Prince of Air and Darkness

by M. A. Grant

  “We went to the bank this morning. It’s fine. We’re fine. The farm’s still ours. We aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Holy crap.”

  It doesn’t matter that I’m sitting in the middle of campus on a bench dressed in workout clothes. I tilt my head back and wipe away the tears spilling down my cheeks, laughing along with my mother.

  Our home is safe. The place that’s meant the most to me all my life remains part of our family. Whatever happens to me, it will still be there to protect them.

  It takes a while for our laughter to peter out and I enjoy the warmth of the autumn sun on my skin.

  “Honey, can I ask you something?” She only waits long enough for me to make a noise of consent before she continues. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do with your magick?”

  The bench back digs into my shoulder blades when I stiffen. I bluster for a moment, unable to decide what lie would hurt her the least, but Mom knows me too well. “I thought if you knew we were okay,” she says, “it might make the decision easier for you.”

  I wonder if it would have changed my choice about closing myself off from the ley line. Mastering its magick was critical to supporting my parents, but Roark’s singular ability to share the experience became just as important to me. Knowing we would never again work together to forge that raw energy would reopen the wound of our separation every time I channeled. I don’t know if I could have handled that in the immediate aftermath. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to handle it, or even want to try.

  Mom’s still going, gaining speed as she builds to her real point. “Your father and I talked a lot after you left. We didn’t know how much pressure you were under. Until you told us what was happening, we never dreamed you’d try to make such an awful choice.”

  “It wasn’t awful,” I protest, but the noise she makes is pure skepticism.

  “You thought you had to pick us or your magick. The same magick you said was part of you.”

  Heat prickles my ears and I know I’m flushing. When she says it like that, like it’s a delusion she can’t believe I lived with for so long, I feel awkwardly young and inexperienced. I pick at a small hole forming in my shirt and mumble, “I didn’t mind. I...I needed to protect you.”

  “Finny, listen to me. Are you listening? We are your parents. It is our job to protect you. We didn’t do such a great job the past year—ah, ah, ah, don’t interrupt me, young man!—but that ends now. No more hiding, no more pretending everything is okay.” Her sigh gusts through the line. “You are not indebted to us because you were born. Your life is your own. However long or short you decide that is.”

  I try to hide my sniffling as I use my shirt to mop away the fresh tears. Mom hears it anyway and I press the phone harder to my ear when she clears her throat. It takes a beat, but she says, “I may not know much about magick or its consequences, but I know about living. Heartache is a part of life. You have to walk with it. And when the time comes, you leave it behind and run toward hope, no matter the cost.”

  “But you and Dad—”

  “Only want you to be happy,” she interrupts. Her tenderness makes me cry harder and the shirt’s fabric grows damp against my hand when I continue to press it to my face. “We don’t have to understand. We just need to know it’s what you’ve chosen. Whatever happens, we’ll be okay. All of us.”

  She waits patiently for the worst of the crying to end before asking, “Do you understand me, Finny? We’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, Mom. I heard you.”

  “Good. Now that we have that little detail cleared up—”

  I can’t contain a watery chuckle. “Little detail. Right.”

  “I know Thanksgiving is soon,” she says, “and I doubt you can get back here in time, but I do expect you home for Christmas.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You should bring Roark with you. He was so polite and I’d love to actually have a chance to visit with him.”

  The damn freak frost didn’t just hit Iowa. My entire body seizes. “Roark?”

  “He stopped by the day after you went home. He promised he’d come back to visit some other time. He felt horrible about missing the weekend.” She mistakes my stunned silence. “Don’t be embarrassed, Finny. He’s a handsome man and your father and I can understand your interest in him. But, while you were here, your father did have the talk with you, didn’t he?”

  “Oh my God.”

  “He said he did.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Fine, forget I asked. I just want to make sure you’re being smart about this.” She tries to soothe my ego a bit more, unaware that my mind is light-years away, and finally makes her goodbyes.

  I hang up with her in a daze.

  I left the farm on a Monday. Roark showed up on Tuesday. Wednesday, a freak frost left the price of soybeans skyrocketing, just in time for my parents to cash in and save the farm.

  He was just here. I saw him. Yelled at him, accused him of not caring, and he took it. He could have defended himself and he didn’t. Didn’t even mention what he’d done.

  Roark saved my home.

  I have to fix this.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Roark

  “You should come with us to Orkney,” Edward says, taking another sip of nectar. “Donal and Niall wouldn’t mind. It would be like old times.”

  I offer him a polite smile. Edward was one of my more skilled lovers, but there was little to tie us outside of the bedroom. Mother liked him. He’s the consummate politician. Think, Roark, he’d be a perfect partner for your position, she said when I finally told her I was ending it. The promise of political success wasn’t enough for me. Edward took my rejection with the same staid rationality with which he took everything.

  Honestly, if I hadn’t met Smith, Edward and I probably would have worked out. But once I was living in that apartment, interacting with Smith daily, even if it was just us threatening to kill each other, I came to appreciate the volatility which exists in the non-fae. Three months in, I couldn’t stand it any longer and broke it off with Edward for good. I had more fun fighting with Smith than I ever did fucking Edward. And then, when Smith and I somehow became more... Goddess, I’ll never be able to accept anything else. Anyone else.

