The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  He was in a music room, dominated by an enormous golden harp and grand piano. He twisted, searching desperately for another door, but there was none. Trapped. His thoughts flew hard and sharp as crystal shards, and he tore a handkerchief from his pocket, spat in it, and flung it at the chesterfield farthest from the door before leaping atop the piano. From there a beat of his wings took him up to the chandelier, where he hauled himself on top of the fitting, crouched beneath the ceiling. The chandelier swayed and shifted as he found his balance, but he steadied it before the wyrm crashed its way into the room.

  The dagger felt ludicrous against a monster of such size, but he gripped it tightly and forced his heartbeat to quiet, curling his magic in as tightly as he could. The dismae actually made that easier. Thank the high winds for small blessings.

  The wyrm snarled as its head thrust through the door, baring diamond teeth as long as Wyn’s forearm. It scented the room, eyeless head swaying side to side as it did so. Wyn didn’t dare breathe, keeping absolutely still as his heart hammered in his ears. Nightwyrms might be blind, but their other senses were acute.

  With a sound of tortured wood, it forced its way through the doorframe and undulated its way into the room, pure muscle under its armour, curling its way around the perimeter with its head raised. Its long, pale body was thick as a centuries-old oak and covered in chitinous armour plates. A lesser nightwyrm. Thank the Maelstrom. A greater wyrm would have had aggressive magic to draw on as well; at least this one only had its physical attributes. Only.

  His gaze fixed on one of its claws. Nightwyrms had only the two forelimbs, tipped with diamond claws that they used to tunnel through anything and everything in their native environment, far beneath the surface. They used nightwyrms in the mines of ThousandSpire, and if it caught him, this one’s claws would tear his flesh far more easily than stone.

  The nightwyrm made a wet snuffling noise, nostrils flaring. With a snarl of triumph, it threw itself towards the chesterfield where Wyn had thrown the handkerchief, scattering and smashing straight through the furniture in its path. The grand piano hit the wall with a discordant clash, and stray ornaments shattered as they ricocheted off the walls. Wyn swallowed, tightened his grip on the dagger, took aim, and threw.

  His aim was off. He knew it as soon as the dagger left his hand. Unsurprising, with his unsteady footing on the chandelier making accuracy impossible. He’d meant to hit the nightwyrm’s eardrum, one of the few vulnerable spots in its armour, but instead the dagger clattered against its forehead. The wyrm’s neck-spines flushed out, and it bellowed in anger, unhurt. Damn.

  Wyn hurled himself from the chandelier a split second before the wyrm lunged, tucking his wings in and hurtling through the shredded doorway, splinters biting into his skin. He slammed his shoulder into the hallway wall opposite in his haste and pushed off again without giving himself time to think.

  He ran. He ran, and the nightwyrm chased.

  The chase blurred into primal terror, the desperate need to get out, out, out of this claustrophobic rabbit warren and away from this creature of earth. His wings were dead weight in here, but there was no time to change, no time to think. Out. He had to get out. He was a flightless bird, and the wyrm was in its element, a snake in a burrow.

  The nightwyrm was so focused on Wyn that it ignored anyone else in its path of destruction. Small mercies. The noise it made was incredible. Stone shrieked under its claws as it smashed its way down hallways, shattering wood and brick, furniture, gold leaf, ornaments, anything. Wyn ran, leaving a sovereign’s ransom of ruined wealth in his wake. Fear became a constant shock of elektrical charge as his magic hit the dismae again and again, trying to find its own way out.

  He ran, slamming doors where he could, darting down hallways. The wyrm would tear him to ribbons in seconds if it caught him, parting flesh and bone like butter under its diamond teeth. Distantly, he registered that the palace was waking up—impossible that it should not—but mainly his focus was on the next doorway, the next room. Out. There must be a way out of this damned palace. But each twist and turn seemed only to bury him ever deeper in the warren.

  He hit the kitchens and flung shut the great doors, amused despair thrilling through him when he realised his location. Had his serving years given him some kind of automatic kitchen-centric homing instinct? But at least kitchens were full of sharp iron implements. Something I never thought to be thankful for.

