A Queen Comes to Power: An Heir Comes to Rise Book 2

by C. C. Peñaranda

  “Don’t even think about it,” he warned.

  She would have snapped at the gesture, but she found herself amused instead as she looked down at his hand that was yet to release her. “Are you worried about me, Reylan?”

  He failed to see the humor and held his look firm.

  She rolled her eyes, pulling her arm from his grasp. “It’s not as if any of you can go down there.” She looked around briefly. “Yep, only human here. Guess I’m shit out of luck.” She turned to go forward but was met by Nik’s tall figure blocking her way.

  “We don’t know what’s down there,” he said, his voice laced with concern. Yet in his eyes, he knew they had no other option.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  At Reylan’s offer, gold met sapphire, and her retort died in her throat at the unexpected worry on his face.

  Her look softened. “You could barely move when you stepped into that cell. You’d be weaker than me down there.”

  His jaw flexed as if he wanted to protest, but ultimately, he knew she was right.

  “It’s strong here. I don’t think it’s far past that door. We’ll be able to hear if there’s any danger, and she’ll make it back to us before anything can happen to her,” Tauria said to curb the worry of the overprotective fae males. It was in their nature, even more so than humans. They were annoyingly territorial, dominant, and protective.

  Faythe smiled at Tauria in thanks. Reylan looked the most reluctant to agree but gave a forced nod of acceptance anyway. Without giving her mind a chance to submit to her own rising fear about what lay beyond the door, Faythe stepped through the second half of the hallway. She only prayed the damned ruin would be there for the taking and she wouldn’t have to face anything nightmarish.

  Likely wishful thinking.

  “Don’t let your guard down for a second,” Reylan’s voice called out as she met the door.

  Faythe would have been irked at his excessive concern, but a small, mischevious smile crept along her face. She would find a way to tease him with his worry later.

  She unlatched the four bolts on the door, not giving herself time to dread why there were so many to seal the thick steel, then stepped inside and let her companions fade away behind her the deeper she went through the black hallway. She made one turn. Then there was nowhere to go except forward when she spied a room at the end of the hall. Edging closer with caution, Faythe faintly made out a pool of light that hit the center from a source directly above.

  Inside the compass of light…sat a small box.

  It was too perfect. Too obvious.

  She made it to the entrance and gasped, taking in the sight of a hundred mirrors. With her first steps into the room, her own reflection bounced back at her at every imaginable angle through the distorted cuts of glass. The illusion was spooky. Her heart leaped with each direction she glanced to find a figure staring back before her mind registered her own face.

  Faythe stepped up to the box and crouched down low to examine it, not immediately going to touch it. It had strange markings she had never seen before, but there was no keyhole or obvious way to open it. She couldn’t even be sure if the ruin was inside, or if it was just some other ancient artifact.

  She reached out with both palms to lift the box. Then a gust of wind blew around her, sending wisps of unbound hair over her face. Faythe went cold as ice. Shooting upright, her hand was halfway to drawing her sword when a voice spoke.

  “You come for the light temple ruin,” it said from no direction in particular, bouncing around like her reflection in the mirrors.

  A sharp chill shot down Faythe’s spine, heart erratic from an invisible threat, and she whirled frantically to catch a glimpse of the intruder. No other form joined her in the hall of mirrors. When she went to twist again, she froze.

  One of her reflections didn’t move with her this time.

  It smiled wickedly, knowing she’d figured it out. But when she blinked, it was back to her own horrified expression that copied her every flicker.

  Whatever it was, it lived in the mirrors, using its prey’s own image to terrorize.

  “A clever one,” it sang.

  Faythe’s eyes darted from each misshapen shard of glass. “Face me.” Her voice wavered with the command, giving away her lost confidence.

  Laughter mocked her in the form of her own face. She couldn’t stop her eyes from frantically scanning her reflections in anticipation of one not following her next move. Her pulse raced at the haunting concept.

