by Bec McMaster
A thin line of light appears in the air in front of me, and Falion steps through it. This time he has two knives, which he juggles with apparent ease. One of them is mine.
Light. He’s… manipulating light as well?
“A baby Shadow Walker who’s never been trained,” he muses. “One born to a wraith king. But the question remains: Who was the mother?”
I can’t help feeling Keir’s words lancing through my heart. Zyra. Zyra Starsworn. It’s a truth I haven’t even allowed myself to consider.
Hope, once again taunting me.
“Why do you care?” I spit the words. “You want a name to add to your list of kills? You want to gloat about how you killed the Wraith King’s bastard daughter? Fine.” I push to my feet. “I don’t know my mother’s name but whoever she was, she named me thrice. She loved me. She loved me enough to give me three names. Gravekissed, the Black Hawk, Winterborn. And that’s all I know.”
Falion freezes.
I lunge forward, kicking my knife out of his hand. It whirls through the air, and I spin, driving the same heel high into his chest. He staggers back as the knife lands in my hand and then we’re facing each other again, and though I caught him by surprise I know it won’t happen again.
But then he surprises me, because he bows his head and sheathes his knife. “I know who you are. I know who your mother was. And I’m not here to kill you.”
“No?” My fists clenches around the blade. It would be nice to believe him, but I’ve seen this trick played a thousand times before. “Then who was she?”
There’s a wealth of sadness in his blue eyes. “She was Zyra Starsworn. Lost to the world when I was but a baby. Stolen from her bed in the middle of the night and never returned.” A hint of anger clouds his expression. “Zyra Starsworn. Starblessed. Lightkissed. The Queen Who Was Promised. The queen who never had a chance to live up to the promise in her name. And now I know. Now I know what became of her.” His face locks down tight and hard. “How did she die?”
I lower the knife. The weight in my chest feels like it’s going to drown me. I don’t dare hope. I don’t. But this is the second fae male who’s confirmed that name. “If she was truly my mother then she died in childbirth. My…. My father cut me from her womb. Her magic was killing me.” I taste the truth on my tongue like bitter acid. “And mine was killing her.”
We stare at each other.
It’s a little akin to looking in a mirror. My face holds more feminine softness, but there are… hints….
“You knew her?” I ask, barely daring to breathe through the hope.
I may as well be speaking to a frost-glazed lake. “I knew her but briefly.” His voice drops. “She was everything to me. Everything. And yet, I have only one true memory of her—the one my father gave me. A memory trapped in a crystal ball. A beautiful woman who smiles down at me as I lie bloodied and bruised on her chest.” His gaze seems far away in that moment. “She kissed my head and she drew me to her breast, and then she named me thrice.”
The heat drains from my face.
Only a fae mother gives such a gift.
Falion smiles as if he knows exactly what just went through my mind. It’s a bitter, twisted smile, one that holds the edge of a knife. “I was four when she was stolen from us. And now I am the sole remaining heir to the throne of the Court of Stars and Moon. I am Falion Starforged. The Prince Who Shall Never Rule.” He takes a deep breath. “And you are my sister.”
No. No.
“How do you know?”
“Because you are Gravekissed,” he whispers, “for your father. Winterborn for the time of your birth. But the Black Hawk was all for you. It was the mark she wore, inked into her skin. The mark of her warband, her own personal coat of arms. The mark she would have embossed on her banners had she ever come to her throne. The promise of her name and future glory.” His voice falls away. “A glory that never came. A throne that was never claimed. And now a court that is nothing more than rubble and ashes.”
Because of me.
“Well, it’s a lovely family reunion,” I snap, “but you’ll forgive me if I doubt your intentions. As you can see, those I call brothers tend to have a tendency to try and drown me in wells or put arrows through me.”
“My intentions are this: You’re pathetic. You’re weak. You’re half-trained and know nothing—”
“It wasn’t as though I had someone to instruct me!”
“As such, you’re an embarrassment to my family line.” He eases out a breath. “But you are also my sister. She named you, and in so doing, she has forced my hand. I cannot walk away and allow her sacrifice to be without meaning.” He closes his eyes. “I will train you.”
Train me?
I can’t stop myself from thinking of how easily he walks through shadows. He trapped me with but a single move.
If I knew how to do that, then maybe…. Maybe I could steal back the soul-trap with my soul in it. Maybe I could… kill my father and set myself free. Set us all free.
For the first time in my life, I see a way out of the trap I’ve found myself in.
“Now come,” he says, turning on his heel and glancing toward where I’d hidden the horn as if he can see right through the shadows I wove around it. “Fetch your horn.”
“My horn?”
“You blew it,” he points out. “And as such, you are bound to it until you die.”
“I thought it was Mistmark’s?”
Falion gives me a sidelong look. “Alaric no longer needs it.”
And then he’s gone, leaving me to wonder what in the Shadow Lands that meant….
27
Keir
“Zemira!” I snatch for her wrist, but she’s gone, evaporating into black smoke. My fingers plunge through it, and then even that is gone.
Damn it. Damn it.
She’s out there.
All alone.
