There was no way that bastard was getting his hands on my fae.
I blocked him, hand dropping to my whip, but instead of lunging for Talen, Eledan slammed his hands into my chest, and for a single breathless moment, it felt as though he held my heart in his fist. Everything vanished, the people, my friends. Everything but him.
“You’re just a single piece of the polestar, Messenger,” he sneered.
I didn’t understand, but the meaning of his words cracked through me. Light spilled outward over his hand. My light. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t take the polestar out of me right here, could he?
The moment stuttered back into motion. Eledan threw me backward. My lower back hit the rail. I tried to rebound, but after one step, the impact of what he’d done ripped the strength from me. I stumbled, and Sota rushed in to hold me up. Kellee was moving for me too, his instinct urging him to protect me, but they should have been watching Eledan, not me. He turned his glowing hand toward Talen.
“Don’t touch him!”
He took a sword from one of the guards. A plain weapon, but the moment his hand touched it, light blazed down its length.
Talen struggled against the guards holding him on his knees. His power built, pulling on the shadows and wrapping them around him.
The sword glowed through his dark. It would cut right through it. Eledan wielded more than my polestar essence. He knew how to access his power and mine.
Eledan lifted the white-flaming sword.
“Talen!”
No, by Faerie, no! Eledan would kill him.
Talen pulled his fists into his chest, yanking the guards off balance. His eyes turned silver, and with a roar, the Nightshade’s wings burst from his back, unfurling until their velvety star-touched darkness spilled over the balcony. Night blanketed us all. Talen’s eyes shone silver in the dark. That same silver blazed through his clothes and his body, lighting him up, framing the dark creature he was at his core. So beautiful, so terrible, and out of my physical reach.
The bond between us strummed hot and alive.
Eledan’s blade came down.
I saw it all in precise detail. Saw the razor-sharp edge sever the Nightshade’s left wing and the white fire scorch down Talen’s dark outline. The wing burst into a cloud of static silver and ash, blasting us in sparks. Pain was a screeching, clawing thing tearing me apart inside, but it wasn’t my pain. Screams I had no control over tore from me. Power snapped through my bones, riding my body too hard.
I flung out a hand to direct this furious, chaotic light inside, using the bond to funnel everything into Talen and save him from the terrible agony. I was on my feet, but not for long. My vessel wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t strong enough. It hurt like I was bathed in fire. It hurt in a way I’d never known.
Eledan swung the blade over his head and hacked off the Nightshade’s last wing in one smooth slice.
Talen screamed, and an ancient part of me that had nothing to do with being saru, or Mylana, or anyone else awoke. The polestar. Now it was my turn to blaze. Power burst from my skin in a tangle of dark and light, and inside it, I was the heated, beating heart of vengeance. A reservoir of power swelled at my call, and I welcomed it.
Light licked down my back and lifted me off my feet, driving my mortal body toward Eledan.
Eledan pressed the sword to the back of Talen’s neck and regarded me as though I were a child. “Kneel, my queen.”
“I’m not kneeling to you.” My voice held an echo, like it was mine but not mine. An echo like that from the Hunt. It resonated beyond more than just sound, and I knew those words had sailed much farther than this knoll. Faerie had taken them. She’d heard. Everyone had heard me.
“Kneel like we agreed, Mylana, or your silver fae dies and the Hunt will take every one of your saru like it took your doomed gladiator friend. You agreed to this. Now kneel to me and show all of Faerie who their king is.”
I looked past Kellee’s wide, fearful eyes, ignoring my horror reflected in them, and found the saru looking on, whimpering and fearful alongside the fae.
The bond stuttered, and Talen’s head lolled forward, his eyes fluttering closed. The guards held him up. His lips moved, but the words were inside my mind. “Do. Not. Kneel, Mylana. Do not give… him…” His voice faded as he lost consciousness.
Eledan had created the Hunt. It was his nightmare. If he wanted it to, the Hunt would take every single saru here and strip them of their souls.
I had freed them and condemned them.
I’d agreed to this.
