The Prince of Secrets

by A J Lancaster

  “It seems like that would make you a person well placed to offer me help.”

  “I bear you no ill-will, Lord Valstar, but why would I cross my father for you?” Prince Irokoi rustled his feathers uneasily. “Or Aroset. What could you offer that I would value more than my remaining eye?”

  It sickened her, that he needed to fear such a thing from his own sister. Gods, how had Wyn made it out of this court alive and intact? Prince Rakken hadn’t prepared her for this—he’d been calculating and self-interested, yes, but not sadistic.

  “Is Prince Rakken here?” she asked. He would have to be worried about Hetta telling his father about his plans; maybe that meant she could convince him to help her escape.

  “You would prefer a saner sibling to speak with?” Prince Irokoi shook his head. “Fair enough, but I’m not sure exactly where he is.” He brightened. “Rakken Tempestren! Rakken! Rakken! That ought to get his attention, though he does hate being teased. But he likes you. Perhaps he will be brave enough to risk father’s wrath for you.” He sighed. “It doesn’t sit well to be shown up by one’s younger siblings for bravery, but there you have it.”

  Lightning-quick mood swings and refusal to help her aside, Hetta couldn’t help liking Prince Irokoi. There was something very open—very human—about him, she realised with a start. Of all the fae she’d met, he was the only one who’d made no effort to hide his feelings.

  “Where am I, exactly?” If he wouldn’t help her, maybe he would answer her questions.

  “Why, in the tower with the best view of the Maelstrom,” Prince Irokoi said, waving at the awful vortex in the distance. “As far as intimidation tactics go, it’s a crude but effective one.”

  “Wyn told me people sometimes go in there,” Hetta said, looking at the storm doubtfully. It looked like a good way to die a swift and violent death.

  “Yes, little Hallowyn! The winds are very fierce inside, and the lightning is also quite troublesome. I hope he’s all right. He has a kind heart. I was glad when he found shelter at Stariel, despite the blood and sorrow there.”

  Hetta blinked at him, nonplussed. She had a feeling that asking for clarification wouldn’t help. Prince Irokoi pulled his long legs away from the stair-edge to sit cross-legged and propped his head up on one hand, completely mesmerised by the Maelstrom to all outward appearances. The wind had whipped his hair away from his face again, revealing the mismatched eyes. It was less shocking now Hetta was prepared for the sight, though the scar was still a dramatic pale slash against his brown skin.

  He didn’t turn his head but said conversationally, “It mainly affects my depth perception. Which is, obviously, a thing that is particularly useful when flying. Hmmm.” He pursed his lips. “He came in closer than I’d hoped.”

  Hetta followed his gaze and clutched the bars in horror. The zap knocked her back a step, but she barely noticed. Against the dark roil of the Maelstrom, a pale winged shape was visible: Wyn. He fought the winds for long, agonising moments, before he crumpled and dropped like a stone. Something was horribly wrong with his wings.

  Fire roared out of her, snuffing out at the cage’s boundaries. She clenched her fists in helpless terror. “Help him!”

  “Hmmm, yes,” said Prince Irokoi. “Probably a good idea.” He made a strange clutching gesture and drew back his arm as if the air had real resistance in his grasp. Wyn’s fall abruptly ceased, and Irokoi began to make a hand-over-hand motion on the empty air, drawing Wyn towards him as if he was at the other end of a long, invisible rope.

  Hetta’s heart hammered in her throat as Wyn drew closer. She knew immediately how he’d come here, the amulet gleaming darkly against his skin. His body hung limp and unmoving. Most of his feathers had been ripped out, and his wings hung askew like a broken bird’s. Oh gods. She dug her fingernails into her palms. He had to be alive. She would burn this whole dashed city down if he wasn’t.

  Prince Irokoi made a sympathetic noise and glanced around at the narrow staircase thoughtfully. Then he straightened. “Ah, Mossfeathers, you have impeccable timing,” he greeted Prince Rakken as he winged his way into sight. Prince Rakken in his fae form. His wings were dark bronze, tipped with vivid green, the whole threaded through with gold. His mouth set in a grim line as he took in Wyn’s suspended body, but he hoisted him into his arms without comment.