  He seized a pair of carving knives, and as he did so, he met the wide eyes of Princess Evangeline, who was frozen in shock beside the kitchen counter, a stolen pasty in one hand. Stormwinds. Her wide eyes took in his wings and horns.

  “You really are a fairy prince,” she said.

  “Run!” he told her, dropping a knife so he could haul her up and thrust her towards the back door. She gave a squeak of protest. “Run!” His urgency finally communicated itself to her, and she began to scramble just as the nightwyrm pounded against the kitchen door.

  High King’s horns. He couldn’t lead the wyrm in the same direction as a child, and there were only the two exits. He spun frantically as it crashed against the doors again, searching for something, anything. His gaze fell on the rack of herbs and spices, and he began to tear them from their shelf, throwing the glass jars in all directions so they smashed, releasing pungent clouds of different scents: rosemary, chilli, cinnamon, dried lemon peel, cloves, sage, cardamom. The cacophony of smells was unbearable to his heightened fae senses, but he grit his teeth and kept throwing, fanning his wings out and flapping for all he was worth, throwing the scents into further disarray, until it was impossible to pinpoint where any individual one was coming from.

  The wyrm broke through the kitchen door, and Wyn had the satisfaction of seeing tonnes of fae monster recoil. But it had too much momentum to stop, and it slid into the room on an ear-splitting shriek of protest. He didn’t hesitate. He slammed the first knife into one of its nostrils and the second into one of its eardrums before it had time to recover.

  It went mad, whether from the iron lodged in its skull or the spices overwhelming its senses, he didn’t know and didn’t care as it knocked over cabinets, sending plates shattering. Claws caught him a glancing blow as it writhed, slicing through his side so sharply he barely noticed it. He picked up another set of knives and backed away, his aim steadier now he was on firm ground. He missed as much as he hit, his grip oddly slippery, but it was a confined space, and there were a lot of knives, and they were all made of iron.

  He didn’t know how many knives it took to kill the nightwyrm except that its agonised screams split his skull by the end. It crashed its head and claws about, trying to find its tormentor, but it couldn’t manoeuvre quickly enough in the cluttered room, not when the riot of scents meant it didn’t know where to aim. Its death was a long and bloody thing, but it never stopped trying to find him or made an attempt to escape, not even in its death throes. A geas, then. Only magical compulsion could make a creature continue through such pain.

  Aroset had sent creatures to kill him before, but this was different, somehow. Before had been at Father’s direction, and which of them hadn’t done terrible things to avoid Father’s wrath or court his favour? This, though, this was Aroset alone, with no King Aeros to either punish or reward her.

  Was this her opening sally as ThousandSpire’s new queen? The thought brought a swell of terrible horror-tinged relief, and he had never loathed himself more than at that moment. How could he find any relief in this?

  He stood panting down at the nightwyrm’s still-twitching corpse, sickened. It’s done. It’s done. He had to repeat it several times before he could believe it, the nightwyrm’s screams still seeming to echo from the walls. He put his hand to his side with a wince. It came away red and dripping, and he stared at his palm, the next thought taking an oddly long time to form: I am bleeding.

  A sound behind him. He looked up to find the horrified faces of the palace guard peering around the doorframe. As if operating on pure
reflex, one lifted his ornamental rifle to his shoulder and aimed dreamily at Wyn. Stormcrows. Wyn tore open the door that Princess Evangeline had used and flung himself through. The bullet hit the doorframe with a sound that seemed both obscenely loud and oddly muted, compared to the nightwyrm’s ear-splitting screams.

  He stared up at the dark sky. He was outside. The other door to the kitchen was a bloody outside door, which seemed a completely obvious location for it to go. He began to laugh, an edge of hysteria in it. There was no sign of the princess.

  The sound of another shot shook him back to himself. He looked down at the dismae. Aroset had sent a nightwyrm into the heart of a mortal city, and the humans here were liable to kill him out of sheer fright before he managed to explain himself. There was really only one choice left. Pressing a hand to his side, he flung himself painfully into the air.

