by Melissa Marr
Lily barely remembered her mother, and she’d certainly had no idea that her mother was far older than she’d appeared. All Lily had known was that when she was a child her mother had died. The things Lily had known were small in comparison to the depths she hadn’t known.
Carefully, as if she were unaware that the group of humans who stood watching was growing by the moment, Lily walked away from her friends and down the pier to where the king and queen stood. It was a rickety thing, not exactly majestic in location, but the air was around them and seawater flowed under the boards, and the boards themselves were real wood that had been weathered with age. It was fitting for the fae.
As she approached her grandparents, she kept her gait even and her gaze steadfastly fixed on them.
“I am fae-blood, raised human,” she said as she stood in front of them. “Daughter to Nicolas Abernathy and his wife Iana.”
Leith nodded. “And I am sworn to protect the fae, including my daughter Iana, long thought lost to the sea.”
“For that loss, for the loss of my first daughter, I have exacted blood,” Endellion added, her gaze moving past Lily to take in every assembled person. “I have killed humans and caused still more to be killed.”
The queen paused. There was something feral in her expression and voice, as if a spirit of vengeance would take shape from the sea and air at the queen’s will, but it faded as quickly as it had come.
“Only for a worthy reason, for you, granddaughter, would I cease bathing my hands in such blood,” Endellion said levelly and clearly.
“That is the cost of my accord,” Lily said just as calmly. “These are my people, as much as the fae are. If you declare peace, I will be the heir to your throne as Iana once would have been.”
She reached up and touched the tattooed circlet in her skin. It rose up to the surface, taking shape again as a serpentine necklace of black diamonds that burned on Lily’s skin.
“I would wear my mother’s crown,” Lily said with a small shiver in her voice.
The King of Fire and Truth reached out to touch the necklace-shaped crown, and it released from around Lily’s throat. As if alive, it slithered into his grasp, and he held it up where it seemed to glow, lit by some internal fire. The rope-like crown took shape then, looking more and more like a royal circlet.
The Queen of Blood and Rage withdrew a small dagger.
It didn’t even occur to Lily to reach for her sword.
People gasped as if the queen who had decimated so many lives in her rage and grief could easily hurt the child of her lost daughter. It was foolishness that spoke of how much she’d been painted a monster over the decades. Lily wanted to point out their idiocy. She wasn’t immune from injury at the queen’s hand, but she wasn’t likely to be hurt when offering to do as the queen willed.
Endellion frowned at the crowd, but the king merely extended one hand over the crown, which he held loosely in the other hand.
“I choose this,” Lily whispered.
The queen’s expression cleared and her focus returned to her husband.
“By my blood and will,” Leith said as Endellion cut his palm.
His blood dripped onto the center of the crown. Then, she put her dagger—hilt first—into his bleeding hand.
She extended her wrist over the crown. “By my blood and will.”
Leith sliced across her wrist, and again, blood dripped onto the crown.
The blood of the regents seemed to shimmer there, as if fire and sea and air all somehow twisted and danced in the glowing droplets. As they watched, it took the shape of a ruby, gleaming in the center of the crown.
“LilyDark, daughter of Iana our daughter and Nicolas the Abernathy, granddaughter to Leith Once-Seelie King and Endellion Once-Unseelie Queen, do you accept this crown and all it signifies?” Leith asked in a booming voice that rolled over the crowd.
“I do.”
“LilyDark, do you accept your duty to protect the Hidden Lands and guide the fae?” Endellion asked, her voice filled with the lilt of wave and the weight of stone.
“I do,” Lily repeated.
Endellion looked out at the people, staring into eyes and camera lenses unflinchingly, and announced, “So be it. Thus, I present the heir to the Hidden Throne, future ruler of the Hidden Lands as well as anyone in this world with a single droplet of fae blood.”
Leith lowered the crown onto Lily’s head. It felt much heavier than it looked, or perhaps its weight came from what it signified.
