Grave War

by Price, Kalayna

  And it did. The whisper of magic in the key soared, growing into a song that rang through the clearing. Magic rolled over me, both too hot and too cold against my skin. Then the first drop of my blood escaped and dripped onto the ground at my feet.

  And Faerie moved.

  It wasn’t an earthquake, not exactly. It was more like Faerie jolted, startled.

  “I think it’s working,” Nandin said, his eyes wide as he watched me.

  Golden vines shot from the ground and wove themselves together, forming an intricate archway that began small, no taller than my knees, and then grew with every pulse of magic from the key in my hand. A pulse, I realized, that synced perfectly with my heartbeat.

  The growing doorway had reached the height of my chest when the light in the clearing surged. I didn’t look away from the doorway, not until I heard Dugan curse, his sword appearing in his hand as he spun away from the door and toward the outer ring of trees.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  Falin also had his blades in hand as he turned, positioning himself to cover me from attack as he scanned the clearing. I squinted, the light too bright to look at directly. Then a roar of sound crashed over the clearing as fae warriors rushed into the grove from every direction. Fae of every shape and size poured into the space. They raised weapons, shouting as they ran at our group clustered around the growing doorway.

  “It’s an ambush by the light court!” Nandin yelled, lifting his own blade and charging the fae coming straight at him.

  They had us surrounded and outnumbered at least ten to one. Shit. This was bad.

  “Protect the doorway,” Nandin commanded, his sword biting deep into the neck of the fae in front of him.

  Falin grunted something that sounded like “Protect Alex. We can get another door.” But he was already engaged with two fae warriors, so I wasn’t sure.

  I lifted my dagger, but Rianna jumped in front of me, her spear raised as she faced off with the fae who’d been rushing me. Desmond tackled the fae, his enormous black-furred body riding the struggling man to the ground. Rianna drove the tip of her spear into the downed fae’s chest, and I spun, looking for the next threat.

  “Time for you to go,” Kyran said, and then he planted a palm in the center of my chest, shoving hard. I’d been looking for an attack from the charging light fae, not from my allies, and the move caught me off guard.

  I stumbled backward, right into the growing doorway. The sound of battle cut off abruptly, the world seeming to swirl around me in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes as I fell through the door and into the high court.

  Chapter 31

  I crashed onto my ass on what I would have said was a wooden floor—if wood was cast in gold. The golden halls of the high court. The legends had gotten that right, even if few fae had ever seen them.

  I scrambled back to my feet and whirled around, searching for the doorway I’d tumbled through. There was nothing around me. No arch. No opening. Not even a pillar or a tree that might mark one of Faerie’s more unconventional doors. Just a golden wall, the surface rough and textured like a tree.

  No.

  Where was the door? Had it closed? Or was it still open in the clearing, just not here? And if it was still open, why hadn’t anyone else come through? What was happening in the battle?

  I bit my lip, fear slicing deep. My last sight of Falin had been him engaged with multiple opponents, with more closing in. Was he okay? And Rianna. She wasn’t a fighter. She’d been holding her own when I last saw her, but why hadn’t she jumped through the doorway yet? War was supposed to be forbidden in Faerie, disputes settled with duels, but what I’d just left was definitely a battle; not any stretch of the imagination could call it a sanctioned duel. Ryese and his people might have no respect for the laws of Faerie, but weren’t those rules supposed to be magically enforced? Where was the king who was supposed to uphold them?

  Well, here, I guess. And Nandin had said I needed to wake him.

  I stopped searching for the door I’d stumbled through and looked around. The air here was so still. So quiet. I’d never heard Faerie so quiet, as if the land itself was holding her breath, waiting and watching.

  The space was enormous, the curving walls making me suspect the entire room was one large circle. While the walls and floor were that odd textured gold, the ceiling was completely obscured with leaf coverage, like a giant tree hung over the court. Large, lightly glowing flowers hung among the leaves. Hauntingly familiar flowers.

  Amaranthine flowers.

