“Princess, will you please take us to the house?” he asked, closing the distance between them.
“You do not look well, Your Highness.” Her tail switched from side to side.
Wyn repeated his question.
“In exchange for…?” she said.
“Put it on my account. I believe you’ve some experience with banking debts.”
Her eyes widened at the word ‘banking’; he’d guessed true, then, about her interference with the Thompsons. He could see her weighing factors, deciding it was worth the opportunity to demand answers from him. “You have a poor debt collection history. But very well.” And she held out her arms commandingly. “You’ll all have to be touching me,” she told the others, with special emphasis for Jack, whose harrumph didn’t hide the slight flush on his cheeks.
Her hand was smooth and warm despite the air’s chill. They shared a glance, and Wyn was moderately certain they were both reflecting on the strangeness of two fae from opposing courts willingly holding hands.
Between one breath and the next, the world shifted in a tangle of beeswax and cherries and then they were abruptly standing in Stariel’s library. Wyn didn’t much like teleportation. It reminded him too forcibly of his father’s habit of summoning people on a whim. But he was still more accustomed to such a method of transportation than the Valstars, who staggered in disorientation as they arrived.
“Wow,” was all Marius could find to say, righting himself with a hand against a bookcase. “That’s… Can you take us to Hetta?”
“Teleport to the heart of the Spires from the Mortal Realm half a world away?” Princess Sunnika shook her head. “No.”
“Teleportation and portals are two different types of translocation magic,” Wyn tried to explain. “Teleportation shifts the individual—or several individuals—in space. Most can only do it within line-of-sight.” He nodded an acknowledgement at Princess Sunnika. “Portals connect one place to another, and as long as the portal stays open, one can pass through it. But to connect two places together, especially strongly individualised locations such as faelands, they need to share a resonance. That’s why I need as many Valstars as possible. You’re all bound to Stariel, and you all share blood with Hetta. And the Star Stone—anything that might help.”
“All right,” said Jack when Marius would have asked further questions. “Where do you want us to shepherd people?”
“The Standing Stones.” Wyn had been wracking his brain for a likely location. They would never get everyone up to the Indigoes in time. The Standing Stones were only a few fields from the house, and the rocky forms of them at least had something in common with the Spires, in shape if not in scale.
Wyn would have scattered with the Valstars, but Princess Sunnika prevented him.
“Prince Hallowyn,” she said in an undertone as the others left, “I would have a word with you.”
“This isn’t an ideal moment,” Wyn said. “But I suspect you already know that. Speak your word, Princess.”
She stood next to one of the windowseats, the angle shadowing her features, but he could still see her wide smile. “You have excellent manners. I do not think we would have dealt all that badly together. You are a touch reserved, but I am very good at provoking a reaction.” She smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, the motion a deliberate one.
“You felt it,” Wyn said. It wasn’t a question.
“The shattering of half an oath? Yes,” she said. She looked out to where the dark shapes of the Indigoes rose. “The promise between DuskRose and ThousandSpire no longer stands.”
“The one between you and me, though…”
“Still intact.”
Wyn gambled. “I release you from your promise to me, Princess Sunnika of the Court of Dusken Roses.”
She whirled, shocked out of her composure, her eyes flying to his face in search of answers. “You’re trying to manipulate me into reciprocating,” she said incredulously.
“Yes.”
His answer made her laugh, the sound as silvery as bells, and she shook her head. “Oh, Prince Hallowyn, I could have liked you. But I think you are foolish to give up your hold over me so easily.” She considered him, weighing her choices. “I don’t much like featuring as the villain in your martyr attempt. Tell me,” she said, “before this… Did you ever want to marry me?”
“You are beautiful,” he said. She was, objectively, even by fae standards.
She flicked his words away with a tiny shake of her head, as if to dislodge a fly. “And that is not an answer.”
Wyn could feel the ice under his feet, treacherously thin. What had he thought, before Stariel, before Hetta, when he’d thought he might be married to the woman in front of him?
