Promise of Darkness

by Bec McMaster

  I hate that faint quirk of a smile.

  Sliding the mask back off his face, he considers me. The shock of those dangerous green eyes is like a punch to the chest. I don’t know why, but my heart is suddenly pounding.

  “If your mother abides by the treaty, then you have nothing to fear from me.”

  It’s that if that concerns me.

  “We don’t have to be enemies,” he adds smoothly, gliding toward me. “And the next three months don’t have be a war.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  But they’re going to be.

  The prince glances around, and I realize we’re drawing attention. Hobs whisper behind their hands, and a pair of fae watch us over the slow waft of their feathery fans.

  “My lady love,” sings a nearby minstrel, smiling viciously at the prince as he bows his head and strums his lute. “My lady fair. She of the moon, and the gilded hair. Come dance, said he, and extended a hand; But the lady divine, slapped him with her fan—”

  “This way,” the prince growls, directing me toward a stand of trees.

  “I like that song,” I protest.

  “Of course you do,” he mutters.

  Here in the clearing, we have a semblance of privacy. I tug at a golden cord, and a curtain of vines sweep closed behind us, shielding us from prying eyes. It’s been created for lovers, a private nest some lord no doubt intends to use later tonight. But for now, it’s a haven.

  I don’t know what he wants to say.

  I don’t even know why I followed him.

  Except for the lingering desire to take a stand and ensure he doesn’t think me a prisoner at his mercy.

  “What do you want?” I demand.

  “I thought we ought to get to know each other. We’re about to spend a significant amount of time together.”

  “Oh?” I tilt my chin a little arrogantly. “In what way?”

  If you intend that statement to mean in your bed, then I will promise you an eternity of ruin.

  He reads me accurately. “You have nothing to fear from me, Princess. I don’t take what isn’t freely given.”

  My heart starts racing. I turn away, kicking cushions out of the way as I pace the small space. The dagger seems heavy at my side. “Good. For I will never be freely given."

  The prince’s lashes half obscure his eyes. “The next three months will be—”

  He turns, cocking his head.

  I pause.

  It isn’t just the pounding of my heartbeat—drums echo through the forest, slowly growing louder. A shiver of silence sweeps through the trees, revelry dying like someone snuffing a candle flame.

  The Unseelie queens have arrived.

  Two of the three Unseelie queens stood on the other side of the battlefields during the Wars of Light and Shadow over five hundred years ago. Though the Seelie Alliance overthrew the Old Ones, turning the tide of the battle, the Unseelie queens yielded but never completely bowed their heads.

  The only option was a tenuous peace.

  Every thirteen years, the Unseelie Queens ride south to the Queensmoot to renew the treaty between the north and the south.

  And every thirteen years, the fractured Seelie courts meet to pledge themselves to the accords.

  If I have to be the price of this peace, then so be it.

  “We will finish this discussion later,” the prince tells me, one hand resting on his sword as he strides through the curtain of vines.

  I follow him, cursing under my breath.

  The Unseelie queens bring with them the creeping chill of a breathless body. Torches flicker and then gutter out as an unearthly gloom creeps over the gathering. The fae of my mother’s court shift uneasily.

  And then the Unseelie clear the trees, and the drums cut off so abruptly, a shiver runs over my skin.

  Angharad the Black rides at the head of the Unseelie column, astride a lich-horse woven of old bones and moss. Its foul breath steams the night air, and clumps of dull, matted hair cling to its fetlocks still. She wears black silk from head to toe and a crown carved of pure obsidian that swallows the light.

  At her side ride Blaedwyn the Merciless and the Black Crow, Morwenna of Isenbold.

  Blaedwyn’s black hair tumbles down her back, with some of it woven into a pair of horns atop her head. She wears hunting leathers, and the enormous Sword of Mourning is strapped to her spine. Her white teeth flash in a smile as she beholds us, and I remember what they say about her. She lives for the rush of battle and the swing of the sword. This treaty will barely hold her in check, and she no doubt sees us as an impediment or a challenge.

