by Elena Lawson
“Tiernan!” I shoved him.
His eyes widened in mock injustice and he rubbed at his wounded shoulder, “You needn’t ask,” he said more seriously, “I have everything I need right here.”
The door to the chamber swung open and Edris strode into the room. “Ah, Your Majesty. Early, I see.”
I nodded to the former King Consort, “You may call me by my name when we’re without mixed company,” I offered him. It was the first I’d seen of the male since we first returned over a week ago. He had seen I was alive and unmarred, heaved a relieved sigh and thanked Alaric—and then he’d left.
I owed him a debt. The only reason I still wore my crown—the only reason no one at court even knew I’d been missing or died was because of him. I wouldn’t go so far as to start calling him Father, but, “Thank you,” I said to him and watched his eyes widen.
He bowed his head, understanding my meaning, “I owe you that and more, Liana.”
Yes, you do, I thought to myself, pulling a chair from the long oval table.
Finn abandoned his brooding at the window, making room for Arrow to land on the ledge. The falcon crooned softly, tucking in his wings to protect his body from the chill. I shook my head at the creature, sighing. It seemed I owed Tiernan’s pet my life as well. If it weren’t for Arrow showing my males the way to the ruined palace, they may not have found me in time.
The other council members filed into the chamber, their unfinished conversations pouring in with them—echoing off the stone walls. Finn took the chair next to me, and Tiernan stood at my back with his hands clasped at his front. I saw Edris’ brows furrow when he realized I had no intention of asking my males to leave.
I really didn’t understand why they thought I would follow all their rules. Last I checked, I was their queen. It made little sense that I should have to follow their rules. Besides, Finn was likely smarter than all the fools in the room put together. And Tiernan was more level-headed than most and had the heart of a true warrior.
One by one, the council members took notice of the Draconian and the day-court-emissary-turned-queens-guardian.
The court's baron of finance, a sour-faced male with milky eyes was the first to protest, “Your royal guard has no business attending council meetings.”
“Here, here!” said a bearded noble with a golden ring on each of his fingers.
I rolled my eyes.
Silas pulled out a chair and sat. I hadn’t seen him since the memorial for the Draconian’s who fell at Mt. Ignis, and he looked more tired and pale than I’d ever seen him. I swallowed.
The leader of the Horde armies still hadn’t found his sister, and now I had to tell him he never would—unless he was lucky enough to stumble upon her corpse. “Leave them be,” he said, “I have other matters to attend to. Let’s get this over with.”
The others grumbled their discontent but said no more, all except Edris waiting with bitter expressions.
I thought about how to begin. My throat suddenly dry and my shoulders tense. Tiernan placed a warm hand on my shoulder, lending me his strength. Finn gave me a small nod from where he sat, his face grim.
I supposed there was no sense in dancing around the facts.
I cleared my throat and did my best to meet each of their impatient stares.
“The Mad King lives.”
I told them what I knew. Tiernan and Finn did their best to help me explain it all. We told them about the missing Fae, and how the Mad King was the one who’d taken them. And how they were now almost certainly dead. We told them about the Blessed Blade, and his plans to take back the Night Court’s throne.
We didn’t tell them about what happened a week prior. Nor did I feel the need to explain to them about my Graces just yet. They had enough to digest as it was.
Their reactions ranged from blatant disbelief to stupefied awe, to open worry. Edris sat quietly, taking in the information we presented them. Silas’ hands were white-knuckled fists atop the table. His jaw tense—his eyes ringed in red.
“You’re certain,” Silas growled, more a statement than a question.
I nodded, “I’m so sorry.”
Silas stood in such a rush his chair flipped over behind him. He took a deep, shaking breath, visibly attempting to calm himself. I applauded the effort. I didn’t have a sister, or any siblings save for the one who’d died before I was born, so I didn’t know how he felt. But I imagined it was agony trying to maintain composure, “Do we know where his forces are gathering? Or how many lives—how many Graces he’s been able to steal?”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer him. We knew so little it was pathetic, and the simple word stuck in my throat, not allowing me to utter it. “Um, well—”
“No.” It was Finn who answered him, “My brother, and I have combed the entire expanse of the Wastes and found nothing. There were remnants of an abandoned camp near the western shores, but it housed no more than fifty Fae.”
“A bluff?” The bearded noble at the other end of the table barked, “Isn’t it obvious? You say Valin was the one who told you these things? The bastard was just trying to frighten you.”
Silas scowled, “I never liked him.”
I shoved my hair away from my sweat-slicked chest, “It isn’t a bluff. Trust me.”
Silas paced the small space between his chair and the wall, “We send scouts to locate him and this—this army of his then—”
“We have sent scouts. They’ve found nothing.”
“Then we send more!” Silas stopped, his fists slamming down against the table so hard the wood trembled where I sat.
I inhaled deeply through my nose, “I agree, Silas. We must find him. Until we do, we have no way of knowing what we’re dealing with.”
A vein jutted out from the war captain’s neck, “And when we find him, we’ll crush him and his army before they get anywhere near this court.”