“The day I met you,” he began slowly, remembering, “Queen Tayarenn could not even bring herself to look at me.” Queen Tayarenn had stared straight ahead throughout the engagement ritual, her expression one of deep loathing. The agreement had been signed within DuskRose’s borders, and the air had warped menacingly around Wyn with the force of its queen’s emotion. “But you…you met my eyes, and you did not look at me as if I were a monster. You looked brave and determined. It gave me hope.”
Princess Sunnika’s eyes widened fractionally before her cool façade slipped back into place. “Do you think I’m so easily manipulated?”
“No—I’m gambling with all the truth that I have in me.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite cover the brief flicker of something sad and fragile in her features. Then she straightened. “Very well, Hallowyn Tempestren.” Her expression dared him to challenge her use of his full name, unadorned, but he let it pass. “I will give you what you want—but in return you will owe me a favour.”
Relief was a heady thing, making him light-hearted enough to say, “I was under the impression that I already did. You teleported me twice when I had need of it.”
Her gaze cooled, her tail switching dangerously. “You cannot equate this with those trifling debts.”
He bowed his head, accepting the rebuke. Hetta would have rolled her eyes at his levity, but Princess Sunnika wasn’t her, and he could push her only so far before she would take offense. In truth, she’d already shown more flexibility than he’d expected. “My apologies. Of course I do not equate the two.” The teleportation, whilst convenient, had only a minor value compared to his broken oath. “I will accept the bargain you offer.”
She smiled. “Then I release you from your promise to me, Prince Hallowyn Tempestren of the Court of Ten Thousand Spires.”
Such a small collection of words to repair a broken oath, and yet power swelled in their wake, immediate and immense. His magic boiled up, filling spaces he hadn’t known were hollow, overflowing until it hit the Maelstrom’s energy still crackling in his veins and combined with the force of an inferno. His knees buckled, and his broken wings strained under his skin, breaking free as he lost control of his shape.
The accompanying pain snapped him out of the raging storm of magic. He knelt on the rug, panting, the carpet fibres pressing into his palms, lightning shivering under his skin. I am ending up on my knees rather a lot today. Hopefully that wasn’t an omen of anything. He looked up to find Princess Sunnika staring at him with open shock, her ears flat against her skull. So she hadn’t expected that surge either.
Is this what I should have been? he wondered, still humming to the Maelstrom’s frequency. Or is it something…more?
It didn’t matter right now. He rose, folding himself back into a mortal shape with an effort of will. The pain eased and so did the hum of magic. He found himself grateful for the limits of his mortal form—his control felt slippery, and accidentally summoning lightning because he couldn’t leash his power would be beyond unhelpful.
“Thank you,” he said to Princess Sunnika. It was appropriate to thank her, an acknowledgement of the debt he now owed.
Her expression was thoughtful. “Go rescue your mortal, then.” She smiled, dagger sharp.
“And do not forget the favour you owe me.”
35
The Standing Stones
Not half an hour later, Wyn stood at the Standing Stones in a crowd of confused Valstars. Jack and Marius together had alarmed their relatives enough to rouse them into action without Wyn’s aid. It helped that they were all connected to Stariel, and Stariel was roiling with distress.
Wyn surveyed the crowd and tried to settle the energy crackling through his veins. He still hadn’t found the shape of himself in this new, untested power, like a fledgling before his first flight. Let us hope I do not shock anyone literally as well as figuratively today. Stormdancers had a high tolerance to charge, but mortals didn’t, and he didn’t quite trust the currents shifting through him.