“To cause harm to her is to ask to die,” Endellion added in a mild voice. “As a coronation gift to the future queen of the Hidden Lands, I hereby declare peace between the people of her father, the humans, and the people of her mother, the fae.”
Every camera caught that pronouncement. Every eye was fixed on them. It was a moment of peace, of possibility, of a future that could be.
It was worth the sacrifice of Lily’s freedom. Lily looked to Creed and Zephyr, who were watching her. Behind them stood the remaining Black Diamonds. She might be afraid, but she wasn’t alone—and she’d done the right thing. A part of her wished her parents had been present for her odd coronation, but she was grateful that they weren’t witness to the fear on the faces of the watching humans.
Despite the fear in more than a few faces, in that instant, Lily honestly believed that things would be different. The war was over. This was the start of a new era.
But then the pier burst into fire around them. Humans fell into the sea, some burning. Screams of pain and fear erupted from those jumping into the sea.
At the same time, the sea rose up behind the faery regents.
Lily felt it, the surge of sea as it gathered and grew larger and taller by the instant. It hovered there, a tsunami wave about to break, and Lily only had a heartbeat to try to push it back.
Fire threatened her on one side, water on the other. There was no answer she could think of, no explanation that would turn this moment into something other than chaos. The queen was aligned with the sea; the king was most renowned for his affinity with fire.
“Help me,” Lily said.
Even as she spoke, she could feel the gust of wind from both regents as they called the air to them to shove the waters back. At her back, the flames grew painfully close. Pushing back the water was feeding the fire.
There was no way to stop both.
There was no solution to the disaster.
The wave fell. It swallowed them and many of the assembled crowd, toppling bodies into the murky waters.
And all Lily knew was the sea.
thirty-two
LILY
The Queen of Blood and Rage was livid when she surfaced from the sea. Her jewel-encrusted shoes were gone, sunken to the depths to be gathered in a fisherman’s net and sold for the stones or the significance. Her heavy dress was gone, too, undoubtedly stripped off to keep the weight of it from keeping her submerged. Seaweed clung to her like a sentient thing, twisting and writhing, fashioning itself into a garment of sorts. Without her formal attire, the queen looked like a spirit of nature come from the depths to wreak havoc.
“Lily” was her first word as she stood aloft on the waves. The few simple letters felt like the full depth of the sea was encased within them. The queen’s terror was clear in that one word.
The sea roiled, but the queen was motionless save for her eyes. She surveyed the chaos, not pausing at the sight of the king in the sea or of the drowning and screaming humans. She didn’t seem to be stirred by anything, not yet.
“Lily,” she said again, her words more order than plea.
“Here!” Lily swam through the churning water, trying to reach a human woman who was faltering. “I’m here.”
As Lily moved she tried to help people, finding them bits of the pier to use as rafts or simply pulling them out of the depths.
Roan had shifted into a seal, and he was steadily towing people to safety. Will and Creed were swimming out and hauling people to a section of the
pier that bobbed but wasn’t completely severed from the rest of the structure. Violet was drawing the fires that were erupting on the shore, pulling flames into her skin to siphon them off so the firefighters could try to combat the blazes.
Everyone but Zephyr was accounted for. Lily started to panic. “Creed, where is he? Zephyr!”
She looked around, diving under the water and asking the sea to help. “Where is he?” She concentrated on his image as she spoke to the sea and the plants that lived there. She held his face in her mind as she called down to the rocks. “He is my blood and family. Return him.”
Lily surfaced and scanned the water again.
There wasn’t even a glimpse of Zephyr.
Pulling the whole of the rush of her unfettered affinities to the surface, she started to send a call to any of the fae who might be near. Suddenly, the water around her took the shape of a massive hand that grabbed her and jerked her into the air. She floated there, aloft, water like solid ground under her feet. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was. The queen had willed it. That was enough.
“Where’s Zeph—”
“Rhys,” the queen spoke over her, cutting off her words.
