These Hollow Vows

by Lexi Ryan

  I can’t bring myself to believe it. Then again, Finn once told me that everything he does, he does to protect his people. Why would I think his actions with me were any different?

  “I wouldn’t bond with Finn,” I say, almost to myself.

  Swallowing, Sebastian gives me an insecure smile. “When you’re ready, I will be honored to bond with you. I would use the bond to protect you. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He lowers his mouth to mine and brushes a soft kiss there. “Are you ready?” he asks.

  I swallow. “Bash . . . I can’t. I need more time if—”

  “To go to the summer palace.” He brushes his knuckles along my jaw. “The bond can wait. For now.” He turns toward the hallway and lets out a low whistle.

  A goblin hobbles into the room. His bowed head jerks sharply to the side and his nostrils flare. He sniffs, then looks at me, accusation in his eyes. Can he smell Bakken? Does he know his kin was here?

  “Take us to the summer palace,” Sebastian says.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” the goblin says, but as he reaches for my hand, he smirks at me—a dangerous creature who holds my secret. Sebastian takes the goblin’s bony hand in his own, and then I do the same.

  Before I can take a breath to brace myself for the free fall of goblin transport, I hear the sounds of the sea crashing on the shore. Then I see the light of the moon twinkling in the water and feel the sand beneath my feet.

  Salty air tickles my nose, and the sound of the waves invades my senses just as the summer palace comes into view. I wouldn’t call it small by any stretch of the imagination. Its many spires seem to loom over the sea, but right before me are the grand windows that I know lead to the library. And the Grimoricon.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “THANK YOU,” SEBASTIAN SAYS, releasing the goblin’s hand.

  “I’m here to serve, Your Highness.” The goblin purses his lips and gives me one final knowing smile before disappearing.

  There are beaches in Elora, but I’d seen the sea only once when I was young. I almost can’t remember that trip, riding on a horse with my mother, my father riding beside us, then my first tentative steps into the water, laughing as the waves knocked me over.

  Sebastian’s white hair blows in the breeze as he looks out toward the horizon and the sun sinking into the sea. “Walk with me?” he asks.

  I turn away from the palace and toward the sea. “I would like that.”

  He leads me down the beach, clutching my arm to his side the whole time as if he’s afraid I might disappear. “This is my favorite spot,” he says, walking slowly. “The sound of crashing waves has always brought me comfort. The Golden Palace is continually bustling with servants and courtiers. I preferred it here from a young age, but didn’t get to come nearly as often as I’d like.”

  “It’s beautiful. Very peaceful.”

  He nods. “I’ve come out here a few times in the weeks since you came to the palace.” He cuts his eyes to me for a long beat. “I’ve had a lot to think about.”

  I swallow, my eyes burning. I feel so close to saving Jas, and more than ever I’m terrified that the moment I save her, I will lose everything else. Or worse, that Mordeus will somehow get out of the bargain and I’ll lose her.

  Hadn’t Lark said that, when I saw her in my dream? I told her I didn’t want to be a queen with so much when others have nothing, and she said I’d lose everything. Was that really the child visiting me or just a dream?

  “Hey,” he whispers. “Why the tears?”

  I swallow. “Jas would love it here.”

  He bows his head. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get her. Mordeus . . . He’s used his essence to hide your sister.” He says this like it’s terrible news.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that as long as he’s alive, we will not be able to physically reach her.” He rolls his shoulders back. “It means the only way I can save your sister is if someone kills the king.”

  “But you can’t,” I blurt. “The Seelie can’t harm the Unseelie.” His eyes go wide, and I realize what I’ve said. “Isn’t that true?”

  His breath quickens, and he licks his lips. “Tell me what you know.”

  Can it hurt to admit what I’ve learned? I hate lying to Sebastian, and pleading ignorance after blurting what I did is pointless. “I know that the Unseelie lost their magic and immortality to the curse your mother put on them.”

  I watch him as I say this, but he has no reaction. No denial or confirmation. He can’t talk about the curse.

  “I always believed the Unseelie were evil,” I say, continuing, “but I don’t believe that anymore. Some shadow fae are evil and some are good. And some golden fae are evil and some are good. But maybe . . . maybe the Unseelie who seem evil are just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

  Sebastian stops walking and turns his head toward the ocean. “I never told you this, but there was an assassination attempt on my mother on the night of Litha—made by a member of my grandparents’ court who defected after my mother took the throne.” He shakes his head. “The traitor was captured before he could hurt her, but somehow . . . somehow Finn’s people were able to infiltrate the castle, get past my guards and our wards, and free the traitor who’d planned to put a blade in the heart of his own queen.”

  I bow my head, but I’m terrified that he can smell my guilt.

  “But . . . apparently you knew about that,” he says. The hurt in his voice grates against my conscience. “You knew Jalek wanted to kill my mother, and you didn’t say a thing to me.”

  “I didn’t know about Jalek’s plans.” It’s true, and yet . . . I soften my tone before I continue. “But I won’t pretend I would have stopped him if I had.” I lift my chin and look him in the eye. “I know what it’s like to work nonstop and still be a prisoner of your circumstances. Your mother’s camps? It’s hard to not wish worse than death on someone who would do that to innocents.”