  Morwenna looks like the ancient Hag she is.

  Her white, brittle hair flows over her shoulders, though her spine is straight and she holds the reins with a firm grip. Finger bones hang around her neck in a malevolent necklace woven to counteract curses. Centuries old during the wars, she’s rapidly approaching her twilight, though it doesn’t make her any less dangerous. She’s the ultimate witch queen, her life bound to serve the Horned One, who is locked away in one of the prison worlds. If she saw even the slightest chance to release him, she’d take it, and damn the world thrice over.

  “That old bitch is still alive,” my mother says in some disgust.

  “Seemingly,” Andraste counters. “Perhaps she crawled out of the grave for the accords?”

  I say nothing.

  The Unseelie horde capers along behind them. Unseelie fae with black bat wings and horns that hint at their impure heritage; leering hobgoblins covered in warts; pale-faced Sorrows with black hair and long claws; trolls and redcaps and beastlike, twisted banes. They’re all ugly, vicious creatures who live for blood and flesh.

  Some say that millennia ago, the Seelie and Unseelie were one people, but I can’t see any resemblance in the capering, howling mob.

  The queens finally arrive on the mound. A tall, impossibly gaunt fae male slams his staff against the stone at his feet, and silence echoes as the Unseelie’s howls and screams cut off all at once.

  “Angharad brought her favorite pet sorcerer,” murmurs a masculine voice at my side.

  Someone’s determined to haunt me tonight.

  I glance at the prince. “That’s Isem?”

  “Fresh out of the grave by the look of him.”

  “Let us treat,” says Angharad, smiling a devil’s smile.

  “There have been incursions into Unseelie lands,” Angharad says, wasting no time as she settles onto the thronelike seat that is set out for her. “Fae warbands that ride with goblin warriors in their ranks. Many of our border villages have been burned, their occupants slaughtered.”

  “The goblins rule their own clans,” the Prince of Evernight interrupts smoothly. “We hold no treaties with their people. We do not ride at their side.”

  “Do you call me a liar, Prince?” the Unseelie Queen snarls.

  He spreads his hands. “I only claim that the Seelie Alliance holds no bargains with the goblins. Whoever is raiding your villages does not belong to us.”

  “Truth,” rasps Isem, his milky white eyes staring at nothing. “Or the truth as the prince believes it.”

  Isem is a truth-seeker and was born with the gift.

  It’s still creepy.

  And a reminder that lying in this moment might be a precursor to war.

  “The goblin clans wouldn’t dare strike us of their own accord,” Angharad bites out, her clawed hands curving over the arms of her throne.

  My stepbrother, Edain, lounges by Mother’s feet, rolling grapes between his beringed fingers. Ever since his father died in a hunting accident, he’s been serving Mother in bed, though some say the timelines overlap. “The goblin clans remain leaderless with the loss of their king. Without him holding their reins, who is to say some clan does not ride at its own whim? They’re violent, greedy creatures, after all.”

  Angharad cuts him a furious glance.

  “The boy speaks truth,” says Lucidia, the Queen of Ravenal. She’s ancient
and has proven counterfoil to my mother many times over the years. “King Rangmar held his goblins together. None dared step outside his edicts, but he is gone, and the Unbroken Crown is without a head to sit upon as the goblins squabble. Perhaps some clan decided to seek its own fate outside the mountains.”

  The other Seelie queen, Queen Maren, lifts a goblet to her lips. “Perhaps you should strengthen your borders, Angharad. If the goblins are riding, then I intend to.”

  Angharad seethes, but she has no option to explore. The Seelie Alliance has swiftly shut her down.

  They move on to other topics.

  Edain settles in beside me, brushing my hair off my shoulder. We aren’t friends, and in other circumstances, I’d punch him in the balls, but he’s also aware of that. Pasting a smile on my lips, I lean in to him.

