by Melissa Marr
His jaw clenched tighter.
“Off to get naked,” she murmured cheerily.
The Dark Court guest flashed her a wicked smile and walked away as Siobhan laughed. Sometimes she wondered if Tavish had hidden how ruthless he could be or if the war had changed him.
“Siobhan?” Tavish said, voice barely level.
She paused. “Mmmm?”
“Do warn me if you’ll have a guest with you,” he said.
“Not to worry, I can handle it myself,” she teased. When he said nothing, she added, “Do you want to watch?”
He closed his eyes.
“Siobhan, are you coming?” Mae, one of the other former Summer Girls, said in tone that implied that the question was a repetition.
Tavish opened his eyes and stared at them both.
Siobhan blushed at the look he was giving her. Perhaps she’d pushed him too far. Forcing her gaze to Mae, Siobhan asked, “Coming where?”
“Shopping.” Mae smiled with the sort of genuine happiness she’d only recently developed. The Summer Girls had been dependent on the Summer King for their entire lives. For all practical purposes, he had been the sun: they bloomed or wilted because of him. The end of the curse benefitted many faeries, not just the former king.
Mae all but bounced in place as she waited for Siobhan’s reply. “Everyone is coming.”
“Next time, ok?” Siobhan hugged her. “I need—”
“You really do. I saw that look.” Mae grabbed Siobhan in a fierce hug and whispered, “Ask Tavish to train longer. A bit of grappling would be good for you both.”
Siobhan looked back at her co-advisor. “Trust me. I know.”
#
Aislinn wasn’t surprised to see Siobhan walk into the study early. Of all of the faeries in the court, Siobhan was the one most likely to treat Aislinn with the comfort of a friend, rather than insist on distance. The others weren’t unkind, but the ease with which Siobhan talked to her was rare. Whereas most of the Summer Girls, guards, and court members occasionally forgot the deference that said that she was their queen, Siobhan occasionally remembered it.
“I’m bored,” Siobhan complained.
“I thought the girls were going shopping,” Aislinn said. “Perhaps after the meeting . . .”
Siobhan gave her a level look. “If new frocks were exciting, why didn’t you go?”
“I like shopping.” Aislinn frowned as she said it, though. She hadn’t used to like it, but there were times when being the embodiment of Summer had meant changing who she was. “Evolution” was what Tavish called it. She wasn’t so sure she liked evolving, but she liked who she was and loved her court so she didn’t ponder that detail overmuch.
Siobhan flopped onto one of the overstuffed chairs, and then almost immediately stood and paced, and then sat again. Her foot tapped on the floor, and her hands seemed to move constantly, sweeping her hair up into a twist, fidgeting with her necklace.
“What?”
“If I quit, would you hate me?” Siobhan blurted out.
Aislinn smiled. “Tavish?”
“He’s a fool,” Siobhan said. “I could totally advise you and do . . . be . . . well, whatever it is.”
“Date him?” Aislinn supplied helpfully.
“That. I guess.” She sighed loudly. “I could love him, I think, although”—she let out a muffled scream of sorts—“that’s fucking terrifying. The last man I loved stole my humanity.”
“I am aware,” Aislinn said. “We’ll figure it out.”
She looked up and saw the door open as Tavish stepped into the room. He looked between them and his expression grew wary. “Has the meeting begun without me?” he asked lightly.
“No,” Aislinn said in the same tone. “Siobhan was considering her resignation. She is having difficulty working with you, I think.”
“Why?” He looked at them both, and then settled his gaze on Siobhan. “Did I offend you?”
“No.” Siobhan glanced at her queen and muttered, “Thanks, Ash.”
Aislinn burst into peels of laughter. “My pleasure. You’ve both brought this to my table, and I happen to think my choice of advisors is inspired, so we need a new plan.”
“Aislinn?” Tavish prompted.
“Kiss her, Tavish. Woo her. Seduce her.” The Summer Queen gestured between them. “It’s the season for love. Why are you trying to argue with your queen?”
“Respectfully, your majesty, I am not sure that”—he lowered his voice—“intimacy between your advisors is a wise plan.”
