by E. A. Copen
Lazarus quit pacing when he saw her and rushed toward her. “What’s with the uptick in security? I thought I was going to have to submit DNA just to get this far.”
“There was an attack recently.” Jessica froze when he put his arms around her and pulled her into a hug.
He pushed her to arm’s length and gave her a long once-over.
Jessica swallowed and tried to calm her racing heart. If he was going to figure out that she wasn’t Remy, now would be the time.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked.
She almost let out a sigh of relief. Apparently seeing through glamours wasn’t one of his abilities. Jessica stepped away from him. “No, thankfully. The perpetrator is in our custody and awaiting sentencing.”
“That’s good. So, uh, I promised I’d come back and help you with those black vines you showed me. Here I am.” He spread his arms wide for a moment before dropping them lazily to his sides.
Jessica tried to summon that naturally sweet smile Remy somehow managed. “That won’t be necessary.”
Lazarus raised an eyebrow. “Come again? Those things are still all over Summer last I checked.”
The sweet smile didn’t seem to be going over well so she tried for a more neutral mask instead. “The blight is still affecting Summer, but not for long. A special team has already been sent to deal with the source of the problem. I expect them to complete their mission any day now.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “Well, I can wait until they get back. Just in case. Or maybe if you have a free afternoon, I can take you to that ice cream place you like, maybe catch a movie?”
How do I turn him down without making him suspicious? “I would love to.”
“Great, then I’ll get the—”
“Unfortunately, I just have too much to do. With the recent attack, the trial, and everything else going on, I just can’t leave court, Father. Rain check?”
He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing slightly. “How many times have I told you to just call me Dad?”
She smiled, fighting the strange empty ache in her chest. “Okay, Dad.” Jessica shrugged her shoulders away. “Anyway, I’m sorry you had to come all this way for nothing. Once my schedule is clear, I’ll send word for you and we can get ice cream, my treat.” She stepped past him, putting her back to him. Come on, accept it and leave. I don’t know how long I can keep this up in front of you.
“What about the debt?” Lazarus asked.
Jessica stopped and glanced over her shoulder. How could she have forgotten about the weight of whatever debt was between them? Even if Jessica swore it was paid in full, he would still feel the weight of it around his neck like a noose. He’d know she wasn’t Remy the moment she uttered those words.
Be calm. Cool. Collected. Your cover’s not blown yet. Jessica turned around, all smiles. “We’ll be even when I pay for the ice cream, won’t we?”
“I suppose so.” He studied her closely, chewing on his bottom lip.
For a long minute, Jessica was certain he hadn’t bought her act, that he’d seen right through her. Then what? If he alerted the rest of the court, there was no telling how everyone would react, especially Sir Malcom.
Then Lazarus’ uncertain expression spread into a lopsided smile. “Okay, then. I’ll hold you to that.” He hesitated a moment more as if waiting would somehow change her mind, then turned and walked away.
Another crisis averted, Jessica thought with a relieved sigh. Now to see if there is any truth to Verbena’s story.
Summer’s dungeons were warm and humid enough that Jessica immediately began to sweat the moment she descended the stairs. She was glad the glamour wasn’t a powder like makeup, or it would’ve melted right off in the heat.
The guards at the bottom of the stairs snapped to attention when they saw her.
Their commander rose from behind a large desk. “Your Majesty! No one informed us there would be a royal inspection today!”
“No inspection,” Jessica said, raising her hand to gesture for them to be at ease. “I’d like to speak to the prisoner.”
The commander nodded, grabbed a large ring of keys from where it hung on the side of the desk and walked swiftly down the stone hall.
There were two dozen cells in the Summer dungeon. At one time, shortly after Remy’s ascension, they were so full, the guards had to put three to a cell. Cian had advised she execute them all, but Sir Malcom counseled patience. Some loyalists could be swayed. It was hard to imagine Sir Malcom having a malicious bone in his body, especially when it came to his own court. The knight had proven himself nothing if not honorable and trustworthy.
