The Emperor of Evening Stars (The Bargainer Book 3)

by Laura Thalassa

  … enemy …

  … amongst you …

  Shit.

  “Ambush!” someone outside yells a second later.

  Without a backwards glance, I storm out of the dining hall. Night soldiers are scrambling around me, grabbing for their weapons. Moving like a wave amongst them are fairies in golden uniforms.

  Day soldiers.

  I don’t have time to grab my armor. All I have is the sword in my hand.

  I leap into the air and join the fray, my sword arm swinging as I begin to carve into the enemy. They’re everywhere, around us and above us, setting fire to tents and cutting down the unsuspecting Night soldiers.

  “Desmond!” Malaki’s voice comes from somewhere up and to my left.

  It’s the sound of my true name that draws my attention to him.

  I glance towards Malaki just in time to stare at the sun. As I look at it, it dims just enough for me to see the bright gold of a ranking Day soldier’s uniform. He’s coming at me from above, his weapon already slashing down at me.

  There isn’t enough time to block the attack. If I do nothing, I’m a dead man. There will be no revenge, no mate, no tomorrow. There will only be what comes next, after fairies die.

  Just as I’m about to melt into darkness, a shadow knocks me out of the way.

  My wings fold up in surprise, and I tumble through the sky. It takes several seconds to right myself, and when I do, I see something turns my blood cold. Poised where I was moments before is Malaki.

  His arm is up, blocking the bulk of the strike with his forearm, but the enemy’s blade still cuts through his face, so deep it had to have hit something critical.

  For a split second, the world goes quiet.

  My friend, my beloved friend. He’s protected my secret from the world, and now he’s taken a sword for me.

  I roar, shattering the silence.

  Darkness blasts out of me, devouring my enemies and flooding the dawn with shadows. With effort, I rein my power back inside me before the nearest soldiers can do more than look puzzledly around them. No one knows about the extent of my power.

  Malaki’s wings fold, and now he’s the one falling from the sky. My magic thunders through my veins as I fly towards him. I can barely breathe through the pain in my chest. I close the distance between us and catch him in my arms.

  “I’ve got you, friend,” I say.

  His face is a mess of blood and pulpy things. One of his eyes is gone; the other is unfocused.

  I glance to the sky in time to see the bright Day soldier staring at me stonily. My hands tighten around Malaki.

  Very deliberately the soldier turns his back to me and resumes the fight in the air.

  He doesn’t consider me a threat. His mistake.

  I lower Malaki and myself to the ground. My friend needs a healer, but right now even healers are fighting for their lives. The best I can do is take away his pain. I run a hand over his face, feeling his agony throb against my palm before my magic eats through it. It will only last an hour or so. I hope that’s long enough.

  I look around the burning outpost. Nowhere to hide him. Half of the tents are on fire, and the rest are soon to follow. I settle for laying him across a stack of abandoned belongings sitting on the outskirts of our camp, positioning Malaki to look like he’s been struck down. That’s the best disguise I can give him.

  I move away from him. I have to believe he’ll be okay for now.

  “I’ll be back, my friend,” I promise.

  Revenge calls first.

  I soar into the sky, my eyes scouring the heavens. My fury sings through my veins. Enemy soldiers don’t have time to touch me; my darkness snaps out, feasting on them one by one. I’m damning myself by letting my power seep out of me so recklessly, but I’ve never been so close to losing my friend.

  He was willing to die for you.

  Only one other person cared about me that intensely, and she did die for it.

  Below, the world is on fire. Malaki doesn’t have much time. This needs to end. One way or another I’ll make sure it does.

  I spot the luminous Day fairy far in the distance. He makes quick work of Night soldiers; they fall from the sky one by one.

  I head towards him, my wings beating like mad. His form pulses with blinding light. He must be a royal. His power is practically pouring out of him.

  I reach him just as he rips his sword from the belly of another Night soldier.

  My body nearly shakes with the need to charge into the duel. Instead, I come to a stop half a wingspan from the Day soldier.