“Noted.” She clapped her hands together. “This is the Summer Court, and if you don’t want me to lose an advisor, I suggest you stop being obstinate and romance one another.”
Her advisors exchanged a look.
“Now,” Aislinn continued, tone serious. “What shall we do about my dear old great-grandfather?”
Siobhan and Tavish exchanged a look, and for a moment, she wondered at his thoughts. Hidden behind dark eyes and stern looks, Tavish seemed like an odd fit for the summer, but she knew he was a writhing mass of passions, barely hidden some days. Talk of the Dark King rarely brought out his better side—and Aislinn knew that.
She was, however, young. She’d lived merely two decades, and of a handful of those years was as a faery. She was impulsivity embodied. In truth, knowing that the blood of the last Dark King flowed through her veins explained a few things. Aislinn had a courage that was more than human, more than fey. Add shadows to the Summer Court, and she was the result.
“I don’t suppose we can murder him, and hide the evidence,” Tavish said, voice light enough to make it sound like a joke.
“Bananach murdered him once already,” Aislinn said cheerily. “Didn’t take.”
“Alas.” Tavish downed a drink. “Perhaps we might speak to Niall first.”
“And Donia,” Siobhan added.
“I told Seth,” the queen said. “Not who although I bet he already knows. He said he doesn’t, but that’s only true if it involves him.” Aislinn scowled and muttered, “Future-seeing makes for confusing relationships.”
Siobhan reached over and squeezed her hand, offering silent support. Then she asked, “How do you feel about it?”
Tavish had advised a cursed king and before him a frolicking king. Aislinn’s age and gender were sometimes confusing to him, but Siobhan was relieved to see that the flinch gave way to kindness.
“He has redeeming traits,” Tavish said, sitting taller in his seat. “He protects his court, Ash. Or did.”
“I know.” Aislinn scowled. “I just . . . I’ve never had a father or grandfather. I grew up with Grams. A house of women. Female friends—other than Seth but he was always more. What do you do with grandfathers or fathers?”
“He’s probably not like others,” Tavish offered.
A knock heralded a frowning guard. “Your Majesty?”
“There is a . . . cub. Well, two cubs,” he said, as he stepped to the side. There, tumbling over themselves were a pair of small tigers. They were absolutely, without a doubt, the cutest, least appropriate thing Siobhan could imagine raising in the loft.
But the queen was already on the floor, snuggling a tiny predator.
“The note says—”
“We know who sent them,” Tavish started.
Aislinn was giggling even as she said, “Utterly foolish man.” Then she was growling at a baby tiger and asking it, “What in the world am I to do with you?”
“’Light and dark go well together. A little shadow doesn’t undo the brightness,’ it says.” The guard looked at them, not sure what to do.
“Is it signed?” Siobhan asked.
“‘Love from your . . . Pappy.’”
Aislinn scooped the tigers into her lap, and then set sun spots across the floor so they could pounce on them. “I always wanted a kitten,” she mused.
There was no work that would distract her then, so Siobhan and Tavish excused themselves.
Outside the door, Ta
vish looked at her, “We will need to speak to Niall about this.”
Siobhan nodded. “At least they’re cubs.”
Tavish sighed. “Nature thrives around her, so it’s not a crisis. What if it’s the start of a habit? Where would we put a menagerie?”
At that, Siobhan was assailed by visions of nonstop gifts from a doting former Dark King who had always, apparently, wanted children. “Call Niall.”
Tavish paused before turning away. “May I woo you?”
“Yes,” Siobhan answered. “A million times yes.”
He touched her cheek. “I want to take our time, do things right. I’ve watched both of my kings destroy women they loved. I’ve watched Irial destroy Niall. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”
Siobhan thought she might legitimately swoon. They’d been intimate many times, danced, spoken, fought, but this was different. New.
“I’d like that,” she said, feeling oddly shy and young. “I want to take care of you, too.” She leaned up and kissed him softly before pulling back just enough to speak. “And then, I want to have my way with you.”
