Crown of Darkness

by Bec McMaster

  “Come on!” Thalia cries, dragging me through the gates of the castle and into the throng. The entire court was gathered in the keep’s bailey, and Eris even threw a handful of mistletoe over the top of me.

  Silver paint highlights Thalia’s cheeks, and her silver gown is cut low enough that men glance past her, glance back, and then stagger into buildings or market stalls. The sleek fabric clings to every curve, and cut-out panels reveal her narrow waist. There’s a tiny diadem on her brow.

  “You look amazing,” I say.

  She rakes her gaze down my gown with a critical eye. “What in Maia’s name are you wearing?”

  “You were the one who’s had a hand in every aspect of my wardrobe, so you can only blame yourself.” I finger the lilac silk. “And I like it.”

  “That’s not the point!” she says in exasperation. “Thiago didn’t show you the dress. I had it made just for tonight! It’s black and gold, and the cape is so amazing I might stop breathing! You were supposed to look like a queen!”

  “I don’t care, Thalia.” I squeeze her hands. “These boots are perfect for dancing in. And tonight’s not about me. Tonight is about the future. About Evernight.”

  She sniffs. “Tonight is about you. Evernight hasn’t had a queen in over five hundred years.”

  “Thalia.” I growl. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I even managed to get Eris into a dress.”

  “You did?” All I’d glimpsed as Eris decorated me was an enormous velvet cloak that covered her from head to toe.

  As if summoned, Eris stalks forward. “She did.”

  “E!” Thalia grabs Eris’s hands, and the black cloak that Eris wear slips from her shoulders. “Show her!”

  Finn catches it just before it hits the ground, and then Eris whirls in circles with Thalia, rolling her eyes with a roughened laugh.

  She’s not wearing leathers.

  Nor is she wearing the type of dress she wore at Ravenal for court appearances—polished silver chainmail. No, this is a dress, and yet it suits Eris perfectly; a mix of femininity and dangerous smoky allure. A dress fit for a warrior queen.

  It’s like a corset comprised of black lace, though the panels that circle her waist are sheer. Little gold stars are embroidered all over it, and a golden rope knots around her waist and loops up around her throat. From midthigh down, her skirts are sheer, with a thousand more little stars, and they wisp around her ankles like the froth of the sea.

  Gold-hilted knives are sheathed on her forearms, and a gold mask hides her eyes.

  But there’s no hiding the look on Finn’s face as he stares at her as if she just punched him in the throat. Or lower.

  Gold tattoos highlight Eris’s dark skin, and they cover her entire décolletage and shoulders. Whimsical, featherlight designs that speak of an ancient culture I don’t recognize. She’s such utter perfection that I know Thalia’s had her hand all over this.

  I reach up and close Finn’s mouth with a finger to his jaw.

  He shoots me a dark look, then his hand crushes her velvet cloak into a wad and he shoves it at my chest. “I need a drink.”

  Then he’s gone, stalking into the crowd.

  “Dance with us, Baylor!” Thalia snags his arm.

  Baylor scrubs at his mouth, his long silver hair tangling down his back. “I need a drink too,” he growls under his breath, and then he vanishes in Finn’s direction.

  I shoot Thiago a helpless smile. “Vanquished by the threat of dancing. Surely you’re made of sterner stuff than that?”

  He takes my hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. “Go and enjoy yourself. I’ll dance with you later. If I don’t let Thalia have you for an hour or so, then I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “I intend to hold you to that!” I warn as Thalia grabs my other hand.

  She drags me into the dancing, the laughter on her face so infectious that I can’t help laughing back. But it’s Eris who shocks me. Eris who whirls and leaps with such grace that fae pause to watch her for a second. She’s always been so elegant with a blade, but I didn’t know she could move like this.

  And I lose myself in the music, in the laughter, in the sway and bump and grind. There are cobblestones beneath our feet, and every so often someone staggers into us. It’s such a far cry from the formal balls my mother held. Such different dancing. A riot in the streets as fireworks crash and shatter in the air above us.

