by Lily Archer
He’s right of course, and that fact grates at me. The winter realm is mine to rule, but my throne was hard-won over centuries of bloodshed. The winter fae are a harsh people, wily and dark. But with the establishment of my reign, we finally have a tenuous peace amongst the high fae, lesser fae, and the summer realm. It is up to me to preserve it.
Gareth lets out a long-suffering sigh, then kicks the dead fae’s chair. “He tell you anything?”
“More of the same. But he did add that the mountain king doesn’t just want me dead, apparently. He’s after the realms. All of them.”
“Him and what army?” Gareth pulls my blades free and wipes them on the assassin’s tunic.
A streak of foreboding careens through me. “That’s what we need to find out.”
3
Taylor
Something tickles my nose. I swat at it, but it doesn’t go away. My eyes open slowly, achingly. What’s wrong with me?
A flash of memory darts across my mind—a nightmare of myself standing next to Cecile in a dark parking lot. I sit up and knock my head on something hard and unyielding.
“Ow!” Putting a hand to my head, I fall back onto a bed of scratchy hay, some of it once again tickling my nose.
“Shh.” A harsh whisper nearby.
“Who’s there?” I press one palm to my aching forehead and turn to look into the gloom.
“Shh!” This one is even more urgent.
I can’t make out much, just some sort of room with hay on the floor and—wait, are those bars? My breath leaves in a whoosh, and I scoot sideways until the air above me is clear. I’d been lying on the bottom level of a crude sort of bunkbed carved into a stone wall. My jeans and t-shirt are gone, replaced with a crude shift dress, the material rough against my skin. I press my hand to my neck, a hint of relief blooming in my mind when I feel the necklace.
My eyes aren’t accustomed to the dark as I move toward the bars, but I keep staring hard, trying to find the source of the shushing voice. All I see is hay and gray walls.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Do you want a bloodletting?” The hay to my left shifts, and a pair of eyes peer at me.
“Where are—”
A clanging noise shatters the stillness. I jump as heavy footsteps approach, the sound paired with what sounds like sharp nails raking against stone.
I scurry back beneath the stone bunkbed and press myself against the wall. My head throbs from where I knocked it earlier, and my pounding heartbeat doesn’t help.
“Great. Just great.” The eyes disappear, the hay settling.
A hissing voice, one that slithers up my spine, echoes off the walls. It’s heavily accented and speaks a foreign language. A rhythmic rustling noise grows louder with each second.
The instinct to hide, to somehow melt into the stone behind me, rushes through me. But there is nowhere to go. The one spot where the hay is thickest is already taken.
The voice is closer now, and I stare into the darkness outside the bars.
I press my palm to my mouth to stop any noise from escaping. But my body shakes, everything inside me freezing up and rattling.
Movement catches my eye, and a monstrous, clawed hand appears just outside the bars.
A scream wants to pull free from my lungs, but I swallow it down. Too afraid to look away, I don’t blink as the rest of the creature comes into view. My mind can’t seem to grasp the horror of what my eyes are seeing. A huge snake body propels the torso of a man, the rhythmic hissing sound coming from the scales as they slide along the floor.
It says something I can’t understand. Pointing at me, it presses its face to the bars, its slitted eyes taking me in. It’s almost a man’s face, but it’s grimmer, and when his forked tongue darts out, I make a keening sound that I can’t hold back.
“No. Please leave me alone.” I shake my head.
It grins, showing curved fangs. “Noisy little changeling. And speaking the slave language, too. Naughty little thing.” It says it in English, the words thick and misshapen from its lips.
I shake my head, and put a hand firmly over my mouth.
“Pretty thing. So pretty.” It blinks slowly. “One more sound, and I’ll have to discipline you.” The tongue shoots out. “I’d enjoy it, but you wouldn’t.”
I can’t close my eyes, can’t breathe, can’t think.
The sound of a door hinge squeaking pulls the monster’s attention away, and a voice down the corridor says something in the unintelligible language. The thing in front of me hisses its reply and gives me one more look before sliding back the way it came.
I lie there shivering for a long time, my mind racing, stumbling, careening. I was in Cecile’s car doing my homework. And then I had to have fallen asleep. Because everything that happened after that doesn’t make sense.
Asleep. I’m asleep. There’s no way I saw a woman who looked exactly like me, no way I’m in some sort of prison, and no way that a half-snake, half-man creature just came and threatened me. My breathing quickens and spots float in my vision. Hyperventilating. Can you hyperventilate in a dream? Wake up. I pinch my arm hard. Pain that matches the ache in my head blooms along my skin. I pinch again. But I don’t wake up. This can’t be. None of this makes sense. But the more my body aches and the chill air seeps into my bones, the more panicked I become. This is real.
“Whisper, dumbass. You can only whisper in here. If Zaul hears you again, it won’t be pretty.” The hay shifts, and a woman appears, her face dirty and her hair in bedraggled waves.
I nod, afraid to use my voice. My breathing is still too fast. I curl into the fetal position and press my forehead to my knees but keep the stranger in my peripheral vision.