But after so many trips into Shadow, she supposed something could’ve changed. The stories he told about how his men simply disappeared once they entered the blight-infested land, their voices calling to him, but their bodies were never found... Maybe losing so many had changed him.
No, if anything that should’ve made him even more determined to support Remy and end the blight. Even if he didn’t, that didn’t explain the damning testimony given by the other fae. How had they been able to lie?
The commander stopped in front of a wooden door and slid one of his keys into the lock. “He’s refused food and drink since being imprisoned. Just so you know, he’s also been offered a water bucket and soap to bathe himself, but he’s refused that as well.”
“Any trouble from him?”
He shook his head. “He’s barely spoken a word.” Metal hinges groaned as he pushed the door open and stepped aside. “The chains should hold him, but I’ll be right out here. I’ll look in on you in a few minutes. You give a shout if you need anything in the meantime. Just in case, I’d stay out of his reach, back by the door.”
Jessica nodded and stepped into Cian’s cell.
The first thing that struck her was the smell. Cian had never been a particularly attractive smelling man, but after days in the humidity and heat without a bath or proper toilet, he smelled like a neglected barnyard. Hay strewn around the cell only served to intensify that scent. Jessica’s hand immediately went to cup her nose and mouth.
As for Cian himself, he sat in a corner still wearing the same clothes she’d seen him in at his trial. True to the guard’s word, a tray of food sat on an overturned bucket well within reach. Flies buzzed around the untouched food. Cian looked as if he’d lost twenty pounds since his imprisonment, though he still wasn’t a small man.
The cell door closed behind her with a loud bang, and locked, leaving her trapped.
Jessica swallowed. “Cian?”
Chains rattled and straw whispered over the stone floor. “I would rise and bow if I had the strength. Sadly, I do not.”
She pinched her nose tighter. “You would have the strength if you ate the food you were served.”
The chains rattled louder, and Cian leaned out of the shadows, his haggard face finally shifting into view. “I would eat if I didn’t fear poison.”
“No one is going to poison you, Cian.”
He turned away, saying nothing.
“I spoke with your wife just now.”
Cian’s head snapped back to Jessica, eyes wide. “Whatever you must think of me, she is innocent. I beg you not to hurt her.”
“I have no intention of harming Verbena.” Jessica ventured a step closer. “I came here to ask you directly, Cian. Did you open the gate and let the Nightclaw through?”
Cian drew himself up to stand, throwing his shoulders back. “I did not open the gate that night, nor have I ever. I swear it.”
Fae didn’t give their oaths lightly. Something about him made her want to believe him. The evidence against Cian just didn’t add up, certainly not conclusively enough to send him to his death.
Jessica nodded. “Can you think of any reason why Sir Malcom would hold a grudge against you?”
“No.” Cian’s shoulders slumped, and he staggered backward, resting against the damp wall. “I’ve been going over and over it in m
y head. Sir Declan is an honorable man, but had I chosen anywhere else to have my rendezvous that night instead of stumbling in on him, I don’t think I would be in this mess.”
“So you admit to being in the guard tower?”
“I admit to infidelity, and to being in the guard tower, yes. But beyond that, the only thing I was guilty of was poor timing.”
Jessica remembered him bursting in through the door while she and Declan were...engaged. In her panic to make her dress decent, she’d barely seen him, but she recalled his voice as he apologized profusely and backed out. His being there so close to the attack didn’t prove he was the one who opened the gate though. By that logic, she might have done it, or Declan, which wasn’t the case at all.
“What happened to your lady friend, Cian? Who were you with? Perhaps her testimony could exonerate you.”
He thrust his chin into the air. “I won’t besmirch a lady’s reputation to save my own skin. Giving you that name would ruin the poor girl. No, I’ll be judged on my own merit.”
“Then you’ll die by your own merit,” Jessica snapped back.
Cian shrank slightly.
