“Of course not,” I said. “I’m impressed. Really.”
“I’m less good at writing,” he said. “Terrible, actually. I learned by copying from my own books, which is why they’re covered in notes.”
My mouth parted. I could read between the lines that that was one of many things he hadn’t wanted me to see in his room. Part of me was doubly impressed, another part of me wanted to give Etaina a thorough lecture and then punch her in the nose.
“I didn’t mean what I said before,” I said. “I know you’re not here because you’re running away from her. Though I have to admit I’d like you to tell me why you stayed.”
“I was hardly going to leave you in such a state, Hazel.” He turned to Hummingbird , who’d settled to sleep on a pile of cushions. “Can he stay here? He might not be safe in the realm of the Aes Sidhe any longer.”
“Sure, but you’re not leaving,” I said. “Grab some of those cushions and clear a space on the floor. Or you could join me on the bed, if you wanted to.”
He frowned. “On the bed? I thought humans didn’t practise such intimacy with strangers.”
“Have you been reading up on us like we’re an alien species?” A smile curled my mouth. “Besides, you’re hardly a stranger.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he climbed into the bed next to me. A chill breeze swept under the covers, so I wrapped my arms around him.
He tilted his head. “What are you doing?”
“Snuggling. I’m cold.”
He made a noise of protest, at least until my hands circled his hips, pulling me against him. Then a sharp exhale escaped. “Hazel, you can’t expect me to believe you would touch every stranger you meet in this manner.”
“How do you know? Besides, I have a reputation, remember?”
He rolled smoothly onto his back, deftly escaping my grip. “I regret that comment. It would be remiss of me not to admit I’ve been wanting to do such things to you that would make you forget all those past lovers.”
I laughed. “There weren’t that many. Besides, you wouldn’t be that confident in yourself if you didn’t have any experience to draw on.”
He tilted his head to look at me, a smile playing on his mouth. “I’m fae. There’s little we don’t know about the application of pleasure.”
Tension hummed between us like a current of electricity. I let my lips tease his, my nipples tightening under my shirt. A shudder went through his whole body,
“The things I want to do to you, Hazel Lynn,” he murmured.
“Go on.” I kissed him, hard, nipping at his lower lip.
Then his hands were all over me, under my shirt, bringing sparks of heat to my bare skin. I tugged impatiently at his clothes, my hands tangling in his armoured coat.
“You’re not just wearing a glamour?” I freed my hands and pulled my own shirt over my head. “Pity. There’d be fewer layers to remove.”
He shrugged out of his coat, his aquamarine eyes alight with mischief, then leaned in, kissing me fiercely. Heat exploded in my core, and I ground against him, drawing a moan from his lips. “Hazel—the curse—”
“I’m taking a contraceptive potion.” I tugged his trousers down around his lean hips. “Alternatively, you could let me do the work here.”
His breaths turned ragged as I slid my hand down his hardening length. Grinning, I quickened my pace, figuring out which movements made him writhe against me and beg for more, and how to draw out the pleasure until he was gasping. When I had him speechless on the bed, his aquamarine eyes dazed, I straddled him and let him pull my underwear down. “Your move.”
At the first touch of his tongue, my whole body tensed. I guided his hands at first, then let him take over. He flipped me onto my back, sucking and licking until waves of pleasure jolted through my core. My back arched, and I gasped, collapsing into boneless bliss.
He released me, moving to my side. “Now I know another way to make you quiet.”
“Quiet?” I grinned up at him. “Next time I’ll make a point to scream loudly enough that the Sidhe can hear me on the other side of the gate.”
“Next time?” A smile played on his lips. “How soon would that be?”
A spark entered the corner of my vision, then the window clicked open and the Erlking’s sprite flew into the room.
“Hey!” I grabbed the covers. “Can you at least knock?”
Bloody faeries. Darrow didn’t move, not self-conscious about his nakedness. Well, he wouldn’t be. Every inch of him from his silver hair to his lean, muscular build was flawless.
“My apologies for interrupting, Gatekeeper, but the third task is over,” said the sprite. “The next monarch of the Summer Court is ready to be declared.”