She eases closer, and I notice she’s wearing the same potato sack I am, though she’s much thinner, her cheeks gaunt. “What did you do to land in here?”
“I didn’t do anything.” My voice is barely a sound. “I don’t know how I got here.”
She smirks, and I can’t tell if she’s twenty or fifty. “I refused to let my master’s vampire hound feed from me.” She rolls up her baggy sleeve and shows me her arm. Even through the filth, I can see dozens—maybe hundreds—of scars, puncture wounds that come in pairs. “I’d rather die than serve as a meal for that dog one more time.”
I push aside the horror that threatens to swallow me whole. “Where are we?”
“Byrn Varyndr’s dungeon, obviously.” She lays on her side and props her head on her hand. “Where they put bad girls.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why are you here?” She wrinkles her nose. “How would I know?”
I press one hand to my face. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“You speak the old tongue really well.” She sucks on her teeth. “I’m surprised I even remember it, it’s been so long since I’ve heard or spoken it. I was exchanged when I was five, so I remember a little from that. And the older changelings still speak and teach it to each other. There are other tongues, too, but everyone seems to stick to this one.”
“You mean English?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Here, we’re only supposed to speak their language. English is forbidden. Mainly because most of them don’t know it. Only the lesser fae who work alongside us learn it. Some of the older high fae know it, too. But that’s rare. They usually don’t bother with us.”
“They?”
She lowers her brows. “You must have knocked your head a good one. They—the fae. Our supposedly benevolent masters.” She laughs low. “They say the summer realm is the kindest of all. But the fae here are just like all the others.”
“Fae? What’s a fae?” I glance at the bars. Was that snake monster a fae?
She says something in that strange language, though it’s beautiful as it lilts from her tongue.
I shake my head. “What did you say?”
Her eyes narrow. “I said you need to see a healer since you can’t even remember how to speak fae.”
“I’m not supposed to be here.” My breathing begins speeding up again, dread constricting my throat. “I was at school. That’s where I’m supposed to be—”
“School?” She tsks. “We aren’t allowed to learn. You know that.”
“This isn’t real.” I rock a little, the hard floor grinding into my hip. “None of this is real.”
She taps her fingers on the cold, grubby stone. “What’s your name?”
“T-Taylor.”
“Taylor of?” She gestures for me to go on.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m Lenetia of Granthos. You are Taylor of your master. So, who’s your master?”
“I don’t have a master.”
“Of course you do,” she coaxes. “Give me a name. Maybe I can talk to the guard and tell him you need to see a healer. If your master is high up enough, it may even work.”
“I don’t have a master.” My voice begins to rise, panic infecting me. “I’m a college student. I’m majoring in chemical engineering. I don’t know how I got here, or where here even is!” I run my fingers over the lump on my forehead. It feels like a golf ball.
“Shh!” She scurries back toward her hiding place.
“This isn’t real.” I edge out from beneath my shelter and stand. “None of this is real. So that thing can’t hurt me. It’s just a dream.” I grip the frigid metal bars. “Hey, ugly! Let me out!”
“Stop, for your own good.” She buries herself under the moldy hay.
A metallic clang shoots down the dark corridor, and then that rhythmic rustling sounds again.
“Get down,” Lenetia hisses. “By the Spires, stop courting pain and death.”
“Open this cage!” I yank on the bars. They don’t move.
“I’m trying to help you, girl.” She peers out from her hiding place. “Changelings should stick together. Now come hide with me before he—” Her words end in a horrified squeak.
The creature appears. I back up involuntarily. Even if it’s a dream, it’s a terrifying one.
Fangs bared, it pulls a ring of keys from the side of its tunic.
“Oh no, no, no,” Lenetia whispers from her hiding spot.
The monster says something in that foreign language as he swings the bars open, but he doesn’t come in to get me. Maybe it worked. Maybe I’m on my way out of this nightmare. I just need to wake up.
It hisses again and motions for me to come out, then speaks again in an unintelligible rant.
“Go, girl. He says your master Tyrios has come to free you,” Lenetia’s urgent whispers catch the monster’s attention. “Tyrios is a powerful noble.”
The creature glowers and moves to enter the cell. The stranger squeals, the hay rippling as she scurries back.
“I’m coming.” I step out quickly, cutting the monster off and bringing its attention back to me.
“Too bad we didn’t get to play.” He reaches toward my face with a dirty claw.
“I’d like to wake up now.”
He cocks his head to the side and lets out a rusty laugh. “Wake up?” Slamming the cell door shut, he grabs my arm, his grip cold and unforgiving.
“I’m going to wake up!” I cry as he drags me down the dank hallway toward another barred door. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” I shake my head hard, but nothing happens. Everything feels too real—the hard stone, the chill in the air, the rough hand holding me too tightly. No, no, no.
The beast shoves me through the door and into what must be a guard room. Two other creatures—one feathered like a bird but with the body of a man and what can only be described as a scorpion with a beautiful woman’s face—play cards in the corner near a small fireplace. They don’t even look up as the creature drags me through the room, down another hall, and finally into a room with high windows that show an impossibly starlit sky.