“She can do this,” Soraya rasps as she sinks to her knees in the heather at my feet.
I cut her a look. None of this makes any sense. Soraya tried to kill me and allowed Zemira to take the fall for her actions. Every time I’ve seen them, one of them has been trying to murder the other, and yet there’s a connection between them I can’t deny.
Keep her safe for me….
Goddess’ breath, the things I do for this woman.
I cut my wrist with a swift jerk of my knife and then bring her lips to my skin. “Drink.”
Soraya jerks her mouth away. “Thanks, but—”
I shove her face against my wrist. “I wasn’t asking. Drink. I need you on your feet so I can go after your sister.”
Soraya gasps as my blood hits her system. Warmth and color spreads through her skin as if my magic heals her inch by inch. Tugging my hand free, I swiftly seal the cut with a hint of magic.
“You stupid fool.” She laughs under her breath as her head sinks back on the heather. A single tear glints in her eye before she blinks it away. “You love her, don’t you? You still love her, even after everything….”
I haul her to her feet, where she trembles against me.
She’s healed, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be putting a knife through anyone anytime soon. Even my blood has its limits.
“You can’t have her,” she whispers.
The dragon within me bares its teeth. “Watch me.”
I swing her up into my arms. She’s pathetically weak, but she grabs a fistful of my shirt and if she had a knife, it would be at my throat. It stills the rage. There’s a wariness in her actions that reminds me of Mira.
Tough armored shells.
Careless attitudes.
A yearning neither of them can quite hide.
In that they could be twins.
“No.” Soraya bites her lip. “Father will kill her the second he realizes you want her. He’ll snuff her light, her soul, all so that he can deny you. He’ll do it to hurt you. He won’t even spare her a thought. You can’t love her. You can’t have her. Because you will cost her e
verything. I know what you are, but you can’t have her.”
Stillness radiates through me. I know Zemira is bound to her father’s will. It’s my one eternal frustration: that she can never simply cast off the yoke of his demands.
But….
“What do you mean, he will snuff her soul?”
Soraya’s shoulders sink. “He cuts our souls from us the second we’re born and wears them in a soul-trap around his neck. He has hundreds of them. Thousands. If he thinks she’s betrayed him, then he’ll crush her soul-trap and kill her instantly.” Those hard black eyes meet mine. “He promised her that if she brought him the Dragon’s Heart, then he would return her soul. She’d be free of him, free from our court.”
The words expand within me, leaving me breathless. When Soraya stole the amulet, I thought little of it—just another fae king or prince making a power play.
But Zemira knew the truth.
She knew it was never the amulet.
And all she had to do to save herself was betray my secret.
But she clearly kept it instead.
It changes everything. It all finally makes sense. And even though there’s a heavy weight inside my chest, I can’t help feeling a little breathless.
Zemira never wanted to betray me. She’s warned me a hundred times. Don’t fall in love with me. I will betray you. I will always betray you.
I always wondered what sort of hold he had on her.
And now I know.
Now I know what the transaction will be.
“I didn’t think you would care,” I tell Soraya quietly. “She told me about the final test. She said you betrayed her. You left her behind to die.”
Soraya looks away. “You don’t know my sister. I was the one holding her back. I knew she’d stay with me physically. I knew I was slowing her down. And when she slipped and was hanging off that cliff…. She can punch into shadows. All she had to do was let me go and she would make it to the finish line. But she had to let me go first. She had to let me go.”
“So you let her believe you left her to die?”
Soraya’s lashes lift, revealing eyes as bleak and hard as obsidian. “Love is a weakness. Love will get you killed. I finally understood that.”
And now I understand it too. “We would do anything for love. Despite the cost.”
I slowly set her down. Soraya grabs my arm. “What are you planning to do?”
“What makes you think I’m planning anything?”
“You have that look in your eye,” she retorts. “Don’t do it. Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it. You’ll kill her.”
“You’ve got it wrong.” Maybe it’s reckless, but I can’t help smiling at her. “I’m a dragon. We don’t let go once we’ve found something we want. Now I just have to find something he wants.”
I set a finger to her nose, drawing on the enormous well of power that binds me to these lands.
Soraya opens her mouth to argue, leaves swirling around her and lacing in her dark hair—
Freeze. I breathe power into the world.
Everything comes to a standpoint.
The leaves hover in the air.
The wind stops.
Soraya stands mute, frozen in motion.
Time is a held breath, pressure building and building, like a set of lungs forced to endure. I have minutes at best before the structure of the world starts to strain at its bindings. Once I walked through time with the ease of a master, but now, all I have left is this…. Stolen minutes.
I sense half a dozen others turning toward me from wherever they stand, curious to know who has wrought such a working of power. Even the fae will sense it when I restart time. They will sense it, and they will wonder.
“I am done hiding,” I whisper into the world, and my power carries those words across courts and kingdoms. “I have found my true mate. Don’t interfere.”
Their minds brush against me, curious and distant, and then, one by one, all six of them turn away.
They will not interfere.
But Asmeroth leaves me one last parting note. “You risk us all with this decision. They will sense the truth.”