The Valstars stared at him, still processing the revelation of his true nature from earlier, intently examining his back and head as if wings and horns would burst free at any moment. Wyn had never addressed them like this, as an equal rather than an inferior. I ought to thank Rake for his little charade. Rakken’s fabricated title had paved the way for the Valstars to re-evaluate Wyn’s social status, even before he’d told them he was fae. Of course, that re-evaluation was countered by a hefty dose of disapproval. They didn’t like that he’d deceived them for so long. No one liked to be made to feel foolish. I suppose I had better tell them about the royalty aspect as well. But that could wait for later. It would only cause a scene now that he did not have time for. How long had passed in ThousandSpire since he’d left? Time didn’t move quite the same in Faerie and Mortal.
He drew in magic, cardamom and petrichor, so vivid he could see as well as smell it. How strange to know that he alone on this hilltop could. Or perhaps not quite alone, he amended, taking in Alexandra’s wide eyes tracing the patterns of the leylines. She was still shaken from her earlier encounter with Aroset but had been determined to come anyway. At least she didn’t seem to have taken any physical harm. He gave her an encouraging smile and made a mental note to talk to her later privately. Assuming there was a later.
His wings itched for release, but he held grimly on to his mortal shape. The pain of the broken bones would probably offset the increased ability to work magic in his fae form, and he could not afford that. Yet he’d never before felt this powerful, in either form. Could he have broken the oath, all those years ago, knowing now what it meant to give up this piece of himself? I have been a shadow of myself without realising it. He thought of his father’s murderous expression, and the chill still gripping him deepened. But what am I becoming now?
“Jack and Marius have told you that Hetta’s in trouble,” he said, loud and clear. “She’s trapped in Faerie, in a foreign faeland. I am going to try a…spell to get her back.” He expected them to demand to know more, but Stariel’s distress clanged even in his ears, and there was minimal protest. They all knew something was very, very wrong. And they knew that Wyn was at the centre of it, somehow.
He arranged them around the stone circle, holding hands, the Star Stone dead centre, then he took a deep breath and pushed. The magic surged up in a hammer and hit what felt like solid iron: the wards of the Spires. But there were so many Valstars, and the King of Ten Thousand Spires was dead. And Wyn…Wyn had ties to both courts, and he’d never been more full of magic.
His magic streamed out, storm and spice thick enough to choke on, reaching between the home he’d chosen and the one his blood bound him to. Far in the distance, thunder rumbled, out of season, and the air bristled with static. Lightning tried to answer the summons, but Wyn held it back, pouring magic into the stones until they seethed with potential. He thought of his blood, there splattering the stone where Rakken had tended him, here rushing in his veins, and Hetta’s blood, linked to the Valstars surrounding him, the feather of his she’d thankfully kept on her person.
Stariel understood what he was doing. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have the land working with rather than against him, but he forgave Stariel for all its recent hostility when it leaned its weight in concert with his own.
It was like trying to force the wrong ends of two magnets together, the energies sliding and repelling, ThousandSpire’s wards ancient and impenetrable, the land curled and defensive without its lord. But Stariel’s desire aligned with Wyn’s. It wanted Hetta back, and it pushed with Wyn and the Valstars. The Valstars, who despite everything, were fiercely loyal to their own blood.
The pressure built and built, unbearable against his eardrums, until finally something gave.
The portal snapped into place between two of the stones. It rose high enough for a person to pass through, its edges strong and unwavering. Through the stone frame, the brilliant gems of the throne room glowed in the setting sun instead of the darkly forested hills that had been visible a second ago. Wyn didn’t pause to see the Valstars’ reactions. He hurtled through the portal, unsure how long it would hold, and the world tumbled with the transition.
But the tumbling didn’t stop as he hit the marble floor, and he realised it wasn’t the portal causing the disorientation. The Court of Ten Thousand Spires was shaking, both physically and magically. An ice-storm of grief slammed down Wyn’s connection with it. Of course; it had just lost its lord.
Where was Hetta? The magical cacophony swamped his leysight as he tried not to lose his footing. There—the tiniest hint of coffee, nearly lost in the typhoon. He stumbled towards it as the tangled magic of ThousandSpire flailed, vast and confused and alarmed. It was sheer instinct to reach back along his bond and try to comfort the faeland. Stupid instinct, because the moment he tried, the Spires grabbed for him, seeking a place to anchor.