  There were amaranthine trees here? But no. I didn’t see any trees. Just the walls and the leaves and flowers overhead. The only thing actually in the room was a large glowing dome in the center of the room that pulsed with magic, and inside, a shadowy form obscured by the magical glow. The rest of the room was empty. Quiet and still.

  Like a tomb.

  In fact, compared to the other courts, the high court was oddly plain. Oh, the golden walls were rather flashy, but the more I looked at them, the more I felt they weren’t metal. I had a suspicion they were living wood. The court was somehow inside an enormous amaranthine tree.

  I opened my hand, planning to snap the no-doubt bloody key back onto my charm bracelet. My palm was empty aside from the still-bleeding gash. Crap. I scanned the floor, searching. Had I dropped the key when I fell through the door? It wasn’t on the floor. I hadn’t opened my hand before now. I knew I hadn’t. The key had just vanished.

  One-time use, apparently.

  Panic flared in me again, because I was stuck. No door. No key. No way out. I didn’t even see a doorway leading from this room. The high court was a gigantic golden cage. I was reminded of the story my father had told me during the last revelry about the High King and the creation of the courts. He’d finished it by saying that the high court was just the king, bound to his throne, and Faerie. No courtiers, no true court.

  The heart of Faerie is his prison.

  Hopefully the king could send me back—assuming he wasn’t the type to wake grumpy and kill the messenger. But if he was trapped here, would he even be able to help me get back to my friends? He did communicate outside these walls at times, pass and enforce his laws, and he had at least one emissary. Surely there was some way to leave.

  So I just have to rouse him . . . And then tell him how much damage had been done to Faerie while he’d been sleeping. Yeah, that was sure to ingratiate me with the king. Not.

  I crept forward toward the glowing dome and something crashed behind me. I whirled around in time to see a small cloaked figure scramble to his feet.

  “Brad?”

  My brother glanced up, giving me a sheepish look as he scratched the back of his head. “The door worked,” he said, his voice halting. Then he looked around. “But it appears to be gone now.”

  “Yeah. Will you be able to bend Faerie to get us out of here?” Because a backup plan if the High King woke pissed would be good.

  Brad frowned and then closed his eyes. I waited, feeling the seconds tick by. He bit his lips together, his brows furrowing, before his eyes finally flew open again and he shook his head. “Maybe I’m still too exhausted . . . but I don’t think I could even on my best day.” His gaze moved over the room. “This is the high court? Where is the rest of it?”

  “Expecting more glitz and grandeur?” I asked, and he gave me a half shrug.

  “Expecting more . . . something for sure. What’s that?” he asked, nodding toward the golden half dome in the center of the room.

  “The king, I think. I was headed to check it out when you appeared.” I turned toward the dome again and he scrambled to catch up with me. As we crossed the room, I asked, “How was the fight when you left?”

  “I followed you immediately. Not my kind of scene.”

  Oh. My brow creased. I’d been here several minutes already when he’d appeared. Of cours
e, time often worked funny with doorways in Faerie.

  I didn’t say anything else, but studied the shapes slowly becoming clear through the golden dome as we approached it. A throne sat in the center of the circle, a wizened and ancient-looking fae slumped in it. I assumed he must be the king. He was the only person here, and he was slumped, sound asleep on the throne. But he wore no crown, which was odd. Faerie typically marked her royalty in very obvious ways. Of course, the High King might be held to very different rules.

  Golden vines grew up from the ground, wrapping around the king’s legs and binding his arms to the throne. No, they didn’t just bind him. As I stared at the snarled vines securing him to the throne, I realized they were actually growing into the king’s limbs. Or maybe they were growing out of them, literal roots between him and Faerie. I was studying the strange vines so hard, it took me a moment to realize that the king wasn’t just snoozing in his throne, but pinned there by a short sword that had been driven through his chest.

  My heart slammed against my ribs, and I rushed the rest of the way across the room, Brad at my heels. Maybe this was normal. Maybe the king had always been pinned to his throne with a sword . . .