I forgot all about my annoyance. “Who won?”
“Lord Talthain,” said the sprite. “The crowning ceremony will be at high noon, as is custom.”
Lord Talthain. I mentally ran through the list of contenders, and recalled a male Sidhe with pale, almost translucent skin and a spiky helmet who’d pulled his blade on me. Great. Well, it was probably too much to ask for the new monarch to be someone who actually liked humans.
I sank back onto the bed. A new monarch of Summer, who the Seelie Queen and the renegades wouldn’t be able to deny had a right to the throne. It should be a victory, but a hard lump of dread settled in my chest.
At the sprite’s expectant look, I attempted a smile. “There, you don’t have to call me ‘my Queen’ anymore. Ever.” Thank the gods. “I’ll see you later.”
“My pleasure, Gatekeeper.” The sprite bowed, then flew out of the open window.
I scooted across the room to tug the window closed and pulled the curtains firmly shut. “That’s it, then. The third trial is done, and we have a new monarch.”
“You do.” Darrow pushed to his feet. “Or you will, anyway. Do you want to discuss it with your family?”
“Hell, no.” I let my arms circle his waist, pushing him onto the bed. “The sprite will tell her. I have other plans for the night.”
His aquamarine eyes sparkled. “Such as…?”
I told him.
I opened my eyes to find myself alone in the room. My body ached, in a good way, though that wasn’t what had woken me up. The staff, leaning against my bed, was glowing, the runes on its length shifting and warping before my eyes.
I slid out of bed, padding to the bathroom. Despite my skittering nerves over Darrow’s absence, it felt entirely too long since I’d had a proper shower. Unless you counted bathing in the pool of the Inner Garden, anyway. I tugged on a clean shirt and trousers, figuring I’d glamour them into a fancier outfit when the time came to head to the coronation.
Downstairs, I found Ilsa lay sleeping on the sofa in a pile of cushions and books. When I entered the room, she opened her eyes. “Good. You’re awake.”
“What are you doing here?” I said. “It’s over. The new monarch took the throne. Or he will, in a few hours. You don’t need to work on the family tree anymore.”
Ilsa made an indistinct noise and shoved a handful of hair out of her face. “The Gatekeeper’s family has to come to the coronation.”
“Doesn’t mean you had to camp out on the sofa. You do have a bedroom upstairs.” I conjured up breakfast for both of us, wondering where Darrow had wandered off to, and grabbed a mug of coffee, propping my talisman against the side of the sofa.
“I offered to donate it to Darrow,” she said. “Guess he decided not to take it.”
“You don’t seem surprised.” I bit into an apple.
“Hazel, when you want something, you don’t let a little thing like a lifelong family curse stand in your way,” she said.
“Damn right I don’t,” I said. “Speaking of curses, you don’t agree with Mum and think our curse is going to go haywire when the Summer Court’s leadership switches over, do you?”
“I don’t know, but something feels off.” Ilsa reached into the pocket of her hoody and pulled out her talisman
. A faint glow lit the book’s cover from underneath, giving the raven’s wings a brighter sheen than usual. “It’s been doing that all night. Since the trial finished.”
“Huh.” I swallowed my mouthful and jerked my head at the staff. “Mine’s been glowing, too. Not sure how long. I was asleep.”
“Asleep, huh,” she said. “Like Darrow wasn’t in there with you all night.”
“Where’d he go, do you know?”
“I saw him go outside.” She yawned. “I asked if he was going back to Faerie, and he said no.”
“Good. I bet Etaina will have to change her strategy now Summer has a new leader.”
“Hmm.” Ilsa pushed her plate away. “I’m more concerned about her sister. I find it odd that she didn’t show up at the trials in person. And what did she have to gain from attacking the Sea Kingdom, anyway?”
“A bow that couldn’t miss. Which the other Sidhe have now.” Given their track record, though, perhaps I should have taken it myself. If it hadn’t tried to kill me, that is. “Maybe she didn’t want to risk being rejected. Aila tried to claim it and it killed her.”