  25

  Rude Awakenings

  Loud hammering jerked Hetta from uneasy dreams. She flailed at the bedclothes, disoriented in the darkness. Who was making such a godsawful racket at this hour? If the pigs have got into the Home Wood again, I’m not dealing with it until after breakfast. The knocking came again, sharply demanding. She reached for Stariel for answers, found none, and abruptly realised she was in a hotel bed, half a country away from home.

  Too bleary to remember where the light switch was, she stretched out her fingers, summoned a ball of silvery light into being, and flung it ceiling-wards. The pounding continued.

  “Lord Valstar!” a man’s voice, unfamiliar and unfriendly.

  She scrambled out of bed and retrieved her dressing-gown, wrapping it around her pyjamas as she padded through into the sitting room and towards the door of the suite. The muzzy dregs of sleep were quickly giving way to alarm. Angry people didn’t knock on doors before dawn to deliver good news.

  She opened the door a crack, throwing the person on the other side off-balance, as he’d been just about to knock again. It was a member of the queensguard, resplendent in his red-and-purple uniform, and he wasn’t alone. Three other guards stood in the hallway behind him, all of them with grim expressions. The hotelier lurked a little further back, eyeing Hetta nervously, clearly torn between royal authority and the impulse to protect his guests’ privacy.

  “Lord Valstar,” the first guard said again. “I am Captain Marleigh. I have a warrant to search your rooms.”

  Hetta frowned at him but couldn’t make sense of the situation. “What for?”

  “We have reason to suspect you may be hiding a fugitive.” Captain Marleigh nodded to his men and put a hand meaningfully on the door. “Please remove yourself from the doorway, my lord.”

  “Or?” She felt like she ought to object to ill-explained early-morning invasions on principle, no matter how polite. Her mind whirled. “And what do you mean, hiding a fugitive?”

  He ignored her question. “If you will not open this door, I regret I will be forced to open it myself.”

  Not so polite an invasion, then. She’d worn Wyn’s ring to bed, and it lay warm against her skin, heightening her land-sense. Through it, Stariel flared in anger, a distant thunderstorm, and she repressed the urge to demonstrate to the captain that she wasn’t going to be bullied before she’d even gotten dressed. she told Stariel, though she wasn’t sure it could understand her at this distance.

  “I must insist you allow us in, Lord Valstar.” Captain Marleigh drew himself up, and Hetta sighed in exasperation and threw open the door.

  “Come in, then,” she said. “And see for yourself there’s no one but me here.”

  The four guards ignored her as they entered. Three of them reached into pockets and retrieved sets of quizzing glasses before spreading out in a search pattern. The fourth man didn’t don glasses before moving towards her bedroom. Hetta noticed that on his lapel he had an insignia that none of his comrades bore: a stylised eye. The conclusion wasn’t hard to draw: he must have the Sight.

  “For the nine heavens’ sake, you don’t truly think a person could fit under the sofa?” she said, when one of the men crouched to peer under it. A hard knot of suspicion was forming, a twisted almost-nausea in her stomach. “And you’d better not be looking for Prince Hallowyn, because that means you’ve lost him, and the queen herself assured me he would be treated as an honoured guest. He is still at the palace, isn’t he?”

  The man checking under the sofa glanced up at the captain for guidance on how to answer this apparently difficult question, which told her that Wyn wasn’t at the palace anymore. What had happened? He’d been so very resolved not to embark on any daring escape attempts; what had made him change his mind? Had they hurt him?

  “Well, you have a terrible poker face,” she said. “So I can see that something has happened. Where is the prince?”

  The captain frowned, as if he wasn’t sure her reaction was genuine. “There was an…incident. The prince is no longer at the palace.” He pressed his lips shut and glanced at the guard with the eye insignia who’d just emerged from her bedroom. “Anything, Severn?”

  The guard shook his head. “No. Wait and I’ll check this room as well.”