  “I’ve got him, Koi,” he said. “Bloody fool.” He met Hetta’s eyes, expression unreadable. “He’s alive,” he added shortly, and then turned and winged away from the tower.

  33

  King Aeros

  Everything hurt. Pain came in splinters with each breath, scissoring through Wyn’s chest and radiating out to his wingtips. The Maelstrom’s magic shuddered through him, sparking and short-circuiting where it touched his innate magic and feeling remarkably like a swarm of angry hornets had taken up residence in his bones, all stinging their disapproval.

  Something wrenched at his wings and everything, impossibly, hurt more, sending his thoughts into blank free-fall until the pain ebbed a fraction. Coming back to himself felt like slamming to earth. On the up side, this meant he probably wasn’t dead.

  He opened his eyes and found he was lying on his belly on a hard, cold surface. The shell-pink of the wall in front of him told him he was in one of the outer spires.

  “That was a singularly stupid course of action,” a voice said tightly from somewhere beside him. Rake. Wyn twisted his head towards his brother with a groan. “You’ll be earthbound for months, healing this.” Rakken tapped meaningfully on Wyn’s wingbone. The touch sent a wave of fresh daggers, and Wyn let loose a string of profanities in storm-tongue, which Rakken ignored. “You should thank me for setting it. What in the High King’s name possessed you to try your luck in the Maelstrom? Even I would not risk it, yet, and you are little more than a child in comparison.”

  “I didn’t intend to go into it,” Wyn protested. His voice came out distorted, and he swallowed unpleasantly, tasting blood. The violent storm’s energy ached at the back of his teeth, ran up and down his wings in jagged flashes. Rakken had splinted them tightly, which helped with the pain, but it was hard to feel thankful. Nothing took longer to heal than wingbone and feather. “And I don’t know how you and Cat hope to succeed if you’re afraid to face the Maelstrom.”

  Rakken stilled. “Be careful what you say, brother.”

  Wyn knew what he meant. They were in ThousandSpire, where their father had ruled with an iron fist for longer than anyone could remember. You never knew when he might be listening. Wyn shouldn’t have needed Rakken’s reminder, not with his bond to ThousandSpire active for the first time in years, but he’d lost the habit of caution.

  Wyn touched the bond, familiar yet unsettling, filling an emptiness he hadn’t been aware of carrying, humming a sense of homecoming completely at odds with his heart. He and his kin were bound to ThousandSpire much as the Valstars were to Stariel, and ThousandSpire was glad to see him. It had always liked him, despite his father’s attitude. The faeland snuffled over Wyn’s aching skin like a dog inspecting him for strange smells. Its attention sharpened on the amulet around Wyn’s neck.

  “ThousandSpire doesn’t like the whiff of FallingStar on you,” Rakken observed just as Wyn reached a similar conclusion. “Tell me, did you really think you could bring a piece of a foreign faeland into the heart of the Spires?” He tapped Wyn’s collarbone next to where the amulet rested, as if he was loath to touch the object too.

  Interesting. Wyn didn’t know exactly what Stariel had done to the stone, but if Rakken said it held a bit of Stariel, it did. Rakken was by far the better sorcerer of the two of them. It should help with the resonance, at least, which was good news if he could just get it into Hetta’s hands. Both of them would need to be touching it for the translocation spell to take them back.

  “Where is Lord Valstar?” he asked, deliberately not answering Rakken’s question. Rakken was right; better to be careful what they said aloud. Seven stormcrows, his wings hur
t, an unpleasantness compounded by the trapped feeling of the bindings strapping them tightly to his back. He ignored the urge to try to flex them; that would most definitely not help. Thank the High King he hadn’t been conscious when Rakken set them. The tiny pricks where his feathers had torn free were almost negligible in comparison to the stabbing pain of the broken bones, though they added to the humiliation. He must look like a trussed chicken.

  “She’s in the storm cage,” Rakken said. “She had a front-row view of your fall.”

  Wyn winced. “Is she all right?” The power of the Maelstrom still buzzed behind his eyes. If this was what it felt like just to brush the surface, what would the heart of the storm have done to him?

  “Brother, our previous interaction may have given you the impression that I am on your side. I am not on your side, Hallowyn. Whatever mad belief you have in your head, rid yourself of it.”