Lily hadn’t even known Rhys was there, but as she looked around, she saw him. He stood on the wreckage of the pier, balanced atop stone and board, sword in hand. Next to him was a very wet Zephyr. Seeing him made something relax inside her. She worried that losing Alkamy would make him reckless.
Rhys didn’t offer any spoken reply to the queen. Instead, he pulled back his arm and threw his sword. It cut through the air toward her.
Endellion snatched it and in barely a heartbeat, she looked more like herself. Leith was with the humans helping those struggling in the water, but the queen stood peering around as if she expected another attack. Her attention continued to flow over the pier and those who were there. Now, though, instead of the regal fae monarch, she resembled nothing so much as a thing in nightmares. This would be the vision on the news. This would be the face of the fae that would be broadcast round the world—a terrifyingly beautiful being wrapped in seaweed, her sword upraised.
“Grandmother,” Lily said softly, trying to find calm around her lingering tendrils of fear. “The humans will never accept peace if there are so many dead today. We have to make sure there are survivors.”
At that, Endellion nodded. Lily felt guilt at the way she’d had to phrase the truth. Death was a lot more than a public relations worry, but putting the situation in terms the Queen of Blood and Rage understood was necessary.
Endellion looked toward the shore and stared at the burning buildings. Clouds gathered and rain began to pour, aiding the firefighters.
Then the queen made another seemingly careless gesture with her hand, and the waves grew thick enough that there was a translucent bridge. She met Lily’s gaze. “They can walk to safety.”
“It will hold you,” the King of Fire and Truth said cheerfully from where he bobbed in the water as if it were all a great game. “Up you go. Come on now.”
He boosted people onto the water-wrought bridge. He was sopping wet, royal garb clinging to him, but he retained his cheerful mien. Lily found herself smiling briefly. It wasn’t her nature to be like him, but just now, she could appreciate his willfully optimistic attitude.
The Queen of Blood and Rage, however, was as tense as a warrior between bouts.
“Summon your sword, LilyDark.”
Lily wasn’t attuned to metal, had no affinity with it, but she was adept at earth, and the metal was melded with deadly hemlock. She called to it, drawing hemlock, but instead of her sword, her first answer was from a water-rooted plant. She released it and tried again, not wanting to fail, not wanting to disappoint the queen.
The sword she’d lost in the sea came at her summons then, cutting through the water and flying toward her hand. That, too, would be news footage. The new heir calling a weapon to her hand didn’t exactly proclaim “peace is here.”
“Love?” Leith called up to them. “Can you add a bit of width to the bridge?”
Endellion pressed her lips together. The only other movement was a widening of her eyes. Quietly, she said, “Relying on affinities is never enough, LilyDark. I use them as tools, but they do not bring me the fear or respect that a bloodied blade will. Let them see me as I am, and they will remember it when they consider crossing me.”
“Someone has crossed you,” Lily pointed out. She hated speaking that truth, of giving voice to the undeniable fact that they had been attacked just as they declared peace.
“I know.” Endellion scanned the shore again, her gaze pausing on the onslaught of vehicles rushing toward the pier. “And at least one of my own was involved.”
The whole chaotic affair had taken so few minutes, but in those minutes, everything Lily knew had changed. She’d become a fae princess in the eyes of humanity, and someone had attempted to either kill or harm the witnesses. She was either a target or an innocent bystander.
The queen was correct: the attacker was obviously not human. Only fae could bend waves into weapons. Someone was angry enough to want to continue the war.
As Lily stood on the waves next to her grandmother, she watched police and militia on foot start to surge toward the sea, toward them, like a warring army. They wore battle regalia, heavy vests and combat boots, and they had weapons in hand. Nothing about this moment spoke of peace. Buildings burned. The dead floated in the harbor. Corpses were plucked from the water. This was a disaster.