“I will find a way to kill you,” I told Faerie’s king. My light faded. I dropped to my knees. “And that monster your putrid mind birthed.” The power singing through my veins spluttered and died, leaving my body wretched, panting, and weak.
Eledan tossed the sword to the floor, where it clattered and lost its light. He whirled, raising his arms. “The Nightshade submits. The vakaru submits. And as promised, because I am a fae of my word, saru, you are henceforth free! A new reign on Faerie begins today, one that will spread to all four corners of Faerie’s worlds.”
Slowly, a cheer rose up out of the heavy quiet, but it was a cheer born of fear and suspicion. As well it should be, because as he turned, Eledan caught my gaze and murmured, “Welcome to a new Faerie, my queen.”
Chapter 7
Talen writhed and clutched at the bedsheets, bleaching his knuckles. His eyes were pinched shut, as though he were fighting not to see. Kellee held him down while Sota reported on Talen’s fluctuating life signs.
Hours had passed since Eledan had taken his wings. Talen hadn’t woken.
“Kesh, come closer,” Kellee said.
I’d already tried that when they’d brought him to this room, and now, as I stood at his bedside, took his hand in mine, and watched him twist and arch in agony, it was almost too much to bear, because I didn’t feel a damn thing. The bond—that connection we’d shared for so long, the one that told me I wasn’t alone, that he loved me, that I loved him, the one we shared everything through—was gone. Not faded, like when we’d been worlds apart. Gone. Dead. Broken. I knew it, the same way I knew something else, something I had no hope of containing, had shaken loose inside. The polestar. I couldn’t think on that yet. On any of it. I’d lost Talen.
Eventually, his body-wracking shudders faded, and he lay still, his chest rising and falling. Occasionally, his brow pinched, but he’d settled into his dreams, where I hoped he might heal. Would the wings grow back? It seemed unlikely. What had losing them done to him?
Sota sat against the wall across the room. He pulled his knees up and draped his forearms over them. Kellee was sprawled in a chair on Talen's other side, looking like a vakaru who’d lost a fight. The green handprint paint had smudged, making him appear fiercer.
“What by Faerie are you doing here, Kellee?”
He blinked a few times, sucked in a breath, and held it until I began to wonder if he would ever breathe again. Finally, he sighed and said, “We had to come. We’re stronger together.”
“He’ll use you against me.”
“He won’t,” the marshal grumbled.
“He just did!”
“Stop it,” Sota snapped. “Bickering will not solve this. What were you thinking coming here, Kellee? Eledan could just as easily have killed Talen instead of…” He couldn’t finish. The memory of what had happened on the balcony stamped itself across my vision. My insides roiled.
“It was the guardian’s idea,” Kellee grumbled.
I narrowed my eyes. “You never follow fae orders.”
“It wasn’t an order,” he growled. “He said Eledan would have a crowning ceremony to prove his reign. Something public. We figured if we pledged ourselves to your court, we’d get in and get you out. Eledan couldn’t refuse us. And then you went and got suspicious—”
“What the hell was I supposed to think? This isn’t Calicto, Marshal. You don’t kneel on Faerie without meaning it.”
His
glare hardened. If he’d had hackles, they would have lifted. “I meant it, and so did Talen. You weren’t supposed to reject him.”
I scooped up Talen’s limp hand and squeezed it. His skin was cool and damp. What if he was dying? “I didn’t reject him. I rejected the whole fucking ceremony. It was karushit and you know it. Eledan was preening his peacock feathers in front of the fae. I would have dealt with it, but you showing up made everything a hundred times worse.” Eledan had freed the saru, but the victory felt hollow, like I was missing the punchline to his joke.
“Who did you choose, Kesh?”
“What?”
“Your choice. Free the saru and Eledan gets you, right?” He leaned forward in the chair. “Sirius told us. Eledan just freed the saru, so what does that mean for the Messenger?”
“It means I have it under control.”
“Karushit.”
My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. “You can’t free the saru with a few words. Until they stop loving the fae, they won’t be free and Eledan will no more own me than you do.”