  Control, Desmond.

  His blade drips with blood. But as I watch, the blood bubbles and hisses on the metal until it dissolves away. Enchanted to stay perpetually clean.

  I take the rest of him in. Tan skin and hair like spun gold. Eyes bluer than topaz. Skin bright like the sun. I’ve only heard stories of the Soleil twins, but I’m guessing this is one of them.

  The Day royal rolls his wrist, his sword whistling as it makes a figure eight in the air. “Back for more, shadow-whore?”

  I tighten my grip on my own sword.

  This fucker nearly killed my dearest friend. He needs to die.

  My power is doubling on itself and yearning to break free. But I’m not interested in wiping this fairy out with my magic. I want to take his head the old fashioned way.

  So I wait.

  When I make no move to attack him, he sighs, looking off to the horizon and loosening his shoulders, making it plain that it’s tedious to deal with foot soldiers like me. Reluctantly he returns his attention to me and makes his move, closing the distance between us. All the while I hover there in the air, waiting.

  He swings his weapon, the sword arcing through the air. My arm snaps out, my blade connecting solidly with his. He jerks with surprise. Surely he didn’t think I’d be that easy to kill a second time?

  He yanks his own blade back, and I let him, still making no offensive move.

  He blinded Malaki. Should’ve been me.

  That last thought, more than anything, fuels my rage.

  Another Day soldier closes in on me. While still staring at the Day royal, I carve my blade up the incoming soldier’s chest, splitting him open. With a cry, he falls away.

  “Is that supposed to impress me?” the Day royal asks.

  I don’t answer.

  “Can you talk at all?”

  When I don’t respond, he glances away from me for a split second.

  His mistake.

  I move in then, swinging my blade. It slices through the skin of his shoulder.

  He cries out as blood blooms from the injury, seeping into his gold uniform.

  “First rule of battle: don’t underestimate your enemy.”

  With a cry, the Day royal lifts his sword and charges me, and then the two of us are locked in combat.

  Left, right, upper cut, downward strike. We’re a flurry of movement. Our metal blades sing as they meet, sparks dancing from the power behind each swing. He’s impressively good, but he thinks he’s better than a common soldier like me. There’s nothing like cockiness to get you killed quickly on the battlefield. Death doesn’t care whether you were born a king or a beggar.

  I meet each stroke of his blade. He should be the better swordsman; I’m sure he has decades of life on me and the best instructors money can buy. But I have my gossiping shadows and my angst and vengeance. That and almost twenty years’ worth of constant warring. It’s a surprisingly useful mix of factors, and I’ve single-mindedly used them to master how to fight. After all, I know I’ll need more than just magic and cunning to defeat the Shadow King.

  Once the Day royal starts breathing hard, I begin to fight him in earnest. His eyes widen for the briefest of moments when he realizes that I’ve been holding back.

  Now I’m the one on the offensive, and he’s trying to stop each of my successive blows. My cold, calculating rage has taken over. It’s in my every movement. I couldn’t stop myself if I t
ried.

  I raise my sword high and bring it down. He deflects my blow, and in the process leaves his stomach exposed, giving me my opening.

  I pull my weapon away, and, bringing my sword arm back, I drive it forward, into his gut. It slides cleanly in one side and out the other.

  The Day royal’s eyes widen. Did he think he was impervious to injury? To death? The way he’s looking at me, he must’ve.

  His sword-bearing arm droops as he lets out a choke.

  With a slick, wet sound, I pull my weapon out of him.

  His hand moves to the wound, his mouth opening and closing. Then his eyes roll back and his wings fold up. He begins to fall from the sky.

  I stare down at him as his body tumbles. I should finish him off; all I did was gravely injure him. But the human woman was right, I am not like my father. I hate the art of killing.

  So I let him go.

  The ambush comes to an end shortly afterwards. The Day royal was in fact one of the Day King’s twin heirs. He’d been the mastermind behind the ambush, and once he’d fallen, his troops lost their nerve and retreated, carting him and the other wounded back with them.