  “Interesting,” he murmurs, his lips brushing my ear. “Angharad’s grasping for reasons to fight. It wouldn’t surprise me if these ‘goblin incursions’ ride at her directive.”

  The goblin clans are more likely to ally themselves with the Unseelie, after all, and I cannot say I blame them.

  “You think she intends upon a war.”

  “She’s been hungering for one for centuries.”

  I glance down at my hands. The Seelie Alliance is ill-equipped for war at this moment. Though they present themselves as a united front, they’re anything but.

  Queen Maren and my mother plot together, but Lucidia is a prickle in their socks, and the two princes would rather slit their own throats than stand beside my mother as allies.

  The more I discover, the more I realize I need to uphold my mother’s treaty with the Prince of Evernight. The entirety of Seelie might depend upon it.

  The night wends on, the bonfires dying down as the Unseelie and Seelie courts treat. Promises are made. Whether they’ll be kept is another matter.

  And there is one last business to attend to.

  “Your Highness,” the Prince of Evernight says, standing and offering me a hand. “It is after midnight.”

  The entire gathering falls silent.

  I cannot help feeling Angharad’s eyes upon me, and a shiver runs down my spine.

  This is it. This is the moment.

  I push myself to my feet, ignoring his hand. I will walk on my own two feet, an Asturian princess to the last inch.

  “This is Thalia,” he says, gesturing to the tall brunette at his side. “My cousin. She will tend to you on the journey back to Evernight.”

  The woman smiles at me, but I have no interest in making friends.

  I slice the blade across my palm, staring him directly in the eyes. “Blood to blood, I bind my promise to you. Three months, I will serve as hostage in your court.”

  The prince slices his own palm. He clasps hands with me, our blood mingling. A shock jolts through me as the power in his blood mingles with something in mine.

  “Three months you will be mine.” His eyes lift over my shoulder. “And then I shall return you to your mother’s court.”

  Adaia smirks. “So be it.”

  I can’t help feeling as though something else has been promised between the two of them, for neither of them lowers their gaze until Thalia takes me by the hand and leads me into the mass of the Prince of Evernight’s people.

  I don’t look back.

  There’s nothing there for me.

  All I can do is look ahead.

  Three months.

  I just have to survive the next three months.

  5

  “He won’t bite, you know?” Thalia says cheerfully.

  I glance at the prince’s back as we ride toward the Hallow. I’ve been given a horse, and though the prince offered to help me mount, I took the reins myself and refused his courtesy.

  It earned me a faint smile, as if he knows we’re playing a game.

  “Unless she asks for it,” says the other woman at my side.

  Her smile’s not kind. There are too many teeth in it, and the innuendo raises my hackles. Tall and muscular, she wears her hair tugged back in harsh black braids, and her attire could be a mirror of my sister, Andraste’s.

  Somewhere out there, a tanner is missing half of his finest leather.

  “Eris,” Thalia chides, giving the taller woman a pointed look.

  Eris. Sweet Maia. My eyes widen. This is one of the prince’s generals and his most dangerous weapon. They say she walked onto the battlefield of Nevernight hundreds of years ago and singlehandedly defeated one of the Unseelie armies. She destroyed them with her magic, and when she walked back into camp, she was covered in their blood. Behind her, the field stood quiet and nothing moved.

  Surprisingly, the Destroyer of Nevernight shuts her mouth when the prince’s cousin speaks, even though she could crush Thalia like a glowwyrm.

  “Back on your leash,” I say through a smile.

  The Hallow looms ahead of us, thirteen standing stones erected on the top of the hill.

  The prince lets his horse drop back to my side, and both Thalia and Eris fall back in some unspoken agreement.

  Subtlety at its finest.

  “Save your breath,” I cut in. “You’re charming, but it doesn’t make me trust you an inch. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  He glances at me. “What would make you trust me?”

  “Set me free. Return me to my mother’s court unharmed. Release me from this mockery of a treaty.”

  “I will.” When my gaze jerks to his, he smiles a little. “In three months’ time.”

