“Yes. I am fully aware it is you I should have executed.” He relaxed into a high-backed chair and drummed his fingers on the arm, his face pensive. “The gladiator’s death is a small price to pay for your life.”
“Killing Arran is a mistake.”
Oberon breathed in and tilted his head, studying me once more. “I have missed your obstinacy. No one else dares to defy me openly. Behind my back, they twitter. I’d rather they challenge me openly. The whispers are relentless…” Again, his attention wandered to the window.
“And that’s a problem, my king.”
His gaze snapped back to me. “Whatever you are trying to do, do not waste your breath. I will not allow you to die in his place. Your life is worth more than his.”
I didn’t need to look at Sirius to know he was smiling at the king echoing his sentiments. “All of Faerie knows I killed the queen.”
Oberon glanced at Sirius. I couldn’t see what passed between them, but I guessed Sirius hadn’t known the truth, not for certain. That had changed. If Sirius proved himself too much of a risk, he would need those secrets he was holding on so tightly to.
“They want justice,” I added.
“Justice?” the king snapped. “Faerie is dying. There is no time for justice.”
“And what are you doing to save Faerie as their king?”
His fine, dark eyebrows furrowed at my tone. “More than you can comprehend.”
I had the king’s ear. I had always known I would return to Faerie and have a chance to push back against his campaign in Halow, to have him hear about the plight of the people he so ruthlessly exterminated, but I needed to strike at something he cared about, something with enough influence to sway him from his path to eradicate anything not seelie fae. “Sjora wanted to see Eledan on the throne. I doubt she was alone in that desire. Your rule, my king, is precarious.”
Oberon’s fingers stopped drumming. “My brother is as good as dead.” He pushed to his feet and crossed the distance between us in a few sharp strides. “You performed perfectly.” His penetrating blue-eyed gaze roamed over me from head to toe, softening and becoming keener, more astute, until the anger had all but vanished. “Strip,” he ordered.
I blinked and immediately began unbuttoning the gown his saru had dressed me in. It was a plain garment, functional with minimal decoration. And now it was coming off. This wasn’t unusual. Neither would be what came next, but years had passed since I’d stood naked before him, and where I’d once delighted in having my king’s attention on me, the flutter in my chest suggested my feelings had changed.
I eased the sleeves off my shoulders, pulled my arms out, and pushed the gown down until it pooled at my feet. I toed it aside, crossed my arms over my chest, grabbed the vest, and lifted it over my head. The undergarments were the next to go. I reached behind my back and worked at the fastenings, as if all this was perfectly acceptable. Only it wasn’t. Sometime since fleeing Faerie to hunt down Eledan, sometime on Calicto while living a normal life, sometime during the weeks I’d spent with Kellee and Talen, I’d changed. Calicto had changed me. Halow had changed me. I didn’t want this, not anymore. But now was not the time to make a stand.
We survive today to fight tomorrow. Hadn’t Kellee said that? And battles weren’t always the bloody kind.
Oberon folded his arm across his front and propped his elbow on his loose fist, tapping a finger to the side of his head in thought. There was no heat in his lingering gaze, just raw concentration.
I discarded the chest wrap and pushed my panties down. When I straightened, Faerie’s air touched my marked, naked skin.
Oberon took a few steps one way, then the other, studying the markings wrapped around my thighs, torso, and arms, and then he circled me, examining every inch. My saru heart rattled its tiny cage.
Oberon’s hands clamped on my waist, the king at my back. I slammed my teeth together and stared at the pattern of vine-like art painting the walls. His hands were smooth, like the hands of all immortals who healed their scars. His touch was soft and warm. It had been soft and warm when he’d marked me too. I tried to block out the sensation, tried to block out everything. This hadn’t bothered me before. Why was this time different?