  Then she spotted it, angled to look down on her right, an evil grin plastered on its face. Her face.

  “I am,” it said to her. The voice sounded from her left, and she snapped around to catch the out-of-place reflection. “I am your past.” Then in front. “I am your present.” Then above and behind. “I am your future.”

  It chilled Faythe to her very bones, and a violent tremor shook her whole body. “I’m not afraid of myself.”

  Again, its hearty laughter rumbled creepily through the space. “Liar.”

  “What are you?”

  Her clone twisted her head in front of her. “I am a Dresair, keeper of knowledge, holder of precious things, and traveler of realms. I can show you if you want.” The Dresair extended an open palm, but the cunning curl of its lips gave away its trick.

  Faythe shuddered. Getting lured into the depths of the mirrors, leaving no trace of her physical being to explain her disappearance, would be a harrowing fate.

  “A Dresair is what you are. What is your name?”

  It dropped its arm and assessed her with hair-raising scrutiny. “What a curious little creature you are,” it said. “A name can be a dangerous and powerful thing. If you tell me yours, I shall tell you mine.”

  Faythe furrowed a cautious brow. “You know my name.”

  The Dresair’s grin was feline. “I should like to hear it.”

  Not in the mood to string out games, she answered, “Faythe Aklin.”

  Laughter bounced around the mirrors. In every one of the reflections, her own face mocked her. Faythe was torn between fear and frustration at its unhinged merriment.

  When its chuckling ceased, it stood straight once more, gold eyes sparkling with dark delight and wonder. “What a fate has been sculpted around you, child. Millennia come and go without such a soul coming into the world—one with the power to challenge evil, the spirit to change hearts, and the heart to move mountains. If you only dare to take the leap and trust you will fly with the Phoenix, of course.”

  “What does that mean?” Faythe snapped, a chill seeping over her skin.

  “It means there is so much for you to learn, golden-eyed child. One born with wings is never destined to remain caged.”

  Faythe stared into those eyes. Her eyes. Transfixed.

  “I do not have a name, Faythe. I simply…am. Do not be so quick to offer what cannot be returned.”

  For a second, Faythe’s guard slipped to welcome the wisdom. Perhaps it made her a fool for giving the Dresair an ounce of merit, but as it spoke through her image, she felt the words as though they were a product of her own conscience. She shook her head from the trancelike state she was slowly being reeled into, unsure whether it was a trick of the Dresair or her own spiraling thoughts, remembering she came here for a purpose.

  “Tell me where the ruin is.”

  The Dresair stepped forward, pointing at the ground. “You know where it is. I hold many items within my mirrors. That which is revealed to those who dare wander is not what they want, but what they need. Though nothing is given without challenge. Everything has a price, as you very well know.”

  “What do you want?” Faythe demanded, anticipation stirring her exasperation.

  The Dresair kept her face, wicked playfulness returning to its expression. “It is not what you can give to me. It is what I must give to you.”

  Faythe stiffened in dreadful apprehension. “Give me…what?”

  The Dresair tilted its head in amusement
as it observed her. “The only way to walk out with the ruin is to accept my knowledge. A dark piece of the future yet to pass.”

  Faythe blinked. It didn’t seem like too harsh a trade. Though the demon’s cruel gleam remained.

  “I accept,” she said before logic or reason could dissuade her.

  The corners of its mouth curled in feline delight. “You should not be in such a hurry to agree, Heir of Marvellas. Man and fae have driven themselves to madness, some to their own deaths, at having such knowledge.”

  It shook her awfully at the thought of what could be so grim to warrant such extreme measures. But she didn’t have a choice and couldn’t leave without the temple ruin. “Tell me,” she pressed, anxious to get it over with.

  It looked away from her and paced the length of the mirror’s edge. “Very well.”

  Gold met gold, and her mirror-self straightened, her grin vanishing. Faythe thought she was prepared to hear whatever ill fate might fall on her; thought she could handle the curse of knowledge no matter how damning it was.

