“Gavri is looking for you,” he said, breaking the silence.
She gave his shoulder a final pat before donning her usual stone-faced expression anew and passing him by.
As soon as he stepped inside, Lira and her partner closed the doors behind him.
Within, bioluminescent roza vines twined around pillars, climbing and sprawling across the ceiling, casting a soft white glow inside. Roza had always been plentiful in Nozva Rozkveta, and some had already begun to bloom.
Mati strolled back and forth across the roza-vine rug, bobbing baby Dita in her arms while his sister Vadiha slept on Mati’s bed. When everyone had awoken after the Rift, Vadiha had still been with child, thank the Darkness, and she had given birth to Dita not five weeks ago. After Mati, Vadiha was Nozva Rozkveta’s strongest warrior, and she’d scarcely had the energy to stay awake to feed Dita, let alone train. The food shortage had been especially hard on her, and even with increased rations, and the volodari—her husband and their sisters among them—hunting at all hours, she still wasn’t getting enough nourishment.
His hands clasped behind his back, he waited while Mati lulled Dita into a shallow sleep, then glanced at him and toward a bench, where he sat down.
“Anything today?” she asked quietly, her voice low and even as she kept her gaze on Dita’s little slumbering face.
He shook his head. Coming home empty handed was always difficult, but all the more when he looked at Vadiha and Dita, who relied so desperately on the volodari teams’ success.
“You didn’t engage the Brotherhood.”
“On your orders, we did not,” he answered. “Vlasta took an arrow to the gut, but Xira said she and Rút would recover.”
Mati nodded softly, brushing a wisp of fine baby hair off Dita’s brow. “The conflict with the humans—and this famine—will soon be ended.”
She had said it would. And it would. Of that he had no doubt.
“I have been in negotiations with the king of Silen via correspondence,” she said, rocking Dita gently.
Negotiations? So that had been why she’d ordered them not to engage the Brotherhood. All this time, she’d been negotiating with the humans. And the other dark-elf queens must have known as well—there had been no word of dark-elves fighting back.
All for this.
If there was a bloodless way to end the conflict with the Brotherhood, then it was worth pursuing.
“Until our crops are stabilized, the Sileni are going to deliver food, both to Queen Nendra and to us, which we will distribute among the allied queendoms by way of the tunnels. This will begin as soon as the agreement is finalized in Bellanzole. And we have devised a diplomatic means of handling the Brotherhood.”
Good. As keen as he was to end the persecution, as good as it would feel to spill the Brotherhood’s blood… Blood would only beget blood. This was the whole of dark-elf history. Spilling blood only to spill more. It had to end somewhere, and if they could make peace with the humans—and survive—then he would do everything in his power to make that happen.
And if they couldn’t make peace with the humans… then he’d make certain his people would be the ones to survive. The humans were numerous, but his people had trained for battle from the moment each of them could walk on toddling legs—if it came to war, the humans would fall.
“In return, they want our assistance in keeping the Immortal beasts at bay.”
That was simple enough. All the volodari were trained in combat against all beasts—Immortal or otherwise. “Is that all?”
She met his gaze and held it. “I’ve agreed to give them one more thing.”
If it meant food for Vadiha and an end to the conflict with the Brotherhood, then that was worth almost anything.
“You.”
Chapter 3
Veron swept out an arm and caught the stone before it could hit his fey horse, Noc.
Good catch, wasn’t it? he thought to Noc, who only snorted. Come on. It was good.
Good, Noc thought back. Yes.
“Get out of our kingdom!” an elderly human woman wailed at him from the small crowd, spittle flying from her mouth.
“Divine take you!” another cried. “And all the rest of the monsters!”
Monsters.
“Silence!” Riza spat from beside him. “You human filth dare attack Prince Veron? Danika, Gavri”—she cocked her hooded head toward two of the kuvari guarding him—“cut out their tongues. Now.”
Danika and Gavri dismounted, boots thudding on the summer grass, and drew their vjernost blades. The small crowd shrank away.