The snake-like monster throws me at the feet of a tall, blond man with silver eyes and speaks to him in the fae language, though its tone is markedly more respectful than it ever was with me. The man’s face turns cross, and he gestures at the lump on my head as he talks.
I climb to my feet and try to find an exit, an escape. But there are only two doors in this stone hall, the one at my back and the one behind the tall blond man.
After a harsh flurry of words, the blond man takes my arm—not gentle, but not as hard as the beast—and pulls me toward the other door. I resist, yanking back against him. With a move so swift I almost miss the movement, he backhands me across the face.
When I taste blood, I know it’s real. All of it. And it’s not a dream. It’s a nightmare.
4
Leander
A scent lingers in the air, something I can’t quite place. I didn’t smell it before. Only now. Only when I’m walking through the summer palace with my ancestral sword at my side and Gareth at my back.
I turn toward him slightly. “What is that?”
“What?”
“You don’t scent something?”
He lifts his nose. “Nothing except the usual floral nonsense that coats this realm like a plague.”
I turn back, regaining my stride as we approach the main wing of the castle where the meeting is to take place. It’s not cloying floral. It’s something else, something pleasant. Like a warm fire, but it isn’t a smoky smell.
Whatever it is, I have to get it out of my mind. This conclave could very well determine the future of the realms. My peace with the summer fae is contingent on mutual respect of borders and customs. If I were to discover that they were responsible for the rash of disappearances or in league with those who were, it would be war all over again. A return to the days of the necromancer Shathinor, the brutal former ruler of the winter realm who killed every summer fae he could get his hands on.
So, in the name of peace, I continue down the corridors with walls of ivy and night-blooming jasmine, fairy lights twinkling overhead. The guards we pass tilt their heads in recognition, but their eyes remain wary. After all, summer and winter were enemies not that long ago.
“My lord.” The courtier from earlier greets us as we enter the main hall. It’s already filled with the clatter of summer realm nobles, many of them turning to stare as I march in. I smirk. The winter realm fae don’t douse themselves in jewels and overdone finery like these peacocks. I wear the customary black tunic and pants, my silver crown atop my head and my sword at my side. An array of knives are concealed all over my person, and Gareth is practically a walking armory. At home, we would have fewer weapons but more clothes—furs from our kills or soft leather draped over us as we talk around a roaring fire. But here, where the weather is oppressively pleasant at all times, we have to adjust. Even so, we stick out. Our dark eyes, black hair, and large size all reveal us as males from the winter realm. More than that, our weapons and battle-hardened features mark us as warriors, not the pampered courtiers that surround us as we pass.
“The queen will be with us shortly. Dinner will be served during the conclave.” The courtier, Pilantin is his name, practically prances ahead of us as the socializing nobles give me deferential nods. It isn’t lost on me that many of them whisper amongst themselves or cut their eyes at me. In the summer realm, the rulers are all chosen via a bloodline that goes back for millennia. They believe that makes them above reproach—and also immune to rebellion. The winter realm is ruled by might alone. Any high fae with the strength to take the throne can have it. One-on-one combat is the only way, and it’s how I became king. I haven’t been challenged yet, but I look forward to a day when a fae seeks to prove their mettle against me.
We pass out of view of the gawking nobles and into an ornate dining room. The table is decorated with bejeweled centerpieces and golden plates. The chandeliers overhead sparkle from a million facets, and I have no doubt they are made from precious diamonds.
“I see they’ve set out the good dishes for us.” Gareth snorts and swaggers along behind me.
“Only the best for our guests.” Pilantin misses the sarca
sm and beams at me. “I hope it’s to your liking.”
“It’s fine.” That scent wafts past my nose again, and I take a sampling breath. Perhaps it is one of the foods to be served? Whatever it is makes my blood pump faster and the tips of my pointed ears tingle. It also makes something stir below my belt, an odd reaction to nothing more than a scent. I pause and try to place that sweet aroma.
“What?” Gareth tenses, his voice lowering. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I can’t discern where it’s coming from.
“My lord.” A servant pulls a golden chair out for me near the head of the table.
I try not to glare at him. Do the summer realm prisses really need a servant just to help them take a seat? I sit, the chair groaning beneath my weight. Everything here is delicate and fine, crafted for the high fae that have never known the bite of winter or the ache of hunger. They pretend they are more civilized because of it, but their darkness is simply hidden beneath a thin layer of gold. Gilded, not pure.
A handful of nobles have followed us into the dining room and take seats farther down the table.
Gareth sits to my left, his gaze always scanning the room, looking for trouble. “I thought this was just supposed to be between us, the queen, and a few of her trusted advisors,” he grumbles.
“I suppose this is what ‘a few’ means in the summer realm.” I have a small inner circle of trusted warriors—the Phalanx as they are known in my realm. But it seems Queen Aurentia has about two-dozen nobles she trusts to overhear this high-level discussion.
Once the table is full except for the sparkling seat at the head, Pilantin claps his hands. “The queen would like us to start without her, but she will be here shortly.”
The side doors open, and Gareth’s hand goes to the blade in his belt.
“Easy.” I force my face into what I hope is a neutral expression.