  Or maybe he was dead, and that was why Ryese had been able to cause so much havoc.

  I stopped short outside the glowing golden dome. It pulsed with magic, and just being near it pricked at my skin. Brad reached out a hand, as if to touch the dome, and I grabbed his wrist, stilling him.

  “You don’t want to touch that.” I wasn’t sure exactly what the dome did, but from what I could feel coming off it, at best it would deliver a painful magical jolt, but the magics swirling through it felt a lot deadlier than that. It was a protective circle, one like I’d never seen before.

  The king’s slumping head lifted as I spoke. So he wasn’t dead. Or sleeping.

  His eyes opened, his gaze landing on me. Then his lips moved. “A . . . lex . . . is.”

  Surprise jolted through me. The High King knew me? Knew my name? How?

  “Allie?” Brad’s voice was questioning as he looked between the king and me. I was just as lost.

  I threw open my shields. The room remained the same, the circle in front of me glowing brighter with magics I could now see. I blinked, peering past that magic to a throne that hadn’t changed, the vines still growing into the king’s limbs, a sword pinning him to the golden chair. But the figure itself had changed. No longer was the king an ancient and wizened fae; now his face was much younger, no older in appearance than mine. A face that was familiar.

  My father’s face.

  I gasped, stumbling backward. My father wasn’t an emissary. He was the High-Fucking-King of Faerie.

  And he had a sword sticking out of his chest. Right where I’d seen a gaping wound open without apparent cause when he’d collapsed in his office.

  “No.” I shook my head, still creeping backward, away from what my eyes were seeing, what my brain was putting together. My throat tightened, a hand of panic closing around it. The High King hadn’t been sleeping these recent years . . . he’d been in Nekros. Or at least part of him had. It didn’t look like this body could move with the way he was rooted to that throne, but some part of him had left. Had been walking around. Acting as governor of Nekros, as his own emissary, and he’d been engineering the return of the planeweaving trait. To fix the mistake he’d made by severing the realm of dreams . . . The creation myth he’d told me at the revelry suddenly took on a whole new weight.

  I shook my head again, my fingers pressed tight against my mouth as I stared at the sword hilt emerging from his chest, barely visible in his gold and scarlet robes. I had the sinking suspicion they hadn’t been scarlet before yesterday. When he’d collapsed in his office, it hadn’t been a magical attack from afar. Not in the way I’d suspected, at least. It had been an attack on his true body. Here, on his throne. Whatever magics he’d been using to be in two places at once must have failed when he’d been attacked. That was why he’d vanished.

  But who had attacked him? And how? There was no way in. No way out. I’d thought this place felt like a tomb—and it very nearly was. How was he even alive? And how could I help him?

  “I don’t suppose you know any healing magics?” I asked Brad.

  He shook his head, his eyes too wide, clearly having spotted the sword driven through the king as well.

  “What a family reunion this is,” a voice said behind me.

  I jumped and spun around. Beside me, Brad did the same.

  “Ryese.” I hissed his name, lifting the dagger still clutched in my hand. “How did you get here?”

  Ryese strolled forward, the movement not quite as smooth as he likely intended due to his limp. His golden cloak covered most of him, but he’d pushed back the hood, revealing his scarred face and the glowing, ornate crown of light on his head. He watched me with his one good eye, drawing closer, but not too close. He stopped a good fifteen feet away, slightly off to the side so he could get a good look at the king in his protective dome. Nothing about the king’s condition appeared to surprise him.

  “Same as you two,” he said. “A door.”

  My stomach clenched, my heart increasing its barrage against my rib cage. “In the grove between courts?” The question came out too soft. Too quiet. Because if he said yes, that meant the light fae had conquered the grove. No way had Ryese waded into the thick of battle to reach that door. He wouldn’t have risked his own neck. So if he’d reached the door I’d opened, every one of my friends and allies in that clearing must have been killed or captured.

