A Cursed Reign (Whims of Fae Book 5)

by Nissa Leder

  It was the right place to be. When she appeared, she found Raith, Sage, and Vida all discussing something in hushed voices.

  “You’re back,” Vida said when she saw Scarlett. “Was it a success?”

  “I’ll tell you more later, but right now we have a problem. Ankou—”

  Raith interrupted, “Took my mother. We’re coming up with a plan—”

  Scarlett continued, “—is about to sacrifice your mother and my friends.”

  “What? Why?” Sage asked.

  “I have no idea. I’ve been having these visions and I saw him. We don’t have long.”

  “What do you need from me?” Vida asked.

  There wasn’t time to get a large party together. “You are the fiercest Sidhe warrior we have, and as much as we could use your help, I need you to remain behind and secure the castle. I need my sister kept safe.”

  She didn’t want anything to happen to Ashleigh. Although she wanted to go give her a hug and assure her she’d be back soon, she didn’t know what would happen and refused to make promises she couldn’t keep.

  Vida placed a fist over her heart. “Of course, my queen.”

  There was only one portal into the mortal world that Scarlett knew of, and it would take them directly to the forest. It would be the quickest, but it wouldn’t allow them to scout the area before attacking. She couldn’t be rash. Not this time.

  “We will go to the Unseelie Court then evanesce from there.” Everything inside Scarlett told her to panic, but with a deep breath, she remained calm. Hysteria would not save her friends.

  As they all headed toward the door, Raith winced.

  “Maybe you should stay.” Scarlett hated to suggest it, but he was still hurt from Ankou’s magic. Plus, with his mother tied up, he would be distracted. “Your mother wouldn’t want you in danger.”

  “I’m going,” he said, and Scarlett knew he couldn’t be dissuaded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Scarlett, Raith, and Sage went directly to the portal room and to the Unseelie Court. Once through, Scarlett paused. She could evanesce them all from right there. There wasn’t time to waste. But three versus however many Ankou had weren’t great odds, even if he didn’t expect they were coming.

  Instead, Scarlett reached out her mind and found Kaelem’s.

  When he answered her knock, she said, Ankou is doing another ritual.

  You’re here? Kaelem replied. I’m in the parlor.

  Scarlett grabbed onto Raith and Sage’s hands and evanesced them all to the parlor.

  Kaelem sat on the couch with his arms spread wide across its back. To Scarlett’s surprise, Cade and Poppy sat in chairs facing him.

  “What’s wrong?” Kaelem pulled his arms in and stood.

  Scarlett hesitated. What were Cade and Poppy doing there?

  They’re on our side, he told her. Cade was working for me when he joined them, but a lot has changed and he and Poppy are staying here now.

  What? He hadn’t told her. She didn’t have time to ask questions, though, so she would need to take his word for it.

  “I had a vision.” Scarlett told everyone in the room about what she saw. “I don’t know what he’s doing, but I can’t let him hurt my friends.”

  Did you get it? Kaelem asked.

  He didn’t have to specify what he meant. She knew it was the dagger. Yes, it’s in my boot.

  “We better go,” Kaelem said.

  Cade and Poppy both nodded.

  “Let us grab our weapons,” Cade said.

  “You’re going to help?” Scarlett didn’t mean for her tone to seem so surprised.

  “I don’t want them even thinking I’m on their side anymore,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but it was a conversation for another time.

  And they needed all the help they could get.

  Sage’s first instinct when she saw Cade and Poppy in the Unseelie Palace was shock, but it quickly settled and somehow the surprise vanished. After spending so much time with them on their quest for the power the tree held, she’d grown to respect them both. Poppy was annoyingly confident and reminded Sage a lot of herself. Cade seemed more unsure, but she could sense kindness in him.

  Their unlikely group had reunited again and evanesced to the same forest they’d all gone to during their first trip to the Otherworld.

  Scarlett had guided them just outside the forest, claiming that Ankou, protected by creatures called redcaps, wasn’t very far inside.

  “The sun has almost set. We don’t have time to think this through,” Scarlett said.

  “Then let’s go,” Kaelem said.

  Next to Sage, Raith rolled his eyes.

  She couldn’t help but laugh. They were about to go fight Ankou and all of his minions and Raith still found the energy to be annoyed at Kaelem because of some competition over Scarlett.

  “We should split up,” Poppy said. “If we all attack from the same angle, they will know exactly how many of us there are. But if we take them from the outside, we will seem bigger.”

  Everyone agreed, so they all separated.

  Sage went the furthest around, weaving in and out of trees. She was going to continue and come in from what she thought would be the backside of the tree, but when she saw him, she froze.

  Ahead of her, back turned, stood her brother, mumbling under his breath.