  “I hate you.”

  “You don’t know me.” There’s something sharp in his voice.

  “I don’t intend to know you. Why are you doing this?” The question has been irritating me all day. “You said I have nothing to fear from you. That you wouldn’t touch me unless I willed it. Then what do you get out this entire arrangement?”

  “Besides picturing the look on your mother’s face every time she thinks of me?”

  “As much as I think you’d enjoy that, I highly doubt you’d have put your kingdom on the line just to spite her.”

  “You don’t know me that well.”

  I glance at him. It’s true. What I’ve heard has been less than flattering, which is typical, considering it came from my mother’s court. The Prince of Evernight is both demon and nightmare, his name spoken in hushed whispers, just in case their words traveled to him on the wind. They called him the Usurper or the Prince of Darkness.

  There have always been seven Seelie kingdoms ruled by queens. When Maia breathed life into the world, she left her seven daughters behind to rule each territory. Each successive queen went through the blood rites that tied her to her kingdom and gave her access to the powerful magic of the land.

  The war changed everything.

  Two of the kingdoms fell: Mistmere and Taranis. Of the five remaining kingdoms, two were left without their queens—or any of the matrilineal lines.

  And so the prince rose. A man who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, serving the previous Queen of Evernight as her warlord before she’d died. He’d won his kingdom through blood and ruin, striking down the queen’s sons and claiming her throne for himself.

  And he’d destroyed any who sought to rise against him.

  “No,” I say softly. “You’re right. I don’t know you well enough to guess.”

  “Do you want to?”

  Know your enemy, my mother’s memory whispers in my ear. “Why not? You can start with what you intend to do with me.”

  “You’re right. There’s more to this arrangement than I’ve admitted, but the truth shall remain between your mother and me for the moment. It does have the satisfactory side advantage of keeping a knife at your mother’s throat for three months. She won’t start a war when I have you at my side.”

  You might be overestimating her fondness for me. “So, I’m to reside in your lands for the duration of the time? Rotting in a prison cell? Or free to roam?”

  Or am I to serve in your bed as your
concubine? Because if that’s the case, then my mother’s not the one you’ll have to watch.

  “Are you sure that’s what you’re really asking?” He glances at me.

  “It had better be.”

  “You will be given your own chambers, and you’ll be free to roam the castle at will,” he replied. “I don’t intend you any harm. I wish you would believe that.”

  In my mother’s kingdom, wishes are worth nothing more than the breath they’re exhaled upon.

  “Perhaps I find it difficult to believe, considering what happened to your wife.”

  He hesitates as he moves to dismount. Just a moment of wariness dashing across his expression before he collects himself. “My wife?” The words are cold and hard. “What have you heard of my wife?”

  “Only that you lost her,” I tell him, “many years ago, and you swore bloody vengeance upon my people for her loss. You blame my mother, so you can understand my reticence.”

  He reaches up to help me dismount, hard eyes locking on me. “You have nothing to fear from me, Your Highness. I would never repay her loss upon an innocent.”

  “And my mother? What of her?”

  “Adaia’s no innocent.” His smile turns dangerous as he sets me on both feet before the Hallow. “One day, I will make your mother rue the moment she ever heard of my marriage.”

  “Even if it destroys her people?” I snort, brushing his hands from my hips. “You speak of not striking the innocent, but you’ll have to plow through them on your way to strike down the queen.”

  The answer is in his eyes. “Only those who rise against me will be considered my enemies. And trust me, Your Highness. The people of Asturia would not stand a chance were I to go to war. You would be wise to warn them against such a move.”

  “If you were as merciful as you claim, you’d not make such a move in the first place.”

  The prince leans closer, the chill early morning wind cutting around the imposing length of his body. “Don’t mistake me, Princess. I’m not merciful. I’m not kind. And I don’t intend to let your mother win this bloody war.” He presses his fingertips to my startled lips. “But you and I have no grievance. Now follow me. Anyone would think you were stalling.”