by K. M. Shea
The Paragon zipped up the driveway, which curved around to the back of the house, taking us around the corner, which instantly muffled the outrage of my insulted Court.
“You are a new kind of crazy,” the Paragon grumbled. Even though he was moving at a pretty quick clip for such an old guy, I was able to keep pace with him since I was just a tiny bit taller than him. “Or even worse, you are fearless! I said not to let them bother you—not that you should pick a fight!”
I shrugged. “Since they’re never going to like me, it’d be better to show them that I don’t care that they don’t like me. Wouldn’t it?”
The Paragon sourly scrunched up his lips. “They’re bound to your will. You could have made them hold their tongues with the magic of the Court.”
“I’m not going to be a tyrant.”
“You’re going to be dead if you insist on acting fearless and still stick to your moral code,” the Paragon grumbled.
We climbed the stairs of a gorgeous patio, only to descend them on the other side as he led me into a tall garden walled in by huge hedges.
Just as the Paragon stepped through the wooden archway that marked off the garden entrance, I saw movement in the shadows of the castle-house.
It was the fae from my parents’ place. The one who had tried to murder me.
Chapter Seven
Leila
He wore the same clothes—the long, dark gray jacket that let him blend in with the shadows, the leather bracers, and the smudgy gray scarf that covered the lower half of his face. But it was his eyes that struck me the most—as dark and lifeless as death.
“Paragon,” I hissed urgently as I felt ice spread through my veins, making me cold despite the warm summer day.
The Paragon backed up several steps. “What do you—oh.” He broke off when I pointed to the fae.
“That’s the fae that tried to kill me.”
“Him?” The Paragon grimaced. “Out of everyone in the fae kingdom, why him?”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Lord Rigel of the Night Court, also known as the Wraith. Although he’s a high ranking fae noble, he’s an assassin by trade.”
My heart thudded in my throat, but I felt it was my civic duty to break the tenseness of the moment. “How good of an assassin can he be if you know he’s an assassin?”
“It’s precisely because he’s that good that he’s known,” the Paragon said. “He’s one of the most dangerous fae lords in the United States—North America, even. It’s an open secret that he’s available for hire, but he’s so good there’s never any proof that it’s him. His position as a high ranking noble in the Night Court leaves him politically untouchable.”
Rigel didn’t move, but there was something about him that threw all of me into high alert, and my heart beat faster and faster as his black eyes didn’t look away from mine.
“But I saw him,” I said.
“Did you physically see him shoot you?” the Paragon asked.
I tried to swallow. “No. He was on the roof of the barn then. But after he hopped down to the ground he tried to throw a dagger at me and some magic—the stuff that keeps fae from killing their monarchs, I think—blocked him from harming me. I think he was mad.”
“If he showed himself, mad is a vast understatement.”
“That’s really comforting to hear.” I was almost afraid to blink—would this nut attack me in broad daylight in front of the Paragon?
“Sadly, there’s nothing you can do about him. With luck, whoever hired him to kill you did it on a long shot. As you discovered, he can’t hurt you directly given that he’s a member of your Court.” The Paragon sucked his head back into the gardens and shivered.
“What about indirectly killing me?” I asked.
“It’s a possibility, but it’s not his style. Come on—you’re safe with me, but I don’t fancy you catching his attention.”
I broke my standoff with Lord Rigel long enough to watch the Paragon scuttle farther into the hedge garden. When I looked back, the assassin was gone.
That’s enough to keep me awake all night tonight!
I ran after the Paragon, but my very real fear was making it hard to breathe. “Care to tell me why you didn’t think it was important to tell me one of my lords is a famous assassin?”
“Leila, there’s a lot you need to know. That Lord Rigel is lower on the priority list should tell you just how grim things are,” the Paragon darkly said.
I shivered when a leafy fern that leaned out into the woodchip covered path we walked on brushed my jeans. “Are you sure we should just leave him? Can’t he be arrested or something?”
“You could have him arrested, but Lord Rigel’s assassinations are never personal. It’s just business. By bothering him you risk making it personal, and there’s a reason your predecessor—for all of her hatred of Killian Drake—never forced Lord Rigel to assassinate Killian, even though it was well within her abilities.”
It still seems stupid to leave an assassin running around. I was so focused on this worry that when the Paragon abruptly stopped I almost ran the poor fae over.
“You’re going to find, Leila, that becoming Queen of the Night Court is a matter of organizing the largest threats to the smallest. Due to his loner nature and being a member of your Court, Lord Rigel is no longer a prime threat. You have much bigger threats to face,” he said.
“Like what?”
The Paragon mashed his thumbs into his eyes, then gestured for me to follow him.
At the center of the garden was a massive archway made of stone that had smoothed and turned a dirty black with age. Beautiful, looping metal work glided across the top of the stone. Half of it was a dark, onyx color, but there was a crescent moon shaped bit that was silver, so the archway gave the faintest impression of the night sky. A door stood in the center of the archway—dwarfed in comparison. It had the same beautiful metal work, but there was something unsubstantial about the door, and I couldn’t say for sure whether there was anything solid behind it, or if it was just magic.
