Grave War (An Alex Craft Novel)

by Kalayna Price

  I did what I had to do.

  And I believed that. But it still had damaged me to the core of my being. Not that I had time to focus on that fact.

  Brad was a few yards in front of me. I crawled to him and pressed my fingers to his throat. A strong pulse beat against my fingertips, and he groaned at my cold touch, his eyelids twitching but not opening. Unconscious, probably had a concussion, but if I could find a way out of here, I hoped he’d be okay.

  My father made a noise, a sucking, wheezing cough, and I hurried to him next. The wound in his chest oozed blood. Oozing instead of pulsing probably wasn’t a good sign. It likely meant he was nearly out of blood. I was surprised he was still alive at all.

  “How can I help?” I asked, kneeling down in front of him. His skin was ashen, lips bloodless. “We need a healer.”

  He shook his head. Reaching out, he took my hand, patting it lightly. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out, whatever words he planned to say remaining lost in the hiss of his labored breathing.

  “Damn it. I need a door out of here to get some help,” I yelled, frustration warring with desperation.

  Golden vines sprang from the floor right beside me. I scuttled backward, afraid they’d reach for me, but they wove around each other, forming a growing arch. An arch identical to the one I’d taken to reach the high court.

  I’d asked for a door, and I’d gotten one.

  “Okay then,” I whispered, pushing up to my feet and approaching the doorway. I couldn’t see what was on the other side, didn’t know where it would take me. To help, presumably, as that was what I’d requested, but I wasn’t sure Faerie’s version of help would match mine. I hadn’t heard Faerie inside me since I’d accepted being High Queen, but I could feel her around me, and in my mind, alien and strange.

  A soft wind fluttered through the room, and I could have sworn I heard laughter in it. Was . . . was Faerie laughing at my internal dialogue? The laughter in the wind grew louder, the breeze ruffling my curls.

  Right. Well, that was weird. But I didn’t have time to examine it. I needed to find a healer. I started toward the doorway but then stopped. Only those of the king’s bloodline could enter the high court—how likely was I to locate a healer who met that requirement?

  Considering that Ryese had said my father typically didn’t allow his progeny to reach adulthood, pretty damn unlikely.

  I walked back to the throne and stared at the dying king. I wasn’t sure how he was still alive, maybe just too stubborn to die, or Faerie might be keeping him alive through the roots she’d planted in him. They didn’t look like new additions, something she’d done since he was stabbed, but old, long since healed and adapted to. But if I couldn’t bring a healer back here, I was going to have to take him to the healer.

  Not that I could carry both my father and brother out. I moved beside Brad and shook his shoulders. He groaned, eyes half opening and then wincing shut again.

  “Wake up. We need to get out of here.”

  Again he groaned. His eyelids fluttered, eyes slitting open. His gaze didn’t quite focus on me, his pupils mismatched. Definitely a concussion. Crap.

  “I’m going to drag you closer to the doorway,” I told him, and then grabbed him under the shoulders and pulled him across the golden floor.

  He blinked at me as I released him to slump beside the golden vines. At least he was somewhat conscious. Hopefully he would be mobile by the time I retrieved our father, because I didn’t think the former High King would be moving of his own volition anytime soon.

  I knelt beside my father and pulled out my dagger. Then I carefully but quickly cut away the vines and roots binding him. Some fell away harmlessly. Others dripped thick red liquid that was almost certainly blood. Above me, my father moaned and shuddered, his breathing turning shallow.

  “Don’t die from this,” I muttered, moving to his leg, the last limb I needed to free.

  He was barely breathing, his head falling listlessly to the side when I slung his arm over my shoulder and hauled him up, out of the chair. With his arm held over my shoulder, and my arm around his waist, I carried him, his feet dragging across the golden floor. He was heavier than he looked, and I was struggling by the time I reached the doorway. Brad, at least, had managed to get to his knees, though he held his head in his hands and swayed, like the room spun around him.

  “Ready?” I gasped out as I stopped beside him.