  Her bow was strapped to her back. Within seconds, she could have it drawn and aimed with a bow ready to shoot. He wouldn’t see it coming.

  Just as her father hadn’t seen Ajax’s attack coming.

  It was the coward’s way, and even if he deserved it, Sage refused to sink to that level.

  “What have you become?” she asked.

  Startled, Ajax flipped around, sword raised. “What are you doing here?”

  Sage bent down and drew the daggers from her boots then approached him. “I’m here to fight against the enemy.”

  Ajax scanned the area. “It isn’t safe. Please. They are too powerful to be defeated.” The fear was thick in his voice.

  “It isn’t too late. You can still do the right thing.” Truthfully, he could never make up for what he’d done. But he could switch paths and try to make amends for his mistakes. “They don’t want what’s best for the Autumn Court. If they win this war, they’ll ruin Faerie as we know it.”

  Ajax lowered his voice. “There is no defying them. I can’t change anything now.”

  Sage didn’t know what to say, but even if she had, there was no more time. A redcap leaped from the trees, grasping for her body. She twisted just in time, but another one gripped her from behind.

  She twisted her dagger and plunged it into its stomach. It whined and released its grip. Two more lunged at her from the sides. As she fought one off, the other dug its nails into her side.

  Sage inhaled through the pain and stared at the tree branch above. She used her magic to bring it down, slicing like a sword through the top of the redcap’s head.

  Ajax stared at her, unmoving.

  “I’m going to help my friends,” Sage said. “I will fight you if you try to stop me.”

  He stared at her for a moment before sticking his sword into the ground. “Go. But I can’t help you. They will kill me.”

  Her once self-assured, sometimes annoyingly so, brother had never looked so afraid. She wanted to convince him to come and join their side, but there was no time.

  Instead, she sprinted past him, further into the forest, and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake in letting him live.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Scarlett took the direct path from where they evanesced to where Ankou was. Fury boiled in her blood, causing her tattoos to tingle. She tightly gripped her staff with both hands as she drew closer. It had been Dana’s staff, a queen beloved by her people and willing to sacrifice her own life to allow peace for as long as she could.

  She’d made the choice to give up immortality with the hope that some day her ancestor
could destroy Ankou. Scarlett still questioned how the idea made sense. From everything she’d heard and read, Dana had been powerful, not seduced by darkness. Scarlett, on the other hand, constantly felt its pull.

  The coolness of the dagger pressed into her skin. She needed to keep it hidden until the time was right. But Avel’s warning of the rules played in her head: it couldn’t be her that killed him. Someone else had to be the one and that someone must take his place as ruler of the Darkland. Who could she ask to do that?

  When the first redcap noticed her approaching, it squealed, pulling her from her thoughts. Like a domino effect, the squawking ricocheted around the circle of redcaps.

  Scarlett focused her light into the staff and her hand and sent out a pulse striking three of the redcaps in the chest. The rest shrieked even louder until Ankou ordered them to calm down and part.

  “Scarlett, welcome. I’m surprised you decided to join us.” Ankou stepped out from the circle of redcaps. He wore all black, as usual, perfectly fitting the cliché of villain. Instead of a face full of warts that one might except, he was handsome. Impressively so. With a cocky grin and cunning eyes. “Even more shocked you even knew we were here. Do I sense a spy in our midst?”

  He didn’t know about her visions. She’d wondered—even worried—it might all be a trap. That he’d sent her the visions to lure her into it. It seemed that wasn’t so.

  “Perhaps,” Scarlett said. “I’m here to retrieve my friends. Playtime is over.” She kept her voice as cool as she could. Showing desperation or fear would not be in her best interest.

  “Oh, I hate to disappoint, but I’m afraid I need them just a little bit longer,” Ankou said. “Then you can have what’s left of them.”

  Without thinking, Scarlett shot a beam of light at him from the staff. He sent up a shield of shadow. When the light hit it, it fizzled out.

  “Now, now. What ever happened to playing nice?” Ankou lowered the shadow.

  “Let them go. Now.” Scarlett felt the darkness inside her pulsating. Her fury fed it and it wanted out.

  “I’ll be perfectly happy to trade. How about you bring me your sister and I’ll give you any of the three?” His eyebrow arched as he shrugged. “I had been hoping to use her most of all.”

  “Fuck you,” Scarlett said.

  “Is that any kind of language for a queen? Dana would have never even thought such vile words.”

  Scarlett sent out another pulse of light. Ankou blocked it with ease.

  “You aren’t a match for me. Give up now and I’ll let you live to fight me another day,” he said.

  “What do you even want with them?” Scarlett needed to stall a little longer to give the others time to take their positions.