  I don’t bother watching their retreat. Instead I swoop down to camp. Malaki still lays where I left him, his one good eye closed, his pulse weak. Hauling him into my arms, I sprint to what’s left of the healer’s tent.

  Already there are injured soldiers lining most of the pallets and only a few healers who’ve trickled in from battle to help the wounded, but the place is not yet swarming with the injured like it will be in another hour. Shortly after I lay Malaki out, a healer comes over to us and begins working on him.

  “Will he live?” I ask ten minutes in. Malaki hasn’t so much as twitched since we arrived.

  The healer nods, not looking up from his work. “Aye, he’ll live. The wound looks bad, but the cut is actually quite clean. He’ll lose the eye, and he’ll carry a scar for the rest of his life, but his mind is intact.”

  I sag both in relief and defeat. He’s going to be scarred and sightless in one eye. Fairies love beauty; having this kind of deformity means that Malaki, who loves women as much as I do, will be seen as undesirable.

  “You should go. He needs time to rest.” The healer says it nicely enough, but it’s less a suggestion and more an order. Injured soldiers are piling up, and the last thing anyone needs are hovering comrades.

  Reluctantly, I stand, and it feels like I’m lifting the world up as I do so. Everything is so heavy—my muscles, my bones, my heart, my mind.

  “You’ll tell me if he gets worse?” I ask.

  “Of course,” the healer says. It’s a lie and we both know it. There are too many patients here to keep track of one man.

  “Come back in the morning,” he adds. “He’ll be better then.”

  I take a shaky breath and head out of the tent.

  “Nova!”

  Distracted as I am, I almost don’t react to my fake surname.

  I glance up at one of the Night generals. She’s across the way, but quickly striding over to me.

  I stand at attention and touch my fingers to my forehead out of respect.

  The fairy waves the action away. “I saw what you did out there,” she says.

  For a second I think she’s talking about my momentary lapse of power, when my darkness had seeped out of me, and I tense. If the right person noticed—say, this shrewd general—they’d know that only a Night fae from the royal bloodline could have such extensive magic.

  “I saw the tail end of your duel with the Day soldier,” she says, and I relax a little. “You know that wasn’t just any Day fae; that was Julios Soleil, one of the king’s sons.”

  I raise my eyebrows. My assumption had been correct.

  “You are the reason they retreated.” She gives me a meaningful look. “I’ll make sure the king hears of your valor; your sacrifice will not go unrewarded.”

  I stare at the general, my heartbeat growing louder and louder with each passing second until it is a drumbeat between my ears.

  She means to tell the king. Striking down one of the enemy’s sons is big. The kind of big that gets you medaled. The kind of big that allows you to meet the king.

  I can feel the wheels of fate turning; after all this time, I’ll finally get that meeting with my father. The victory feels hollow. Had I not been so set on revenge, Malaki and I would not be here, and he would’ve never gotten hurt.

  “Thank you,” I say, my voice hoarse.

  The general nods at me, then takes her leave, heading into the medic tent.

  My heart’s heavy as I make my way back to my own tent. I pass the dining hall, somewhat surprised to see it intact. I pause, then stride inside, making a beeline for the barrel of spirits.

  Five steps in, I stop in my tracks. Several bodies lay scattered on the floor, one is a Day soldier, and three others are Night fae. But it’s not the sight of them that closes up my throat.

  Lying only a few paces away from me is the gutted body of the human woman I shared a drink with. Her sharp eyes now stare sightlessly at the ceiling, and her mouth hangs loosely open.

  I stagger over to a nearby table and fall into one of the chairs, my eyes locked on her.

  I don’t know why it’s her death that breaks me.

  She was just a human, slated to die within a few decades anyway. I didn’t know her name, and a day ago, I wouldn’t have thought it worth knowing. But I was wrong. We have all been wrong. Humans aren’t just slaves to free. They’re not the coarse, slow creatures I’ve been taught to think of them as.

