There had been moments over the course of the last few hours that he had been frightened she’d not only learned his weaknesses, but his very name. All she would have had to do was speak it aloud, just once. And she would have had absolute control over him. All would have been lost.
It had been luck that saved them from that fate. There, but for the luck of the fae. And he’d never been more grateful for it.
Now Caliban ran a tired hand through his jet black hair and swallowed hard. His striking bi-colored gaze once more left the confines of their shielded space to the small field that lay beyond. It was a tiny place in one of the many forests that bordered his lands and separated them from the realm of his brother.
There, in that telling darkness, bodies littered the ground. The younger ones who had been playing games now hung scorched from the trees, their burned limbs tangled in the branches like ropes. Others had fallen across the creek, damming it up like burned logs.
This was what happened when a Wisher was threatened. This was what happened when a Wisher of Minerva’s magnitude lost control.
His only consolation was that Minerva hadn’t seen them die. She didn’t even know they were there. Her magic had simply exploded into the surrounding land, taking out those who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. While in their natural realm, the inhabitants of the Twixt were not visible to anyone but a citizen of the realm. Minerva would not be able to see them until she officially accepted her place as his queen.
He had his work cut out for him if that was ever going to happen.
Chapter One
The doors opened before him of their own accord. In the Unseelie Kingdom, every soul recognized his, as an animal sensing an oncoming earthquake or the rumble of a mighty storm, ears perked and rock listened, and doors opened and made way. The sound of boots on stone echoed in the vast emptiness of the room beyond, sending shockwaves of preparation through the chamber’s inhabitants. There was silence there, in those waiting eyes, those rapid beating hearts, but there was music as well. If it had been audible to a mortal, it would have sounded foreboding, beautiful but deadly. It was a haunting melody that welcomed a haunted sovereign into a room of darkness.
Against the far wall, there was a door. It was a tall, single door with a simple gold turning knob of the type found in nearly every door in the mortal realm. It was the only decoration of note in the large space, which was otherwise marble, smooth and featureless. The room was devoid of furniture or windows. There was only the door before him, and the double doors behind him. But the double doors, despite their larger size, were so very dull and uninteresting compared to the single white door, which was as white as snow. From around the door’s edges, light emitted, outlining the opening with a tempting curiosity. What lay beyond it? Anyone would want to find out.
It was beside this door that two men waited. One was dressed in finery of a style unknown in the mortal realm, hewn in the same dark tones of his approaching king. The other wore the same, but his sleeve had been torn, his collar bloodied, and there were stains upon his knees. He was also in chains.
There were four other men in the room, but these men were clearly soldiers, nearly featureless in their monochromatic synchronicity. They remained standing at the room’s four corners, postures tall, shoulders back, eyes properly fixed on something no one could see.
Caliban approached the two men beside the door. “My liege,” greeted the one holding the other by his cuffed wrists. It was a greeting, a question, and a show of fearful respect.
Caliban said nothing as he closed the distance and stopped before them. He didn’t have to say anything. The bound fae was a Korred, a beautiful man with a black heart and a mind that had drifted unfortunately toward treason. He’d been caught leaking information about Caliban’s borders to Shadow Fae spies. Shadow Fae, otherwise known as Shades, were the dark and sneaky inhabitants of the cross-over land that was partly governed by the Unseelie King and partly by his brother, the Seelie King, Avery. The realm was generally known to fae as the Twixt, and as it contained no real “borders,” its reaches were vast, possessing of a large variety of fae species, from those aligned more with the Seelie to those… not. But their allegiance was to neither.
Shades lived in a portion of the Twixt that also bordered the Shadow Kingdom, much like regions or states of a country could border one another in the mortal realm. They were tainted both by this darkness, and the different kind of darkness inherent in the Unseelie Realm.
Shades wanted nothing more than to dissolve the borders, and allow the unseelie fae to roam freely into the Seelie Realm, where portals to the mortal world were more plentiful. The chaos that would then ensue amongst the mortals would keep both kings so busy, the Shades would be free to slip away unnoticed – into the mortal realm and beyond, where they could become what their souls directed. Thieves. Bounty hunters. Assassins.
And worse.
And not a force in any mortal realm would be able to stop them, much less gather them all up again and imprison them in the borders they were currently kept to. Contrary to uneducated belief, all fae had a dark side. Even those seemingly harmless creatures that roamed free in the Seelie Realm, even the fluffiest of them with large eyes and floppy ears and twitching tails – even those humans would endearingly term “adorable” – were more than what they seemed. But amongst the fae, dark sides and all, some were undoubtedly darker than others.
Most of those lived in Caliban’s realm, and his hold upon them was tight-fisted and brutal. It had to be. Others lived in Damon Chroi’s realm, where goblins resided, and where their king was forced to be as strict and unendingly vigilant as Caliban. The last lived in the in-between realms, such as the border between Caliban’s realm and his brother’s, trapped there because no king wished to guard them alone. That would be foolish.
Shades did not reside there alone, of course. There were others. But the Shades were the most trouble. The others simply bided their time, knowing that one day, one of the kings would slip up, and the plan the Shadow Fae continuously tried to set in motion would finally come to fruition. And they would all be free.