His fingers kneaded my muscles and swirled over the marks he had scorched into my flesh, pushing in, up my spine, and over my shoulders. Part of me hated this intrusion, but part of me wanted it too. Faerie’s king was touching my skin. His hands—hands that had built armies, killed millions, and commanded Faerie’s legions—roamed my body. I tried and failed to steady my breathing. If he saw my shivering, if he heard my shortening breaths, he’d punish me. This was nothing to him, just a clinical examination, but his hands reminded me of the last time a fae had touched me, the last time fingers had swept along my marks, his body beneath mine, hands stroking, mouth bringing me to life.
Oberon came around to face me, and brief confusion gathered lines on his brow.
My skin had risen in goosebumps, and there was no way to hide my hard nipples. Oberon saw it all.
Heat warmed my face and chest. The heat of shame. I wanted to snatch up my clothes and cover myself or maybe fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness. No saru was allowed to look upon a sidhe without permission. And to desire one? To desire the king? It didn’t matter that it wasn’t him I wanted, it was Talen. I ached to have Talen back, to have him here beside me so I wasn’t alone.
Oberon turned away, saying, “Your loyalty and success has earned you more marks. I will see to it personally.”
More markings. Once, I would have wept with joy. Now, a small part of me wanted to weep in frustration over the wrongness of it all.
“You spent time with Lord Devere?” the king asked, heading toward the window.
I swallowed to moisten my parched throat and clear its knot. “I did.”
“What happened to him?”
I considered lying, but Oberon already knew part of the truth, if not all of it. “We fucked. I killed him.”
The king’s stride faltered. “He always did desire saru flesh.” He turned, arched an eyebrow, and said, “He was not the only fae to touch you?”
How much had Sirius told him? How much did Oberon already know about Kellee and Talen? A lie now would undermine his faith in me. I had to pick my lies carefully. “No.”
“Your pilot.” Oberon stopped at the window and gazed out at Faerie. “Tell me of him.”
“I needed him to navigate the ship.” Technically true. I filled my head with thoughts of the unnamed pilot I’d shot between the eyes, and the lust eased as sadness crept in. Thinking of Talen would only heighten Oberon’s suspicion.
“And the vakaru?” Oberon asked, keeping his back to me. “Tell me of him.”
I had known this day was coming since Talen and Kellee had captured me. Fate was always going to bring me back to Oberon for him to ask his questions. I’d spent nights awake going over my answers, crafting the truths so I wouldn’t have to lie.
“The vakaru is a Halow lawman. A marshal. He detained me after I secured Eledan.” I reached down for my clothes. I could do this. I’d lied to Mab for years. The trick was telling the fae what they wanted to hear so they didn’t search for the lies. “Eventually, he released me, with conditions. I’ve spent the last few months trying to escape him.”
“I have not instructed you to dress.” He hadn’t turned, hadn’t looked. “Does he know you’re mine?”
I dropped my vest. “Yes. He tried to kill me numerous times.” True.
“That’s unsurprising. His kind were only good for killing.”
“Do you know him?”
“A lone vakaru is not a concern,” he replied, circumventing my question. Listen to what he doesn’t say. Considering everything I had seen on Valand, Oberon knew exactly who Kellee was. But did he fear the last vakaru warlord?
The king faced the room and me once more. “We have more pressing matters.”
He crooked his finger, and Sirius stepped forw
ard. I’d forgotten the guardian was here and felt him keenly now that he stood beside me. He’d seen me naked hundreds of times before, but this time—everything about this time felt different. Because I was different. Before, I’d been glad to be in the same room as Oberon, to have him look at me, notice me, touch me. Now, I wanted to find a weapon and run it through him. Through them both.
“Sire?” the guardian asked.
“From this day until I say otherwise, you are Mylana’s guardian.”
My lana.
My star.
My slave name.
Oberon had never called me by that name to my face, but somehow, impossibly, he had always known it. All saru names were sacred. We never told the fae. It was the only thing we owned. So how could he know?
