by Bec McMaster
I don’t have a locket.
I don’t have anything of my mother’s except for her pale blue eyes and silvery hair, my father once snarled.
And if I did, then I would kill anyone who dared touch it.
“How did you get this?”
“It was sent to me by the man I hired to track her down.” Keir continues, pouring himself a goblet of wine and then filling my glass. “You think she’s up to something, don’t you? You think her disappearing act is merely a ploy of hers… but I’m not so sure, Merisel. I think your sister is in trouble. And as much as you don’t care about the horn, you do care about your sister, don’t you?”
You son of a—
Stars suddenly ricochet through my vision.
It’s enough to make me blink.
What was that?
“Merisel?” Keir growls. “I asked you a question.”
“Cauldron’s piss,” a voice hisses. “Turn her over. Quick! The king has sent for her and we can’t deliver a corpse to him! He’ll have our lungs torn out through our nostrils.”
“My name is not… Merisel.”
I stagger out of the chair, trying to grab hold of the balcony. The whole world begins to reel around me.
“Then what is it?” Keir demands. “What’s wrong?”
“Zemira,” I whisper, staring down at my hands. “My name is Zemira.”
My fingers vanish.
It’s as if I’m evaporating into thin air.
“Zemira!” Keir shoves to his feet, reaching for my hand, but some strange force sucks me backward, until he’s merely a pinpoint of hot, flaming gold—
The world around me grows dark around the edges.
I’m wrenched into a world of shadows.
Hard floor beneath me. The burning ache of iron shackles around my wrists.
Pain screams through my shoulders and I choke and kick, my lungs spewing water as someone slaps me between the shoulder blades again.
I retch and retch, until my eyes are bugging out of my head. Just when I think my brain is going to explode from the pressure, it’s finally gone. Air. I can breathe again. And the first lungful tastes as sweet as Night’s Bloom—the most delicious poison I’ve ever tasted, and the most painful.
It was a dream.
It was all a dream.
Keir. The island. The cauldron.
Soraya.
Because the next words reveal the nightmare: “Get up, dog.” A boot drives into my middle, and I cry out and curl around it, as someone grabs a fistful of my hair and wrenches me close to his face. “The king wants to see you.”
3
The guards haul me to the throne room.
There’s another supplicant on his knees before the throne and I’m relieved I’m not the center of attention as I’m dragged through a ring of guards.
“Please, my king. Please.” A wraith begs for mercy, clasping his hands together as he scrambles forward to try and touch the king’s boots. “I have been a loyal servant for nearly a century—”
“Show me,” the king says, his voice echoing through the throne room.
Guards pin the wraith and tear his shirt open, hauling his head back by the hair so the king can see his chest. All three of them wear gloves and they move with grim, ruthless efficiency, as if they dare not get too close.
The entire court draws back with a gasp. Horror fills the guards’ faces—hardened wraiths who’ve killed time and time again for their king and yet, they tremble at this.
I know what they’re looking at, even with his back toward me.
I’ve seen it too many times.
A dark, mottling across the skin that sometimes resembles a bruise over the heart at first. Except it keeps spreading, creeping across the ribs and shoulders, little snaking tendrils that wind down arms and abdomens. It never reaches the legs. By the time it’s gone that far, you can see it in a wraith’s eyes—dark veins bleeding through the whites of their eyes as if in warning.
The blight.
One last mocking twist of the curse the fae gifted us with long ago,
“It’s not contagious!” the wraith screams. “The lore masters say it’s not contagious!”
But my father’s face is implacable. He pushes to his feet, fury hardening his jaw. “How dare you bring this among our people? How dare you hide it?”
“You promised us a cure!” The wraith cries, and for the first time his anger overtakes his good sense. “You said you would break the curse. You said you would fix this blight upon us!”
“And fix it I shall. Guards.” My father waves at his men. “Remove him from this court before his carelessness afflicts us all.”
“No!”
My heart kicks into my throat, but it’s all over in a matter of seconds. Steel flashing in the torchlight. The meaty thud as a head hits the ground and bounces.
I turn my face away, eyes clenched shut as I swallow the pool of saliva in my mouth. Curse it. I was hoping to find him in a generous mood. A little tremor shivers down my spine as I lift my eyes to my king.
I’m next.
And my eyes can’t help finding the body of the wraith as the guards drag it from the throne room by its heels. A scarlet trail paints the floors behind it, and someone has its head by the hair.
The Forbidden Court is not a kind place to live.
Once we were as glorious as the fae, albeit the darker of the courts. Unblessed by the goddess, they named us, saying that she had turned her face from our kind.
We weren’t always wraiths.
Once we were a court within the Seelie hegemony, until the other courts turned on us during the Dragon Wars. A mighty battle against the dragons was fought—a battle we should have won—but treachery ruled the day.
I don’t know whether our long-ago king stabbed the king of the Dawn Court’s son in the back, or whether the Crown Prince of Dawn—fueled by an age-old resentment—forced a duel upon the field in which he was not prepared to win. Accounts vary, depending upon whom you listen to.