Tavish closed his eyes briefly.
“Over and over,” she added, “until neither of us can walk.”
He swallowed audibly and rasped, “That . . . would be good, too.”
And before she could reply, he kissed her until she had to lean on the wall for support. It would, in fact, be very, very good.
Aislinn knew who Urian was the moment he stepped into her court. Her great-grandfather’s warning that he would come wasn’t why. Urian looked like family.
Shadow-dark skin and what would’ve been a twin to her own dark hair before sunlight changed her. He stood with his father’s arrogance, and something of a wicked glint in his eye. This was not a faery who had found his heart.
This was an angry faery.
“What shall I call you?” Urian didn’t bow, didn’t even lower his gaze. “Niece? Ash-Girl?”
Aislinn lifted a hand to stop the guards who started to move closer.
“Murderess?” he asked, voice lower.
Aislinn lifted her chin and stared back at him. “Queen.”
He laughed. “Not my queen. I bow to no one.”
Aislinn repressed a shiver of fear. She was strong enough to fight any faery in existence now—at least those in her world. That didn’t mean she wanted to do so, and power didn’t always overcome skill.
Urian looked around, smiled at Siobhan and winked at a guard. “I thought I should meet the woman who mattered so much that my niece died.” He stared intently at Aislinn and said, “You are a strangely pretty little murderess.”
“I didn’t kill my mother,” Aislinn started.
Urian brushed his hand to the side, shadows slid across the ground as if he was summoning them.
He shouldn’t be able to manage that. The Dark belonged to Niall now, not this faery.
“No.” It was one word, but it was enough. Her guards came in, a rush of vine and bark.
Urian smiled, cold and vicious. That was a look she remembered well from Bananach, madness tinged with fury.
“We are fine,” she told her guard. She motioned for them to leave. Perhaps it was foolish, but she wanted to try talking to him. Tavish and Siobhan stayed, but no one else was near. Only them. If Tavish were anyone else in the court, Aislinn would feel unprotected. He was fierce—and Siobhan was brutal when provoked.
And Aislinn was the queen, a faery with the ferocity of summer inside her very skin. Her uncle was no threat to her.
“If you must, you may call me Aislinn.”
“Aislinn,” Urian echoed. “My sister’s granddaughter. The last ashes of my family.”
He might be family, but he wasn’t the sort of person Grams was, not even the sort of person her mother had been—or that Irial was. At least not the Irial she’d met and known. Urian reminded her of the fey things that had been the stuff of nightmares for her growing up, vicious in ways she would never understand.
“Such an odd little mortal-turned-faery. You took my mother’s crown, my niece’s crown.”
“Thelma didn’t want it. She ran to avoid it,” she reminded him. “My mother didn’t either. She ran and died avoiding it.”
“And you?”
“I fought to avoid it. This wasn’t the life I wanted, but it’s mine now. This court is mine.”
“You like power, though. You’ve drawn the eye of the High Queen’s son,” Urian added. “
“I knew Seth before he was her son.”
What makes you so interesting, Ashes?
“I don’t know, Uncle. Why are you here?”
As Urian laughed, shadows skittered closer as if he was theirs somehow. It frightened her. A tiny part of her wanted to kick everyone here out and call the rest of her family, which was now both Grams and Irial as well as Seth, but Aislinn had doubts as to Urian’s temper—and stability. He hadn’t approached his father or his sister. He hadn’t approached Seth, the faery who was de facto leader of the solitary.
“Seth,” she said, latching on to that detail. “Is this about him? Some solitary fey thing?”
“Oh, it’s about a lot of things, Ashes.” Urian shook his head, as if he was sad, but it wasn’t sorry glinting in his eyes. Rage and hunger simmered in him, so hot that she could have been looking into Bananach’s eyes.
Without meaning to, a sword of sunlight formed in her grip, blinding bright and sizzling with heat.
Urian glanced at the sunlit blade. A smile that was identical to his father’s curved his lips. “Do let them know I’ve come calling, Ashes.”
Then he flung something glittering toward Siobhan.