  “I won’t defend those camps,” he says, his voice shaking. “But with so many Unseelie fleeing Mordeus’s rule, our court has been overrun. Our people are suffering, and the queen is putting her subjects first, protecting them from the shadow fae.”

  “What if the shadow fae are the ones who need protecting?”

  “Finn told you about the camps, but did he tell you about the hundreds in my court who’ve been slaughtered in cold blood so those running from the mess in his could take over their homes?”

  And because of the queen’s curse, those golden fae wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from the Unseelie. It’s a sickening image. “I won’t argue that all the Unseelie are good,” I say, “or that terrible situations don’t sometimes bring out the worst in people, but—”

  “They still have free will. They make their own choices, and through those choices they’ve proved who they really are.”

  “But you can’t define a whole court on the actions of the worst of them. I believe Finn is good.”

  Sebastian’s eyes blaze as he turns back to me. “If you think he’s so good, you should use those powers of yours to find his catacombs in the Wild Fae Lands. See what he keeps there and tell me if you still believe him so noble.”

  What could Finn keep in his catacombs that would prove he’s as evil as Sebastian wants me to think?

  “I can’t stand how he’s gotten to you, made you think you can trust him.”

  “He’s become . . . a friend.”

  “That’s what he wants you to think. I’m begging you not to fall for it.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you so against Finn and his people when your own mother is the cause of their suffering?”

  “I’m not against the Unseelie.” He shakes his head. “Not at all, Brie. I hate what is happening to them under Mordeus’s rule. Faerie can’t exist without the light and the dark, the sun and the shadow. My mother knew that, and if it weren’t for her, thousands of fae would continue to die every day in the Great Fae War.”


  “She ended the war?”

  “Through her sacrifice, the fighting stopped.”

  He wants to believe she’s good. Can I fault him for that? She’s his mother. But he’s too smart to turn a blind eye to all she’s done. “I don’t see it the way you do.”

  “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “Then tell me—tell me what you can.”

  He swallows. “Once, my mother was the golden faerie princess. Young and inexperienced, she was seduced by King Oberon. She fell in love with him, but their kingdoms had battled for hundreds of years, and her parents were sworn enemies of the king and his kingdom. As long as the golden queen and golden king ruled, the princess could never freely be with her shadow king. But when they were able, they would sneak away from their lands and disguise themselves as humans to meet in the mortal realm. There, they wouldn’t be condemned for their love. Their power was so great and their magic so intense that their love could move the sun and the moon, creating what the humans called an eclipse.”

  I know this story. My mother used to tell us the story of the shadow king and the golden princess. When he doesn’t continue, I continue for him. “And one day Oberon came to the human realm, but Arya couldn’t make it. Her parents had discovered what she’d been doing, and they combined their magical powers to lock all portals between the human world and Faerie—keeping their daughter from reaching her lover and preventing the shadow king from returning home. The humans sacrificed innocents in an attempt to appease their gods and get the sun back.”

  Is that what Bakken meant when he referred to the long night? The same long night I heard stories of when I was a child?

  Sebastian waits as his eyes will me to go on.

  “But no matter the prayers or the sacrifices, the humans couldn’t end the long night. They had no power over the portals, and the shadow king remained locked outside his world, searching for another way home. His magic grew weaker with every day, until he could no longer disguise his true form. With no magic to protect him from the humans and their prejudice, he was beaten and brutalized, the tips of his ears cut off and his face pulverized with their fists. It was then that he met the human woman. She found him outside her house and took pity on him, giving him the healing tonics she had. She couldn’t stand to see any creature suffer. She gave him a place to stay, tended to him, and used her potions to heal him. As the long night dragged on, they fell in love. He never forgot the golden fae princess, but his love for the woman was too intense to deny. When the portals reopened, he knew he had to return home, but the human refused to join him. She didn’t want to leave her world. Even so, the shadow king knew he could no longer be with the princess. His heart belonged to the human.”

  Sebastian’s eyes flash with anger, and he picks up the story for me. “Meanwhile, in the Court of the Moon, the shadow king’s brother had swept in to take over his empire, capitalizing on his brother’s absence. Oberon returned to find that his brother had won the allegiance of half of the Unseelie court, and Oberon couldn’t return to his throne without risking a civil war his people couldn’t afford as the Great Fae War raged on.

  “On the other side of the realm, my mother had taken her place as queen of the golden fae. She begged the shadow king to marry her as they once planned—if not for love, then for the good of their kingdoms. She promised that if they married, she would help him get his brother off his throne and then they could unite their courts and end the war between them. But Oberon refused. He wouldn’t even do it for peace between their peoples. He was no longer in love with her, and he still believed he might one day convince his mortal love to join him in his world.”

  Sebastian stops his story there, so I finish it for him. “Then the queen cursed the Unseelie.”

  I wait for him to confirm it, but he only freezes.

  “You do know about the curse,” I say, “but you can’t speak of it.”

  Again, it’s as if he can’t even nod in confirmation. “The most powerful magic in Faerie comes from its rulers,” he says. “My mother was the most powerful queen to ever take the throne, but wielding such great magic comes at a cost, one far worse than having an entire court hate her.”