I chewed the inside of my lip. That would be the best solution, but why did I feel like that wasn’t how it would happen? Something about Ricon, and about the way Valin had said he would take back the throne—as though it was the obvious—no, the only outcome made me wonder what the Mad King had up his sleeve.
Finn was deep in heated conversation with Silas, explaining exactly where he and Kade had happened upon the abandoned camp, and also every place they’d searched.
There were forests in the Wastes, Silas had suggested. Forests of great pine trees that never lost their needles, and grand leafy trees that formed a ceiling-like canopy over the earth below. “They could be there,” Silas said, but they had already searched the forests, and it would be impossible to hide an entire army from sight there, anyway.
We were grasping at straws. And I knew—somewhere out there, the Mad King was readying for war while we bickered and fumbled.
“You must ready the Horde armies, Silas,” I said, swallowing against the quaking in my chest.
He halted his conversation with Finn, and both men looked at me with a mixture of horror and confusion in their eyes, “Majesty,” Silas began, “We have no idea what we’re dealing with, here. And until we do—”
“I want my armies ready, Silas,” I said, stronger. With no room for argument, “Call them in.”
There had been little reason to have our entire army together in centuries. I knew how it worked—more or less. The Horde had five-thousand fighting men and women, but only a thousand were active and training at a time, cycling out with the other four thousand every forty days. There were crops that needed tending, and families that needed feeding.
After almost a thousand years without war, there was no reason to have five-thousand men almost permanently removed from their families.
But now, there was a reason. “Gather the troops,” I said, swallowing, “I want them ready within a fortnight.”
Silas snorted, “Your Majesty—”
“The queen has decided,” Tiernan said, standing. He had been so silent, I’d almost forgotten he was there. “Se
nd your scouts, and see what you can find, and get our forces mustered.”
Our forces. The looks on the faces of my council members at Tiernan’s use of the word was hard to miss. In their eyes, he would never be a part of ours or us. A Day Court Fae couldn’t ever be.
I shook my head solemnly, “Do as I’ve asked. Tell them only what they must know and nothing more,” I implored Silas. “If I’m wrong, each and every soldier in my army will be paid handsomely for their wasted time.”
The baron of finance choked on the wine in his chalice and looked as though he might faint. But he said nothing, just stared at me in horror. The baron might pray I’m right just so we don’t bankrupt the kingdom.
But I pray I’m wrong—that it was a bluff. That we can find the Mad King and kill him before he’s able to raise an army or cause any more harm to the denizens of my court.
Praying has never gotten me anywhere.
Chapter Two
Liana
The chill evening air pricked like ice against the furnace of my flesh. “That’s it,” Kade said, “Slowly.”
We were training as we’d been doing each day since our return to palace nearly ten days past. And my Graces were becoming easier to control. Fire was still the most difficult, but that was why we trained next to the ocean shore, there was nothing to burn and it was far from anyone who might happen upon us.
The land was wild here. The trees growing in the sand far in the distance gnarled and moss-covered. The shores littered with shells and petrified wood, softened by the eternal tumbling of the ocean’s currents.
I pulled at the fire Grace in my core—but gently. As though it were a rabid animal I were coaxing from a dark corner. Afraid it might bite. I lifted my hand and with a small flick of my wrist, a curling orb of flame seeped out from the pores in my skin. Rested, hovering just above my palm.
Kade nodded his approval, “That’s it. Now, just a little bigger.”
This was the part I always struggled with. Once the fire had started, it was quick to grow out of control—just as a forest fire would be. Coaxing miniscule amounts of my Grace forth from my core, I bit down hard on my bottom lip to keep it in check.
The orb swelled as I channeled the heat down through my arm, into my wrist, and out my fingertips. But then the floodgates were open, and I couldn’t find the crank to shut them again. My eyes widened at the sudden rush of power, and I aimed my palm away from Kade and Alaric. Blasted the water with a horse-sized ball of leaping, turbulent fire.
The ocean swallowed it. The water simmering and then sputtering, spitting out steam from its surface.
Kade puckered his bottom lip, “Well, it’s better than yesterday.”
I groaned in frustration, “How long did it take you to control it?” I asked Kade, falling back onto the sand to stare up into the darkening sky.
He clucked his tongue, and Alaric came from where he was watching a safe distance away to sit down next to me, “You really don’t want to know,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and heaved a great, loud sigh. “Why does everything have to be so damned difficult?”
“Speaking of difficult,” Kade said, blocking my view of the red-stained sky with his fat head, “I was thinking,” he started, glancing toward Alaric as though the captain may not like what he was about to say, “I think you should train in hand to hand combat. There are times like—like what happened with the bindstone that—well,” he stammered, scratching at the back of his head, “What I mean to say is there are times when having that skill is necessary.”
And there it was again—that look in his eyes. As though he was hanging from the end of a rope.
Alaric told me to let it be. That he would come out of it and realize the truth on his own—that what happened in the ruined palace was not his fault.