“This is a doorway to the Night Court lands located in the fae realm,” the Paragon said. “There are several other ways in, but this is the easiest one to use, and will probably bother your stomach the least. Go ahead and open it.”
I squinted at the sketchy door. “Do I need to say any magic words?”
“Nah.” The Paragon casually swatted his hand at me. “You’re the Queen of the Night Court. The Realm of the Night Court is yours—it will recognize you.”
“You keep saying stuff like that, but I’m not sure I believe you.” I cautiously reached out to touch the door handle—which was surprisingly cool given the summer sun hanging in the sky. “I don’t feel any different. Even when the night mares marked me—or whatever it was—I felt something in the moment, but nothing has changed since then.”
“Well, this will be some proof for you, then, won’t it?” the Paragon smartly asked.
I pulled open the door, which creaked on hinges, and revealed an inky blackness that instantly cooled the air around us.
“Just remember to breathe,” the Paragon advised before he brashly stepped into the black.
It rippled like water, and he was gone.
I was a lot slower to follow him, taking a deep gulp of air before I stepped through the door.
It felt like I stood on air, and the universe itself streaked past me—millions of stars moving so quickly they were tiny flickers of light in the endless black of space. It was rattling—I couldn’t tell up from down, or even breathe.
The sensation lasted for only a second, but it left such a strong impression I staggered and almost fell on my face when I popped into the Realm of the Night Court.
My thoughts were slow and confused as my brain struggled to process the sudden darkness—because we’d left behind the warm afternoon sun, and instead the night sky—dark purple swirled with a black-blue—stretched high above us, softened by the twinkling of stars.
/> “Welcome to the Night Realm,” the Paragon said. “I’ve got some bad news.”
“What,” I started when I was finally able to rub more than a stray thought or two together, “could be worse than an assassin—oh.”
While I’d never been in the part of the fae realm that belonged to the Night Court, I’d been in other pieces before. As a half fae I had to register, and that process was done at the Curia Cloisters in Magiford, and verified in the slice of fae realm owned by the Midwest Regional Committee of Magic. I had to renew my registration occasionally, so I was familiar with the overly gorgeous, sweeping architectural style of the fae realm—remnants of the days back when the elves had reigned and the fae had allied with and served the elves.
As a rule, the fae realm was always beautiful—at least the parts that were warded and guarded against the toxic wastes that pressed in on the claimed lands. There were always stunning gardens, beautiful songbirds you’d never see on earth, little waterfalls—things like that.
The Realm of the Night Court was the opposite.
The door had spat us out on a stone patio pressed into the back side of the Night Realm Palace. And while the silhouette looked beautiful, a second glance was much more telling.
The palace was decaying.
Even in the dimness of night, I could see the stone of the exterior walls were crumbling. The stone banisters and steps were covered with moss and pockmarked as if someone had taken a pickaxe to them.
The gardens were overgrown and filled with withered flowers, dry fountains, and bare bushes.
The air smelled stale and dusty, and only a few dim lights shone through what should have been sweeping doors made of delicate glasswork, but were instead cracked and hung uneven on their hinges.
“What…why…?” I couldn’t find the right words as I swung around to gape at the Paragon. “How could this happen?”
“The segments of the fae realm often reflect the state of the Court that owns them,” the Paragon said. “The same goes for the creatures that belong to the Court. The night mares appear starved, evil, and terrifying because that is the current state of the Night Court.”
“How could it be this bad?” I stared at the ruined palace, my mind almost flatlining in disbelief. “The fae adore the fae realm. They could never let it get this bad!”
“I’d like to say you only have your direct predecessor to thank for this.” The Paragon gestured to a toppled statue that was broken into chunks. “But I’m afraid the Night Court started to rot long before Nyte got her hands on it. The last few generations of Night Kings and Queens have been…less than noble. And with each new monarch it got worse.”
“And none of them tried to reverse it?”
The Paragon shrugged. “Even if the fae wished to, it is the monarch who decides the fate of the Court. Their actions dictate the power the Court has. The Night Court has been in a steady decline of power for quite some time, but when Killian Drake revealed that Queen Nyte killed her first husband—the king who was chosen by the night mares—the Night Court lost all credibility among the other fae Courts.”
I stared at a withered bush. “This is what you’re talking about, then. This is the threat that’s a whole lot bigger than a fae lord assassin.”
“Unfortunately, it’s only a part of it,” the Paragon grimly said. “Come.” He waggled his fingers at me and led me off the patio and out into the overgrown gardens.
He found two benches—they were stone and hadn’t rotted out like the wooden bench pushed in front of a nearby empty fountain—then plopped down.
When I sat down on the bench opposite from him, the Paragon adjusted his sapphire ring, once again creating the sparkling bubble around us.
“No one can hear us?” I asked.
“Indeed.” The Paragon took his glasses off and leaned forward, his eyes glowing with intensity as he addressed me in a voice that was a lot deeper than his somewhat dry and warbly one. “If you want the Court to survive long enough for the next generation or two, you will have to address this.” He waved his hand at the palace. “It was an open secret that Nyte bankrupted the Court. You’ll also need to do something about that. But neither of those issues should be your greatest concern.”