Maybe it was the way I’d worded it, but the fight drained out of Kellee. He fell back into the chair. “I’m sorry…” He blinked up at the ceiling. “Since Oberon, I haven’t been thinking clearly.”
“I can see that.” He’d torn out Oberon’s throat—with his teeth. I’d seen his eyes, seen the unseelie in him rejoice. Maybe ancient fae blood didn’t do a damn thing to a vakaru, or maybe it did. We hadn’t had the time to discuss it.
He rubbed his eyes. “That bastard took his wings, Kesh.”
Eledan had taken more than that from Talen. He had taken Talen’s identity as the Nightshade and my bond with it. “Eledan knew Talen was the only fae left who could challenge his rule, and you delivered him right to his feet. That was never going to end well. We can’t make those mistakes, Kellee, not here. Faerie doesn’t allow for fuckups.”
“He wanted to be here, with you,” Sota said from his spot by the wall. “Kellee couldn’t have stopped him. None of us could.”
What was I supposed to do with the three of them? This was exactly what I’d been afraid of. “You shouldn’t have come. Eledan knows how I feel about you. He’s known since this started. To beat him, we have to be smarter than this.”
Kellee fell forward and ran his hands through his hair. “I know. You’re right.” He looked up. “What happened on that balcony… to you?”
“I…” The echo of some other power plastered over me, it hadn’t felt good, like when I’d used fae magic in the past. A second longer and it might have torn me open. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” Sota said. “Kesh opened the bond wide, like when Talen broke free of Shinj. You almost died then, Kesh. This time, a part of Talen was dying. Kesh pulled that pain out of him.”
“I did what?”
“You didn’t see you, but we did. Your eyes were silver, and your whole body was aglow and haloed in darkness, just like Talen is when he goes full Nightshade. You took part of him inside you, or maybe it was always in you since you first bonded and we’re just now seeing it.”
I looked to Kellee. He nodded. “Sota’s right. You looked a whole lot like the Nightshade for a while there, sans wings.”
I’d felt it too, the dark reaching outward, but I’d also felt the light. I needed answers. I needed someone to tell me what his polestar could do, what I could do, and how I could control it. And where it all led. Eledan would only tell me if I could convince him it was in his interest, but if that failed, there was another option, one Sirius could help with. “Where’s Sirius?”
“On Shinj with Hulia, waiting for our signal.” Kellee’s gaze fell to Talen. “If we can get him back to the ship, Shinj can help heal him.”
Sota stood and approached the end of the bed. “Physically, his body is showing signs of exhaustion, but I don’t think what Eledan did was physical. I can’t read magic. As he is, he’s not strong enough for us to move him. We need to wait until he’s conscious.”
Still holding his hand, I silently begged his fingers to grip back. He didn’t respond.
“He’ll recover,” Kellee said, sounding surer than the worry on his face suggested.
Before the bond broke, I’d felt Talen’s agony. He might recover physically, but mentally? “He didn’t deserve this.”
He had only ever tried to protect me. I owed him the same. I needed answers.
I shrugged off my coat, laid it over the back of the chair, and climbed onto the bed, gently lying down next to Talen. If the bond was gone, I’d stay close to him this way and hope it was enough.
Sota pulled my abandoned chair close to the bed and settled into it. He nodded at my glance. He wouldn’t leave either, and I didn’t need to look at Kellee to know the marshal would stay for as long as it took.
“It’s not your fault.” Talen’s fingers brushed my cheek. I leaned into his touch and fell into his sleepy gaze, admiring the way his pale lashes highlighted eyes layered in violet, indigo, and lilac.
He had woken moments ago. Not with a gasp, as I’d expected. He’d simply come around as though he’d just fallen asleep. His arm had wrapped around me, tucking me close against his chest. After what Eledan had done to him, his soft smile pricked my eyes with tears.
“He took your wings,” I whispered, bumping my forehead against his.
“It’s all right.” His knuckles brushed my cheek, then his fingers stroked my hair, setting it right, like he needed everything to be in its place.
Nothing was all right. I was so tired of the pain, the endless battle.