  I cover my eyes with a hand, and I weep.

  For Malaki, for this woman, for this misguided life of mine.

  I’ve been so busy trying to fill the world with my hate that I’ve left no room for anything else.

  Tonight, that changes.

  I swear to the Undying Gods that once I’m able to, I will scour the earth for my soulmate. I’ll put my past behind me and focus on the future. And when I find her—if I find her—I won’t waste time fearing what others will think. I’ll cherish her, respect her, love her.

  For all the days of her mortal life, I’ll claim her as mine.

  Chapter 7

  To Kill a King

  220 years ago

  The day of reckoning has come.

  I can’t say how many nights I fantasized about facing my father, but I’m sure that in every one of them, I was more bloodthirsty than I am now.

  Today, I’m simply determined.

  The royal guards collect me from the waiting room I’ve been sitting in for the last several hours and lead me across the palace grounds, their faces stoic.

  We mount the castle steps, my black leather armor shining dully under the stars, and then I’m passing through the bronze double doors.

  I can hear the steady thrum of my pulse like a drumbeat. I’m either walking out of this place with my father’s head, or I’m not walking out of here at all.

  The closed doors of the throne room loom ahead. The soldiers and I come to a halt in front of them while we wait to be seen. It takes nearly twenty minutes, but eventually I hear the muffled words of the official announcing my presence. A moment later, the doors are thrown open, and I’m escorted in.

  I lift my chin. I want to him to see my face. To recognize me after all these years.

  The king lounges on his throne, his attention turned to an aid at his side. Behind him, guards line the back wall. Off to either side of the dais are a few of his concubines, recognizable by their immense beauty and sheer outfits, their skin rubbed with gossamer to shimmer under the light.

  I get all the way down the aisle, and then the guards that surround me halt. The king still hasn’t bothered to look at me.

  I bend a knee and bow my head.

  I wait another minute before I’m addressed.

  “Ah, our victorious soldier,” the king finally says, his attention now most certainly on me, “who wounded one of the Day Kingdom’s heirs an
d saved his company from an ambush. Two cuffs for a single act. Impressive.”

  Even though he hasn’t recognized me at this point, I can tell he doesn’t like me. Annoyance and even a bit of sarcasm are rolled into his voice. There is probably nothing more peevish to a tyrant than a man who is actually honorable.

  Not that I’m that man. But I savor his displeasure, regardless.

  “This is not your first war cuff either, I see,” he continues.

  I feel the weight of that first one on my arm. It represents years of scheming and fighting and hoping. It represents bitter disappointment and a missed opportunity—one that will be rectified today.

  “Rise.”

  Calm washes over me.

  I stand, my head the last thing to straighten. For the first time in three decades, my eyes meet my father’s.

  For a moment, his face is free of all expression. And then, like lightning striking, I see recognition flood his features.

  “You,” he says. His gaze moves to the men stationed around the room. “Guar—”

  Before the word can fully escape his mouth, I release my magic. My shadows blast out of me, darkening the room.

  Galleghar’s soldiers rush forward, their wings flaring out. The rest of the room scrambles for the exits, shouting in confusion and fear.

  I bar the great doors to the throne room, the intricate locks that line its seam clicking as they engage one by one. Then I seal the side exits shut.

  The Night King and I stare at each other across the room as my shadows smother the light and the soldiers close in on me, descending the place into the darkness.

  The corner of my mouth curls into a smile.

  Feast, I command my shadows. In an instant they devour the soldiers caught in their web.

  The rest of the fairies in the room are in full blown panic. Men and women are scrambling over each other, their wings materializing as they try to wrench the doors open.

  I wait for Galleghar’s retaliatory magic to hit me. I’m ready for it; hell, I’ll relish the pain. But the attack doesn’t come. In one instant the Night King is staring me down, and in the next he’s gone, fleeing me just as he did the last time we met.