  Ryese flashed a cruel smile, lopsided where one half of his lips didn’t fully work. “Is that where you opened yours? Not a good location. Didn’t you know? There is a very deadly battle raging there right now.”

  I looked away, not wanting him to see the relief in my eyes. If the battle was still ongoing, then hope wasn’t lost. My grip tightened around the dagger in my hand, and I scanned the room. No army had followed Ryese, not even a single lackey or bodyguard. I bit my bottom lip. It was just him. Currently at least. That meant Brad and I outnumbered him. I took a cautious step forward.

  I was no fighter, but Ryese . . . Well, even before he’d suffered iron poisoning, he’d never been one to fight his own battles. Plus, there were two of us. Brad had drawn his knife, though I noticed he’d edged behind me. If my dismal skills were deemed to be the better out of the two of us, he likely wasn’t going to be much help. Still, maybe I could end this right here. Right now.

  “No closer, Lexi,” Ryese said, lifting a hand—the hand that he’d favored a month ago because it had been twisted by iron poisoning. Now it was his formerly strong side he was keeping hidden under his golden cloak. I’d noticed that when he’d captured me in his mirrored circle too. Was he injured?

  I took another step forward, keeping my weight balanced between my legs like Falin had taught me. I was only about twelve feet away now. Reaching out with my magic, I unfurled the ball of realities I carried. Layers of reality flowed outward with my magic, creating an overlay of planes around me. The effect was invisible to most, but it let me manipulate realities not normally found in Faerie. I’d been practicing, pushing my limit further, and Ryese was just inside the boundary of my influence. I took another sliding step toward him.

  He scowled at me. Then he flexed his hand.

  I was prepared for him to try to use glamour against me. Or perhaps a spell. I thought I was ready.

  I was wrong.

  Golden vines burst from the ground around my feet. I yelped, jumping back, but it was already too late. They weren’t glamour vines. Ryese had commanded Faerie herself, and the very fabric of Faerie had obeyed him.

  The vines snaked around my ankles, with more lifting from the ground to crawl up my calves, and up, over my knees. I hacked at the growing vines with my dagger, squirming and struggling. Ryese just tsked at me under
his breath.

  “None of that now,” he said, and with another wave of his hand, vines uncoiled from the leaf coverage overhead, lashing out to encircled my wrists. The vines snapped tight, pulling my arms up, over my head. Effectively immobilizing me.

  Brad charged forward, his knife raised. Ryese didn’t bother capturing him in vines, but made a swatting motion with his hand, and a thick vine jutted out of the ground and slammed into Brad. The blow knocked him across the room, into the dome protecting the High King. Brad seemed to stick to the dome for a moment, like a bug in a fly trap, and his eyes flew wide in pain before rolling back in his head. He slid from the dome to land in a heap on the ground. Then he didn’t move again.

  No! Not Brad. I’d only just found him again. Was he still breathing? I couldn’t tell. I jerked at the vines holding me, but I couldn’t move.

  Ryese made a mildly curious sound, watching the reaction the dome had on the changeling. “That was informative. I had been wondering what that dome would do,” he said casually to Brad’s unmoving body. Then he turned his attention back on me. “Hmm, those lovely vines remind me of someone.” He shot a glance at where the High King sat rooted and bound to his throne. “A family resemblance.”

  The blood drained from my face, but I glared at him. “How did you know?” Because I hadn’t even known until I’d seen the face below the High King’s glamour.

  “I’ve known for a while. But even if I hadn’t, my dearest Lexi, his blood running through your veins is a requirement to step foot in the high court. Which, by the way, means if you were hoping the cavalry would come riding through the door you made, you can stop holding your breath. Your allies cannot join you.” His smile was cruel, cold.

  My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again, but all I managed was a sputter that didn’t come out as coherent thoughts. “Then . . . how . . . ?”

  Ryese leered at me. “How did I enter? Have you not figured that out yet?” He gave a mocking shake of his head. “Faerie is such a small place in some ways. You run into family everywhere you turn.”