  Brad nodded, and then winced from the movement. He didn’t stand, but wrapped an arm around my leg, the touch ensuring the door took us all to the same location. The doorframe widened to accommodate us, and I stumbled through it, plunging my father and Brad through the door with me.

  And stepped out back in the middle of the battle I’d left who-knew-how-long-ago.

  Directly in front of me, Rianna pulled her spear from the neck of a fae as Desmond faced off against the warrior attempting to flank her. Bodies littered the ground around Falin; I spotted at least half a dozen dead or maimed fae, and yet, that seemed wrong, like I’d spent far longer in the high court than the few minutes that seemed to have passed here.

  “Perfect timing,” Kyran whispered in my ear, his Cheshire grin in place and no sand left in the upper globe of his hourglass. “And nice crown.”

  I frowned at him, reaching up to wipe the sweat from my forehead, and my fingers brushed something hard and warm. I froze, confused for a moment, until I realized it was a small circlet. Right. I’d killed Ryese. That had earned me the light court. I hadn’t even noticed, all things considered.

  I didn’t waste time, but stepped forward and raised my voice as loud as I could. “Everyone cease fighting!”

  My command bellowed across the clearing, as if Faerie had picked up my voice and magnified it. And maybe she had. I could feel Faerie as I never had before, and I had an awareness I couldn’t quite explain of every fae in the clearing.

  Weapons hit the ground as if the fae could no longer hold them, and all eyes turned toward me. The murmurs began immediately. Whispers from the light warriors.

  “Is that the crown of light?”

  “Is that . . . Who is she carrying?”

  “Is she a queen?”

  Falin stepped toward me. His weapons were also gone—apparently I’d disarmed everyone. “Alex?”

  “Help.” I mouthed the word, not daring to speak it aloud.

  I didn’t need to.

  Falin rushed to my side, reaching out to help me lower the king to the grass. Nandin was there a moment later, helping Brad to his feet.

  “Girl, that’s the High King,” Nandin hissed, staring at what appeared to be a body and no longer a living fae.

  “I’m aware. We need a healer.”

  Nandin nodded. I expected him to delegate the task to someone else, but he handed Brad off to Dugan and then he himself took off toward the door to winter.

  I’d never recalled my ball of realities, and it had followed me here, filling the clearing. Collectors appeared in the grove, moving among those who’d fallen in the battle. Death nodded to me, and I spotted the Raver as well. Two other collectors, ones I didn’t know, also moved among the dead. Fear spiked through me, and I looked at my father. He wasn’t dead, not yet, but I could sense the life fading from him. Today, in this field, whoever died here would remain permanently dead.

  Because I’d brought death to Faerie, at least for the moment.

  I’d been High Queen less than ten minutes, and in that time, I’d cannibalized a living soul and then brought true death to a field of warriors. Yeah, this was going well.

  I could have reclaimed the layers of reality, given the collectors nowhere to exist, but then I’d be forsworn and the Mender could accuse me of reneging on the debt I owed him. He’d called it in for me to collect the battlefield dead of Faerie. And this had been a battle.

  I pushed away from th
e ground, glancing around. Maeve had fallen—this would be her second and final death. Lyell looked badly injured, but should survive. Rianna had a few lacerations that might need attention, and Kyran looked like he’d taken a pretty good blow, but while Falin and Dugan were both splashed with blood, it didn’t appear that the blood belonged to either warrior.

  Light had fared far worse.

  “All hail the Queen of Light!” a voice called out from somewhere in the clearing. Suddenly the call seemed to come from every direction as the light warriors fell to their knees.

  “I don’t have time for that right now,” I snapped at them. “I need a healer. Probably more than one. The best healers in Faerie.” Nandin had already gone to find one, but he wasn’t back yet. And besides, there were enough injured in this field that we needed more than a single healer.

  One of the light warriors jumped to his feet and took off for a path of light at a run.

  “I take it I missed something,” Dugan said, approaching me slowly, his gaze moving from the dying king at my feet to the crown of light on my forehead.

