you bitch?”
“That’s enough,” Baylor growls. “She is your queen and you will offer her your respect.”
A hard knot forms in my stomach.
“You don’t have to do this,” Thiago murmurs, at my side.
I have to try. For Baylor’s sake. For Lysander’s sake.
And for Thiago’s sake.
Taking a deep breath, I push the hood of my cloak back and step into the light. “Hello, Lysander.”
He bares his teeth at me, his nails elongating into claws. “I won’t betray my prince.” He shoots us all a glare. “You’re a lie. You’re all a lie.”
“Use your fucking nose,” Baylor growls. “If you’d bothered to take a wash, you’d be able to smell the truth.”
Lysander snaps his teeth at him.
“Vi,” Thiago
murmurs. “Make it quick.”
I close my eyes and try to reach for the link I share with the land. The scent of flowers fill the air. Lilies. I can feel them spearing through cracks in the floor and trying to bloom.
“What is this?” Lysander growls. “What sorcery is this?”
“Vi is your bound queen,” Baylor says. “It’s no lie. She’s real. She’s here to help you.”
I reach out but there’s nothing to grasp. I can sense Baylor and Thiago’s presences, and if I wanted to, I could probably link with them.
But Lysander is a burning ball of rage that rejects my touch.
“You witch!” he hisses, throwing himself at the bars. “You won’t fool me again. I won’t—”
“Vi?” Thiago grabs my arm.
“He won’t let me in,” I cry. “There’s nothing to grab. No link between us.”
“I will kill you,” Lysander whispers, rattling the bars of the cell. His jaw starts to twist, his eyes burning hotly amber. “You murderous bitch. You traitorous bitch. This is all a lie. Your lie.”
Baylor steps between us, anguish on his face. “Go,” he says to me.
“I’m sorry.”
There’s no emotion on his face. And maybe that’s harder to take. “This isn’t your fault. This was never your fault,” he says.
A howl tears through the room.
Something slams against the bars.
“Come on,” Thiago says, hauling me up the stairs and out of the cells.
I can still hear Lysander raging after the door is shut. Leaning my back against the wall, I unleash a harsh breath, every inch of me quivering.
Thiago drags me into his arms, kissing my forehead. “You tried, Vi. You tried.”
“When you go up against my mother and her little games you have to do more than try,” I gasp, clinging to his wrists. “She’s won this battle. What are we going to do?”
Thiago strokes my face. “Wait. We’re going to wait and give this hex a chance to vanish completely. Lysander’s taken over by the beast right now, but he was always disciplined. I know he will fight his way back.”
“You’re going to leave him there? In the cells?”
Thiago hesitates. “I have no other choice.”
I can’t sleep. Again.
I see Ayelet screaming as that wall of water washes toward us. I see Lysander’s eyes fusing to gold as he loses all his hard-won gains. And I see Thiago on his knees, his head bowed against the weight of what this revelation has cost him.
What my mother has cost him.
I slip from the bed and steal away from our chambers as soft moonlight gilds Ceres. There are few guards within the heart of the castle, and I manage to evade all of them as I make my way to the second-tallest tower within the keep.
I can’t defeat my mother.
Not with a sword, not with my fae magic…. I can’t even make the land rises against her, because I have no power beyond Evernight’s borders.
The Hallow lies still and dormant as I enter, but I can almost sense someone watching me.
Slowly, I light the torches that surround the room before turning back to the center of the Hallow. It hums like a contented cat, the vibration of that power shivering over my skin. Ever since I made the bargain with the Mother of Night, I’ve felt it whispering to me in the night and singing to me during the day.
I close my eyes. “Are you there?”
Power rushes through me, snatching me up in its gaping maw, and then the trap snaps shut around me. It feels like an enormous hand closes around me and then it’s tugging me through the floor….
I fall a thousand miles, lungs screaming for breath.
And when I hit the water, it’s almost a relief to stop falling.
Splashing desperately, I kick for the surface. Little glowing balls of light stir through the water around me, and as I break the surface, I realize more of them stream toward me as though the ripples of my entrance draw them like a fly twisting in a spider’s web.
Curse it.
The shore—
I reach for the power that envelops me here, and then it’s turning me inside out, twisting me through nothing. I land on my hands and knees in the shallows, cursing under my breath. I hate this place.
But as I lift my head, I know the worst is yet to come….
The Mother of Night walks down the slopes of her island prison, her black silk robes swishing around her ankles and a satisfied smile on her lips. “Of course I’m here, Iskvien. I am always here, watching over you. And I always will be.”