  “Your compatriots have already checked it most diligently for secret sofa-hiders,” Hetta said acerbically but was again ignored. What was the point in being a lord if people still ignored you? She tightened the belt of her dressing gown and straightened. How had her father behaved when he was displeased with underlings? “Captain Marleigh, I’m not accustomed to being woken at strange hours and having my quarters searched as if I were a criminal, without any real explanation.”

  “I’m checking for fairy glamour,” Severn said, to his captain’s displeasure.

  “You’re checking for fae glamour because you don’t know where Prince Hallowyn is and you believe he’s hiding in my hotel room?”

  “We’re merely following our orders, Lord Valstar,” Captain Marleigh said when Severn shook his head.

  Aunt Sybil, Alexandra, and three more guards tumbled into the room at this point. Aunt Sybil was doing a very good impression of a large, indignant crow. Her dressing gown was an ancient black monstrosity, and she drew herself up to her not inconsiderable height and hissed at the captain:

  “What is the meaning of this, young man?”

  The captain, to give him credit, didn’t quail at the sight. He looked to his men, who shook their heads. “Nothing, sir.”

  The captain bowed to Aunt Sybil. “Thank you for your cooperation, ladies, Lord Valstar. We apologise for the intrusion. If you have questions, I suggest you take them up with my employer.”

  And they marched out the door as if that were a completely satisfactory answer, leaving only the apologetic hotelier in their wake. Aunt Sybil began to give him a dressing down at this appallingly unacceptable treatment of guests, commenting liberally on his intelligence, class, and manners, and threatening to blacken his name to every person she knew.

  “Something’s happened to Wyn, hasn’t it?” asked Alexandra while their aunt was preoccupied. Her blue eyes were wide and worried. “What are you going to do, Hetta?”

  Hetta frowned at the sofa where the guard with the Sight had searched. “I’m going to get some answers.”

  It was still very early when she reached the palace, the overcast dawn so grey as not to be worth the name. Despite the hour, the palace reminded her strongly of a kicked anthill. Official-looking people were piling out of dark kineticars whilst servants hurried out of the way. Already several newspaper reporters had gathered at the front gates, attempting to interview stony-faced guards.

  Hetta considered the grand main entrance and decided she didn’t have much taste for sitting in ornate waiting rooms for who knew how long. She wanted answers now. Slipping towards the back entrance, she drew up the uniform of a palace kitchen maid, overlaying it on her dress. It took longer than it should’ve to get it right, with her emotions tangling the magic. She took long, steadying breaths, taking the time to iron out
the details. If she was found out, it dashed well wouldn’t be because of shabby magic, not in Meridon, where she’d earned her mastery fair and square.

  After that, well, she became invisible in the way that servants are invisible. This was much easier than true invisibility, which only worked with any degree of success while one stood still. Still, limited invisibility was better than none, and she took advantage of her skills to work her way into the palace. She headed in the direction that appeared to be the focal point of the foot traffic, stepping into doorways and throwing up a veil whenever it looked like someone might question her presence.

  Something had wrecked the palace to an incredible degree. Whole walls were missing in places, splinters and plaster shards everywhere, furniture flung about as if a dog had worried at it. Already workmen were beginning to clear away the mess. Hetta didn’t dare imagine the cost of the repairs.

  I hope they can’t charge Stariel for damages, she thought, mostly because she was trying not to think about what lay at the end of this path of destruction or what had caused it. But if the queensguard were searching for Wyn, that meant he had to be alive, at least, didn’t he? They wouldn’t search for a dead man. But he didn’t have access to his magic. What if whatever had caused this mess had caught him? What if he was bleeding out somewhere, alone and in hiding? A cold, needly feeling dug into her chest. Oh, gods, why hadn’t she told him she loved him yesterday? It always seemed too sugary sentimental to say aloud, but what if he wasn’t all right… She paused and took a deep, sharp breath. This wasn’t the time or place to panic. Find out what happened first.

  She followed the increasing guard presence towards the epicentre, relying more and more on illusion as she got close. Two maids passed her as she hid in a doorway. One of them said to the other with a kind of unholy relish: “They said he was bleeding like a stuck pig. He can’t have got far.”