Wyn tried to shove it aside, but the faeland was having none of it. It swarmed up through his bones, dust and rain and spice, melting away his mortal form. His wings screamed into being, and magic roared through the broken bones, agony and ecstasy. He felt his bones knitting under the onslaught, feathers re-growing at unnatural speed, pushing through skin in hundreds of tiny pricks. He fell to the floor with a cry. Again.
But the faeland was impossibly strong, impossible to resist, and it only snarled in raw possessiveness, a wave of magic trying to claim him for its own.
But then hands were on his shoulders and another force was there, shouting at ThousandSpire, stubborn as the roots of the Indigoes and smelling of coffee and frost:
A new sort of magic washed over him, familiar and steadying, pouring through the portal to counter ThousandSpire. He was hauled back, away from the raging clutches of the Court of Ten Thousand Spires, falling through the portal to Stariel.
36
Homecoming
For a long moment, he was too disoriented to process anything. The first thing he became aware of was Hetta’s hand, warm in his. He squeezed it. Things couldn’t be that terrible if he was holding Hetta’s hand. The second thing he became aware of was the sky above, heavy with stormclouds. The portal was gone.
He sat up, still holding Hetta’s hand. His head swam with the afterimages of the Spires’ violent magic. Hetta sat up next to him, looking similarly dazed, and he found himself drowning in the grey of her eyes. She was alive. She was safe. He pulled her close and kissed her.
It wasn’t lust. It was something fiercer and gentler and altogether terrifying, and it threatened to break him in ways the Maelstrom couldn’t. What is happening to me? She would tell him he was being melodramatic, but if he’d lost her… He had smothered his fears under a layer of ice, but now her warm shape moulded to his, familiar and perfect, and the ice thawed in a rush of heat. Stormwinds, more than thawed. He burned. He’d been wrong; there was definitely lust in the mixture.
Stariel swirled around them, possessive and unsettled, and for the first time in months there was no hostility in its attitude towards Wy
n. It felt, if anything, almost…affectionate. Hetta pulled away from him, her attention going to her faeland as she reassured it. Then she looked back at him and smiled.
“Wyn,” she murmured, “look at your wings.”
He followed her gaze and choked out a laugh. The riot of magic had accelerated his wings’ healing rate, and the broken pinions were now interspersed with immature fluffy pin feathers. But the new feathers weren’t white. Instead, they were an intense, iridescent blue. The relief from the pain of broken bones was welcome, but he looked ridiculous, like a moulting piebald parrot.
It was at this moment that he became aware of the fact that he and Hetta were sitting inside a circle of Valstars. Who had all just seen him kiss Hetta. Quite passionately. In his glorious half-moulting fae form. Seven stormcrows.
Hetta had just noticed the same thing, and she began to laugh. He recognised the mix of hysteria and giddiness, since the same bubbled up in him. He beamed at Hetta’s assorted relatives, who mostly did not beam back. Mainly they stared in stunned disapproval, though they did at least look relieved to see Hetta safe and well. I suppose it’s been a strange day for them too.
He rose and offered Hetta a hand up, not releasing it even when they both stood on their own two feet. The Valstars continued to stare in crowded silence as he flexed his ridiculous half-fledged wings. Hopefully they’d look somewhat more majestic when they’d finished growing in, but the colour of the newest bloodfeathers still lifted his heart, reminding him of star indigo. Surely that was a good omen? He’d thought, from the way that ThousandSpire had grabbed for him, that he might be torn from Stariel and Hetta’s side. A shiver of unease chilled down his spine. But I am safe now. We are both safe. The Spires cannot reach me here. But he wasn’t sure if he could say the words aloud, not sure if they were truth or merely a good attempt at denial.
The Prince of Secrets Page 33