I risk nothing I’m not willing to pay.
I am Enkeirammon.
King of kings.
Heir to a throne that no longer exists.
And I have finally found the treasure I’ve spent my entire lifetime searching for.
Nothing is going to stop me from having it.
Tearing apart time and space, I step Between, and then I’m standing in front of a brass horn wrapped in shadows. I can sense it whispering to the world here in the Between, the song of the cauldron hissing through it.
Zemira thinks she’s secured the horn.
And maybe she did, because I can still hear it singing her sweet tune.
But now I’m going to take it.
I’m going to take it all.
But first, I have to let her go.
28
Zemira
The court is in uproar.
We barely managed to slip our way inside, for Belladonna—the new ruler of the court—has guards stationed at every door.
Particularly mine and Keir’s.
“This could be a problem,” I whisper, as Falion and I watch from the shadows. “I made a deal with Belladonna. Right now, I’m the only one who knows she wanted your lord and master dead.”
And if Belladonna is cleaning up the court, then she’ll most likely be interested in tidying up any other sort of loose ends she can find.
Falion sighs. “This way then. I need to check on Alaric anyway. And you need me to look at that knife wound.”
“It’s fine.” No one has ever offered to look at my wounds, beyond Soraya. I don’t know how I feel about that. “You don’t think Belladonna will be trying to ensure Mistmark doesn’t breathe another day? There might be some confusion about whether she’s married to him or not….”
“There’s no confusion. The court is aware he survived and has since found himself hand fasted to an assassin. He thinks it’s amusing,” Falion grumbles. “One thing you will learn is that Alaric thinks a dozen paces ahead. He’s already accounted for Belladonna. And there’s a reason she didn’t dare try and kill him herself.”
I thought that had something to do with not daring to thwart Malechus, but maybe I was wrong.
I shoot one last look at Keir’s door. The horn is hidden. I didn’t dare risk bringing it into the court until we knew the state of affairs, so I put it in the one place I know nobody will find it. And Belladonna won’t dare confront him. But I still haven’t seen him. I know he’ll be watching over Soraya. I know they’ll both be safe, but I can’t help wondering what’s going through Keir’s head.
I didn’t have a chance to talk it through with him.
The last time he saw me, he’d just realized the depths of my betrayal….
“Are you going to stand there like a lovesick puppy forever?” Falion growls. “It’s a little embarrassing.”
So much for brotherly love. I glare at him. “It’s a good thing you’re so powerful, otherwise I’m fairly certain there’d be no reason for Mistmark to keep you around.”
“Oh, there’s a reason.” He stalks into the shadows and vanishes. “Now are you coming or not?”
I sink into an enormous armchair across from the Lord of Mistmark, nursing a cup of warmed tea that Falion brewed. My shoulder is bandaged, and Falion cleansed a half-dozen other minor wounds he found on me. The tea is filled with herbs, but there’s nothing that strikes me as poisonous or drugging.
Falion sees me inhaling the fumes and raises a brow. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have used my knife. I could have buried you in the forest and then I wouldn’t have to drag your body out of the heart of the court, where hundreds of assholes are simply looking for a reason to tear my lord down. It would have been considerably easier.”
“What he means,” the Lord of Mistmark says, examining me with the most amused expression
I’ve ever seen him wear, “is that we don’t intend to harm you.”
The two males share a look.
Mistmark seems to have recovered from his poisoning well, though he doesn’t bother to shift off the sofa, and I can smell something restorative in his drink. Dark shadows haunt the circles beneath his eyes, however, and he’s not as well put-together as he usually is.
I’m fairly certain his mouth is stained a vicious pink, as if he couldn’t quite manage to remove all the lip paint Soraya was wearing.
So much has happened in the space of an afternoon.
“So,” Mistmark muses. “You’re Falion’s little sister.”
“So….” I draw my knees up under the blanket Falion gave me. “You’re my sister’s husband.”
If anything, the tension in the room grows thick. Falion turns to put his teapot away, and Mistmark rests his hand over his mouth and leans on it. Rings glitter on his fingers.
“It seems that way,” he finally says.
“You don’t appear to be as unhappy about that fact as either Falion or Soraya,” I point out.
Mistmark runs his tongue over his upper teeth. “Let us just say that… I have long believed my path was going to cross your sister’s again one day. Indeed, while it was a shock to realize it was actually while I was kissing my new bride, I’ve been expecting her.”
He has? My fingers itch. “Just what did happen between you all those years ago, Mistmark?”
“Alaric,” he says in a warm voice. “And nothing happened. She tried to kill me. She failed, much to her disapproval.”
I stare at him. Alaric has the best card playing face I’ve ever seen. “Strange…. That’s not what she says.”
And there it is.
A slight narrowing of his merciless blue eyes. He lasts twenty seconds. “What did she say about the situation?”
“Oh, it’s a ‘situation’ now, is it?” I set my cup down with a smile. “My sister doesn’t say much at all. Which is more telling than anything she might actually mention. But I’ll trade you an answer for an answer.”
“What sort of answer?” His curiosity is definitely winning now.
