House of Shadows: Royal Houses Book Two

by K. A. Linde

  She shut the final desk drawer with a huff and went to the wardrobe. It was expansive with dozens of embroidered, bejeweled gowns in varying shades of white, black, and red. She checked the pockets of some of the gowns, but there wasn’t even a hair piece or bobble in sight. She returned to the bed, sticking her hand between the mattress, only to find goose feathers. Similarly, there was nothing under the bed. Not even a pair of shoes.

  She went to the doorway. “Anything?”

  Fordham shook his head. “No, it’s all wrong.”

  “Like it’s staged and not her actual bedroom.”

  He frowned. “Yes. Gods, why didn’t I think of that before?”

  “Think of what?”

  But he was already pushing past her and into the wardrobe. “Wynter has had these rooms since she was a child. I thought something felt wrong about them, but I haven’t been in here in… I don’t even know how long.” He knocked on the wardrobe door, and it came back hollow. “Her nursemaid used to have an adjoining room to her. It was a small cupboard of a thing. Hardly big enough for anyone to actually live in.”

  “Let me guess—a half-Fae?”

  Fordham nodded, sticking his hand against the back of the wardrobe until they heard a click. The wood moved inward, revealing a darkened room. He split the dresses in half, stepped over her shoes, and into the room. Kerrigan followed, looking around the space that Fordham had just lit.

  It was a madhouse. Papers were everywhere. Wynter had even scrawled illegibly on the walls. A pile of masquerade wear was huddled in a corner, and there was a full bookshelf of old, musty books. Kerrigan lifted one off of the shelf with the title in ancient Fae—Voure hest mas Besremay, Ravinia.

  “What does this mean?” Kerrigan asked.

  Fordham frowned, scanning the title. “History of the Original Mountain, Ravinia. Where did she get that?” He looked through all of the titles. “Where did she get all of this? A lot of it would have been burned thousands of years ago.”

  “I don’t know.” Kerrigan replaced it back on the shelf with the others.

  He passed her a stiff card he’d picked up. “Looks like we have our answer.”

  Kerrigan scanned the page. “She’s throwing a masquerade?”

  “Wynter’s Masq,” he said with a frown. “It’s coded to look like an exclusive party, but it’s something else. It’s something to explain all of this.” He gestured to the walls. “She’s been researching the wall and the mountain and trying to find a way to bring it down.”

  “The Masq isn’t for a week.”

  He sighed. “Of course it is.”

  “Well, do you have a mask?” Kerrigan tucked the envelope into her corset. “Because we’re going to need one.”

  11

  The Masquerade

  “Maybe I should have taken the potion,” Kerrigan said with a shudder.

  Fordham shook his head, tugging the hood of her cloak closer around her face. Her red hair was such a dead giveaway that she’d actually taken care to braid it back off her face and tuck it up into a thick bun. The curls still jutted out at odd angles, but there was nothing that could be done for that, short of having Ben and Bay work their magic on her hair. She hadn’t been able to find them this evening even to ask, so, that had been off the table. The real problem was her magic. She’d hated the idea of taking a potion to dampen her magic, but it was sounding like a better idea every step they made deeper in the mountain.

  “She’s not going to be able to distinguish your magic from everyone else’s once we’re in the crowd as long as you don’t use it,” Fordham said. “You said that it looked golden and got brighter when you reached for it?” She nodded, adjusting her own black mask that hid her freckles. “Then, don’t reach for it under any circumstances.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, following him down the darkened halls. “What if she notices me anyway?”

  He shot her a carefully guarded look. “Don’t let her.”

  Right. Great.

  Kerrigan picked up her pace to match the prince. The meeting wasn’t being held inside Ravinia Mountain, but one of the other smaller peaks, and it was a trek to get there. No wonder they’d had to wait two days for the ball. They didn’t look that far apart, but it was a slog through old cave systems, some as big as the dragons that had once inhabited the mountain and some they had to sidle sideways through. They’d had to backpedal once when Fordham discovered a cave-in that he didn’t remember.

  She was breathless by the time they reached the corridor leading to their masquerade. They filtered into the crowd of people. Fordham’s hand reached back for her. Her hand tingled at the first touch as he drew her toward him.

  “Don’t want to lose you in the crowd,” he whispered.

  She met his gaze through the white mask that covered more than half of his beautiful face. Her cheeks heated, and she was glad that he couldn’t see. “There are so many people.”

  He nodded grimly. More than they’d expected. There were at least a hundred people milling about. Each handing over an invitation that matched the one Kerrigan had taken from Wynter’s secret room.

  They waited an agonizing fifteen minutes before Fordham gave up their own invitation, and they stepped inside. Kerrigan’s mouth dropped at the sight before her. The space was as large as the ballroom and nearly as full. There had to be more than a thousand people in attendance. No way could Wynter pick her out of all of this.

  “Who are they all?”

  Fordham also looked around in awe. “I don’t know. All social classes though. Look at the clothes.”

  She saw what he meant. Some people were dressed as elegantly as she and Fordham, but the majority wore inexpensive spun cloth and practical shoes. She noticed a table along the wall had rows of cheap black masks, and much of the crowd was wearing them. Because Kerrigan had only seen the court and her attendants, she hadn’t considered that there was an entire city of people of all social classes living in the mountain. Just as trapped as everyone else.