Either way, the Prince of Dawn died and his father swore vengeance. He named us tainted and proclaimed our unruly blood was costing the Blessed courts the war. He called us Unblessed—a blight on the Goddess’s glory.
With the blessing of the other courts, King Anselm forged a weapon that stripped the fae magic from our bodies. He said that if we were no longer of the light, then the sun would shun us. It burned our skin, burned our eyes, and forced us into the night. Our immortality bled from us, leaving us sickly and dying. My grandfather, Prince Rakulh, was forced to curse us into a new form in order to survive.
Now we are the Forbidden.
No longer fae. Wraiths, instead. The shadow remnants of our fair brethren, with our pale skin, darkened claws and twisted magics.
Thankfully, I resemble my fae mother more than my father—enough to make it possible to walk among the Blessed courts with a little glamor to hide my glowing skin. It looks as luminescent as moonlight if I don’t tamp my magic down inside me behind chains of glamor. After years of doing it, it’s almost as natural as breathing.
I can walk beneath the sun.
And my ability to heal and regenerate is almost fae-like.
But in recent years it’s become clear the curse Prince Rakulh used to save us is slowly destroying us.
Rumors of the blight whisper through court. Everyone’s heard of someone who has an uncle, a brother, a grandmother who’s suffered from it by now. The king has spent years crushing such rumors, but no matter how many of the afflicted he kills, more arise.
And no one knows what’s causing it
At first it was one or two suffering from this sickness. We knew nothing of it, except for its aftermath. It happened in the south the first time, during a blizzard along our southern walls. A shattered guard tower broken apart as if by beasts. Bodies torn apart and drained of their blood. Not a single survivor left to tell the tale.
I saw the report sent back to the king. One of the guards was miss
ing, and to all appearances the guard tower was locked and warded against outside forces. They had to assume the guard had gone on a killing spree, but no one knew how. The puncture marks left on the bodies spoke of sharpened canines and elongated claws, and while wraithenkind are considered abominations by the Blessed fae, we’re not animals.
My father set the report aside. There were wars to plan and fae princes to manipulate. It wasn’t until the second attack came at a town much closer to the court, that he sent someone to investigate.
Six months passed. There were more attacks, vicious and bloody. The guards dragged one of the afflicted back to court, revealing a creature with maddened eyes and fangs and claws. It was as though everything the fairer courts spoke of us had sprung to life, as if some strange magic heard tell of their tales and conjured a monster right out of their nightmares.
A Nightstalker.
It was not an illness. Nor a poison. There was no rhyme nor reason to the blight’s occurrences. It simply happened. And kept happening.
I’m one of my father’s favorites. I’ve knelt by his feet as he’s heard the reports, and seen the fury and fear mingling in his eyes when his seneschals retreat.
“The curse,” he’d whispered once. “It must be that the curse is… evolving.”
And ever since that moment he’s been obsessed with breaking it.
“Well?” Father barks, shattering my thoughts. “What now?”
“Your daughter, Your Highness,” one of the guards says stiffly. “You sent for her.”
“She looks half dead.” There’s a hint of menace in those words.
“Half dead is still half alive,” I manage to rasp. My throat feels like someone reached down it and ripped my lungs out, but the warm tingly feeling means my fae heritage is healing me. I barely have the strength to push myself to my hands and knees, every inch of me shaking.
But I swore myself an oath when I was a little girl.
No matter what happens to me, I will not crawl before this creature.
I will never beg.
I will never abase myself.
Slowly, my chin lifts until our eyes meet.
“Father,” I say.
“Stand up,” the Wraith King snaps.
Stand up, they yelled in the training camps when I was forced to endure trial after trial in order to prove my worth to this creature in front of me.
And if you didn’t stand then you earned a slit throat.
I force my muscles to move as I slowly push to my feet.
And then I behold the true horror of the Unblessed king.
Raesh Ghul had any sense of mercy whipped from him as a boy and it shows in his face. An enormous troll’s skull is carved into a crown atop his head, and his long, raven-black hair is bound into a myriad of plaits. If not for his ghostly white skin—maggot pale—he’d almost be handsome.
And maybe that’s the true horror, for a monster lurks within that fair façade. One who stole my fae mother from her bed one night and bred a child on her to forge as a weapon against her kin. A child with the gifts of both sides of her heritage—and one who can pass as fae if I’m focusing on my glamor.
A half dozen soul-traps hang from his throat. He likes to leave his fur cloak open, so they’re visible. One of them calls to me, the wisp of pale blue mist caressing the glass it’s trapped within as if it can sense me.
My soul.
It was cut from me the night I was born in order to ensure my loyalty. With it, he owns me. Without it I can never truly escape, for he can snuff my life simply by closing his fist around that small crystal cylinder and crushing it.
I’ve heard stories of my birth. There’s something about the meld of wraith and fae that often makes delivering a half-born child difficult. Some say it’s the curse cast upon us, fighting to twist the fae mother’s magic. In defense, my mother’s power sought to protect her, which nearly killed me. My father cut me from her womb in order to save my life, and she was left to bleed to death in her bed as he beheld all his hopes and dreams... and found them utterly lacking.