“Captain,” Veron warned, muffled through his face mask. Danika and Gavri halted, although they stood ready to attack.
Riza turned to him and inclined her head the merest fraction. “Your Highness.”
One of the human children ogled them wide eyed. Veron chuffed softly and tossed the stone to him. The Brotherhood merited all of Riza’s anger, but these humans? They were peasants—agitated, but not murderous. Even now, they shrank away, some looking to him with big eyes.
He pulled aside his leathers at his chest to expose the royal black sun tattoo over his heart to the humans. “No harm was done, Captain. They did not know me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Highness—”
“No harm was done.” Firmer this time.
Mati’s orders to them all had been clear: Keep your peace, but do not allow any harm to come to the prince. Harm none unless he is harmed. And even Riza wouldn’t dare to disobey the queen of Nozva Rozkveta.
“Highness.” Riza nodded coolly. “Mount up!” she bellowed to Danika and Gavri, then turned on the humans, scowling. “Remember this day, humans. You keep your tongues at the mercy of Prince Veron u Zara u Avrora u Roza, Valaz u Nozva Rozkveta, Zpevan Kamena, Volodar T’my. But disrespect His Highness again, and I won’t be able to hear his mercy over the sound of your blood spraying.”
Subtle, Riza. Very subtle.
The crowd scattered, some humans sprinting away, others running with occasional glances over their shoulders. The human child stood frozen, grass-green eyes wide as moons, clutching the stone to his chest. The boy could only be a few years older than Dita. He’d always liked children, and human ones were no different, even if they didn’t recognize royalty.
“Hyah!” Riza urged her horse forward.
He smiled behind his face mask at the human child as the cavalcade moved once more, continuing down the cypress-lined road to Bellanzole and the soaring Palazzo dell’Ermacora.
Most humans probably hadn’t seen one of his kind in millennia; their ignorance was understandable, if inconvenient. Dark-elf royals did not adorn themselves in the golden crowns and circlets to which the human peasantry was accustomed to seeing on theirs; dark-elves knew their royalty by their bearing, their demeanor, their faces, and as a last resort, by their black sun hearts, tattooed by royal czerni ink at birth.
Nozva Rozkveta’s scribes had been working tirelessly to bridge the gap between Old Sileni and the modern tongue, and although he, his party, and many of the other dark-elves spoke the modern tongue now, that didn’t cure the ignorance.
Mati had sent him—and the entire host of dark-elves—on a diplomatic mission, leaving camps of dark-elf troops in his wake to help keep the peace for themselves and the humans against the beasts, all part of the bargain struck between Nozva Rozkveta and the kingdom of Silen.
He rode up to Gavri, who eyed him peripherally and hissed.
“I don’t question my queen’s wishes,” she said, shaking her head vehemently and sending her braid swinging from side to side, “but you, one of our most valued princes, are doomed to make the Offering to one of them? It’s a sad fate.”
“Do not question Queen Zara,” Riza snarled at her, and Gavri inhaled sharply but nodded.
He’d known both of them his entire life; they were as much his friends as they were kuvari. They could always be trusted to tell him the truth.
He gazed out ahead, at t
he humans’ world of lush green, so different than home. Human mages shaped this sky realm with magic like the Stone Singers shaped the Deep with song, spelling buildings and roads like the Stone Singers sang stalagmites, stalactites, columns, and pillars. He still had memories of sketching sky-realm flora and fauna with Ata as a boy, when he’d been training to become one of the volodari. But after Ata’s death, he hadn’t sketched much of anything.
The humans and their sky realm were different, but difference was not inherently bad. He’d brought a myriad of roza blooms grown from the Vein of Nozva Rozkveta’s power, a gesture he hoped would demonstrate the bridge that could exist between their realms.
“It’s what I was born to do, Gavri,” he replied, and her head perked up. “I’ve been raised knowing my life is not my own, but to be bargained away by my mother, to strengthen Nozva Rozkveta and our people.”
Riza nodded. “And you perform your duty with honor and valor.”
