Grave War

by Price, Kalayna

  He nodded, but he didn’t return my smile.

  “I’ll escort you back, Alexis,” my father said, walking toward the amaranthine tree. “I need to contact the other courts to explain the new conditions to them and get them on the task of relocating their independents as well.”

  I didn’t follow him. Instead I stared through the doorway. Outside I could see mortal sunlight, deceptively bright and inviting, though I knew it would be cold—after all, it was winter in Nekros. The mortal realm wasn’t particularly kind—I was half-blind there, and the weather tended to be extreme. But it was home.

  Around us, the distant music of Faerie turned sad, reflecting my mood. Or perhaps it was her sorrow at my homesickness.

  “You sure you don’t want to make those proclamations on your own behalf?” I asked my father, still gazing out the doorway.

  He stopped and turned to look at me. “Alexis, you have all of Faerie. I had a golden prison. No, I don’t wish to return to it. It took me centuries to figure out a way to tear my soul in half so I could walk somewhat free, but it was never the same as true freedom. I don’t intend to relinquish this freedom so soon after acquiring it. Now, stop moping and let’s go.”

  Right. I sighed. Then I lifted onto my toes to kiss Falin. He wrapped his arms around me, deepening the kiss to something more than the simple good-bye I’d intended.

  “I’ll return soon,” he promised when we broke apart.

  I nodded and watched him go, my hand still on the barrier that stopped no one but me.

  Faerie and I were going to have to have a serious discussion about this.

  Epilogue

  Three months later . . .

  I stood in the hospital room, the newborn curled in my arms staring at me with large dark eyes.

  “I don’t think I look enough like your mama,” I whispered to him as his little nose started to scrunch, the precursor to the cry I knew would erupt from him any moment.

  “He’s probably hungry,” Tamara said, pushing herself into a sitting position in her hospital bed.

  “Probably. Oh, Tam. He’s precious,” I said as I handed him back to her. And he was. The pregnancy may have had some rough patches, but he was healthy and perfect.

  Tamara nearly glowed as she gazed at her son. The small baby settled as soon as her arms closed around him, turning his tiny face into her.

  “Yep, hungry,” she said with a small chuckle as the baby rooted, his mouth opening as he searched for milk.

  I smiled, but gathered my purse. “I’ll give you two some privacy.” After all, he was a day old; they were still figuring everything out. Also, I could see Ethan hovering outside the door. He’d stepped out for my visit, but I knew he was anxious to get back to his wife and newborn.

  Tamara, already fiddling with her hospital gown, looked up, as if she wanted to argue, but then she smiled. “I’m glad you could make it, Al.”

  “Me too,” I said before ducking out the door. And I was. Faerie and I had reached a compromise we could live with, but my trips into the mortal realm were still rare. This was a special occasion, but I didn’t dare stay long.

  My planeweaving meant I carried realities with me. I was never actually apart from Faerie, even in the mortal realm. I was more or less a walking embassy, everything I touched becoming part of Faerie while I was in contact with it. Even still, Faerie might have denied me leaving her lands except that, High Queen or not, I was a grave witch, and wyrd magic couldn’t be denied, even by Faerie. I could only raise shades and release my ever-refilling wyrd magic in places where the land of the dead existed. While I could merge planes in Faerie, she liked death in her halls even less than letting me leave.

  So we compromised.

  It gave me some autonomy, and I could feel the small thrill Faerie got from exploring the mortal realm through me, but Faerie interacting directly with the mortal realm could occasionally have unpredictable results. So I spent most of my time outside of Faerie proper in pockets of blended space.

  And Faerie had created quite a few such pockets for me. My castle was back in its private pocket behind Caleb’s house, my friends once again in residence. I also now had a very nice and very large office in FIB headquarters created from a small pocket of blended reality. I wasn’t agent in charge of winter anymore, though. I was now director of the FIB of the Americas, each season’s agents as well as the newly established branches for light and shadow reporting to me.

  The fact that these two continents belonged to all courts, and thus none, was very new territory. I was working on turning the FIB into a unified organization, and in the Americas it was going . . . okay. The fae were slow to change, even when change was thrust upon them, but I did have several kings and Faerie itself at my back, so I was making some progress, though it often felt I took one step back for each two forward. Still, that was a net gain of one.