Kade wouldn’t look at me, and he’d hardly touched me in the days we’d been together since… since I’d died. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he’d thrown our last game of chess. I had even tried to let him get ahead. Give him a better chance to win, but he’d put himself in a corner—had practically begged me to check his king so the game would be over.
I wanted my Kade back. And he better hurry up because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand to see him this way.
I turned to Alaric, finding him staring into the wispy clouds on the horizon in pensive, taught, silence. After a time, the tension in his face lessened, and he turned to look at me and Kade, “He’s right. It’s important that you learn how to defend yourself without the use of your Graces.”
It had been months since I’d last trained with the seven sisters on the Isle of Mist. Della had been a weapon embodied in woman-form, but she’d only taught me the basics. What need would a queen have to use that sort of skill? That’s what Thana said. Little did I know she was only trying to keep me from growing stronger, so she could do the Mad King’s bidding without me putting up too much of a fight.
“It’s a good idea,” I told Kade, “Will you teach me?”
He snorted, “No, I was thinking Alaric, or maybe Tiernan. Finn and I are good, but we have relied too heavily on our Graces and our ability to fly.” He looked a little embarrassed at the admission, “Alaric has been training with the sword since he was a boy, and I’ve never seen anyone fight like Tiernan—the male moves like water with a sharp edge.”
“And your Graces will bend to your will, Liana,” Alaric said, changing the subject back to the task at hand.
I could tell the very idea of me in close combat with anyone unsettled him to no end. “Finn has been doing more research and after we’ve all completed the Immortal Bond with you, you should be able to see and feel the control we have over our Graces. Mimic it, so to speak. It will be easier.”
I picked up a handful of cool sand from my side and watched it slip through my fingers, carried away by the wind. “Why do we have to wait? We should do it now—bond, I mean.”
“The bond is strongest when performed under the light of a full moon,” Kade reminded me for the hundredth time. I had to question whether he still wanted to bond with me at all by the way he’d said it, “You’re bonding with not one, but four males—”
“It’s never been done before—at least, not to our knowledge. We’ll take every advantage we can get to make sure it works,” Alaric added.
The half-moon taunted me from its perch high above. It would be days—no weeks before it was full. A fortnight—give or take.
Fourteen days
I could wait fourteen more days, right?
Kade stretched out his arms. Rolled his shoulders back and loosened the muscles in his neck. The sun had almost sunk below the line of the horizon, and its burnt orange glow turned his skin a shining bronze. His golden eyes looked brighter against it, and his short brown hair darker.
Alaric stared off with his steel-blue eyes into the churning waves. His strong jaw set, and his brows pulled together in concentrated thought. How I longed to wipe the worry from his features. To see the ecstasy in them like I had that night in my bathing chamber, and later, in my bed.
Fourteen days. I gulped, trying to quell the ache spreading low in my belly and the heat pooling between my thighs.
Just when I was about to say to hell with it and ask them to take me home and ravish me until dawn, the sound of Finn’s approach broke the spell—forcing a helping of sense and propriety down my throat.
He swooped down onto the tiny shoreline next to us, cocking his head, “I thought you were training, not napping,” he chastised with a smirk.
“Ugh,” I groaned, “Just get us home, will you?”
His eyes widened, and he chuckled, “So, you had a productive day, then?”
I rose from the sand, beyond ready to return to the palace, and have myself a very large amount of wine.
Alaric brushed the light sand off his trousers, his black hair falling over his already darkened eyes, “Has Silas sent word yet?” he asked Finn, “Have his scouts uncovered anything?”
The captain of the Horde armies had sent three teams of scouts, two over land and one made up of six Draconians, who searched from the sky. It had only been two days, but combined with the two scout parties Alaric sent out, they should’ve found something by now.
Finn shook his head, “I just came from the Horde camp. And no, there’ve found nothing.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said, “Why would Valin lie about an attack? They already had me—had planned to kill me—why lie about something like that?”
Alaric pursed his lips, and cleared his throat, “I don’t think Valin lied. I believe the Mad King would attempt to reclaim his throne. And even with his abilities, he would have to take it by force—he’d have to have a very large army to even dream of taking on the Horde.”
I shivered.
“That’s the most confusing part,” Finn said, pulling me into his arms and rubbing soothing circles into my back.
I tilted my head up to look at him, “What is?”
“Like Alaric said, Ricon would have to have a sizeable force to have a chance at succeeding, but what I don’t understand is where he would get a force that large. There are some Fae who live in the Wastes. There are small villages, but that’s all.”
Alaric said, “They number only in the hundreds. Not thousands.”
“Exactly,” Finn nodded, and I understood why he was so confused. Even if the Mad King were able to gather every Fae in all the Wastes, he would only have an army of perhaps a thousand, and they would not be warriors—he’d have an army of simple folk. Farmers. Peasants, and the scourge that lived within caves in the mountains.
“We’ll figure it out,” Kade said, tossing a large rock up and down in hand, his gaze fixed on the spot where the sun had just slipped below the water, “He’ll have to show his ugly face sometime right?” He shrugged and threw the stone far out to sea.
Finns arms tensed around me.
Alaric walked over to Kade, “We should get back.”