For a moment I wondered if my hearing was off.
Bankruptcy and the Court’s dead reputation aren’t the worst thing I have to face?
When I could finally get my jaw working, my voice shook a little in a weird cocktail of disbelief and despair. “What could be more important than the realm rotting around me and bad Court finances?”
“Your life,” the Paragon grimly said.
I paused. “I’ll agree with that. You’re going to tell me how to stay alive?”
“To the best of my abilities, yes.” The Paragon rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his chin to his fist. “The most accurate description I can give you—and the easiest one to understand—is to say that you are entering an incredibly complex, multileveled game of power.”
“Multileveled?”
“Hmmm. Here. This is you.” The Paragon grabbed a clover leaf from the one spot of greenery near us, and set it down next to him on the bench. “The base level of this unfortunate game is your Court—the Night Court.” The Paragon swiped a thumb-sized rock off the ground and casually tossed it on the clover leaf, flattening it. “The nobles will either try to gain your favor—not likely given your blood—or insult you until they figure out how to get rid of you. The nobles fight among themselves in all of this, and even if you manage to get the upper hand, I don’t know that they’ll ever stop fighting you.”
“Sounds like a bunch of team players.”
“If you can manage to solidify your Court and keep hold of your power as queen—a monumental task in itself—the next level and difficulty you face will be the game of power between all the fae Courts.” The Paragon grunted as he picked up a rock that was just a little smaller than his head, and dropped it on top of the thumb-sized rock. “The Courts are locked in a never ceasing battle for power. They make alliances over tea and propose murdering their allies at hunting parties.”
The Paragon stood, making his bubble of magic grow around us. “They thirst for power, because they mistakenly think it means survival in this time of dying magic. It makes them ruthless in a way that’s hard to imagine. Your people will stab you in the back without a twinge of conscience. The monarchs of the other Courts would watch the Night Court and everyone in it die without remorse.”
I stared at the rocks and, with a sinking feeling in my gut, rolled them off the bench, revealing the thoroughly squashed clover leaf that was now a smear on the stone bench.
“That’s toxic,” I said.
The Paragon sat back down on his bench with a sigh that sounded as old as he looked. “It is. I wish I could stop it, but on my own I don’t have the power. I’m searching for a way, but…” He met my gaze, and his bushy eyebrows sloped in concern. “Even at my most optimistic I can’t say I’ll be able to enact it before your own Court—or the other monarchs—eats you alive. You’ll have to play this game of power if you want to survive.”
I rested my palms on the stone bench, grimacing when I felt dirt and grit smudge my palm. “And I’m supposed to try to win?”
“I don’t know if ‘winning’ is possible,” the Paragon said. “This game is much like a chess match with a hundred players all on one board. The truth is no one wins for long. The status quo is always changing, nobles are forever falling in and out of favor, and the Courts are always in opposition—though they may temporarily unite against a common enemy.”
I heard scuttling, and through the dim light shed by the moon and the bright stars, I was able to see a creature that shouldered its way through the garden underbrush.
It was a griffin. Not the lion-sized, noble creatures from a picture book, heck no. Not in this grungy place! This cat-sized griffin looked like a combination of a raccoon and a pigeon.
It had the mottled gray wings, th
e extra round and empty head, and the unnerving orange eyes of a pigeon, but the rotund, fluffy body of a raccoon.
It was dragging a McDonald’s takeout bag through the garden—I had no idea how it found that here in the fae realm—which it ripped open with its stumpy front legs that ended in creepy pigeon feet.
This place is bizarre.
I felt for the charm bracelet that dangled from my wrist—it was a magic tool my mom had gotten for me when I attended magic classes at the Curia Cloisters.
Unlike wizards—who channeled raw, wild magic through their bodies—fae had to use artifacts to wield magic if we wanted to do anything more than the innate abilities we were born with. Artifacts filtered the magic and let us use it to cast spells and charms, but there was a huge variety in artifacts—from modern, mass produced ones like my charm bracelet, to antique items that were made by elves or the occasional overpowered wizard.
The variety of artifacts meant there was also a lot of diversity in fae abilities. Not everyone was capable of wielding an elf-made artifact, but if you were, you’d be insanely powerful with the right artifact.
“How are you taking this?” the Paragon asked.
“It feels a bit unreal,” I admitted. “But the backstabbing and power struggle doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me. Although it seems like surviving will be harder than I thought.”
“You do have some advantages—your friendship with Hazel Medeis and Killian Drake, foremostly. And of course, I shall try to aid you whenever possible as well.” He hesitated, then said, “There is one more thing—which may lighten your load. Though I doubt you’re going to like it.”
I finally pulled my gaze away from the pigeon-raccoon-griffin—which had almost choked itself on a dried-out French fry. “What?”
“It’s just one matter.” He held his pointer finger and thumb the tiniest bit apart in a display.
“You can’t say it’s a small matter, which means it’s big. What is it?”