  “Yeah, understatement.” I fingered the crown again, frowning. “Dugan, what do you think about the title ‘King of Light’?”

  Chapter 33

  I stood beside the amaranthine tree we’d planted in the center of the grove between courts. Dugan had found it stashed away in the light court within hours of accepting the throne. There were a lot of unquiet murmurs about how I’d handed the crown of light to the—now former—Shadow Prince, but it felt like the right choice. Faerie agreed with me, which was an odd sensation, but I was now very aware of the mercurial moods of Faerie.

  She was hurting, the balance badly damaged and in need of time to repair. Dugan was sympathetic to the plight of the shadow court, which made him the ideal person to rule the court that was meant to be its counterbalance. I’d already visited the chasm between the realm of dreams and the shadow court once. I hadn’t been able to repair the rift and rejoin dreams to shadow, even with the magical boost from Faerie. But I’d made a start. It would take time, perhaps a few years of visiting several times a week and reconnecting a thread or two at a time as I could, but I’d repair it.

  Falin placed a hand on my waist. “Now what?” he asked, nodding to the sapling.

  I wasn’t sure. I looked around the tree to the ancient-looking fae on the other side. My father, wearing the glamour of an old wise king, stood with his arms crossed, staring at the tree. The healers had arrived in time, and he was recovering remarkably fast. It had been less than two days since I cut him from his throne, and he probably needed a longer recovery, but we had to start this now. The doors that had survived Ryese were open again, and with the truces in place, displaced fae were beginning to trickle back into Faerie, but the Americas were cut off. We needed a permanent door. A connection to the land so we could reach the stranded fae.

  “You’re sure about this?” my father asked, staring at the sapling we’d planted. “It will be decades before the other seeds I planted will be large enough to take root in both mortal reality and Faerie and form a door. This is our only shot.”

  I nodded. “We only have the one tree. All the courts will have to share it to maintain balance.”

  My father smiled, as if that were the right answer, though I had the feeling it wasn’t the choice he would have made. He’d refused to take the high throne back, despite his rapid recovery. There had been quite a bit of arguing over that one, which led to him calling me a petulant child and me pointing out that was exactly why I shouldn’t be High Queen of Faerie. It might not have been his plan for me to wind up as High Queen, but he’d spent more than a millennium bound to Faerie, her ruler but also her captive, and he wanted freedom. I tried to abdicate, but while Faerie had allowed me to hand off the light court without any resistance, she wouldn’t let me opt out of the high court. I’d accepted. I was hers now, and she intended to keep me.

  At least she hadn’t physically bound me to the throne.

  My father had agreed to advise me as well as to continue to act as the official face of the high court. I’d also taken Falin, Dugan, and Nandin as my advisors. They were the only ones besides Brad who knew I was High Queen, and I planned to keep it that way. I had a lot to learn, and like Ryese had said, I had no idea how to use the power I’d been handed, so I was vulnerable. I had no desire to fight endless duels. So the current plan was to keep my position secret. My council of kings were bound by oaths to protect my secret as well as some pretty unbreakable truces that would keep them from challenging me for the crown. It was the best I could do.

  They surrounded me now, as we stood in the center of the clearing with the small sapling. A whole lot of hope was bound in its thin branches. We were about to try something that had never been done, but if it worked, it would help restore some balance to Faerie.

  Ryese must have slipped into the high court at least a century ago to have stolen a seed that grew into this sapling. Then, from what we could gather, he’d used the sapling and his bloodline to gather followers through all of Faerie. We didn’t know how many he had, or how much trouble they might still cause now that he was gone, but I was trying to repair what damage I could.

  The first step was tethering this tree to mortal reality.

  Dugan, Nandin, Falin, my father, and I had debated all night over where its mortal connection should be established. North America had been the easy decision, as it was North and South America that were the most cut off from Faerie. I’d argued for Nekros because it was home. Somewhere slightly more south and central would have been more ideal, but in the end, my sentimental attachment to Nekros decided it. Besides, the folded space holding Nekros was one of the largest on the continent.