  Driving through the streets of Nekros, the top of my convertible down in the early spring air, and headed toward Caleb’s house and the castle hidden beyond, I almost felt normal again. Not a secret queen. Not the embodiment of a magical land. Not a planeweaver. Just Alex Craft, grave witch.

  Of course, that was only an illusion. Everything had changed, though not all of it for the worse.

  Brad being back still seemed surreal three months later. He was familiar, and yet so different. We’d actually all gathered at the Caine estate for dinner one night. That had been weird. Casey took it well, all things considered—my little sister was more resilient than I’d ever given her credit for. My father was still my father, though, and we bumped heads a lot. And avoiding each other wasn’t really an option anymore. Not only was he one of my advisors, he also was my primary teacher on using the magic that came with the high throne. He’d also stepped right back into his life as Governor Caine—and I had no idea what kinds of spells or bribes he used to cover up his brief disappearance, but within a week of his return, it had no longer been news—so in addition to dealing with him as an advisor in my life as a secret queen, I interacted with him regularly in my professional capacity as director of the FIB. We saw a lot of each other. It was . . . tense, but workable.

  Falin met me in the front room of the castle. With pretty much all of Faerie locked in binding truces, there were no more duels to fight, so his schedule had opened up a bit. There were, of course, still hours of negotiation meetings to attend and delegates to entertain, and as a whole, the royals were still a sneaky bunch trying to get as good a position as they could for their own court while inside the truce, but Faerie was at a more stable peace than she’d been outside of a revelry since the first time she shattered and was formed into the current court system. It afforded us more time together, of which I was grateful.

  Falin kissed me breathless as greeting before asking, “How was your visit?”

  “It was nice. Tamara is doing well and her baby is adorable. Are you staying for dinner?”

  He nodded, and I dumped my purse on the table beside the door before heading toward the castle’s large dining hall. He couldn’t always meet me for dinner—hell, I didn’t always make it to dinner at the castle as I didn’t really live here—but we both tried to stop in as often as possible. For both of us, it offered a note of normalcy.

  Voices drifted from the room up ahead of us, and I picked up my pace, Falin at my heels.

  Holly was standing in front of the large dining table, making wild gesticulations and speaking in a voice pitched much lower than her normal tone so I guessed she was doing another impression of the defense attorney she’d been facing off with in court all week, her antics delighting those gathered around the table. She turned as I entered, a huge smile breaking across her face as she called out, “Al, did you get to meet the baby?”

  “I did. I even got to hold him,” I said as I claimed my normal seat.

  “Isn’t he cute?” Rianna chimed in, which made Desmond huf
f loudly at her side, his large doglike jowls blowing outward.

  We discussed the baby as Falin and I loaded our plates. Then Caleb relayed several stories from his day. While he was still taking some commissions for art and wards, he’d joined the new department I’d created in the FIB to assist in the relocation and adjustment of the huge influx of fae who’d moved to Nekros following the neutral door opening.

  Dugan joined us before dinner was finished, which wasn’t unusual. Nandin and Brad would even occasionally drop in, though not as often as Dugan. It had been odd the first time the former Shadow Prince, now Light King, sat down with the bulk of my friends for what was basically a family meal, but he actually fit in among my friends quite well. His humor tended to be a little drier, and he didn’t always understand modern slang, but he’d told me once that he thought friendship might be valuable enough to work for, and he’d made quite a few friends here.

  We were in the middle of dessert when Falin glanced at his watch and the smile on his face dimmed, his arm tightening around me in the smallest of squeezes.

  “We have to go meet with summer now, don’t we?” I asked with a groan, already knowing the answer. “I so need more chocolate cake first.”

  That earned a chuckle around the table, but keeping royals waiting was never a good idea, even with a hundred years of a truce stretching out in front of us, so I took one more large bite and then made my good-byes.

  At least the commute time wasn’t bad. While the amaranthine tree was the only official door, and it was Faerie’s tether to mortal reality, I could use any doorway to step into Faerie. It was certainly convenient, but I tried to only use it in the pockets already containing Faerie, as not even my father was sure of the long-term effects of using it in doorways existing solely in mortal reality.