I was small, sickly, and gleaming like mother-of-pearl. In the eyes of my father, who had hoped for a strong child born of two powerful bloodlines, I was an abject failure. He cast me at a wet nurse and told her that if I lived, then I was to be brought before him at the age of five in order to see if anything could be redeemed of my worth.
The first I knew of the world was the small hovel where I was raised. The potential of my bloodlines was too important for the wet nurse, Thia, to dare let me starve, but there was no kindness to be found among the several bastards she raised in exchange for my father’s coin. With three older “brothers” and a “sister” who liked to cuff me when nobody was looking, there were only scraps of food to eat, and a small nest of hay under the bed to sleep in.
The first time I ever Sifted—slipping from shadow to shadow—was when I was four, and a pair of my “brothers” tried to drown me in a well. All I can remember is that I was terrified and desperate enough that I somehow managed to reach my magic, and when I came to, I found myself drenched and shivering in a nearby forest.
It became my escape from a lifetime of misery.
I became adept at stealing from the markets near our house. One sidestep into the shadows, and suddenly, I could take everything and anything I wanted from the market stalls. I stole to eat. I stole to survive. I stole because sometimes it was the only way to revenge myself upon those older brothers who liked to hit, and kick, and ambush me in dangerous places. I’d leave those treasures in their boots and other hidey holes, where they’d be found. It earned them several thrashings and nobody ever knew it was me.
When my fifth birthing day came around, I was hauled before the king. I knew who he was and that I had to please him or the money would stop being sent.
I feel the same weight of condemnation now.
Somewhere, deep in my heart, I will always be that sickly child who knows she needs to prove herself.
“Daughter.” The king’s cold black eyes lock upon me, and then they slide down my length. “You look unwell.”
“Torture does that to a body,” I rasp, and can’t stop my right fist from curling in upon itself.
He notices. He notices everything.
I’d love to say I have the wherewithal to mutter “Fuck you,” but I’m pretty sure I do nothing more than tremble as the chancellor sweeps his torch closer to me.
“Is she even in any sort of condition to do this?” The chancellor asks.
My father’s eyes harden. There is no choice. Whatever he wants of me, I must do.
“The other one failed, after all,” says a new voice, coming from my right.
A chill trembles through me. I cut a sharp look toward the newcomer as he strolls out of the shadows, toying with something in his hands. Black hair tumbles over a pale forehead, but where my father is wildness and aggression, Ruhle is cultured malice. Every inch of him is sleekly poised, from the gleaming leather of his body armor to the silver skull ring on his finger. His boots gleam, and there’s a joke among the court that you don’t want to get on Ruhle’s bad side, or your tongue will be the one that polishes them.
My father has sired many children.
But few survive the training camps, and those that do are the killers. I didn’t have the killing instinct—I still don’t—but Soraya did, and those were the days when she had my back.
Ruhle is the eldest of the wraith king’s children and heir apparent. He was the only wraith-born bastard who survived the training camps during his year, and some whisper there’s a reason for that. The first five to get across the finish line of the year-end challenge are allowed to live—but he was the only one who returned from the mountains.
That doesn’t mean he works alone.
No, he has his own little circle of wraiths to do his bidding. Seven of them, to be exact. And they’re all as cruel and malicious as he is.
“How was the Abyss?” he asks of me.
&nbs
p; “Somewhat chilly. How was exile?” I return, squaring my shoulders. Drawing his attention is never wise, but cowering before him is a certain means to earn his full attention. He preys on the weak and after years of small aggressions, if I give him one good reason to believe me unable to fend him off, I’ll find him in my bedchambers one night with a knife in hand.
Ruhle’s lip curls. “It was never exile—”
“No?” I turn my full attention toward him as he prowls toward me. “Three of our brothers die, and you are sent to the watchtowers along our southern flank during winter? Perhaps it was a gift instead, a boon for our precious crown prince to learn to control his temper.”
Father hates that title.
He rules. Absolutely. And with his longevity, the concept of an heir makes his lip curl.
“The Blessed courts were starting to look north,” Ruhle grates. “Someone had to ensure they didn’t cross the Shadowfangs.”
“How brave of you, to take a captain’s job—”
“You little slut.” Ruhle starts toward me, his fist clenching. “Your bitch sister isn’t here to save you now—”
“Enough.” The word cuts through us and we both kneel toward Father as he watches us with simmering fury in his eyes.
The word echoes through the throne room with all the finality of the chancellor bringing his staff down on the slate floors with a ringing thump.
“Yes, Father.” Both Ruhle and I parrot, as we bow our heads.
But I can sense my brother’s cold glare.
I’ll pay for that little moment, but he won’t dare try to kill me. I’m still valuable to my father, and while Ruhle might have murdered three of our weaker brothers, he doesn’t dare touch the king’s Shadow Walker.
He’d also have to catch me first.
“I have a task for you, Zemira,” Father continues as we both straighten.
Twice in one night. A girl can only be so lucky.
“And here I thought you were prepared to welcome me back into your loving embrace,” I reply. “Imagine that. What would you have of me?”
“You failed me this summer. I sent you to steal the Dragon’s Heart from the Court of Dreams, and not only did you fail to find it, but you mistook it for this worthless scrap of gold.”