  This. This is what it feels like to rule a kingdom with love and not fear.

  A pair of handsome fae males push into our group, one of them slinging an arm around Eris’s waist. He’d probably faint if he knew who she was. “I like the way you dance,” he yells over the music.

  “Think you can keep up with me?” she demands.

  “Oh, I know it.”

  With a wink in our direction, she whirls him into the flurry of bodies.

  “This way!” Thalia yells, grabbing my wrist and hauling me onto the ruins of an old city wall that looks like it’s been gobbled up by little houses and turrets. People have built onto it, underneath it, over it…. But I catch a glimpse of ivy-choked walls and an ancient city arch that bridges a street.

  The view from the top of the arch is glorious. The city square is packed with fae, and I catch a glimpse of Thiago drinking with Baylor and laughing at something Finn says. Our eyes meet across the crowded square—he’s known exactly where I was the entire time.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he murmurs.

  “Immensely. You should join us.”

  He glances at Finn, who’s scowling into his drink as he rests both elbows on the bar in front of him, his back turned resolutely to the crowd.

  And I remember what Finn said about violence and the anger he fights each and every day.

  “Stay with him,” I tell my husband. And then I dare…. “Does she know?”

  “I don’t think he even knows. I’ll find you later, once he’s got a rein on it.”

  And then he’s gone, with one last caress against my mind.

  It’s quieter up here, and sweat slicks my skin, so I’m glad of the respite. Eris has vanished. Thalia leans against the wall, a glass of wine she’s stolen from someone in the crowd in her hand. “Want some?”

  I take a sip. Sweet, fruity. And then I hand it back.

  The music has died in the courtyard below. It seems a lone harpist struck a few chords, and everyone turns toward him. The dancing stills. The loud singing vanishes.

  It’s merely the harp.

  And a song so bittersweet that my heart squeezes, even though I don’t know why.

  “The Lament of the Golden Dawn,” Thalis says, closing her eyes and leaning into the music. “The last dance of Araya of Evantine.”

  Thiago’s mother.

  It’s so beautiful. So heartfelt. Faelights flicker to life as the fae in the streets below lift their hands and conjure them. A sea of flickering lights fills the night. These people loved her.

  I reach for him, just a psychic brush against his mind, full of warmth and love.

  His touch is a mental squeeze—a silent thanks.

  A soft hum echoes in Thalia’s throat, and the sound…. Sweet Maia, it almost seems as though she’s hitting two different pitches at the one time. There’s something slightly mournful about the music, and the next wave that strikes the sea wall crashes up the beach, further than it’s ever been, foam chasing toward us as if it can hear her call.

  She breaks off with a sigh and smiles a little sadly at me. “Once I could have sung the waves into the city itself if I wished.”

  I know she bartered the magic of her voice to a sea witch, but beyond that, my memories of Thalia are still vague. “Why did you give it away?”

  Turning her gaze towards the sea, she unconsciously pets the stone wall. “Because it was both my gift and my curse. The saltkissed are creatures of the sea, formed of foam and water and cold, marble flesh. And the fae are bound to the land. Every year I aged, I could feel the choice splitting me in t
wo. The sea called to me, but I was frightened to answer it.” She tilts her face into the spray of mist as another wave hits the sea wall. “My grandmother spent too many years beating that fear into me.”

  I squeeze her hand.

  “The was a fae prince from the Far Isles who wished to make an alliance with Thiago over a century ago.” She hesitates. “The second he heard me sing, he insisted upon marriage. I was young, and it was the first time a male had looked at me and seen something of worth.” She falls quiet. “I wanted to believe him when he said he loved me. Thiago warned me against it—he said I barely knew the prince—but I accepted the marriage proposal.”

  I wait for her to continue.