  Dressed in my Court uniform, the cell phone I hid in my interior jacket pocket burns against my skin, begging me to slip away and write a text I know I’d regret the moment I sent it. This morning, Smith was crystal clear about his feelings toward me. He needs me to explain myself. I don’t know if I can bear that, not with all the mistakes I’ve made. Besides, how would I even start to apologize for everything I’ve done? And if he accepted that apology, would there be a point to a reconciliation when I’m days away from assuming the Knight’s mantle? How is that fair to him?

  It’s better this way. Better for him to hate me and move on. I did the right thing by keeping silent.

  “Roark,” Edward says, trying to regain my attention.

  “Hmm?”

  “You seem distracted.”

  Damn. Pull it together.

  “No,” I lie, “just enjoying being home.”

  Edward nods sagely. “Your mother’s missed you. Many of the courtiers have as well. You always managed to keep things...peaceful.”

  Polite way of saying I balanced out my brothers’ wild ways.

  “Are you taking a more permanent residence in the sídhe?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “I see.” He doesn’t frown. Edward never frowns. But his words are the closest to condemnation he’s ever come.

  I refuse to bite and give him the opportunity to share his opinion. Instead, I take another sip of my rye whiskey, reveling in its burn. Mother was horrified when I requested it for the party, but since I’ve been threatening to miss the event, she wasn’t above using it as a bribe to ensure my attendance.

  As if I could get out of tonight. It’s our last celebration before the real politickin
g begins. In a few short days, the Seelie will send an emissary to complete the Rite Hibernum. The monarchs of both Courts rely on the refined power shared back and forth each year; they are responsible for fueling all their subjects from this wellspring. The emissary serves as a living vessel for this power. We accept the Seelie emissary’s offer of sacrifice and reclaim our power as we’ve done for millennia, and when our seasons are done, we send an emissary of our own to the Summer Court. At least, that’s the plan.

  Once the power between the Courts swings back to us, I’ll be able to breathe easier. Mother will make me her Knight. We’ll pull the rest of our people back into the safety of our stronghold. The war will withdraw to the realm of the fae alone, since no Seelie would be stupid enough to make another attack on Mathers with waning power. Good for my subjects, good for me, good for Smith. The sooner this blasted war returns to our world and abandons the world of humanity, the safer he’ll be.

  “Is it true what they whisper?” Edward asks.

  I glance at him, surprised by his boldness. The Edward I knew never would have dared bring up rumors. He would have considered that beneath him.

  “What are they whispering?” I counter, intrigued by this new development.

  He leans in closer, murmuring in my ear, “A new Knight will rise before the end of Samhain.”

  Despite the alcohol, icy dread fills me. Fortunately, what little glamour I scraped together to cover my nearly healed nose for this event hides my reaction. “I never knew you to be interested in the Queen’s enforcer.”

  His fingers slide down my spine, caressing me with a lightness belying his fear of discussing this. My skin crawls from his possessive touch. He presses on, “I wasn’t concerned until word reached me that you were to inherit the role.”

  Edward’s glamour presses against mine, its weight cool and familiar. Familiar, but nothing like the electric buzz of Smith’s presence. I flinch, remembering how I reached for him this afternoon only to encounter...nothing. A void. The ley line was gone, and Smith was nothing but an empty shell. He said he turned it off because it hurt too much.

  I did that. I hurt him that badly.

  “My prince,” Edward murmurs. He must have read my flinch for some kind of confession of apprehension about my future role. “Don’t take on the mantle,” he pleads quietly. “I couldn’t bear to watch you lose yourself to it.”

  I want comfort. I want whispered lies that my path could still veer in a different direction. But I don’t want them from him.

  “You underestimate me, Edward.” Over my shoulder, I note the surprise and embarrassment he can’t hide fast enough. “And I am no longer your concern.”

  His hand drops, but not immediately. “I had hoped, as someone who cares for you—”

  “As someone who once cared for me,” I correct idly, finishing off my whiskey.

  His hand clenches and he looks down at his feet. But his glamour shifts wildly, scratching against mine like unrefined wool. A small group near us glances over, distracted from their inane conversation by Edward’s emotional reaction.

  Across the room, Mother flicks her gaze toward us. A tiny furrow appears between her brows. Dammit. Her attention is the last thing I need tonight.

  “I will take your advice into consideration,” I say quickly, hoping to end this scene and escape before my mother reaches us. She’s already abandoned her conversation with a fermentation ogre to make her way through the crowd.

  “Your Highness, please, I beg you for another chance to win your affection—”

  “Too late, I’m afraid,” I interrupt. “Excuse me. I just remembered an important task I needed to complete.”

  Humiliating as it may be, I flee. No one tries to stop me on my flight from the ballroom. I avoid the halls; too many alcoves filled with inebriated fae looking to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh on their night of triumph. Instead, I skim the nearby mirrored panel with my glamour.

  Open.