Unless he’d been present at my birth? But that would mean he had always watched me. He’d let me grow and seen me kill fellow saru and climb through the ranks until the day I stopped Aeon from killing him. I’d survived everything Faerie had thrown at me, and until now, I’d thought I’d survived by my own doing. But what if we had always been connected, this new king and I? What if I had always been his, just like Kellee had said. Worse, Eledan had said it; before the fae came and ruined Halow, he had told me the truth:
“We gave you that name. We built you up. We made you what you are today. From the moment the saru breeding bitch squeezed you out, bawling into this world, you belonged to Faerie. Everything you know, everything you are, we gave to you.“
I heard it so clearly, as though the Mad Prince were standing beside me, hissing the words into my ear. I’d thought he had meant the Wraithmaker name. But what if he’d known the truth, even then? We made you what you are today.
I was falling. If my past was a story, if everything was a lie, then what part of me was true? Was anything about me real?
I was saru. That was real. That was the truth. Polestar or not, I would always be saru.
“You want me to guard her?” Sirius asked, barely suppressing a snarl.
Neither of them saw my trembling. I closed my hands into fists and pushed the bad thoughts away. It didn’t matter. The past couldn’t hurt me. Not anymore. I was my own person now.
“I want you to be her guardian,” the king was saying. “You will be at her side during every moment of every day. You will watch everything she does and every word that passes her lips you will report back to me.”
The king knew everything I’d told him was karushit. Kellee capturing me, Talen being my pilot—Oberon knew they meant more to me than tools by which I’d tried to get back to Faerie. How could he not? And so, Sirius was to be my punishment, my cage.
Sirius stiffened. “Sire, have your saru observe her. I am a Royal Guardian. I have served you and Faerie in battle for thousands of years. My place is by your side—”
“Should any harm come to her,” Oberon cut in, “that same harm will be inflicted upon you. You are to protect her with your life. If she dies, you will die as well. Do you understand?”
Oberon couldn’t mean it? Sirius was immortal. To kill him for my short life? It was an insult.
Sirius fell to one knee and bowed his head. “Sire, please… do not cast me out like this.”
Oberon’s gaze grew heavy. “Do not beg, Sirius. It’s beneath you.”
“Guarding her is beneath me—”
“Do not presume—”
“The arm!” Sirius lifted his metal arm and rocked back on his heels. Tek veins gleamed. Metal shone. “This monstrosity was not my doing! She did this to me. She mutilated me. She is a curse!”
“Silence!” the king boomed, filling the chamber with more than noise. His power crackled, thinning the air. “Or by Faerie you will die alongside the saru gladiator.”
Sirius closed his eyes. His tek hand curled into a fist, and slowly, flexing his control, he rose to his feet. When he opened his eyes, he was the immovable wall of guardian he’d always been. “You are punishing me.”
Oberon smiled. “No, I am promoting you. Mylana is everything and must be guarded at all costs.” He turned his attention to me. “The gladiator will die in your place. If I hear a single word of protest fall from your lips, I will confine you to the catacombs.” He nodded to the door. “You are both dismissed.”
I gathered my clothes and followed Sirius out of the room. The guardian marched ahead like an angry wave of fire, leaving me to dress while jogging to catch up with him. “Sirius…” On and on, he walked, cloak flaring. Any faster and he’d been running. “Sirius, wait!”
He stopped rigid in the corridor, radiating the kind of fury that had my saru instincts readying to fight or flee. I stepped around him to block his path. His cheek twitched as he glared far over my head, wishing he could strike down the saru in his path and make his life much easier.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know he would do this.”
His throat bobbed, and when he spoke, he continued to look over my head. “For all the gifts he has bestowed upon you, you are mortal. You’ll eventually wither and die, and I will live. All of this will be another moment in the tapestry of my past. I will survive you, Wraithmaker.” He shoved me aside and strode to the turn in the corridor. “Come, saru. You will need to secure us shared sleeping quarters.”
Sirius would not let me out of his sight. He would follow Oberon’s words to the letter because he had everything to prove. My plans to save Arran and rescue all saru from their fate would be much more difficult to execute with Sirius as my shadow.
