by Bec McMaster
“We will find the crown,” he assures me, squeezing my knee. “No matter what I have to do. She won’t have our child, Vi. She won’t.”
I want to cry, but I just feel so wretchedly hollow.
“I might not be with child,” I whisper.
Our eyes meet.
“I won’t know for sure until….” I can’t say the rest.
But there’s a certain bleakness in his eyes as we nod. We both know it’s inevitable.
The Mother of Night always gets what she wants.
Thiago’s circle meets in the usual set of chambers.
Thalia and Eris were there to greet me last night, but not the others. I bend to press a kiss to Finn’s cheek as he welcomes me and nod at Baylor. The gruff giant keeps to himself, and I respect that.
“You look terrible,” Finn says, leaning forward in his chair to peer at me. He turns an accusing glare on Thiago. “Have you not been letting her sleep?”
Usually it’s a joke, but it falls flat this morning.
“I’m fine,” I mutter.
I am not fine. Not at all.
“News from the borders, my prince,” Baylor says, flipping open his set of notes as per usual. “We’ve—”
“Later.” Thiago takes his seat with curt grace. “The borders can wait. Adaia can wait. We need to make the Crown of Shadows our priority, and we need to come up with some means of keeping Vi safe from the fetch.”
They all share a glance.
“I’ll guard her,” Eris says. “Day and night.”
“Well, you didn’t do much of a job of it last time,” says an irritatingly annoying voice from somewhere to my left.
Finn has a knife in hand as he leaps to his feet, “What in Kato’s name is that?”
Eris hurls her dagger, but Grimm merely vanishes, and two seconds later Baylor yelps as a shadow forms on his lap before leaping onto the table.
“You couldn’t kill me if you tried,” Grimm sneers, managing to walk across all Baylor’s papers and simultaneously kick them to the floor.
“Stop!” I yell as Eris flips another knife into her hand. I glare at the grimalkin. “The doors to this chamber are locked and warded. How did you get in?”
His tail lashes. “Please. There’s not a ward in this world that can stop me from getting into a place I desire to be. And if all else fails, I simply stand outside and meow loudly until someone rectifies their mistake.”
“You know this creature?” Finn demands.
“Careful, pudding brain.” Grimm’s head swivels toward him. “I am not a creature. I am a grimalkin. I am He Who Walks the Shadows. I am—”
“Yes,” I say abruptly, and then hastily explain Grimm’s appearance before we learn about the Merciless Night and the Claws That Slash Like Knives.
Eris sinks into her chair.
Baylor mutters under his breath as he picks up his notes, a growl escaping him when he sees the paw prints that smudged his ink.
Finn crosses his arms over his chest. “Pudding brain?”
“Pea soup?” Grimm purrs.
Finn’s eyes narrow. “It’s one thing to be insulted by Eris. Quite another to have a walking carpetbag try and abuse my intelligence.”
“Try? I’d have to find evidence of it in order to insult it.”
“Well, I think he’s adorable,” Thalia coos.
Grimm examines her, and then he jaunts across the table toward her and nudges her hand for a pat. “This one is my favorite.”
“He’s not staying,” Thiago warns.
Thalia gives him her best impression of wide eyes.
“That hasn’t yet been decided,” Grimm tells him, eyeing my husband with disdain. “I quite like this castle. I may decide to rule it if the cooks keep leaving warm milk out.”
Thiago closes his eyes, and I swear there’s going to be a royal order demanding all milk supplies to the demi-fey who litter the castle cease immediately.
“That’s not your milk,” I growl under my breath to the grimalkin.
He looks affronted, as if to say, who else does it belong to?
“Can we focus?” Thiago snarls. “On matters belonging to the security of the realm?”
Thalia picks at the bacon on her plate, breaking it into bite-sized pieces and offering it to Grimm. “I intercepted an interesting letter to Vi from Princess Imerys. About the crown.”
Thiago shoots her a look. “Why do I feel like I’m not going to enjoy this?”
“Because you’re not. It involves sending Vi into Unseelie again. Without you.”
His shoulders square. “No.”
Thalia points the fork at him. “You can’t go. We don’t know where your father is or if he’s still looking for you—”
“He’s still looking for me,” Thiago growls. “He will always be looking for me. The answer’s still no.”
I glance between them. As his cousin, she knows more of his history than I do. But this is the first time his father’s been mentioned in anything more than a “I don’t want to talk about it” kind of way.
“Why Unseelie?” Eris asks.
“Because that’s where the saithe oracle is,” Thalia replies. “Imerys writes to say that she finally remembered where she’d heard the name of the crown. It was in a written treatise on prophecies that the saithe oracle has made.”
My stomach bottoms out.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
Or maybe I do.
The oracle will show you a glimpse of the future or the past, but it comes at a cost.
“No,” Thiago says sharply. “Vi’s lost more than enough of her memories. She doesn’t need to lose any more.”
“I’m merely presenting it as an option,” Thalia says, spreading her hands. “The oracle isn’t technically immortal—she passes from body to body—but she’s a repository for all the memories of all the oracles that have come before her. And those memories she’s taken in payment from those who journey to see her.”