  “Prince Riu invited me to his palace in the Far Isles for our courtship.” Thalia sighs. “There were little things that began to make me uncomfortable. He used to talk of his ‘collection’ all the time. He had the finest collection of musical instruments I’ve ever seen. The finest paintings. An entire menagerie of nightingales. ‘Sing for me,’ he would say, and at first I obliged willingly, for I loved to sing. But over time, my throat grew sore and tired. I begged to take the night off, but he would grow angry. He struck me once, and that was when I knew I had made a foolish mistake.

  “But he wasn’t the only one listening. There was a sea witch who lived in the nearby waters, and she warned me that I wasn’t the first bride Riu had taken—and nor would I be the last. His gift was the ability to absorb another’s magic, but it was a hungry gift. If he did not utilize it, then his flesh would begin to age. Every time I sang, he would feed off the power in my voice, and it didn’t matter if my vocal cords were bleeding, he would demand more. He’d captured the witch’s sister a hundred years before and stolen her life before he dumped her withered body in the seas.

  “Give me your voice, she told me, and I will go to Riu in your guise and break his hold over you.” Thalia falls silent. “And I was desperate and thought myself alone—and so I gave her my voice.”

  “And did she free you?”

  “She went to him,” Thalia says coldly. “And she tore the heart from his chest and ate it, for she too had a hungry power. And now she sits on his throne and rules his lands and sings with my voice. And she keeps the offspring of his nightingales in golden cages to remind herself of where she came from.”

  I don’t ask whether she tried to get her voice back. Of course she did. It’s a part of her, and I know that yearning for your magic. It’s like an amputated limb.

  “I’m so sorry. Maybe once my mother is defeated, we can sail to her lands and get it back for you—”

  “Thank you.” Thalia looks down at where our hands are linked. “Thiago has already tried, Vi. The sea witch could not take my magic from me—it had to be given freely. And thus, if I were to hope for its return, then the terms must be the same. She must give it of her own volition.”

  “Everyone wants something,” I point out. “We just have to find out what she wants in return for it.”

  Thalia gives me a tremulous smile—but there’s none of her usual light in it. “Thank you. For the thought.”

  It’s more than a thought, but I don’t say that. If I can break my mother’s hold over me, then I can do anything.

  And if there’s any means to return Thalia’s gift, then I will find it.

  Hours later, I finally stumble into Thiago’s arms, begging for mercy.

  “No more!” I tell Thalia when she tries to lure me back into the streets again. “No more!”

  She pouts, but then turns and throws her arms around Finn.

  “Here’s trouble,” Finn says, but he grins and swings Thalia into the air. She’s insatiable. And though the laughter and dancing are beginning to die down, apparently her stamina hasn’t. They whirl away in a riot of silver and white.

  “Having fun?” Thiago teases, kissing my hair.

  “How did you manage it so swiftly?” There must be thousands of masks on fae faces, and the wine barrels and fireworks….

  Thiago slips behind me, his arms locked loosely around my waist. “I’ve been planning it for weeks,” he whispers in my ear. “Or more importantly, Thalia planned it. I was just waiting for you to be ready to bind yourself to the lands.”

  A lump in my throat threatens to choke me.

  “Evernight has been too long without a queen, my love.” He looks serious. “This is something I’ve never been able to give my kingdom or its people. When your mother sneers at Kyrian and me, there’s a little bit of truth to her words. I am not a female descendant of Maia. But you are. Her blood runs through your veins, her power calls to the land beneath it—through you. You are the land’s link to the people.” He captures my face in his hands, thumbs stroking my lips. “You ask me why I love you, and while I have a thousand reasons, what you’re really questioning is your worth. I know it troubles you to think of everything it has cost me to love you, but have you ever thought of what you’ve given me in return? What you can give my people? Hope, Vi. With you at my side, we can make this kingdom blossom to the type of power and might it hasn’t known since my mother was bound to the land.”

  I curl my fingers around his wrists and close my eyes. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and he speaks of a world I’ve never been able to imagine. A world where we will rule side by side.

  It’s more than I have ever hoped for.

  “I love you.” The roughened words trip over my tongue as I kiss his thumbs and slowly open my eyes.

  A set of night-blooming flowers blossoms in the sky behind him, and in that moment, the shock of hope and joy on his face overwhelm me.