  “I’m surprised she’d go to the masses.” It seemed beneath her.

  Fordham’s jaw was set. “She’d do it if it meant having enough support to go up against our father.”

  “You think that’s what she’s doing?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Kerrigan couldn’t disagree. With this many people in attendance at one meeting, it was a veritable legion. And Wynter was mad enough to try it.

  “Plus, if everything I’ve been dealing with this week is any indication, these are the people most upset about our continued isolation.”

  “What does it look like on your end?”

  “The poor are taking the brunt of the strain on products. The human village we trade with, Lethbridge, heard about me leaving and are withholding most trade.”

  “What? Why?”

  Fordham glanced at her. “The city of Lethbridge fear it means the House of Shadows is soon going to get out of the mountain. Apparently, a sizable number of their citizens has already picked up and left. They said they wouldn’t be subjugated again.”

  Kerrigan sighed. “Well, I don’t blame them.”

  “No,” he agreed begrudgingly. “As a result, prices have increased for all goods. There aren’t enough jobs to satisfy everyone. Not enough land to feed everyone. Meanwhile, the court is feasting every night. It doesn’t look good. The inequity is going to get my father killed before his enemies ever touch him.”

  Kerrigan had seen kids starving on the streets of Kinkadia while the Society ate fine and the wealthy on the Row lived like kings. Couple that with a thousand years of forced isolation, their only source of trade evaporating, and she hardly blamed anyone for wanting to do something about it.

  “One thing is for sure,” Fordham said as he maneuvered them closer to the stage at the front of the room. “With this many people, it cannot be beyond my father’s notice.”

  That pronouncement made the meeting seem all the more precarious. As if at any moment, the king would rush
in here with his guards and stop the meeting. Kerrigan tightened her grip on Fordham’s hand, and then a flash of light circled the room.

  “Wynter’s magic,” he breathed to her.

  But that was clear by the way the room immediately went silent. Everything settled, thick with anticipation. As quickly as it had come, all the candles in the massive cavern dropped at the same time. Gasps of excitement and fear rippled through the crowd.

  Before it could crescendo, a figure stepped onto the stage, a flame in her hand illuminating the space. She was taller and broader than Wynter’s lithe form with a thin lace mask covering the stretch of her dark eyes. Her clothes were militant and sturdy with a thick blonde braid over one shoulder.

  “Welcome one and all to the first annual Wynter Masquerade. I am Aisling of family Laurent, but in these halls, we are one and all the same. For those who are here for the first time, we appreciate your interest in our great princess’s vision. For those who have come to meetings before, we welcome you back and into a bigger, brighter future. Rise of Charbonnet!”

  The room erupted with an echoing of the phrase. “Charbonnet!”

  “Rise of the House of Shadows!”

  “House of Shadows!” they chanted back.

  Kerrigan’s jaw tensed with the effort to keep from doing anything that would give her away. Already, she could tell that Wynter had whipped these people up into zealotry, and she had no way to get them out of the mountain.

  “I’m happy to announce your princess, Wynter Ollivier,” Aisling said, holding her hand out and offering the stage to Wynter.

  Wynter made quite an entrance in a perfectly white dress to match her long, unbound white locks. The stage illuminated around her, showing the barely blue look she cast across the crowd. From here, Kerrigan might even believe she was completely with it. But her sanity seemed tenuous at best.

  She held her hands up, and silence settled back into the crowd who had been applauding her entrance. Her nails were painted a deep blood red. The only color on her at all.

  “Charbonnet,” she said in her low, melodic voice. “Once a term to claim a tribe of Alandria. We were the original Fae who came to this great island. Irena, who they worship, came from our halls. She met the great Ferrinix in the halls of Ravinia Mountain. They were bound in our throne room. The line of dragon riders began with us. And the Society deemed it fit to strip us of that right because they did not approve of our treatment of the lesser races.”

  Kerrigan winced. Of course, everyone here was Fae. She was probably the only half-Fae in attendance. She doubted any humans were stupid enough to do this.

  “They shackled us to this mountain, which had once been the seat of power. And on the eve of our thousand-year imprisonment, what happens? My brother was cast out and able to pass through the barrier.”

  Fordham tensed at the mention of his exile.

  Cheers rose up again, and she waited patiently for them to die down.

  “Was this a coincidence?” she asked, casting that terrifying gaze across the room. “I think not. He returns to this mountain and with a dragon.”

  Gasped whispers scattered throughout the room.

  “A dragon now belongs once again to tribe Charbonnet, as it always did before. As it always should have!” She hit her fist into the palm of her hand. A fierceness settled over her delicate features. “And as the anniversary of the barrier approaches, everything is changing. You can feel it, can’t you?”

  A chorus of responses went up in the crowd.

  “I can feel the walls crumbling,” she spoke over them. “I alone can see the cracks forming in the foundation of our prison. And I alone am going to get you out of here. The end is near, Charbonnet.”

  A chant went up in the crowd. “Wyn-ter. Wyn-ter. Wyn-ter.”