Silence rings throughout the room.
Thiago’s still shaking his head, but he’s not the one who makes this decision.
“How do I get there?” I ask quietly.
Every head in the room turns toward me. Thiago’s nostrils flare, but I hold up my palm.
“We need to find the crown,” I tell him, and our eyes meet as I try to remind him why this is suddenly urgent. “No matter what we must do.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The saithe oracle lives alone in a swamp deep in the heart of Unseelie.
My stomach keeps tying itself in knots, and I don’t know if it’s purely worry or because I actually am carrying Thiago’s child.
“Relax,” Eris says, hauling back on the oars of the little boat we rented from a hob. “You’re knotted tighter than my bow. The local fae are going to start looking at us closely if they notice how nervous you are.”
“Sorry.” I stare across the waters, trying to fight the urge to tap my fingers. “I’m just tired. Every time I think we get closer to the crown, my leads shrivel up and die.”
“You have over eight months to find it,” she says.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“Vi?”
Sometimes I forget how perceptive she is, but then she was born on a battlefield, and she’s spent her entire life reading the room.
“I’m late.”
Unlike Thiago, she understands immediately.
“Well, fuck,” she says, tugging out the flask she carries and taking a swig from it.
“We were always careful. But somehow….”
“Fate,” Eris says roughly. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you try to prevent such a thing, it still happens. How certain are you?”
“I don’t know. Five days late, maybe. Tired. Hungry. But I don’t know if my mind is conjuring symptoms simply because I fear they’re there, or if I just need a week in bed.”
Eris hauls back on the oars. “Then we find the crown, pay your debt, and k
ill the Mother of Night.”
The breath explodes out of me. “Do you have any idea how difficult that would be?”
“Everything can be killed. Even a goddess.”
I slump back in the boat with a weak laugh. “Sometimes I wish I had your assurance. And if the entire alliance couldn’t kill her—could only lock her away—then what makes you think I can manage to do it?”
“We,” she corrects. “The darkyn prince of Evernight and his queen, the leanabh an dan; his cousin, one of the salt-kissed; a general who once belonged to the Grimm; a dangerous sylvaren warrior; and me.”
“The scariest fae in the world.”
Eris gives me a look.
“You think I’m talking about that Devourer bullshit?” I snort. “You’re terrifying enough on your own.”
She looks away. But she smiles a little. “Here we are.”
I don’t comment about how neatly she managed to distract me as she rows the boat toward a floating island in the middle of the swamp. I’m no longer worried about the Mother of Night.
No, now I have to deal with the saithe oracle.
Eris flips me a small vial. “For the oracle,” she says. “It’s one of my memories.”
I curl my fingers around the vial.
The oracle is one of the few free immortals who remain in the world, and they say she exists now on the taste of mortal memories. Nobody knows what she does with them—whether she simply swallows them whole and gluts herself on them—but the more painful or joyful the memory, the more it sustains her.
“Eris, I can’t—”
“You’ve given enough memories for him,” she tells me. “And you are my queen. Let me spare you this. I don’t need this memory. Trust me on that, if nothing else, Vi.”
I look at the small glimmer of swirling white trapped in the vial.
A memory is part of your identity. It’s part of your whole. And I’d been worried about providing one, considering I have so few left.
“She will take it,” Eris growls, as if she senses my hesitation. “Painful memories are the ones that bring the most sustenance, and this one is full of blood and tears.”
“I’m very tempted to hug your right now, E.” The words thicken in my throat. “But then I’m going to embarrass us both, and I know you hate displays of emotion.”
She shies away from me. “Please. Don’t. I’d hate to have to dump your undignified ass in the swamp.”
The pair of us smile, both of us playing up to the extremes of our character.
And then Eris scowls at me. “Well, go on. Go and find our crown. I don’t just give away memories for nothing.”
She shoos me toward the ruins on the island.
I tuck her memory away. “You’re not just a friend, Eris. You’re mine now, you realize? You’re part of my new family.”
The words strike her like a blow, but she merely tips her chin up. “I expect to be named godmother.”
I laugh as I turn toward the ruins. “I think you’ll have to fight Thalia for that honor.”
The saithe oracle reclines upon an ancient stone throne, those all-black eyes focused on me so intently it seems as though she can see right through me. Every last little hope. Every dream. Every nightmare I ever owned.
But it’s the look in her eyes that makes me swallow.
She’s otherkin. Born of the same peoples as the Mother of Night, and I can see the resemblance there in their pointed chins and the little horns that curl in their hair.
Not an Old One—Thalia’s sources tell me the oracle was never worshipped, nor sought out others of her kind—but she is bound to an ancient power that guards the swamp, and can never leave its waters.
“Little queen,” she says, her brightly painted nails scratching over mossy stone. “You have finally come to me.”
I hate the way oracles and seers always act as if they’ve been waiting for you.
“I have brought a memory.” I tug the vial out of my leather coat. “And in return I have questions.”
Her dark gaze locks on the vial. “This is skirting the rules,” she chides. “The memory is due to be one of your own.”