Now, as Caliban approached the traitor who would have brought the fae realms one step closer to that dismal fate, he prepared himself to do what needed to be done. It should have been easy. He’d been here before. Hundreds of times. But regardless of his reputation and the nearly cruel lifespan of men like him, there were some things he would never get used to.
He just had to make certain no one else knew that.
Caliban eyed the white door for just a moment, the hair standing up at the back of his neck. Then he turned and stared the bound man in the eyes. “Caeoren, you’ve betrayed my realm, my people, and most importantly, myself,” he said softly. “I hope the reward was worth it.”
The traitor swallowed audibly, but could not reply. Caliban knew good and well that there was nothing he could say. No matter what the Shades had promised him, nothing was worth what the Unseelie King was about to do. Nothing was worth this particular punishment. Which was why Caliban had to do it. The only way to rule over a nation such as his own was with an iron fist. Unseelie fae were like hungry sharks in a sea devoid of fish. All it took was one whiff of blood, one show of weakness, and the feeding frenzy would begin.
Caliban took a deep breath and decided to put an end to the terrible anticipation that filled the room. He lifted his head, nodded at the nearest guard, and the guard came forward to place his hand on the knob of the single white door.
The prisoner, Caeoren, straightened in his metal bindings, which were partly iron. Caliban could smell his skin scorching under the touch of that particular metal, which was caustic to nearly all fae, seelie and unseelie alike. The only fae, in fact, who had ever proved immune to its effects were the Wish Fae. Why, no one knew.
A newly acquired ring on Caliban’s finger protected him from the iron, should he touch it. He’d worn a ring like this for thousands of years and had been fortunat
e that a replacement was available for the one Minerva had destroyed. Thus far, the young Wisher was the only creature alive who’d been capable of ridding him of it.
Caeoren turned to look at the white door, and stiffened. The man holding him tightened his grip on the prisoner.
Everyone but Caliban and the guard took a step back. Caliban gave the guard another nod, small and meaningful. The guard turned the knob, and the door swung inward, opening with slow precision. Sunlight flooded the white room, filling it with the same glow that had outlined the white door. Caliban gazed into the landscape beyond, taking in the forbidden forest he’d only glimpsed a handful of times in his long existence.
Motes of light captured airborne blossoms that cascaded from bloom-filled willow trees to carpet the thick green grass of the forest floor. A large stream ran clean and pure through a clearing, babbling invitingly as it tumbled over river rocks and pebbles. Mushrooms of rainbow hues gathered in bunches along the river’s banks, along with plush, cushiony mosses.
Butterflies flitted here and there, capturing sunlight that caused their wings to momentarily glow. Birds chirped, and a pleasantly fragrant breeze gently touched the petals of flowers bearing impossibly beautiful markings.
The bound man turned to Caliban with new fear in his eyes. “Please,” he said, and the single word felt as if it were bound to his soul. “Please,” he repeated. “Show mercy.”
The king looked back down.
The prisoner was sweating, moisture darkening his blonde locks and marring his otherwise perfect fae complexion. He was clearly not used to the show of weakness, and it was clearly all he had left. “Kill me instead,” he pled in a whisper.
The room stilled, holding its collective breath. Caliban’s lips turned up mirthlessly, and his piercing eyes hardened into beautiful stones. “If you’d wanted mercy, Caeoren, you should have chosen to live in my brother’s realm.” He shook his head, just once. “Unfortunately for you, you chose mine.”
He turned away from the prisoner. “See him in.”
The forest beyond the white door was the most beautiful in the fae ream, yet its beauty was balanced out with an equal measure of ugliness.
The prisoner began to struggle. The heels of his boots attempted to find purchase as the guards edged him over the threshold of the door.
The Unseelie King couldn’t blame him for fighting. He’d never condemned anyone who hadn’t fought, not when it came to this particular fate. The land beyond the door belonged to the most deceptive of creatures in the fae realms: The unicorn.
“Please!” the man bellowed frantically. He had no magic to use to aid him in escape. There was no recourse remaining. Caliban had seen to that.
“I shared nothing! Nothing has been lost to you!”
That much was true. Caliban had discovered the man’s treachery before any real damage had been done. The Shades were denied their inside information, and Caeoren was taken into custody. But second chances were not in Cal’s repertoire.
“Try to think happy thoughts,” Caliban advised icily. Then, as the man was thrown violently into the land beyond, and its portal sliced open and shut with tight, imprisoning magic, the Unseelie King turned on his heel to make his way calmly to the double doors across the room.
There were screams behind him that died into muffled agony as the white door was closed once more. No lock was necessary. No one would willingly enter the unicorn’s forest.
Once upon a distant time, unicorns had been different. They’d been worthy of the stories humans now told of them. But one day, a curse befell them. It was a curse among curses, and one laid upon them by no other than a Wisher. Out of spite, out of jealousy, or perhaps some sudden fit of anger – no one would ever know. The Wisher then died at the hands of the very creatures he had cursed. And everything changed.