Gavri bit her lip. “But they… they are just so ugly.”
He laughed under his breath while Riza snarled at her again.
Oh yes, humans were ugly. Their women weren’t taut and toned like dark-elf women; human women were soft like the very livestock they raised for slaughter. They had no fangs or claws, which even dark-elf children had. And their skin—thin, delicate, so easily broken.
By Deep and Darkness, what he’d give to be in a hunting stand now, in a raging storm, instead of on his way to make the Offering to one of them. It was enough to make him shift in his new boots, which fit even worse than the old ones. Ata had been a skilled hand with leatherworking, and no pair of boots had fit right since his… death.
Too picky, Noc chimed in.
You don’t wear boots. If you did, you’d be picky, too. Trust me.
The human, Noc clarified. You both live, both walk on two legs. Man. Woman.
As if that were the whole of it.
But he didn’t have to desire the human. He just had to make the Offering to her. With this agreement, Vadiha, Dita, and all his people would no longer starve—that alone gave it merit. And there was far more to Offering than mere desire. There was trust, partnership, encouragement, companionship. And any human woman who’d agreed to make the Offering to him had to be open minded; that alone gave her potential as a partner. In any case, there was nothing more important than doing Mati’s will, for the peace of Nozva Rozkveta.
He drew in a deep breath. He was only twenty-seven—unless he counted the 2,372 or so years all the Immortals had been petrified since the Sundering… which he didn’t—and by the end of the week, he’d be making the Offering. To a human.
By her agreement to it, she welcomed him into her life. That much was certain. And it meant this peace between them would succeed; and once it did, the peace between their people would, too.
As long as she was honest, he could trust her, and as long as they could trust each other, they had a chance.
“We will do what’s right. This Offering will go smoothly,” he assured them both. Besides, Riza had helped him choose an impeccable Offering gift for the princess. “And once it does, all of this unrest will dissipate.”
Riza scoffed, then shrugged. “I pray to the Deep for it, Your Highness.” Hesitating, she lowered her gaze for a moment, her brow furrowed. “But… Gavri’s objections aren’t entirely without merit. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the humans, it is that they can never be trusted, especially when it comes to doing what’s right.”
Beneath the late-afternoon sun, Aless held still in the courtyard, her spine straight, her shoulders back, her chin high. The summer breeze riffled the rosy-pink silk brocade of her gown and the carefully styled curls cascading down her back. The jeweled circlet was warm against her forehead, but Papà had left specific instructions with her ladies-in-waiting and maids. They had decorated her like a horse for dressage.
“You really won’t speak to him, my lady?” Gabriella, her friend and lady-in-waiting, whispered, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
She’d already promised Papà she wouldn’t. And it really didn’t matter, did it? Her choice didn’t matter, so why would her words? This prince would probably arrive on his mother’s orders just to look her in the mouth and check her gait. A chattel didn’t need to say a word to be useful.
He’d simply place her in his cart, take her to the dark-elf cave, and shelve her like some trophy to present whenever the need arose to prove peace with the humans. They’d say, We have no quarrel with the humans! Look, one of our princes has a human wife.
And because the dark-elf women ruled Nightbloom, she would never have a say in anything, never make herself useful there, just remain a pawn as she had here, except in an alien culture that spoke an alien tongue, and surrounded by strangers who had no reason to be friendly with one of her kind.
Mamma’s library would never be built, she’d never help anyone learn to read, nor Immortali and humans learn about one another in a place of peace and knowledge.
Surely this dark-elf prince didn’t wish for this fate any more than she did, and yet they both had to do this dance at the behest of their parents and rulers.
Which didn’t make it any better.
A bee lazily flew by. Sting me. Please, please, please sting me. Anything to avoid this meeting.
Hooves clopped beyond the iron gates, and a cavalcade of riders trotted into the courtyard, ringed by the Sileni Royal Guard. The strangers were cloaked and hooded in black, shadows but for their unsettling yellow irises and ghostly white hair. The occasional glimpse of slate-blue skin peeked over the face masks covering their mouths and noses.