  It took both my father’s and my magic—as well as Faerie’s contribution—to establish the door. By the time we finished, I was swaying on my feet. Apparently the last time my father had attempted this, he’d had a whole team of planeweavers.

  “Should we check it out?” I asked in panting breaths.

  Only my council was with me presently, the clearing sealed and the doors to all the courts momentarily closed. Later, my father would make the official announcement about the tree to the courts. He’d been pretending to be his own emissary for centuries. Now he would legitimately fulfill the role of emissary of the high court.

  “Are you up for it?” Dugan asked, giving me a skeptical look.

  That look was reflected in Falin’s eyes as well. He had his arms tight around me, and I might have been leaning against him for more than just emotional support.

  Straightening, I took a deep breath and nodded.

  I wanted to make sure the doorway really worked, and worked the way I’d intended. The fae in the mortal realm had been fading, cut off from Faerie for days now. By placing the door here, in the center of Faerie, connected to all courts, I was not only allowing the belief magic that would be collected from these territories to nourish all of Faerie, but, in theory, the territory in the mortal realm that this door covered should belong to all courts and to none. That meant independents, regardless of court affiliation, should be able to exist there without fading.

  The Americas had just become the first truly neutral territory for independent fae.

  I walked hand in hand with Falin around the tree, Dugan, Nandin, and my father following in our wake. I expected to emerge in the fire-ruined remains of the Bloom. Instead we stepped into a room that looked identical to how the Eternal Bloom had appeared prior to the bombing, except that the massive tree that once stood in the room was now a small sapling bearing only a few of the ever-blooming flowers that gave the tree its name.

  “Nice work,” I whispered to Faerie, gazing around the room, because I knew the land itself had refashioned this place. It was an exact replica, missing only the fae who typically frequented it. But they would come. More than had ever been here before would now com
e.

  Faerie buzzed happily in the back of my mind, pleased by my appreciation.

  We wove through the tables until we reached the VIP door. Nandin and Dugan stepped through without a backward glance. They’d never been able to move freely through the mortal realm before, but this tree was tied to light and shadow as well as the seasonal courts, so their courts had access to the mortal realm for the first time. No surprise that they were anxious to explore. Falin stepped through next, still holding my hand, but my fingers encountered a solid invisible barrier as they touched the doorway, and I stopped short.

  Falin stepped back inside, frowning. I pressed my palm flat against the barrier that prevented me from walking through the door. I couldn’t see it, but it didn’t give an inch.

  “I did warn you,” my father said, his arms crossed over his chest. “Honestly, I’m surprised Faerie let you get this far. We might want to make sure no natural disasters hit the courts while you’ve been in this blended space and outside Faerie proper. She can be rather . . . possessive.”

  “Faerie’s not unhappy,” I said, because I could feel Faerie in the back of my mind. She didn’t mind me coming to this pocket she’d created, but she wasn’t going to let me leave her influence completely. I was the High Queen. And I belonged to Faerie.

  At least I’m not rooted to a throne, I reminded myself again. It was cold comfort.

  “Let’s head back,” Falin said, turning me toward the small amaranthine sapling.

  I shook my head, but it was my father who said, “No, kingling, you need to go find that Agent Nori of yours and start working out the relocation of winter’s fae to Nekros. Alexis’s plan will extend this territory more than normal, but it is still only one tree, and a sapling at that. There will be a lot of areas that are very thin on magic. Nekros just became the magical hub of the Americas.”

  Falin frowned at him. I placed a hand on his arm. “And I need you to find Holly and Caleb to make sure they’re okay. It’s going to be really hard to explain why I can’t leave Faerie.” At least without telling them why, but I couldn’t tell anyone why, not even my friends. “And Tamara . . .” Geez, what was I going to do about Tam? She wasn’t fae or a changeling, so Faerie was a dangerous place for her. I wouldn’t even trust asking her to meet me at the Bloom. I gave Falin a small smile. “Let them know I’m okay and hope to see everyone soon. And PC. Would you bring him here?” Because Faerie wasn’t going to deny me my dog.