by Sage, May
Frostbound Throne
Court of Sin Book Two: Song of Winter
May Sage
Contents
Part Two
Prologue
1. Queen Takes King
2. Spells and Hexes
3. The Poison Fruit
4. The King’s Deals
5. A Fairy Dance
6. Fire and Shadows
7. The Sword and the Crown
8. City of Winter
9. Divine Intervention
10. Pursued
11. Ice and Snow
12. A Cave with a View
13. Energy
14. An Innocent Question
15. Wiser
16. From One Beast to Another
17. Fire
18. Words from the East
19. Trust
20. In the Name of the Goddess
21. A Little Detour
22. Low Crest Bridge
23. The Traitor
24. Insanity
25. Dinners and Deals
26. The Great Halls
27. The Court of Stars
28. Whispers and Pleas
29. End of an Age
30. Frostbound
Afterword
Part Two
Song of Winter
Prologue
Elden often mused at the turn of events.
Shea Blackthorn had come to see him some hundred years ago to warn there would be war against Corantius one day. The only reason there was peace at all right now was because Orin, ruler of the Court of Crystal, demanded it.
Shea believed that when the northern kingdom would unleash its wrath against the rest of the Isle, the seelie, unseelie and elven realm would fall. Elden hadn’t doubted that fact, but unlike her, he looked upon his demise with a degree of indifference and resignation. He’d lived long enough. Most of his people were also immortals; they’d seen plenty of winters rise and fall. It was all meant to end one day.
“We can fight this.”
“A handful of gods. A hundred thousand demi-gods. A million high fae. That’s how many enemies we will face when this peace comes to an end. We are doomed,” Elden stated.
“A handful gods,” Shea repeated. “Let us not pretend that anyone else matters. Seven gods could raze this continent and rule over its ruins.”
Another fact. “I fail to see your point. The gods of Corantius will march against us when their overking orders them to.”
“The gods of Corantius may. I say we forge gods of our own.”
Her scheming was madness, and for a time, he bore her no mind. Then one day, as he walked down the paths to the lakes, Elden spotted a noisy horde of younglings playing in the early autumn snow. Two dozen children of a tender age, laughing innocently.
Did he truly have a choice?
Years after she’d proposed an alliance, he sent his raven to the Court of Night.
“I will partake in your schemes, so long as it causes no harm to my court.”
Her reply was swift.
By then, Shea had almost everything she needed to execute her plan. She had enlisted an Ashtar, master of fire, a Winford, lord of air, and the last of Rivers, commander of water and ice. Shea possessed the powers of the earth. The four females would channel their powers to bless one unborn child.
For all their magic, to make a child, they still required a male of some kind. Shea could have called upon anyone, but she’d solicited Elden’s aid.
“Loxy will bear the child so that it will have seelie blood. I will take it in and raise it in my court. If you were to father it, the child’s very existence would be reason enough for the kingdoms to unite and fight under one flag.”
Idealistic nonsense. But what would it cost him? A few nights with one of the most enticing females in the Isle wasn’t his idea of an ordeal. He agreed. For three years, Loxy was blessed by the other three females every full moon, and she shared Elden’s bed until she was with child.
And here they were now.
Elden Star had seen enough seasons to have learned the value of patience. He’d long ago come to the conclusion that events had a tendency to occur exactly how, and when, they ought to.
That said, the torturous wait had to stop if he was to retain his senses.
He had never desired to father a child. Not once, in five thousand years, had he wished for it. But the cunning, conniving young fae who’d talked him into this nonsense had been persuasive.
Waiting in front of the closed doors and listening to every gut-clenching scream coming from the room where he wasn’t welcome, Elden suddenly contemplated the frailty of his sanity. The child was coming.
His child.
Elden looked upon the offending red door before resuming his restless pacing in the corridor. Shea smiled mockingly. It was all her fault. One word from her and he’d happily declare war on the unseelie realm.
Loxy’s screaming stopped but for an instant, and then he heard it—a high-pitched cry.
“That’s a girl,” said the healer from inside the room.
A girl. He had a little girl. A live one with a healthy set of lungs.
Elden resolutely strode to the door. To hell with the propriety, he was going in.
The door opened just as he reached for the handle, and a smiling maiden greeted him with a white linen bundle in her arms.
His daughter.
He looked to the babe and then up to her mother. He frowned. Why was she still writhing so?
“There is another,” said a nurse before lifting the precious parcel up to him.
His eyes widened. Was he supposed to hold it?
“Go on. She won’t break. And my hands are needed again.”
The king of the Wymur and lord of the elves wrapped his arms around his daughter. A child with hair of fire and eyes of grass, like her mother.
“Kira,” he said, a smile playing on his lips.
“Hell if you’re naming the babes!” Loxy shouted as the nurse rushed back in. “I’m doing all the work. Get out of here, you bastard! You did this to me!”