Unicorns became what they were today and what they had been for thousands of years.
The noble unicorn was a beautiful creature made of great magic. But contrary to popular human tales, they were not born as the majestic creatures featured on tapestries adorning mansions and castles in the mortal realm. They were in fact born with dull coats, mottled and mousy, and without horns.
A unicorn’s beauty came over time. It was the direct result of the maddening agony it inflicted upon its victims.
Unicorns possessed the power to cause their victims to witness first-hand their very worst fears. This would be done over and over again, and little by little, the unicorn’s coat would slowly transform into the pure white or black that mortals associated with it. Every tear a unicorn’s victims shed was a diamond dust shimmer upon its coat, adding to its otherworldly beauty. And as its victim’s torture crescendoed to a pain so vast it brought the victim death, the unicorn at last earned its horn.
Over and over again, one unicorn after another matured in this grisly manner. The more innocent the victim, the worse its pain, for there was no jaded emotional armor to protect it. Women… children. All manner of fae and mortal fell before the cursed wrath of the unicorn.
This was why Caliban and his brother had finally locked the creatures away in their own land, one off-limits to all fae, and impossible to reach but through that single, white door.
Caeoren would suffer his worst fears as if he were living them out, feeling every agonizing detail, time and again, until he at last drew his final, merciful breath.
Caliban had just aided in the final transformation of a unicorn. There was no more evil deed.
As he left the judgment chamber and entered another portal that took him to the landing strip of a private black jet, he tried not to let his internal distress show. He knew he would succeed. He’d had eons to practice honing the cold expression on his handsome face and the icicles in his amethyst gaze.
No one would ever suspect that he hated himself for what he’d done. No one would know that he once more questioned not only his decision, but his very existence. And no one would have the faintest inkling that he was comparing himself to the Goblin King in that moment, thinking that even Damon Chroi could get a woman to love him in that god-forsaken prison of a realm the Goblin King had been banished to thousands of years ago…. But that there was no way in any living hell Minerva Trystaine would come to accept Caliban’s cruelty, much less love him in spite of it.
A sudden pain across his chest lanced through his internal thoughts, and he looked down, absently placing his hand over his heart. The wounds Minerva had given him during their battle were refusing to heal. She’d located every item made of iron or its composite that she could and thrown it at him. She’d tried her very best to kill him.
The wounds were what the fae would term iron-borne, and it would take great strength to heal them. Even then, they would scar.
Caliban dropped his hand and approached his plane.
But despite his confident step and unreadable expression, hope bled out of him along with every fresh drop of blood his iron-borne wounds gave up. In that desperate, pain-filled moment, Caliban experienced very real doubt. There was no way he was going to win Minerva as his queen. Not on this chess board.
No way in hell.
Chapter Two
Lalura Chantelle turned the bag over, allowing the apples within it to topple into the waiting basket upon her table. Then she stilled.
The centuries-old Cimaruta pendant beneath her blouse pulsed warmly with warning. She placed her hand to it for a moment, her gaze re-focusing upon the apples in the basket. A moment later, she reached into the basket, bypassing the apples on top for one in the middle. She pulled it out and turned it over in her hands.
It was a seemingly perfect apple, round and crisp looking, red-orange and unmarred. Lalura turned in her kitchen and made her way to the chopping block on the island at its center. There, she placed the apple upon the wood, grabbed a large knife, and slammed the blade home with practiced precision and a strength unlikely for her apparently frail form.
The knife sliced clean through the apple’s cen
ter, and the two halves tipped away from the metal onto their sides, revealing the apple’s interior. Lalura deftly placed the knife to the side – and narrowed her gaze.
The apple that had been perfect on the outside, for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from the others, was in fact quite different where it mattered. Marring the otherwise pristine glistening white of its inner fruit was a large black hole. As Lalura watched, a small black worm wiggled from this grimy hole, extending itself as it to sniff the air for the source of its home’s intrusion.
Lalura picked up the bad apple and turned it slowly in her hand. There was a part of her, no matter how old or wizened, that could not believe what she was seeing, that did not wish to accept the truth of this revelation. Not here – not them. Not amongst the Thirteen.
But she had lived a long time and learned a great many lessons. Not the least of those lessons was that things were not always as they seemed, no matter how much you may wish to believe otherwise. And, very unfortunately, fruit was not the only thing that could rot from the inside out.
Lalura moved through the kitchen to the back door, where she opened it and tossed out the rotten apple that would have spoiled the bunch had she not revealed it for what it was and separated it from the others. Then, very softly, she sighed. “There is a traitor among us.”
*****
“I know you’re worried,” he said softly, leaning across the table to capture her gaze well and firmly within his. “If I could turn back time….” He shook his head, taking a deep breath and expelling it with resignation. “But only the Time King can do that.” He blinked. “Or, could have at one point…..”
He frowned and closed his eyes for a moment, as if forcing himself to return to the subject at hand. “But you must believe me when I tell you that your sister is with Cal right now, and the best thing we can do for her is to not go looking for her.”
The Unseelie King (The Kings Book 6) Page 2