Jessica sighed. “Malcom has built quite the case against you. It’s all circumstantial, but the mob won’t let me just dismiss the case. At best, I’ll be forced to exile you unless I can prove beyond a doubt that you are innocent. Help me, Cian. I promise you I’ll be discreet in my questioning.”
The former advisor swallowed, his posture slumping. “No one must know. If this got out...”
She lowered her hand from her nose and mouth. “I give you my word, Cian. I won’t reveal the truth to anyone but Sir Malcom, and I will only tell him because he’s been put in charge of the investigation. With proof, perhaps he’ll remove his accusation against you.”
“That’s just the thing. My rendezvous wasn’t with a lady of the court, nor any of the servants.” He leaned forward, continuing in a whisper. “I was supposed to meet Sir Malcom in the guard tower. He and I have had an illicit relationship for years. With him returning from his expedition...” Cian’s face reddened.
Jessica let her mouth fall open before she quickly remembered the stench and covered it again. “Sir Malcom...he told you to meet him there?”
Cian nodded gravely. “He sent the usual signal with the usual servant just a few moments before I arrived. Imagine my surprise when I came through the door and found someone else in our spot. I assumed he’d walked in on the same thing and went away as quickly as he came. We didn’t want to be discovered.”
Sir Malcom also had the power to dismiss the guards from the gate, though he denied doing so according to Declan. What if Malcom had passed by the room, heard her and Declan, and decided to lure Cian there to take the fall? But why? Why would Sir Malcom allow the Nightclaw to attack Summer?
“Your Majesty?” Cian interrupted her thoughts. “I must reiterate that I maintain my innocence, but when you asked earlier if I could think of any reason why Sir Malcom might’ve held a grudge, I said I didn’t. But now I’ve reconsidered. I must have done something. Why else would he want to see me die?”
She patted Cian’s shoulder. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
On the way out of the dungeon, she stopped to tell the commander that she would be sending down a portion of her own meals for Cian, and that her personal guard would deliver the meals to his cell. Guilty or innocent, it was cruel to let the man starve while she dealt with Sir Malcom.
Chapter Sixteen
Music echoed through the main hall where all of Rilvand seemed to have gathered. Word spread quickly that the bastard heir to the throne was there, and everyone wanted to get a glimpse of their savior and the guest of honor.
Finn didn’t feel much like either of those. Sure, they’d put him at the head table along with the rest of his party and Adrix, and they’d cooked up a whole suckling pig just for him, but all he could think of was how he didn’t deserve all the gifts being heaped upon him. After all, he’d done nothing but be born. It didn’t seem like that should entitle him to much of anything but to live and let live.
Compared to the feast he’d attended in Summer, Rilvand’s portions were meager and their dishes simple. There was the pig for the head table, basted in a mustard sauce, a simple salad of greens and onions, mushrooms and barley stew, and oat bread with honey butter. The rest of the tables were served a half chicken, bread, and a bowl of brothy soup. Beer and ale flowed freely from what seemed like bottomless pitchers while the people made merry as if the rest of the world wasn’t silently being devoured beyond.
Foxglove held his tankard out for a refill of ale and turned to their host. “So how is it you’ve been able to farm and raise crops here with the blight all around? Doesn’t it taint the water?”
Adrix nodded. “It does, but we were prepared, or at least as prepared as we could be. As soon as the blight began to spread, we figured out pretty quickly that it didn’t like heat or fire.”
“It slows the spread, but it doesn’t stop it.” Gwen pushed away an empty bowl after finishing her stew.
“Indeed,” their host agreed. “Without help from a very special ingredient, we wouldn’t be able to purify the water at all. Thankfully, our humble village is the keeper of an ancient artifact that has been passed down for generations. While those outside of Rilvand may have forgotten the power that is Shadow’s birthright, we have not.”
Finn took a bite of his bread and chewed. “What do you mean?”