The nurse shut the door as Loxy threw a pillow at his face.
By nightfall, there was another child. A child with black hair, almost blue. Not his nor Loxy’s coloring. She had his eyes and her mother’s face, but she wasn’t truly theirs; even then Elden could tell. There was so much magic in her.
Loxy held her close. “Devira,” she whispered, tears at the corners of her eyes.
No child should be saddled with such responsibility. No mother should give birth to a child made for war. No father should be told to relinquish one of his newborns. And yet here they were.
Shea was smug in her victory. She had her first weapon.
One
Queen Takes King
The common fae hesitated in front of the large green and black tent. It was still strange for a young female of her age and station to enter the quarters of a queen.
“Come in, Jiya.”
It had shocked her that Shea Blackthorn knew her name at all the first time she’d said it, and it still seemed surreal now.
Three days ago, at dawn, when hell had fallen on the Court of Night, Jiya had woken to a commotion and found the streets of Asra in an uproar. Jiya rushed to put on pants and grab her weapons of choice, two short swords. By the time she emerged out of her modest apartment on Main Street, the city gates had been taken, most of their defenses pulverized.
She was confused and unsure what to do. Jiya was a protector in training, and as such, her duty was to join the guards in mounting a defense, but she could tell that the Square of Dawn, where the headquar
ters was located, was burning in the distance.
After a moment, she jumped up the closest wall, propped herself up on a store sign, and leaped onto the roof. She turned toward the castle. The next logical move was to find the head of the protector order, who resided with the queen in Wolven Fort.
Her best friend also lived in the royal keep. If nothing else, she’d find Devi. Devi would know what to do; she always did.
Jiya had been halfway to the brownstone keep when a voice reached her mind. A voice she knew. A voice that had never spoken her name till this day.
“Jiya.”
She froze. Was it a trick? Machinations of the hidden enemy? But no enemy of consequence had any reason to pay attention to her, the youngest daughter of the Duniels, an old family of fishermen and traders. Then again, there was no reason for Shea Blackthorn to reach her mind either.
“I have no time to appease your ego, youngling. Follow my orders or don’t. Choose.”
Jiya dropped to one knee although no one was there to see.
“Good girl. You seem somewhat agile. I have taken the southern gate. Join me.”
She turned back and ran across the rooftops to the southern gate as she was told, catching shadows in the smoke down in the streets. She heard screams and cries for help. Many a time, she wanted to climb down and do what she could for the people of Asra, but the first time this impulse arose, she heard the queen’s voice again. “Ignore them or die.”
And so she ran south.
When she reached the gate, a soldier ushered her to the border of the surrounding woods and gestured for her to remain there before running back to the city to direct another fae who’d just reached the gate.
“I can help,” Jiya wanted to say. She was a protector; this was what she was supposed to do. But she realized she could help by remaining exactly where she was.
Others hid in the woods, the old and young, most of them unarmed. She didn’t have to butt into the guard’s duty to be of assistance.
Jiya unsheathed her swords and started patrolling the woods. That, at least, she could do.
West of the gates, she came to a halt and gasped. From the shadow of the woods, she could see a fight in the distant plains.
There were three dozen unseelie guards fighting four creatures in armor, and at the center of it all, the queen sat on the ground, eyes closed, ignoring all mayhem around her, trusting her knights, protectors, and guards to keep her safe.
Many fell, for the enemies in red and gold were stronger than anyone Jiya had ever seen or heard of, but the three dozen remaining queen’s guards kept a circle around Shea and defended her with everything they had. Jiya was frozen in place, watching in horror. Every other minute, another guard was slain. There were only four enemy soldiers, but the highly trained fae of Shea’s guard struggled to keep them away from their queen. The enemies’ movements were so fast Jiya only saw a blur, and they were powerful enough to bend metal with one stroke.
“What is she doing?” a boy whispered, and Jiya turned to find that some civilians had followed her deeper into the woods.
After a moment of silence, an old common fae with thick, curved antlers replied, “Quite a lot, young'un. Did a voice tell you you’d be safe if you came here? That was our queen reaching those whose minds are strong enough to listen. And if you pay attention to the earth beneath your feet and the whispers of the wind, you’ll feel many steps marching from the west and many wings flying from the north. These are the queen’s lands, and she is calling on all those who would defend it.”
A horn blasted in the distance, and the queen opened her eyes. She rose to her feet just as a large bird of prey descended to hover above her, something shiny flashing in its talons. The bird dropped it, and the queen snatched it in midair.
A sword, too long and too thick for the dainty female, it seemed.
Appearances were deceiving.