“This belongs to Eris of Silvernaught. It is full of blood and tears, she assures me. A worthy meal.”
There’s hunger there in her dark gaze. But fear too. “The Devourer.”
“No. My friend.”
She slinks from her throne, barely able to hide her eagerness. “You’re a little fool if you think her your friend. Eris of Silvernaught is prophesied to swallow the moon whole. If that thing inside her gets loose, then she will drink in the souls of all that walk these lands.”
I want to ask.
I want to know what Eris hides.
But it’s not my place to demand answers of another. Eris will tell me if she chooses to do so.
“Do we have a deal?”
The oracle snatches the vial from my hands. “We do.”
“Promise thrice,” I insist, relaxing only once she says the words.
Slipping the cork from the vial, the oracle dips her fingers inside, coating them in the shiny, silvery substance within. She licks it from her fingers, shivering in delight at the taste. A gasp escapes her. And then another, and she finally tips the entire vial to her lips and swallows it down.
I resist the urge to look away.
There’s something a little carnal about her response—as if she’s on the edge of pleasure. That forked tongue darts out, sliding inside the vial until she’s secured every last drop, and as I watch, she blooms before my eyes.
“A worthy memory,” she rasps, crushing the vial in her fist. “Ask your questions, little queen.”
“The Crown of Shadows was lost to mortal memory,” I tell her, knees flexing, so that if she so much as moves toward me, I’m ready to flee. “But you’re not mortal. And they say you remember everything.”
“Is that what you truly wish to ask?”
I ignore her. “I want to know where the Crown of Shadows is.”
A smile paints her curved lips. “Aye. I remember the fate of the world. I remember what these lands were like before you Bright Ones invaded from beyond the stars. I remember the trees, and the singing, and the way we danced in our Hallows and gave gift to the Old Ones there. And then your kind came and hunted the forests until we were forced to flee. They bound the power of the Hallows and killed half of our Old Ones. They—”
“Killed the Old Ones?” You cannot kill one of the Old Ones. You can only trap them. I thought that was why the Hallows were first bound—the only means the Alliance of Light had of locking them away.
“There were hundreds of our gods,” she murmurs, eyes glittering with rage as she watches me. “Only the most powerful survived and waged war on the invaders. Some of them were locked away. Others were killed. And a rare handful were forced to hide.”
As long as their people believe in them, the Old Ones do not die. Which means…. “Some of them still survive? Free?”
There’s a smile on her face. “That’s a secret for another day, little queen.”
“Why would you tell me this?” This kind of information could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
“Tell me,” she says, instead. “Why did you make a bargain with the Mother of Night?”
I see Thiago’s desperate face, his hands chained behind his back as my mother orders his execution. “Because I was desperate.”
“Your kind hate my kind. I don’t believe you.”
“Because I needed the power to break my mother’s curse.”
“Lie,” she whispers. “Or only half the truth. Not even the most desperate of fae kind would turn to the Old Ones for help. We are the enemy. We are the vile creatures that haunt the night. We are death and despair and ruin, according to your stories. You knew the cost would be high. You knew there had to be answers elsewhere. So why did you do it?”
I turn away, pacing to the edge of the swamp. A sleek black head bobs up through the murk, merciless black eyes
locking on me, before the selkie vanishes into the waters again.
“Why treat with the enemy?” The oracle pushes. “You know the dangers. It is forbidden by all your people.”
My shoulders slump. “When I was a little girl, my childhood nurse used to read to me. There was a book. A collection of stories from the time of the wars. My mother had the book burned when she caught my nurse reading it to us, and she had nurse’s eyes plucked and her tongue removed, so she could never spread such lies again.”
“You sounded almost like your mother for a moment. The truth, Iskvien. From your lips.”
I turn back to her. “The truth lies on the lips of the victor, does it not? And my mother’s people wrote the history books. They burned the stories that didn’t speak their truth or paint the world the way they want us to see it. I’ve always wondered whether those tales Nanny Redwyne read to us are true. The Old Ones are powerful and dangerous, but they could be bargained with. The creatures that existed before the fae arrived were not evil, merely cruel and capricious. And if you kept your wits about you, there’s no reason the Old Ones couldn’t help you. I wanted to know what the truth was. I believed those stories. I thought I could trust her.”
“And the answer to that?”
“I made a mistake. Perhaps for once in her life, my mother spoke the truth.”
She sniffs the air. “I think I know why you made that bargain, Iskvien. You practically reek of old magic. I think I know why you were drawn to those stories. You could sense it, couldn’t you? You’ve always been drawn to the forest, the darker the better. You’ve always heard the whisper through the stones beneath your feet, the power banked in the ley lines. Blood calls to blood, little queen, and your blood has been whispering promises of power for years, hasn’t it?”
“The Mother of Night used me.”
“Aye,” she agrees. “She uses you. She wants freedom for her and her captured brethren. You have the promise of two powerful bloodlines within you. The world trembles beneath your feet—”
“I don’t want it.” My fists clench. “I don’t want this power.”
“You can’t run,” she merely tells me. “And you can’t hide. And you can’t lock it away. What now, little queen?”