Ilsa’s mouth pressed together. “Does it feel to you like all the gods’ talismans are coming to the surface at the same moment? Do you think that’s strange?”
“You’ve had yours for over a year,” I pointed out, grabbing my plate. “I’m going to find Darrow. He can’t have gone far.”
I didn’t see him in the garden, but when I drew closer to the Summer gate, I spotted a flicker of movement over the hedge. I headed that way, ducking into the Inner Garden. Darrow sat on a rock next to the pool, the same rock Ilsa had sat on when she’d stripped the talisman’s magic out of me the first time, with Hummingbird perched on his shoulder. He lifted his head when I walked in and laid down my plate between us.
“Hey.” I sat down next to him and tossed him an apple, which he caught. “If I was kicking you in my sleep, you could have just woken me. I wouldn’t mind.”
He turned the apple over in his hand. “I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to disturb you. Besides, I haven’t seen this pool of yours in its normal state. Where did its magic come from?”
I looked into the clear waters. “The Sidhe. Like everything else in our house, pretty much. Why?”
He bit into the apple. “It seems a generous gift, water that can heal any wound.”
“Considering the faeries are the ones who inflict most wounds on me, it’s fair compensation.” I tossed my apple core into the bushes, where the Summer Court’s magic eagerly swallowed it up. “It can also counter the magic of a certain staff.”
Darrow’s gaze flickered over the talisman. “Why is it glowing like that?”
I turned the staff over in my hand, admiring the play of light on the swirling symbols. “I don’t know. Ilsa’s is doing the same. She thinks it’s a bad omen. Or a reaction to Summer’s change of leadership.”
Despite my light tone, Ilsa’s words had worried me. My sister’s hunches were rarely just that. She’d carried her talisman for longer than I’d had mine, and she’d even met the god whose magic was contained within it, giving her an insight few others had. Granted, Ilsa’s talisman was different than most, since it had more power in the mortal realm than it did in Faerie, and the god who’d created it hadn’t been an amoral force of destruction like the Devourer.
“Have I seen Ilsa’s talisman?” he asked. “What does it look like?”
“The Gatekeeper’s book,” I said. “A book with a raven on the cover she carries in her pocket everywhere. It’s a bit less destructive than mine. Well, if you count opening the gates of Death as less destructive, anyway.”
“I thought you were embellishing the truth when you said that,” he said. “How did she come by the talisman?”
“Inherited it,” I said. “Another family member of ours—not a Gatekeeper—made a deal with the god in order to fight a bunch of angry wraiths and bound its power to the book. That’s why Ilsa can banish them.”
“Wraiths are dead Sidhe.” He threw his apple core into the bushes.
“Only those who die in the Vale,” I said. “If Ilsa ever looks super stressed out, it’s probably because she’s one of the few humans who can banish them. She’s forever having to drive faerie ghosts out of Edinburgh, and now she’s being dragged into doing the same in Faerie. I don’t know why the Seelie Queen decided an undead army was her best bet of winning the throne. It won’t win her much support in Summer.”
“No, but if few people can fight the wraiths, she may plan to win her throne by sheer force,” he said. “Did you say she wanted to rule the Vale?”
“That too,” I said. “She only wants to win Summer to stick it to her dead husband, from what I figure. She called herself Queen of the Vale when she tried to force me to stand at her side.”
“Where did the Vale come from?” he asked.
“You’re full of questions today,” I commented. “The Vale was created when the Sidhe kicked their gods out of Faerie. After stealing their magic to put into their talismans, that is.”
His eyes widened. “So what you said yesterday… your talisman…”
“Why do you think Etaina wants it?” I said “She and the Erlking have a feud going back hundreds of years. It all goes back to their little group who screwed over their own gods to gain power. Yes, I include the Erlking among them. He was no saint, that’s for damned sure.”
But if that was the case, how had the Gatekeepers wound up entangled in their feud? One lone human who wandered into Faerie by accident a few centuries back shouldn’t have ended up caught in a war between the most powerful Sidhe in the realm, those who coveted and wielded the power of the gods. Not only were the Sidhe unable to get rid of us, Ilsa and I had both claimed talismans. Surely the Sidhe who’d bound us hadn’t planned for that to happen.