The dark-elves.
As they began to dismount, they revealed leather-armor-clad muscle on lean, athletic frames. Each of them had to be at least six feet tall. The tallest of them—on a massive, mesmerizing destrier, its ebony coat gleaming in the sun—was bulkier, with broad shoulders, thick biceps and thighs, a muscular chest. A male.
He hitched the blade at his side and dismounted nimbly, rubbed his hand and wrist, and took in the courtyard with narrowed, searching eyes. They settled on her. Intense. Eerie.
Different from the rest. The only male among them. It had to be him.
But neither he, nor any of his party, were dressed in a manner befitting royalty. They all wore mere black leathers and plain cloth, like any common soldier. Maybe a sign of how special he considered this meeting.
He would have already met with Papà at Bellanzole’s walls for escort into the city. Papà had met this Immortali male and, despite his obvious insult, had allowed him entry to this courtyard.
But would anything have deterred Papà from this bargain? He’d sold Bianca’s hand in marriage, sight unseen, to this Immortali male. He could be ugly, disfigured, beastly, utterly disgusting—even beyond being a dark-elf—and would that have changed Papà’s decision at all?
Of course not. He’d bought his peace already. Cheaply. And hadn’t even tried anything else.
She stiffened as the male approached her, escorted by one of his own and a Sileni royal guard. Maybe her Vow of Silence was for the best, as her words would have been just as frozen as the rest of her.
He inclined his head. “It is my honor to meet you, Princess Alessandra,” he said, his low voice like velvet over honed steel, muffled through the black cloth face mask. “I am Veron.”
That voice—deep and flowing like the mirror-black rivers of the Lone.
Holding her breath, she looked at his hand—gloved—his fingers pointed, but he didn’t offer to take hers.
“It is your custom to take hands,” he said, matter of fact. He removed the gloves and passed them to his companion, a sharp-eyed female standing at attention, a soldier by the look of her. He extended his hand, slate blue, with long fingers capped in points.
Claws.
The moment had almost passed when she shakily offered hers in return.
Callused skin closed around her fingers as he raised her hand gentl
y, pulled down his face mask, and lightly pressed his lips to her knuckles.
The barest touch, and a shiver tingled down her spine before she could stop it. He could kill her. With little more than a sweep of his hand.
As he straightened, she covered her reaction with a smile, which he returned.
Fangs. Sharp, pointed fangs, like a lion’s. She held her smile, kept it plastered on her face. Hopefully it would keep any other reaction from showing.
“It is the first time you have seen one of my kind in person.” His eerie eyes stayed fixed on hers, unwavering, his callused hand still wrapped around hers.
Nothing moved in the courtyard. Holy Mother’s mercy, even the breeze didn’t dare blow.
She nodded. That smile was still plastered on her face—she returned her expression to some semblance of normalcy.
Like the rest of him, his face was hard, all brutal planes and angles, with even harder eyes. As a statue, he might have been terrifyingly beautiful, but living, breathing, he was simply terrifying. Like a nightmare from a children’s fairytale.
At any moment, he could lunge at her, pin her to the ground, sink his fangs into her flesh and tear it open. Drive his clawed hands through her body. Rip her apart. He could do all that and seem completely natural.
“It is my hope that, in time, you will find us familiar despite our differences.”
Familiar? Maybe. Any less terrifying? Likely not. But she nodded again.
“Would you care for a walk around the courtyard? I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability. Perhaps we might become better acquainted before the ceremony tomorrow.”
She turned to Gabriella and pointed to her own mouth.
Gabriella’s hazel eyes flickered between her and the prince. “Princess Alessandra wishes me to tell you that she has sworn the Vow of Silence and cannot speak to you before the wedding, Your Highness.”
Aless faced him once more. Or rather, his scowl.
“A vow of silence?” His face tight, he clasped his hands behind his back, and his companion narrowed her smoldering yellow eyes. Like glowing embers. “Your people expect such things from their women?”
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