Moving with the same preternatural speed as the four males in red and gold but with more agility, she thrust the heavy weapon through the metal breastplate of the first enemy, plunging the blade into his heart. She pulled the sword out, leaped onto the second soldier’s shoulders, and shoved her blade through the nape of his neck. The two other males closed in, coming from the front and back. The queen effortlessly lifted the heavy blade, facing one soldier and paying no mind to the other. Her guards rushed to her aid, but Jiya saw the soldier behind Shea draw a throwing star. She jumped out of the woods and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.
Unnecessary.
After beheading the third soldier, the queen lifted her hand toward the last one and tightened her fists. The ground beneath his feet shook, and thick vines rushed out of the earth, winding serpentine around his legs and arms and keeping him firmly in place.
The soldier struggled to break free and winced.
“I wouldn’t do that in your place,” said Shea conversationally. “The more you move, the faster they’ll tighten. They’ll break your bones first, and then I suspect they’ll detach your left arm from your body. The head usually comes last. You can thank your armor for prolonging your suffering.”
The queen turned on her heels to face Jiya.
“It takes great courage to see what scions are capable of yet choose to place yourself in harm’s way, Jiya. You will ride with me.”
And so here she was, three days after the fall of Asra, with her queen and still alive, unlike so many in the city.
Jiya had never admired Shea more than on the day of the attack. They all heard stories of her great deeds during the War of the Realms, so many centuries ago, but it was one thing to know that the queen was powerful, and yet another to witness it.
Jiya entered the queen’s tent to find Shea in her dressing gown, her platinum hair undone. Her hair was usually braided down her back, out of the way; seeing her like this felt strange. The queen looked younger, almost vulnerable.
“Excuse me, Your Grace.”
“Do you have news?” Shea prompted, taking a comb and untangling the imaginary knots from her perfect mane.
“We do. An hour ago, we found a male following us. Loralei Night almost killed him, but I recognized him. It’s Devin Farel. He’s under guard until you decide what to do with him.”
The queen nodded, unsurprised. Was she ever surprised?
“Very good. I’m glad you kept the seelie king alive. Lora can be a delight, but she’s quick to draw her sword. You’ve done well.”
Jiya blushed at the praise.
“Your orders, Your Grace?”
“Release the poor boy and feed him, too. I’d wager he’s ravenous.”
Jiya blinked. They’d been attacked right after the seelie’s arrival at court.
“He has nothing to do with this mess,” the queen continued. “His one sin is having an ass for a father, and I can’t very well begrudge him that. Besides, he may be of help. I’ll speak to him, of course, but I consider him our guest.” She paused. “For now.”
Two
Spells and Hexes
Just a taste, Valerius told himself. A fleeting touch of Devira Star Rivers’s tantalizing lips and then they’d go back to talking politics, machinations, wars, and nonsensical notions such as the absurd idea of his occupying the most powerful position in the Isle, the throne that ruled over all thrones. Ludicrous. She must have hit her head too hard before passing out during the attack they’d just survived.
Him, the dark prince, made king of kings.
Part of him—the part that made people shudder, the part that relished the suffering of others—desired it greatly. But he knew better than to wish this fate upon the world. It was one thing to govern a few thousand souls he cared for in his remote northern home. Calling himself monarch of the rest of the Isle was another thing altogether.
The second his mouth took hers, none of that mattered. He wanted—needed—more. He couldn’t have controlled himself if he’d cared to. Vale and the dark prince were again in agreement: their one wish was to keep caressin
g her delectable, soft skin and savoring each moan, shiver, and wordless gasp. His lips only left her mouth to tease her neck, her collarbone, the curves of her breasts.
Devi held on to his shoulders and ran her fingers through his hair again. That was her thing, apparently. Vale found he liked it just fine, although he couldn’t recall the last time he’d let a female do anything so intimate.
Anyone else and he would have pushed away, or taken her hand and shoved it in his pants. Anyone else and he would already have been buried deep inside one of her holes, pumping in and out. Devi he wished to explore and savor every part of her flesh and soul, one exquisite bit at a time.
He lifted his head to reach her throat and ran the tip of his tongue on her golden skin. Devi’s flavor was salt, woods, ocean, and sin. He trailed kisses from the crook of her collarbone to her ear, perhaps the single most sensitive part of any fae. Vale wanted to bite her earlobe hard enough to leave a mark. He wanted to demand she extend her wings so he could caress each long golden feather. To claim every part of her—the parts she wouldn’t share with anyone. Not his Devi. She was too proud for that. She wouldn’t have let herself shudder, beg, or fall into the arms of anyone else.
Fisting her disheveled black hair, Vale inhaled her scent and sighed. Finally, he moved away, putting one foot of distance between them.
“You’re bad for me, Devi Star Rivers.”
“Oh no,” she purred low next to his ear, and playfully nipped at his earlobe. Fuck. If he hadn’t been hard before, he would be now. His length throbbed in his breeches. “I’m very, very good. Trust me.”