“A fae attack on us and them.” Lily nodded toward the shore. “Humans about to attack us. Where is the peace I’m trying to buy?”
She stared out at the crowds. Cameras were everywhere now, and there was no way that she was going to be able to step onto shore anytime soon. The crowd looked fearful, ready to erupt into violence at the slightest provocation, and all she could think of were Daidí’s warnings. The world was more of a tinder box now than it had been before she’d negotiated for an end to war.
“I can’t stay here,” Lily announced.
Endellion glanced at her, but she said nothing. Her expression was blank.
“I’m not giving up,” Lily swore. “I want peace, and I want to live in this world and the other. For now, though, I would go with you.”
Endellion smiled slightly. “I am pleased that I don’t need to force the matter.”
Lily sighed as the truth of it settled on her. They were all at risk if they remained here. There was nothing to do but go to the Hidden Lands and figure out where to go from here. She hoped they’d all cooperate gracefully.
thirty-three
ZEPHYR
“Did she do that? The wave?” Zephyr asked bluntly. He was far past being shocked by the machinations of the queen. There hadn’t been a time in his life when he had been unaware of the ruthlessness of the Queen of Blood and Rage. Perhaps as a small child, he might have had a degree of ignorance, but he wouldn’t even swear to that.
“It would not further her primary goals, so it is likely an attack on her rather than by her.” Rhys had a sliver of anger in his voice.
As Rhys spoke, he didn’t pull his gaze from the increasingly large crowd of humans on the shore near them. Although he was armed only with a short sword and they were brandishing guns, Rhys was not as unevenly matched as he might appear. Humans had no skill with affinities. That was a purely fae ability, and Rhys was the eldest child of the Queen of Blood and Rage.
“I would rather you are unharmed. Stay at my side,” he added as he motioned toward the crowd with a peculiar gesture, as if he was drawing in the empty air with the blade in his hand. In the next heartbeat, Zephyr could feel the air grow thicker, as if the molecules were slowing and drawing together. It was as if Rhys was building a wall in front of them, a shield that would protect them and yet not be visible to any of the watchers from the shore.
The pier was destroyed. They were standing atop some of the planks and rubble that had toppled to the shallo
ws. In the near distance, fins cut through the choppy water as sharks were drawn by blood. It was not the fae who were at risk.
Zephyr glanced toward the queen and his cousin. As Lily stood there dripping wet, with her sword in hand, she was as alike to the queen as a person could be—regal and commanding. She looked terrifying.
But LilyDark had surrendered everything to end war between the worlds. If the human governments were wise, they’d realize that the new heir was someone they should endorse. Embracing her would lead to the peace they’d all sought. It seemed an obvious choice.
Politics, however, were no longer the future Zephyr would have. He’d be Lily’s guard, no more or less political than his father. There was a kind of peace in that. He’d have rather had the future he imagined with Alkamy, but without her, a life by the sword was all he could fathom.
In the midst of the chaos, Zephyr looked down to see a familiar body floating under the waves.
“Father?” Zephyr gestured. He had no words to tell Rhys that his sister was dead. Her eyes were closed, and she was not moving or swimming.
“Eilidh?” Rhys said, voice cracking in apparent worry.
At his voice, the former heir opened her eyes and surged upward. The waves shaped into a watery chair that drifted in the shallow edge of the waves. She walked out of the sea and to Rhys’ side.
“Eilidh?” Rhys repeated.
She stumbled briefly, and Zephyr leaped forward to steady her.
“I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to sea, and . . .” She shook her head, paused, and then said, “And now, I am here.”
Frowning, Rhys motioned for them to walk farther ashore. “You are not to be here, Eilidh. You know as much. There are risks and”—he motioned toward the chaos on shore—“these are not calm beings. They are a danger.”
Zephyr agreed, but telling the princess not to be here didn’t change the fact that she was here. There was no way to undo things, so the only option was to go forward with what was. He kept his sword in hand, but his focus was also on Eilidh.