  Nothing could have braced her for the Dresair’s next words.

  “In your quest to stop the King of High Farrow, one of those close to you will forfeit their life.”

  She swayed with the weight of the declaration and stumbled back a step. Coldness embraced her, and the air restricted her throat while the words replayed hauntingly, inconceivably, in her mind. Indelible knowledge that crushed her spirit like a physical pain in her chest. She would have accepted anything else. Any pain, any torture, any misfortune—as long as it wasn’t one of her friends.

  Faythe shook her head slowly. “No future is certain,” she breathed in denial.

  “The path can change, but to alter fate would have dire consequences.”

  “You’re wrong,” Faythe hissed, refusing to believe there was no escape from the worst of her fears. Her eyes pooled as her retort failed to convince even herself. Tears fell as she thought of each and every one of her friends. Even Reylan. She couldn’t let him in, and pushing him away would be one less person close to her. One less at risk from the foretold doom.

  She was physically trembling when she looked around the mirrors again. All the reflections followed her now as she dared to ask, “Who?”

  “That, I cannot tell you.”

  The Dresair refused to take her form again, and Faythe screamed in anguish at every one of her reflections. She asked instead, “Will it be my fault?” A sob left her.

  At the Dresair’s pause of silence, Faythe felt a new scream climbing her throat. Then it answered.

  “There will be many to blame.”

  The statement didn’t rule her out completely, and Faythe came apart. She fell to her knees in front of the box and took it in her hands, catching the glimpse of her reflection. It stayed standing.

  In a surge of anger, she shot to her feet and hurled the box at the glass with a cry of defeat, pain, and grief. It shattered, the shards cascading to the ground like a glistening waterfall.

  Her breathing was heavy with rage that she could not stop the unstoppable. Faythe stared at the fragments of the broken mirror. She jerked as she caught them vibrating against the stone then backed up a step when the pieces began to move, floating upward through the air as if time were reversing itself. In a matter of seconds, the mirror in front of her became whole again.

  Faythe stared wide-eyed in disbelief, but not at the magick that brought the glass back together.

  At Reylan.

  He stood behind her, staring at her through the reflection. He was pale, breathing heavily in exertion while he braced against the stone archway, no doubt feeling the effects of the Magestone passage he emerged from. Faythe believed it to be another of the Dresair’s tricks, until he spoke quietly.

  “I heard you scream.”

  Chapter 38

  Nikalias

  The Prince of High Farrow shook the strange, small box between his palms. It rattled but offered no clues as to how it could be opened. The foreign markings etched into the wood were unknown to him and the other fae in the room even with their combined centuries of knowledge.

  They had retreated to Faythe’s rooms after their eerie expedition to the passages below the castle, his home for over three hundred years, yet he never knew what dwelled beneath his feet. He refused to visit the thoughts his father could have known about them…about the thing that lived there and almost ended Faythe’s life. Looking away from the box in his hands, he tried to gauge the thoughts of his companions. Tauria was frowning at the item in silent contemplation, but the general watched Faythe.

  She’d barely spoken since they returned and was now perched on the arm of the chair by the fire, staring intently at the golden flames as if they spoke back to her. He’d tried to coax something out of her, but even witty remarks failed to gain a reaction, and he dreaded to think what greeted her beyond the steel door none of them could pass.

  Well, anyone except Reylan, it seemed.

  At the sound of Faythe’s scream, Gods, he’d tried to force through the pain himself, but the stone rendered him completely incapacitated, and Tauria had swiftly pulled him back. It was obvious the general felt the harsh effects too, but Nik had to admire his strength as he pushed through it regardless to get to Faythe’s aid.

  “What do we do with it?” Tauria wondered out loud.

  It was the question on all of their minds. The box was sealed without any obvious lock or side that could be opened.