  “Is she all right?” Wyn repeated, levering himself up onto an elbow. Ow. The limb appeared functional, however. Thank the high winds. He wasn’t entirely sure which parts of him still were. From the spikes with each breath, at least one of his ribs was broken.

  With some difficulty, he slid off the stone, trusting that his legs would probably hold him. They did, but the shock of his weight punched pain up from the soles of his feet, hard and punishing. Ow. He wobbled and grabbed the edge of the table for balance.

  “She was significantly more all right before your dramatic entrance. Just how well do you think she’ll do now you’ve turned up and given Father such an excellent bargaining chip against her?” Rakken sounded furious, though he was trying not to.

  “Careful, brother,” Wyn said. “Or I might think you care.” He laughed, a rasping cough of a sound that only made him laugh harder.

  “What is wrong with you?” Rakken took hold of Wyn’s shoulder and shook him. Little knives twisted where he’d lost feathers, and he laughed again. Rakken cursed and released him. “Has the Maelstrom made you as mad as Irokoi?”

  Wyn had to admit he was edging into hysteria territory. He suppressed another inappropriate giggle and took a deep, steadying breath. “I’ve never been convinced that Irokoi is mad, though,” he said after a pause to collect himself. “He sees things. Like Hetta, now. She was always an illusionist, but lordship has given her the Sight.” Maybe it would prove useful for Rakken to know that. He wasn’t sure how, exactly, but he was going to need every bit of advantage he could muster, to get him and Hetta out of here alive and intact.

  “You’re babbling,” Rakken said in disgust, but a spark lit in the green of his eyes. He’d understood the coded message.

  Dizziness overcame Wyn suddenly, the half-second’s warning of a ’port. Only one person was exempt from ThousandSpire’s wards against translocation. It had taken his father slightly longer to retrieve him than expected, actually. At least he was standing. It would have been worse to face his father on his belly.

  The ’port was thick with King Aeros’s magic—lime leaves mingling with rain falling on sun-scorched earth, overwhelming even the taste of Wyn’s own blood on his tongue. Wyn held fast to his pain-inspired giddiness; it was his only defence now against the terror threatening to rise up and paralyse him, and he could not afford that. Not with Hetta at stake.

  Wyn staggered as the ’port spat him out onto the marble floor of the throne room. He’d never liked the large, ostentatious space, and he liked it even less from this vantage point directly below the dais. The massive hall was open to the elements on one side and above for the length of the rectangular skylight down its centre. Artificial shade or shelter was added with magic when King Aeros was feeling beneficent; when he wasn’t, supplicants below his raised dais stood under baking summer sun or freezing winter snow. Immense rounded columns ran down each side of the hall, and every surface glittered with gems and precious metals.

  The court lined the walls, whispering. Not all the court were stormdancers, and the shapes and colours of lesser and greater fae were a form of decoration in themselves. Their presence probably meant Father intended a spectacle rather than a swift death, which meant Wyn might be able to buy time, if he could just think properly. The world still swam with the Maelstrom’s energy, sound and leysight coming in and out of focus.

  Wyn’s two sisters were at the front of the crowd, beneath the raised dais. Catsmere was dressed in her customary dark tones and standing in the relaxed, watchful pose she could hold for hours if needed. Aroset jittered with anticipation, her robes a pure frost that matched her hair and emphasised the blood-red of her wings. Catsmere didn’t react to the sight of him or Rakken, but Aroset smiled in a deeply disturbing way, showing teeth.

  But Wyn spared them only a glance, for there was only one fae in the room who really mattered here, the fae whose power eclipsed the others so utterly they might have been mere tinder-sparks against the blaze of the sun.

  King Aeros sat on a throne on the raised dais, his eyes gleaming guinea-gold as he considered Wyn. The gems inlaid on the throne and wall behind were designed to best frame ThousandSpire’s ruler. Diamonds and rubies featured heavily in the design, almost as brilliant as the silver and scarlet of King Aeros’s wings, as if blood had been gilt with the shining metal. His silver-white hair hung long and intricately braided over one shoulder.

  “Ah, my youngest,” King Aeros said with satisfaction. Dread washed over Wyn, an instinctive response to the sound. His father chuckled. “You seem somewhat worse for wear than when I last set eyes on you.”