  “How could they not?” I ask, trying to keep my tone gentle.

  “She ultimately saved thousands of fae lives by ending the war,” Sebastian says. “Oberon cared more about himself than about his people. He could have ended the war by marrying my mother, such a small sacrifice, but he refused. Whereas my mother’s sacrifice was enormous and saved thousands, but now she is dying to pay the price of . . .” He flinches, then swallows.

  By cursing the Unseelie and making her own people helpless against them, I think, but I keep my mouth shut. The queen is his mother, and she’s dying. I can’t blame him for being blind to her mistakes if he feels like he’s losing her and powerless to stop it. “Why doesn’t she just lift the curse?”

  When he only stares at me and doesn’t answer, I remember that he’s not able to speak so directly to the curse. The torment in his eyes weighs on me, and I wrap my arms around his waist.

  His hands slide into my hair, and he pulls back as his fingers tangle with the shorter locks I hide beneath my thick curls. “What happened back here?” I lower my gaze, but he tilts my chin up so I’m looking at him. “You don’t have to hide anything from me.”

  I already told him what I know about the curse, so I might as well explain how I learned it. “I gave Bakken some of my hair so he would tell me about the curse.” Again, the word curse makes him flinch—as if the word’s a knife in his back every time.

  He slides his hand up the side of my face and toys with the locks of shorter hair framing my face. “And these?”

  “Back in Elora. He told me that Mordeus bought Jas.” I shrug at his frown. “There are things you cannot tell me, and there are things I didn’t want you knowing I was doing.” There still are. “And I trust Bakken.”

  “Goblins’ secrets aren’t usually so easily bought. He must . . . he must believe he has something to gain by staying on your good side. But be careful that you don’t rely too much on their kind. If they discover your weaknesses, they’ll take and take until you find you’ve given everything.”

  I pinch his side gently. “Don’t look so worried, Sebastian. I have more where that came from.”

  “Not all secrets can be bought with a lock of hair, Brie.”

  I thread my fingers through his and smile sadly as I tug on a lock. “I wish they could.”

  Sebastian scans the horizon where the golden and red fingers of dusk stretch low across the water. “We need to move inside.” There’s a note of urgency in his voice.

  “Why?”

  He nods down the beach, and I see a cluster of ravens swarming.

  “The Sluagh?” I ask.

  “Yes. They roam the beach at night. It’s one of the reasons my mother doesn’t come here much anymore.”

  “Why would there be Sluagh here? Who died on the beach?”

  Something flashes in his eyes. When he doesn’t answer, I realize it’s not because he doesn’t know, but because he can’t or won’t tell me. Still so many secrets between us, but at least it’s clearer now that there are at least some that he doesn’t keep by choice.

  “Come on.” He tugs me toward the palace and I follow. I know better than to linger with Sluagh about.

  * * *

  Sebastian tells the servants he’ll show me around while they prepare our dinner.

  “King Mordeus doesn’t belong on the Throne of Shadows,” Sebastian says when we’re alone, picking up where we left off outside. “And all of Faerie suffers for it. But he will do anything to wear the crown so the throne will accept him.”

  He takes my hand and leads me down a brightly lit staircase. As he pushes through a heavy door, I realize he’s brought me to some sort of armory. My eyes go wide as I take in all the weapons—the variety of knives and swords, the rows of armor, and the racks of wooden bows.
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  He goes straight to the far wall and selects a shining black dagger before turning back to me. “This is made of adamant and iron.” He offers it to me. “It was sharpened with diamond blades by the queen’s own blacksmith, and its magic will leave traces of iron behind in anyone you use it on.”

  I take it. It’s heavy but not clumsily so. When I wrap my fingers around the hilt, a strange jolt of power rocks through me. It feels like it was made for my palm.

  “Only this can kill the king,” Sebastian says. “Keep it on you at all times.”

  My eyes flick up to meet his. He doesn’t know I’ve been working for the king, so why would he think I need a dagger than can kill him?

  “Riaan told me that you two talked last night,” he says softly. “He said you admitted to having secrets. Secrets that you’re forced to keep or risk losing your sister.” He pulls a scabbard from a drawer and unbuckles the small belt attached to it. “Maybe the same secrets that made you give me a fake and keep the Mirror of Discovery for yourself.”

  I gasp. “You knew?”

  “Yes. And I waited for you to explain—to trust me—but now I understand that you can’t.”

  “I . . .” He knew. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything.”

  “I trust you, Brie. Whether or not you trust me in return.”

  Heart heavy, I watch as he kneels before me, lifting the hem of my skirt from the ground. His fingers brush my skin as he wraps the scabbard around my calf and buckles it in place. When he turns a palm up for the dagger, I gently hand it to him by the hilt. “Keep this on you at all times for protection. Use your magic to hide it if you can.”

  “I . . .” How much does he know about my magic? About my secrets? “I can. I’ve gotten better.”

  He slides it into place, and there’s something comforting about the hug of the belt, the weight of the blade at my calf. When he stands, his face is solemn. “This blade will also work against Finn.”