  Court was still one of my least favorite things to attend. It always seemed to be a lot of double-talk or circular conversations that never accomplished much. Still, I was High Queen, so I attended when I could. Not that most attending knew my actual station. The winter consort ring had never vanished, so on advice from my council, I did nothing to dispel assumptions that I was only a seasonal consort. Tonight’s court meeting was another irritatingly long session that ended with nothing actually being said, at least from what I took away.

  Hours later, as I lay in the center of Falin’s enormous bed, curled against his naked body, exhausted but content, I stared at the small snowflake ring. The idea of committing to be his consort had seemed so enormous when the ring first appeared. I laughed, shaking my head.

  “Mmm, what’s so funny?” Falin asked, letting his fingers trail down my bare back, the light touch sending happy shivers through me.

  “Oh.” I shook my head. “It’s not really funny, I guess.” I lifted my hand so he could see the ring too. His fingers went still on my back. “I was so scared of the changes commitment might bring. It seems trivial now, after having committed to all of Faerie.”

  He’d gone so still, I didn’t even think he was breathing. I twisted so I could look at him and found him watching me, his face unreadable.

  “Faerie never took away the ring when I became High Queen. Can one hold two titles at once? Or would they have to abdicate one to take a new title?”

  He lifted an eyebrow, but the edge of his lips turned up, the first hint of a growing smile. “You briefly held both the high and the light court.”

  “True.”

  He rolled onto one elbow, his free hand sliding up my body to my face. He traced a finger down my chin before leaning down and kissing me. It was a sweet kiss, gentle and loving.

  “Are you finally ready for me to ask, Alexis?” He whispered the question, his icy blue eyes bright as he studied me.

  Was I? Just the idea made my heart flutter wildly in my chest, but it wasn’t such a bad feeling. I loved Falin. I knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

  “Hmm.” I trailed my fingers over the muscles of his arm, a teasing smile playing over my lips. “Consort to the Winter King kind of sounds like a step downward when I’m already High Queen, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it make more sense,” I whispered, leveraging myself closer, so that I was a breath away as I whispered, “for you to become consort to the High Queen?”

  His eyes widened, just slightly, and then his lips sealed with mine. While the previous kiss had been sweet, this one was deep, demanding. I surrendered myself to it completely. Snowflakes shaped like amaranthine flowers were falling all around us by the time we broke apart, both breathless.

  Falin gazed at me, drinking in my features with his eyes. “In that case, will you be my Queen?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, even though the word scared me. The smile that broke across his face was more than worth the twinge of nervousness, because I was already his, I just hadn’t admitted it aloud.

  “I love you,” I said, leaning up to kiss him again. He pulled me in tight against him and I surrendered to the joy in it.

  I was High Queen, and I’d take care of Faerie the best I could, do my part to help repair the balance, but I couldn’t make all my decisions as High Queen. I still needed to be Alex and make some choices that were for me, not Faerie. And this one? It was all for me, and it made me happy.

  Acknowledgments

  Wow. I’ve now written “The End” on Alex’s story. It’s hard to believe, a little sad to say good-bye, but very exciting. There are a lot of people who helped me get to this point and I wouldn’t have made it alone, so I want to call out a big thank-you to those individuals and groups.

  First, I’d like to thank Jessica Wade and her team. Her guidance and all of their hard work have helped shape each book in this series into a final form that could be released to those who would enjoy it.

  A huge thank-you goes to Lucienne Diver, who has always believed in the series and who takes care of so much behind the scenes so that I can focus on storytelling.

  Also, I wouldn’t have made it this far without the amazing support of my friends and family. Friends who read for me—a special shout-out here to Nikki and Xandra, who read early drafts of Grave War, but many more have read for me throughout the series—and family who helped in other ways, from distracting little people to being there for emotional support when things got tough or just being an amazing encouragement, thank you. To Mom, in particular. And to Jason. I can’t thank you enough.

  And, of course, thank you to all the readers who have made it this far in Alex’s story. This tale literally would not have ever been able to be fully told without you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for wanting more. I hope you enjoyed this final story.

  About the Author

  Kalayna Price is the USA Today bestselling author of the Alex Craft novels, including Grave Destiny, Grave Ransom, Grave Visions, Grave Memory, Grave Dance, and Grave Witch. She draws her ideas from the world around her, her studies into ancient mythologies, and her obsession with classic folklore.

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