Scrambling to my feet, I splash out of the water, but there’s no escape. She drew me here. How in the Underworld did she do that? She’s supposed to be trapped in the Mistmere Hallow, so how did she reach through the Hallow in Ceres—?
“I didn’t,” she says calmly. “You called me, Iskvien. And you opened the link between us. Since I cannot leave my prison….” She gives a sinister little smile and a shrug.
“Send me back.”
She tilts her head. “I thought you wished to talk?”
Every muscle in my body freezes. “The last time we talked, you trapped me into this fucking quest for a crown that doesn’t seem to exist.”
Dark, merciless eyes. “It exists,” she says and then turns and walks away.
I stare at her back.
“Then why is there no trace of it? Someone has to know where it lies. Or maybe it was destroyed—"
“It cannot be destroyed.”
She has to be lying. For every Spell of Making, there is a Spell of Unmaking.
“The crown is the key to everything. Come, Iskvien. If you wish to know how to defeat your mother, come….”
And so I follow her.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Mother smiles as she sinks onto her throne.
Carved of ebony basalt, it would seem almost menacing if not for the filigreed pattern of stars and moons woven into the stone. Someone has painstakingly carved moonstone and used it to fill the chiseled moons.
“You could defeat her, yes,” the Mother finally says. “Power sings through your veins, Iskvien. You have the promise of the best of my kind as well as your mother’s ancestry. If you learned to harness your gifts, you could force your mother to crawl at your feet. You could make her regret every little betrayal she’s ever given you. You could tear apart mountains with a thought and cause forests to grow in a night. You could sing the stars from the sky if you wished it.”
She’s lying. She has to be lying.
“You want me to free you. You’d say anything to make me free you.”
“Of course I wish to be freed. I never said that you will defeat her,” the Mother replies. “Merely that the promise is there. Do you think you are the first to be born of such a powerful coupling? Do you think you will be the last?” She leans forward. “I am patient, little princess. If not you, then another will come. If not you, then I will turn my attentions elsewhere. You’re not the only one who makes the earth tremble with their footfall. You could even hear them walking the lands if you learned to listen.”
My fingers slide to the golden filigreed bracelet trapped around my wrist. “There’s another leanabh an dàn?”
She merely smiles. “That is your question to answer.”
In the silence, all I can hear is my heart beating.
If there’s another one out there, then perhaps Angharad will turn her attentions upon them if she finds me too difficult to rein in. All I have to do is keep away from her hunters.
Find the crown.
And kill my mother.
“Why did you come to me?” the Mother murmurs. “For questions you could answer if you continue to search your books?”
I don’t know why….
Or do I?
I swallow. “Why did you help me? Why did you let Eris wake?”
“You wanted proof,” she says. “It’s difficult for the Dreamthief to escape the command of the Mirror, but he can do it, if the cause is strong enoug
h. We have never been your enemy, Iskvien. But you know that, don’t you? That’s why you’re here.”
“You weren’t always the enemy of my people. The last queen who ruled Mistmere was fae, and she also worshipped you.”
The Mother of Night glances down. “Abalonia was a special case. She was wise and powerful and… she could be reasoned with. Mistmere is the border between two peoples—the seelie and the unseelie—and Abalonia knew it. She created a haven for her seelie, and yet she also welcomed the unseelie and the sylvaren within her territories. Hers was the only kingdom that knew true peace.”
I hesitate.
“What do you want to know, Iskvien?” Her depthless eyes seem to see right through me.
I rub my hands up my arms. “You said I was the leanabh an dàn.”
“Yes.”
“Who is my father?”
She cocks her head. “And what will you give me if I answer?”
No. “I’m not making any more bargains with you.”
“Then I have no reason to answer.”
This time it’s my turn to smile as I stalk up the hillside toward her. “Something just occurred to me—you were waiting for me to reach out for you, weren’t you? You’ve been sitting here like a spider in the dark, waiting for me to turn toward the Hallow so you have a chance to reach me.” I pause at the foot of the throne. “You cannot force me to free you and your kind. But you can persuade me to consider your argument. Well, this is your chance. Persuade me. Convince me you’re not a monster.”
“Oh, but I am, sweet child.” Curling her fingers over the arms of her throne, she leans forward, and it feels as though she grows. The shadow of her throne lengthens, sweeping across the island behind her. A vicious chill seems to settle. “I am the monster in the dark that my people prayed to. I am the cold, merciless vengeance they needed when their enemies stalked them. I am the beast that protected them when the bright and shining fae came with their wars and their armor. I am the Queen of the Whispering Dark, and I am the reason the fae feared the night.”