  She stood frozen above them, a statue of innocence and power. She was their guiding light out of this madness. Even if it made no sense. Even if she had no way of actually getting them out of this place. Even if she hadn’t given them proof that she could actually see the wall. Everything was blind faith, which had never sat well with Kerrigan. She wanted to save these people, but it certainly wasn’t Wynter who was going to be able to do it. She was using their fear and desperation to put herself in a place of power.

  Finally, she raised her hand once more, and silence descended on the cavern.

  “Many of you are wondering how I am going to achieve this. And I have decided to begin today,” Wynter said dramatically.

  Kerrigan and Fordham exchanged an uneasy glance. This couldn’t be good. Just days ago, she had been asking Kerrigan to take the wall down. She hounded her all week to try to get her to practice. Luckily, Pres and Arbor kept her busy so that Wynter never had the opportunity again. Was there a possibility that she had figured out how the magic worked?

  “You must be wondering why I chose this day for our meeting. When the barrier went up, thirteen powerful magical users worked together under a full moon and sacrificed their lives to put it up around us.” Wynter held her hand up, tilting her chin with a wicked smile. “Tonight is a full moon. And I have brought the sacrifice.”

  She stepped backward, and Aisling pushed forward the first sacrificial lamb.

  Kerrigan’s stomach roiled as she saw the person thrown at Wynter’s feet. She jerked forward, and Fordham grasped her arm.

  “You cannot let her see you,” he warned.

  “And I can’t let her do this either.”

  His eyes were raw with emotion for the first time. “I’ll do it.”

  “She won’t care.”

  Wynter lifted the head of the person, a knife suddenly in her hand. The woman was gagged and bound at her feet. Wynter tilted the person’s chin toward the crowd, twisting her sideways enough so everyone could see that it was a half-Fae at her feet.

  But that wasn’t what captured Kerrigan’s attention.

  It was the face. She’d recognize the scar above her lip and the roundness of her features and the look of pure terror.

  “Bayton,” she gasped.

  12

  The Light

  Without another thought, Kerrigan ripped off her cloak, revealing her bright red hair. She dropped her black mask to the floor and pushed her hair behind her slightly pointed ears. As she stepped through the press of the crowd, she reached for her magic. A blinding light that only Wynter could see.

  Wynter staggered backward from Bayton. The knife clattered to the ground, and she covered her eyes.

  “Leave her, Wynter,” Kerrigan spat.

  Someone reached for Kerrigan, but by that point, Fordham was at her side. He disarmed a Fae man with a knife. Then, he dropped his own disguise, and the gasp was loud enough that no one else attempted to stop them.

  “You cannot sacrifice these people,” Fordham declared with all the force of their crowned prince.

  “They are half-Fae and human, brother. Servants and menial workers, nothing more,” Wynter said coolly. “Thirteen lives is a small matter when the cost for the rest of us is eternal enslavement.”

  “You have no proof that their lives will bring you what you want. You would kill them all for sport even if it did nothing.”

  His accusation hit the crowd like a blow. Whispers erupted all around them.

  Wynter straightened to her full height, ignoring Kerrigan’s magic and staring down her big brother. “You know nothing of my research, brother. You have been gone. You have not seen how our people require more. I was here while you were not, and we look up to you for returning to us as our champion, but you have done nothing for them.” She threw her hand out at the crowd. “These who suffer.”

  Fordham looked ready to launch himself across the distance to his sister, but that was what Wynter wanted. No matter that Fordham had been working on fixing the trade issue. That now that he was in the Society, he would have access to more resources. That he could even negotiate new trade agreements, bring people in and out of the mountain. Not that anyone else knew these things wer
e possibilities.

  Wynter was the one with the cult standing behind her. And Fordham and Kerrigan were good, but they couldn’t withstand an army.

  “You will not need a sacrifice,” Kerrigan announced before Fordham could react.

  A cruel smile slithered across Wynter’s face. As if she had been waiting for this very moment, orchestrated it herself, and Kerrigan had stepped into her carefully laid trap. But she couldn’t back down. Not with Bay’s life on the line. Not with twelve others just like herself set to be killed for an experiment.

  “And why is that?” Wynter asked.

  “Because I’ll take the wall down.”

  Fordham glared at her. “Kerrigan …”

  “This is the miracle, my fellow Charbonnet,” Wynter said, holding her hands out before her. “You have heard me witness about the glow of the barrier around the mountain. That its golden brilliance is bright. I had never seen that color magic until now. Until her.” She pointed at Kerrigan. The crowd erupted into excitement. “The answer to our problem has arrived. We bring down the barrier tonight!”

  Everyone cheered for her. Everyone, except Kerrigan and Fordham.

  “Why do I feel like we walked right into that?” Kerrigan asked.

  Fordham continued to glare at his sister. “Because we did.”

  “Come, Kerrigan,” Wynter said, gesturing for her to come to her side.

  “Ford,” she whispered.

  “Together.”

  They both strode on the stage. Of course, it would look like both Kerrigan, the bearer of barrier magic, and the crowned prince stood with his sister. Even if they had done it under duress.