“Who’s that?” Darrow pointed through the hedge to a figure crossing the lawn, a woman with dark hair and a bright blue light emanating from the circlet on her head.
“My cousin. Hang on.” I stepped out of the grove. “Holly?”
Holly jumped, spinning around to face us with a half-unsheathed blade in her hand. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Hazel.”
“Figured it was me you wanted to see,” I said. “What is it? Bit early for a social call.”
On Holly’s brow, the Gatekeeper’s circlet gleamed with bright Winter energy, while the swirling symbol beneath matched the one on my own forehead. Her plain dark clothes were laced with armoured padding and edged in silver and blue. She was dressed, in fact, as though she was ready for battle.
“Someone just broke into my house,” she said. “And it’s your sister I’m looking for, actually. The thing that broke in… I’m pretty sure it’s a wraith. I can’t see it all that well, but it’s loose in the garden and I think it’s following me.”
Great.
“All right, I’ll get Ilsa.” I headed back to the house to find Ilsa standing in the doorway expectantly. “Wraith, coming this way.”
“Oh, bloody great,” Ilsa said, whipping out her talisman. The book’s glow brightened, the raven on the cover shifting position as she advanced across the lawn.
A tiny winged shape zipped past her, his wings beating fast. The Erlking’s sprite. “Danger!” he shouted, flying in circles above our heads.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“She plots to take the throne,” he howled, “and terrible things will happen at the coronation if we don’t stop her.”
“Hold up,” I said. “You mean the Seelie Queen? What’s she doing, planning to kill the monarch?”
He shook his head. “I am bound to serve the next monarch from the instant they put on the crown. This is your last chance… the last chance to stop him.”
“Him?” I echoed. “You mean her, the Seelie Queen. Right?”
Then it hit me. The next monarch…
Ilsa swore. “She rigged the contest. One of her people is going to take the throne.”<
br />
The next king of the Summer Court was working with the Seelie Queen.
15
For an instant, we all stared at one another, including Holly. After everything I’d done, everything we’d sacrificed… the Seelie Queen was going to take the throne anyway.
“Shit.” My heart lurched. “It’s my fault he was able to get away with it. I went off to the Sea Kingdom and then the Vale when I should have been in the trial—not that I’d planned to get involved anyway, because I thought we were safe.”
“Even if you hadn’t gone to the Sea Kingdom, he’d have still been in the running for the throne,” said Darrow. “If I hadn’t got distracted in the second trial—”
“Distracted? Assassins came after us.” I scuffed the ground with my foot. “Okay, forget the blame game. How the hell do we prove the guy’s working with her? I bet he framed those two other Sidhe for cheating, too.”
“You’re probably right,” said Ilsa, white-faced. “Swift… any ideas?”
“You must stop him!” he insisted. “Two are already dead.”
“Two…” I trailed off. “He killed that Sidhe in the second challenge. It wasn’t the assassins.”
The next monarch of Summer had killed two of his fellow Sidhe. Anger gripped me. How dare the Seelie Queen drive the Summer Court into chaos without even showing her face in person? She treated even her fellow Sidhe like pawns. Look at Lord Daival. And they still served her.
Ilsa hesitated. “I think I know how we can prove it, but it won’t be a popular idea.”
“Ilsa, I thought you said you wouldn’t raise the dead in Faerie,” I said. “You refused to raise the Erlking for the same reason.”
“Yes, I know,” said Ilsa. “But all spirits go into the Death Kingdom after they die. I should know, I nearly went there myself.”
“Wait, you want to go and find the ghosts of the Sidhe she murdered in the Death Kingdom?” I said. “Don’t you remember how it went last time? I seem to remember Lord Raivan insisting ghosts weren’t real.”
“They might say differently with wraiths attacking the Court every other day,” said Ilsa. “I don’t know, it’s all I’ve got. I’ll go there, and you go to the ceremony, Hazel.”
The Gatekeeper's Trials: The Complete Trilogy Page 57