Chapter 2
Marshal Kellee
* * *
I had always protected others. Since Oberon had taken my people from me, I had always righted the wrongs, fought against injustice for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. I had thousands upon thousands of deaths on my soul, and I had always planned on balancing those scales. The star cradled in my hand stood for that justice. It represented the laws that governed Halow, represented everything right. But those laws had died when the fae returned, and I was beginning to wonder if “right” was a dream. I continued to wear it, this small golden star, as a token, a shield. Now tarnished and scratched up, it still stood for something. It had to. I had to stand for something.
“You have been staring at that star for hours. Unless it is also a key, what do you hope to gain from it?” Talen inquired. The fae sat cross-legged in the center of the small cell the Earthens had locked us inside. The heat of the iron bars beat against him, but he showed no signs of pain. Not yet. He looked like something from the Earthen fairy tales, effortlessly striking in his leather getup. I was surprised they hadn’t executed him on Hapters. When they had come blazing through the chaos in their enormous ship, we had lost against the unseelie. If anything, they’d saved us, but we wouldn’t have needed saving had they not attacked in the first place.
I pinned the star to my coat and leaned forward on the bench. “The law is gone. We live by morals now.”
“Do Earthens have morals?”
Earthens had been Oberon’s original experiment, the origin of humans. Their kind had spread beyond Earth and Sol, prompting the First War with Faerie. After Mab’s peace treaty, they settled Halow, grew, and developed, birthing tek cities like Calicto and Point Juno, cities among the stars. Humans of Halow differed subtly to the humans of Sol—the original Earthen families. I’d only met a few Originals in all my years, and all of them were holier-than-thou assholes.
I rubbed my hands together, pushing out the itch to free my claws. “They struck while we were already engaged in a fight. What do you think?”
Talen’s eyes narrowed. “I could free us with a touch. I need only get close to one of them to incite their rage and have them—”
“No.” From what I’d learned of him over the past few months, he could do a whole lot more than that, but the last thing we needed were more enemies. I still hoped Hapters had been a misunderstanding. “Don’t.” Not yet. I would speak with their captain and try to come to some agreement. They were kee
ping us alive for a reason. That meant we would have an opportunity to talk. Once I was out of the cell, I’d get a better idea of our location and possible options. Find a ship, get back to Hapters, and assess the damage…
“Is the ship alive?” The last I’d seen of the warcruiser, it had been bent and broken, lying limp in the sky over Halow.
Talen’s fingers gripped his knees. “Yes, but she’s in considerable pain.”
I would never have believed the day would come when I pitied one of the fae’s world-eating ships. But ours—Shinj—had done nothing wrong. We had done nothing wrong. The Earthens had attacked from behind like cowards. All this time, all Halow’s people dead, worlds destroyed, and they had been absent. Why appear now?
My fingers itched again. I got to my feet, needing to move, to think, to clear my thoughts from my increasing restlessness. The cell wasn’t much larger than a few meters squared but pacing helped settle my thoughts, until they fell to Kesh.
I’d seen her run into the fray.
Watched her slow.
Turn back…
“And Kesh? Do you feel her?” I asked, careful to keep my tone level.
Talen bowed his head. “I don’t know.” He touched his chest and then dropped his hand. “The distance between us is too great.”
She’d hurt him. By cyn, she’d hurt all of us. But Talen hadn’t seen the fierceness of her charge. He hadn’t seen her rush into a wall of monsters to save him. I’d seen it. All of it. She would have toppled an army single-handed to save him.
“Do you think she left us?” the fae asked. He lifted his head, and that same indifferent expression sat easily on his face, but his eyes held the truth. Always had. He loved her—the fool. By cyn, she’d made fools of us all, but damn her, I loved her for it too. Hated her most of the time too, but we’d been working on that before they’d taken her.
“No.” I gripped the bars and clenched my hands so hard the muscles ached. The way she had slowed, her shoulders dropping, her pace slowing suggested she hadn’t betrayed us. I’d seen that blank look on the faces of the folk on Hapters when Sirius had drugged them. But Sirius hadn’t drugged Kesh. The guardian, for all his many, many faults, had more integrity than that. I’d fought Arran. The gladiator liked to deflect, distract, and then make his move. “The kid took her.”
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