“Siobhan!” Aislinn was halfway across the room before she finished the word, but Tavish was closer and almost as fast. He pushed Siobhan aside.
He was there, in front of his co-advisor. The blade that had been hurled at Siobhan stabbed Tavish’s stomach. And then he was on the ground, blood pouring from his wound.
Her advisor. Her friend. Her brother-by-choice. Aislinn was livid. The sword that was in her hand a moment ago was there and raised. She met her uncle’s eye and stalked toward him.
“Will you let him die, too?” Urian asked, taunting her with the sort of voice best suited for playground quarrels. “Or will you kill the son of the last Dark King? Whose life matters to you? What do you choose today? Death or life, Ashes?”
Her guards came in.
“No!” Aislinn called. “He is not yours to touch.”
“Ash!” Siobhan called. “Tavish needs you.”
“We aren’t done,” Aislinn said.
Urian merely grinned.
But when Aislinn turned toward her advisors, Urian walked to the door and left as quietly as he’d arrived.
“Sunlight?” Tavish asked.
Aislinn flinched slightly, not so much that it was obvious to anyone who didn’t know her. She knelt at his side. “There are complications.”
“I know,” Tavish assured her, voice shaky from obvious pain. “The side effects . . . are acceptable. Appealing, even.”
The Summer Queen said nothing.
“Siobhan?” he asked.
“I’m fine, you fool.” She knelt on the floor opposite the queen. “You, however, have a scratch.”
He laughed. “My queen? Sister?”
“You will escort Tavish to his room as soon as I fix this.” Aislinn nodded at the oozing wound. The edges were blackening as if ink had poured there, and the skin started to writhe.
“Poisoned,” Tavish whispered. “If you could heal me soon . . .”
The Summer Queen pressed her lips together tightly, and she lifted his torn clothing so that the bloodied skin was visible.
“Are you sure?” Aislinn asked. “We can call a healer and—”
He looked at Siobhan as he answered Aislinn. “Yes.”
Siobhan wasn’t quite sure what she was missing, but her queen looked her in the eye and said, “That yes was to you, Siobhan. Rem
ember that.”
Then, the Summer Queen began to glow. Sunlight seemed to radiate from her entire body, as if she had summoned the sun itself and somehow held it inside her small frame. The guards, the freed Summer Guards, assorted Summer Court faeries all started flowing into the room as if they were being called to their queen’s side.
“Be well, brother, and be loved,” Aislinn whispered, and then she brought her hands down on the wound, cupped them there at first, and then pressed down.
Tavish moaned, first in pain as she seared whatever poison had entered his body and then in a sort of agony as the skin sizzled and burnt. When the Summer Queen finally lifted her hand, a tattoo was there, a sun much like the blackened sun already on Tavish’s throat.
“My queen,” he whispered. Then he looked at Siobhan and murmured, “My beloved.”
“Ash?”
“He’s drunk on sunlight.” Aislinn didn’t sound much more sober. The room was erupting in flowers, and couples—or couples for the night—were kissing and caressing.
Tavish slid his hand over Siobhan’s leg, at first caressing her calf but within moments his hand was above the knee and showing no sign of stopping.
Siobhan caught his hand in hers and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Seducing you . . . ?” Tavish smiled drunkenly.
Siobhan stifled her giggle. She hadn’t ever seen him quite this drunk other than the week Aislinn became queen. That week, he’d kissed Siobhan until she thought her whole body might melt. The next day, he was as taciturn ever.
Siobhan vaguely heard Aislinn say, “Seth!”
And the queen’s formerly-mortal lover stalked toward her. “Sorcha said you would need me, and I thought—”
“My uncle was here to murder someone,” Aislinn said, sounding far too light-hearted. “But . . . can we . . .”
The queen and her lover were gone then, and Siobhan was left with her amorous, intoxicated co-advisor.
“What happens in the morning?” Siobhan prompted, catching and again holding tightly to Tavish’s hand which had escaped her grasp.
“More sex!”
Siobhan started laughing. “That sounds wonderful, but I thought you wanted to think things through.”