Adrix smiled and rose from his seat, taking a glass in hand. He struck it with his spoon until the din in the room quieted. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I’m sure you’re wondering why the festivities. Well, charge your glasses, friends, for it is my honor to introduce you all to our future king, the heir to the stone, and the prophesied Master of Shadows.” He turned and raised his glass in Finn’s direction. “To His Majesty, Prince Finnegan!”
Every cup in the room shot into the air and the people echoed, “To His Majesty, Prince Finnegan!”
After the toast, everyone settled back into their meals, though the volume stayed lower than before. Adrix gestured to someone in the back of the room who turned to someone else. The second man nodded and rushed from the feast hall as fast as his feet could carry him.
“Heir to the stone and Master of Shadows?” Finn asked when Adrix sat. “What does all that mean?”
Adrix held his cup out for someone to refill. “I’m afraid it’s integral to the founding of this village and our history. If you’ll indulge me, I’d be happy to relate the tale as it was passed to me.”
“We’d love to hear it,” said Foxglove.
“Very well.” Adrix sipped at his beer and leaned back in his chair. “In the beginning, there was only the primordial darkness and the things that lived in it. These old beings were creatures of wings and fangs, of long black tentacles and strange constructions unlike anything you have ever seen before. And then there was light. No one knows who conjured it first, whether it was them, or the gods, or some ancient race of fae, but the first light was as beautiful as it was terrifying. A war was waged between those smaller, weaker beings who clung to the light for sustenance and the primordial beings of darkness, which came to be known as Fomorians. These Fomorians were fierce and terrifying creatures. After many fierce battles and generations of pain and suffering, most of the Fomorians were driven from this realm and sealed in a place of eternal darkness known as the Nightlands. All but one.”
“Who? And why would one remain?” Finn asked.
Adrix frowned. “We don’t know much about him, or how he’s able to move back and forth freely. Only that he calls himself Mask and believes himself the herald of the Fomorians’ return. We also believe he is currently sitting on the Shadow throne and may be the source of the blight.”
“May be?” Foxglove asked. “No one thought to check?”
“You are the first people from outside Rilvand to have made it this far into Shadow,
and we lack the men and resources to investigate further. As such, all we have are rumors and even those have ceased in recent months. Now, back to the history. Where was I?”
Gwen put her cup down and smiled. “The Fomorians were driven out.”
“Ah, yes. To seal the bridge between Faerie and the Nightlands, three stones were crafted by the ancient and powerful fae.”
The door to the feast hall opened and the runner from before entered, carrying a small cloth wrapped orb that he handed off to one of the guards. In turn, the guard left his post and brought the orb straight to Adrix.
Adrix cradled the package gently, folding the cloth back from it as if it were his own child. “One stone was entrusted to the High Court. This became known as the Royal Stone and has been used for centuries in ceremonies to acknowledge their high kings and queens. Another was to be shared equally between Winter and Summer. Whoever held the stone was given sway in the mortal world and so it became known as the Control Stone.” He finally peeled away the final layer of cloth to reveal a stone of deep purple swirled with green and speckled with the deepest black. He held it up for all to see. “While the others were given to royalty, the Mastery Stone was entrusted to a monk. His sole duty was to protect the stone, to study and understand its secrets so that if the rift between Faerie and the Nightlands should ever open again, his descendants would be able to close it.”
“But I’m not descended from any monk,” Finn said. “My mother was the Shadow Queen and as far as I know my father was her knight.”
Adrix nodded. “We have tracked the lineage of the monk, tracing it back several generations. As it turns out, he spent time walking the Earth where he sired a daughter somewhere in what is now modern-day India. That daughter’s daughter attracted the attention of none other than Lucifer Morningstar.”
“The Devil?” Finn raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re going to tell me I’m related to the literal Devil?”
“The Devil, as you call him, was really little more than an Archon—a minor parasitic creature from the Nightlands—possessing a human host,” Adrix explained. “But he was able to father two children with this woman, one of whom became Sir Osric Morningstar, Knight of Shadows. Your father, Finn.”