  “You rarely say it,” he whispers, leaning down with a smile. “But I cherish each and every time you do.”

  And then his mouth brushes against mine, his lips stirring heat through my veins. He kisses as if he wants to consume me, as if he wants to drown in every breath I make.

  Gentle fingers stroke down my right breast, tracing eloquent circles around my nipple.

  “Home,” I whisper, taking him by the fingers and leading him back into the crowded square.

  “Not yet. Tonight is a night to celebrate.” His voice dips to a growl. “And as much as I want to take you up on your offer, I haven’t danced with you yet.”

  “My poor wretched feet.”

  “I’ll kiss them better later.” There’s hunger in his eyes and ruin in his smile. “I like the dress, even if Thalia doesn’t approve.”

  “I’m sure you’d prefer me without it.”

  “Mmmm.” His gaze grows hot. “You’re not going to tempt me. Not yet, Vi. I want you desperate before I take you home.”

  I slide my hand down his side. “I bet I could make you break your promise.”

  He captures my hand and kisses the slope of my shoulder. “But my willpower is stronger than yours.”

  “Do you want to test that theory?”

  He laughs. “First one to break.”

  I feel breathless as I undulate against him, our gazes lost in each other. I’ve never felt so alive, so in tune with another person. And then there’s a fiddle cutting through the night, as if someone’s noticed that his dancers are flagging.

  I know this song.

  “Lord of Summer.”

  It’s played in Asturia on May Day.

  Bang. Bang. Drums kick in to accompany the fiddle. And then the sound of it soars through the air, stirring my blood in my veins, a flute trilling high in accompaniment. Despite my sore feet and tight calves, I feel my toes tapping.

  “I hope you’re saving your energy,” he whispers as he swings me in his arms. “Because you’re getting no sleep. I’m going to make you scream until dawn.”

  “That’s a little cruel.”

  “Trust me, you’ll love every minute of it.”

  And then we’re dancing, one of his arms flung around my waist as he swings me in circles. Our gazes meet, and we share a secret smile as Thiago’s fingers tighten against me. Later, his eyes say.

  Nob
ody knows us here.

  We splash through fountains until my dress is soaked and slick against my body. I can tell from the look in his eyes how much he appreciates this fact, and he captures me at odd corners, stealing hot, breathless kisses that threaten to turn into more, before he always breaks away.

  “Are you trying to drive me to the edge of frustration?” I growl, capturing a fistful of his shirt. “Kiss me.”

  He does, shoving me against the bricks of a house and stealing the very breath from my lungs. And then once again he’s gone, vanishing through the crowd with a lingering glance over his shoulder as if to say, “Come and get me.”

  Fine.

  I’ll play his game.

  I push after him, shoving my way through laughing fae. Another explosion of fireworks echoes above us, and I glance up, an oily sensation slithering down my throat.

  A hand captures mine, and I’m just about to push away when another cascade of white flowers light the sky. There’s a hooded figure in front of me, and the fireworks highlight a pale, eyeless face that steals my happiness in an instant.

  The fetch.

  It’s not supposed to be here.

  I was supposed to be safe in my city, with the power of the lands throbbing through me.

  It wasn’t supposed to be able to find me, with the bracelet on.

  But the icy burn of the fetch’s touch is a shock.

  I scream, but another hand locks around my other wrist and then shadows overwhelm us. The world starts to fade until all I see is Thiago, shoving toward me.

  “Vi!” he yells, just as the shadows swallow us whole.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Between one breath and the other, I am plunged from laughter and music into a world of silence and cold. To travel along the Shadow Ways feels like the world turns me inside out and then it’s twisting me in knots again.

  The cloud of darkness vanishes, and I hit the ground, palms slapping onto cold stone as every inch of my body rebels. My gods. What just happened? Even my eyeballs hurt. The loss of Ceres leaves my mind raw and bleeding; in binding myself to the lands, I gained a massive amount of power, but the loss of that connection, the shock of it….