His lips brushed my forehead. “He took what he thought was most precious to me…” Talen’s warm fingers captured my chin, his gaze fierce. “He was wrong.”
I wanted to rest with him, to bury myself against his chest and breathe him in until he became a part of me again.
“I did something to our bond,” I whispered. “I broke it.”
“I don’t need a bond to tell me how much I love you.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and buried my face against his shirt so Kellee and Sota wouldn’t see the tears. Talen clutched me close. We stayed like that until Kellee rose from his chair, signaling time was not on our side.
“If we leave now, we may get off this planet—”
“We’re not leaving Faerie.” Reluctantly, I pulled away from Talen’s arms and eased him upright. “I need answers. We need answers. Leaving solves nothing. We stay on the ground.”
“Leaving will keep you alive,” Kellee argued.
None of this had ever been about keeping me alive.
Sota rushed in to help Talen, but he waved him off while Talen pushed to his feet, albeit carefully. “I’m fine,” he said, noticing how we were ready to catch him if he fell. He swayed and steadied himself on the bed. “I will be fine…”
“If we stay on Faerie, Eledan will try to tear us apart.” This came from Sota, and the raw fear on his face almost had my determination wavering. “He’ll try to take us from you, Kesh, one at a time, like pulling the legs off a spider.”
I frowned at the analogy, but he wasn’t wrong. Eledan would try to break us, but he wouldn’t succeed. “This spider bites.” I tossed him a grin like the ones when I’d scored a valuable delivery back on Calicto. He dragged his own smile onto his lips. “There are fae who know a lot more about the polestar and my place in it. Fae who will speak with me.” I adjusted my whip, making sure it was seated home, and breathed in to clear my thoughts. “Signal Sirius here.”
Kellee moved in and Talen hooked an arm around his shoulders.
I held the vakaru’s doubtful glare. “The dreamweaver and I are going to have a heart-to-heart chat.”
“Kesh, if he takes you again…” Gold rimmed the marshal’s dark eyes. The unseelie beast within him peered back at me. Sota was right. Kellee was a twitch away from going feral. I’d need to speak with him too—alone. I should take the time to sit with them all and soon, but not here. I had a prince to corner.
“He won’t hurt me, Kellee. He needs me to keep the saru in line.”
Kellee’s gaze skipped from the recovering Talen to Sota and back to me. He flexed his fingers. “I can’t keep losing you.”
“You won’t. Just… trust me? I can handle Eledan.”
He nodded curtly. “I’ll signal Sirius, but if you’re not back in a reasonable time, I’m coming after you.”
Chapter 8
“Let me in there.”
Two guards blocked the doorway to Eledan’s chambers. Behind them, enormous, ornately decorated doors arched high, their peak ending in unnecessary flourishes. Like the doors, both guards were ridiculously pretty.
“The king is engaged,” the guard on the right said.
Engaged? What, by cyn, did that mean?
I dropped a hand to my whip, making sure they got a good look. I didn’t want to pull rank, but I would. After what Eledan had done to Talen, he didn’t get to hide behind doors. “Let me through, or we’ll have a disagreement.”
They didn’t move. Steely-eyed and righteous in their belief that they were better than me, they reminded me of Sirius, before I understood him.
I freed my whip. Its alien tek-tails licked at the floor near my boots. The guard on my right swallowed, his throat bobbing. They weren’t visibly armed, but they’d have tricks up their immaculately tailored sleeves. We all knew they wouldn’t throw down with Faerie’s new queen. They had to make a stand because they were fae, and that made them pains in my ass.
When it was clear they wouldn’t step aside, I looked them both in the eye before settling my glare on the one who had spoken. “Your queen commands you to open the damn door. Don’t make me go all Messenger on your asses.”
Relenting, they stepped aside, and the door swung open under its own power. A suite full of color, comfort, and elegant design greeted me. A day chamber, like those Oberon had used, only much bigger. Floor-to-ceiling drapes fluttered, disturbed by Faerie’s touch on the breeze.
Her Dark Legion Page 4