  Unlike some of its inhabitants, the sídhe itself is unwaveringly loyal. The royal family has unlimited power here, power to create, to destroy, to change. The chambers of our home are formed from magickal will alone and not all the rooms are accessible, even to the Queen.

  Yes, the sídhe is loyal, but it’s also fickle. It obeys, but often only to the letter of the demand. I learned many years ago while escaping my older brother’s torments that the sídhe can be negotiated with. If it likes you, if it feels you appreciate it, it will come to your aid without hesitation.

  It does that now for me. I push through the wall into one of the libraries. A cheerful fire crackles in the grate and the scent of ink and parchment and leather is so familiar I want to cry. This room has always been my safe haven. The fact that my home remembers that and offers it to me now, trying to comfort me as no one here has, strips some of my defenses.

  On instinct, I move to the long table and the open tome sitting there. I blow off the thin layer of dust coating the cover and skim my finger over the rough-cut parchment pages. A quick flip, and the book falls open to the page I have memorized.

  My finger traces the lines and whorls, the family tree extending like a cascade of leaves down to my mother. Queen Mab, Empress of the Gloaming and Winter, Head of the Unseelie, Lady of Air and Darkness. They never bothered to write in the names of her consorts. She’s outlived them all and stricken their names from all records. I trace the line further.

  Sláine, High Prince of Earth and Ruin, Lord of the Sídhe.

  Roark, Prince of Air and Darkness, Lord of the Ravens.

  Lugh, Prince of War and Chaos, Lord of the Wild Hunt.

  My brothers and I. The ink script of my name is more faded than theirs. My fault, that. I spent too many years sliding my finger over the words, as I do now, forcing myself to believe I deserve my place here. That the ink somehow makes my sacrifices permanent. That my presence on this page means I’ll be remembered after I fade into nothingness.

  Behind me, a door opens and there’s a hesitation before the room echoes with the click of heels.

  “Can you afford to leave your guests?” I ask without looking up from the book.

  “If my son is in pain, of course,” my mother says. She peers over my shoulder and smiles down at the page. “You’re the only one to bear my title.”

  I straighten and close the book. “I know, Mother.”

  “I’m afraid it made your elder brother furious.”

  “I know that, too.”

  A rustle from my left. Her dress is the color of snow, with shadows clawing up the fabric like skeletal branches, clasping her in a corset of darkness which extends higher into a subtle collar and higher still to her crown. A gleaming contraption of shadow and bone and ice, leaving no doubt to her right to rule.

  She takes a place by the fire, staring at the flames. “You have been throwing yourself into your work for days. Bridget says you rarely take meals or sleep.”

  “My apologies.”

  “I am worried.”

  I bow my head at the mild accusation. “I’m healing.”

  “In body or mind?”

  “Both. I’ll be ready to take on the mantle.”

  She lets my lie hang between us and moves away from the fire that casts her features in flickering light. She stands beside a small table and the delicate chessboard resting on it. All the pieces are carved from bone. White from Seelie, black from Unseelie. A gruesome tableau of the enemies who failed to dethrone her. The second chessboard on the bookcase near the table remains unfinished. It’s been that way for centuries.

  “I heard you visited campus today.” Her dark eyes pierce me as she runs her fingers over one of the pawns on the chessboard. “You returned in a temper.”

  “I don’t like delivering bad news.”

  “I also heard you returned bloodied.”

  I keep my mouth shut.

  She sighs. “Did you run into the human? Does he know we aided his family?”

  “No. I intend to keep it that way.
”

  “Hopefully you can soon be done with him.” Her features gentle and she graces me with a rare smile. “I wish you happiness, my son. I wish you joy. But we both know you must move on to find that.”

  “I have no intention of doing so.”

  The flames in the fireplace whip into nonexistence as their fuel ices over. The room is deathly still but for the tap-tap-tap of her finger on the knight piece.

  Mother watches me with serpentine eyes, dark and fathomless and deadly. “Roark Tahm Lyne, you must end your puerile fascination with him.”

  “His name is Phineas. And I...can’t.”

  Her spine stiffens. “The first honest words you’ve said to me since you agreed to become the Knight.”

  “Running into him today was an accident. A happy accident,” I say, well aware of the ice spreading over the floor. Everything has already been decided, my fate sealed, so why should I deny the truth any further? “I care for him. I’ve already agreed to take up the mantle. That will steal him from me soon enough. Please don’t ask me to give those memories up sooner.”

  “Please?” Soft lethality in that question. “He’s a human,” she spits. “A speck of dust in the vastness of our immortality.”

  “And I love him.”

  Not too long ago, her expression would have left me spinning glamour upon glamour, hiding everything that is me. Burying it deeper and deeper until I’m naught but her good soldier again.

  Now, I stare into the maelstrom yawning before me and think that perhaps the feathers on my scale could be enough to tip the balance. Not enough to make me forget him or stop worrying about him, but enough that I can be strong and give him the freedom he deserves. It’s better this way. It must be better this way. “Mother, I love him,” I repeat, gently this time.

  She recoils at the words.

  “He’s precious to me. That will never change.”

  Her hands are so cold when I take them in mine, pressing them to my chest, urging her silently to look at me.