  “When you were planning to kill me and blame DuskRose for my murder, do you mean?” Wyn said, marvelling at how cool and clear his voice sounded. There was a ripple in the assembled crowd, but the King appeared unconcerned.

  “Hallowyn,” King Aeros chided. “Such a lack of loyalty to your own blood!”

  The compulsion hit him, swift and stunning in its strength. Wyn buckled and fell to his knees, biting his tongue to keep the words of obeisance from spilling out. Every sinew shuddered under the compulsion, but it seemed muted compared to what he remembered. Rakken was right; King Aeros’s power was weakened. Or perhaps even his father’s magic paled compared to the Maelstrom’s energy still ringing in his ears. It was all he could do to kneel and pant silently, teeth clenched, but ten years ago he would have been begging and writhing on the floor, so that was progress of a sort.

  Compulsion was a nasty loophole in the fae inability to lie; compulsion could make you say anything. The flipside was that you couldn’t make oaths under compulsion; only freely given words had the power to bind.

  King Aeros gave no outward sign that his compulsion hadn’t been quite as effective as he’d intended. Narrowing golden eyes, he asked, “And what is this whiff of FallingStar I detect about you?” He turned his attention to Rakken, who’d stood quietly to one side throughout the exchange.

  Rakken walked calmly—almost languidly—towards Wyn. His expression was faintly bored.

  “It’s this, Father,” Rakken said and leaned down to pull Lamorkin’s amulet over Wyn’s head. Wyn jerked at the feel of Rakken’s magic. He’d masked his signature completely, so Wyn only sensed the glamour because it was literally touching him. Shock held him frozen for a heartbeat. Surely Rakken wouldn’t dare? He was a gifted sorcerer, but their father was a faelord of one of the most powerful courts in Faerie, older and stronger than any fae Wyn knew bar the High King.

  But apparently Rakken would dare, because he lifted a facsimile of the amulet over Wyn’s head while the cold weight of the true amulet still pressed against his skin. Wyn scowled, playing his role, though his heart beat fast as a hummingbird’s. I suppose this is the time for risk-taking. He hoped Rakken wouldn’t suffer for it.

  “Some sort of token, I think,” said Rakken, holding up a facsimile of Lamorkin’s amulet. How in the high winds did he hope to get away with it? King Aeros didn’t have the Sight, but the glamour would never hold against their father’s close inspection. But Rakken didn’t move to hand it over. Instead
he tossed it into the air with the timing of a showman and summoned a contained ball of lightning to destroy it. Sparks flew, white-hot and blinding, as the fake amulet appeared to burn away to nothing. Rakken shot a glance at Wyn. “Though perhaps he has mingled with FallingStar deeply enough that he may still carry the scent even now.” He wrinkled his nose fastidiously.

  Wyn fought a sudden urge to laugh, oddly reminded of Jack’s use of ‘canoodling’. Mingling indeed. Hetta would roll her eyes at the euphemism. Was she all right, in the stormcage? The winds would be fierce up there. She would be cold.

  King Aeros shifted in his seat, propping his head on one hand to consider Rakken. Wyn had to give his brother credit; Rakken remained impassive under the scrutiny.

  “You make an excellent point, though; we do seem to be missing someone,” King Aeros said eventually, and lazily snapped his fingers. Citrus and desert air swelled, and two figures appeared in front of the dais: Irokoi and Hetta. Hetta stumbled, and Irokoi’s black wings flapped briefly in startlement.

  Hetta. Wyn strained to go to her, but a hard shield of air as well as compulsion pressed him down. Damn his father. He met Hetta’s gaze and for an instant everything else faded away. There was no throne room and no power holding him in place. There was only the grey of Hetta’s eyes, blazing with anger and distress. He tried to convey all that she meant to him along with a warning against all that she should be careful of, but it wasn’t a particularly effective communication method. She stepped towards him, but Aroset grasped her forearm and jerked her back.

  Hetta, of course, didn’t take this passively. She lit up like gunpowder, and Wyn felt the wash of heat even from where he was kneeling. Aroset shrieked, but there was a reason she was the heir presumptive. She stole the air around Hetta without loosening her grip, and the fire snuffed out. Hetta gasped and clutched at her throat, struggling to breathe. Wyn fought his way to one knee before the bindings dug into him again, preventing him from rising.