  Nik shrugged. “Break it?” he suggested. But he knew it wasn’t a plausible plan. Something as well-guarded and hidden as the temple ruin was likely not going to be sealed in a destructible container.

  “There may be one person who can shed some light on the markings.” Faythe’s voice was quiet, distant, and he hated that there was nothing he could do to bring the joy back into it. She finally looked away from the flames to meet his eye as she said, “Marlowe.”

  Nik blinked, feeling foolish he didn’t think of her sooner. She was not just a human, not just a blacksmith—Marlowe was an oracle, something that was almost as inconceivable as Faythe’s ability. Yet Nik was beyond being stunned by impossible revelations. It made sense that if there was one person with knowledge of the item he held, it would be the one with a direct spiritual connection to the owner of the ruin within.

  The following morning, Nik, Tauria, Reylan, and Faythe crowded into Jakon and Marlowe’s small cottage in the outer town. It was a relief to see Faythe perk up a little at seeing her friends, though something still tugged on her mind. Before they could ask about the box, the three humans and Tauria sat around the dining table while Jakon caught them up on the trip to Galmire—a trip Nik was only now learning about.

  “Caius told me what you discovered. Are the boys and their families safe?” Faythe questioned with worry.

  Jakon looked grim. “For now. But we don’t know what the threat is exactly, and they have no protection there with the fae soldiers gone.” His eyes flashed to Nik for a second, but the prince didn’t take offense. He was the son of the king who ordered the town to be left defenseless, yet this was the first Nik was hearing of the threat.

  “I’ll talk to the king,” he said to offer some consolation, though he wasn’t exactly a great influence on his father’s decisions recently. He was against the movement of the soldiers in the first place.

  “You say the bodies are completely drained of blood?” the general asked. Nik looked to Reylan, he wore a deep frown as he calculated the details.

  Jakon nodded. “They say they hear the air stir even when the nights are still, and some swear they’ve caught a glimpse of creatures in the sky. Likened to bats, but something far larger.”

  Reylan looked as if he was putting clues together, but it was Faythe who questioned it.

  “Do you know what it could be?”

  The general looked at her with an unreadable expression. “It’s impossible, but…everything you’ve described, from the sightings in Galmire to the cre
ature in the castle passageway, winged, bloodthirsty…” His eyes met Nik’s then, and the slight fear in them was enough to set the emotion in him too. “There was only one species that existed like that…a very long time ago. One that history told us was wiped out during the Dark Age.”

  Nik’s face blanched, his eyes widening slightly in dawning. “The dark fae,” he said to no one in particular.

  It filled him with cold dread to think of them, and he wanted to pass it off as ridiculous—impossible, as the general said. Yet when he recalled the thing in the passageway, mauled beyond recognition, it fit the description of the dark subspecies long believed to be extinct.

  “There are dark fae?” Faythe said in disbelief.

  Nik looked to her as he tried to call up an old history lesson. “Millennia ago, there existed only two prominent species: humans and demons. The fae were created to be superior to their human origins, and the dark fae to their demon origins, through the blessings of the Spirits. Except, it didn’t take long for the dark fae to completely annihilate their weaker ancestors.” Nik tried to continue, but his mind reeled with the horrifying notion history could be repeating itself.

  Reylan picked up on his explanation. “After that, the fae, the humans, and the dark fae lived together throughout the seven kingdoms. Three races mixed with little conflict.” He took a pause, and his face fell grim. “Until the dark fae developed a taste for human blood. They found it gave them a strength and speed that could surpass even our kind, but only temporarily. They had to keep up the feed to keep the effects. When humans started to become targets, killed for their blood, harming them became outlawed in every kingdom…except one.”

  Nobody needed to say it, but Faythe whispered in fear, “Valgard.”

  Reylan nodded solemnly. “It was the one kingdom with a dark fae king, Mordecai. So, he went to war against the rest of Ungardia. It was the darkest age the realms had ever seen, and rightly named as such in history.”