  “Your blood freed me from the curse keeping me tied to the Darkland, but I’m capable of so much more.” He glanced to the sky, the blue fading into a deep pink. “This tree holds the magic of the mortal realm, locked away by someone long ago to keep the mortal realm pure, the only realm not meant to have supernatural inhabitants. It took my daughters years of digging, but finally, they found out how to release its power.”

  More magic? If he got more power, how would they ever stop him? “Why do you need them?”

  “There is always a price to magic,” Ankou said. “The cost for this is three stolen souls.”

  “But why them?” Scarlett fought back tears. She just needed to keep it together a little longer. Then she could save them.

  She’d avoided it as long as she could, but her gaze drifted behind Ankou to the three stakes. Teddy, Natalie, and Rowen all stared at her. She could hear the racing hearts of her two mortal friends, understandably shocked and afraid. Rowen was much calmer, but the wrath in her aura was impossible to miss.

  Rowen was a warrior. She knew the risks. Teddy and Natalie were innocent. They weren’t part of the world of magic and didn’t deserve to be dragged into it.

  “Particular souls are required. They must be grieved by a realm ruler. Our magic is the same magic in the tree. To release it, sacrifice must be made, and, well, better your loved ones than mine.”

  Scarlett couldn’t resist any longer. The darkness inside her boiled in her veins, filling her full of hate. A beam of light blared from her staff as she lunged at Ankou.

  A glimmer of shock flickered on his face before his own rage set in. A shield of shadow protected him from the oncoming light then the shield turned into a long rope he swung at Scarlett’s head.

  She raised her staff, slicing right through the shadow.

  “Now,” Ankou yelled as he dodged Scarlett’s strikes.

  Behind him, Morta and Decuma threw strings of shadow around Teddy and Natalie. They twisted around their necks and tightened, both humans struggling for air.

  Kaelem and Raith lunged from the left side, Poppy and Cade from the right. From above, somewhere in the branches, Sage dropped.

  Scarlett swung her staff at Ankou’s head.

  He laughed, easily blocking it with two daggers made of shadow. “You’re too late. It’s your last chance to flee.”

  Scarlett felt the fear radiating from her friends. She threw a ball of light from her right hand, hitting Ankou’s leg. As he looked at the wound, she threw a lasso of light around his neck and pulled. “How does it feel?”

  Madness gripped her as she yanked it tighter.

  He used one of the daggers to slice the rope, gasping as the light disappeared.

  Something struck Scarlett from behind.

  She turned to see a bow stuck into her shoulder blade and Morta smiling in the distance. When she turned back, she saw the daggers leave Ankou’s hands.

  Time slowed as the blades flew through the air and hit Teddy and Natalie each in the heart.

  “No!” Scarlett yelled as he created another a shadow dagger.

  As he flicked it toward Rowen, Scarlett closed her eyes and evanesced in front of her.

  Pain filled her as the dagger hit her in the stomach. She felt the emptiness next to her. Her friends were gone; the presences of their minds she should have sensed weren’t there. She yanked out the dagger, a wave of lightheadedness washing through her.

  She needed to release Rowen. As she was about to throw up a shield of light, she stopped. Ankou’s shadow could penetrate it too easily. Instead, she threw up a shadow enclosure, trapping her and Rowen inside.

  “You’ll be okay.” Her voice shook.

  Ankou had evanesced to her and pounded against the protective shield to no avail.

  Scarlett created a blade of light and cut through Rowen’s ties then undid the gag.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rowen said. “I couldn’t save them.”

  Scarlett swallowed. “We need to get out of here now before he can complete the spell.” She pulled back the shadows around them.

  “Too bad you couldn’t save them.” Ankou smirked as he glanced at Teddy and Natalie, their heads hanging forward.

  Scarlett filled with fury. She threw a wave of light at Ankou, who easily blocked it. She’d planned on retreating, saving their battle for another day, but that wouldn’t do.

  He needed to pay for what he’d done.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Raith exhaled a long breath as he saw his mother freed from the stake. He’d watched the life leave the mortals and had surprised himself by feeling sadness.

  He didn’t know the male, but he’d held a fondness for Natalie since bringing her to Faerie to get under his brother’s skin during the Battle of Heirs preparation. He’d been using her for a plan, but he also learned more about her during that time. Her struggles, her strengths, her friendship for Scarlett.

  And now she was dead.

  But his mother had lived, and for that, he was thankful.

  “I’ve missed you, my pet,” Decuma said behind him. “Looks like father got you pretty good.”

  Raith turned, daggers raised. “I’ll survive.”

  “That’s still to be decided.” She created a shadow sword an
d swung it at him.

  Raith winced as he blocked her attack. He ignored the pain and instead, focused on Decuma. His daggers would be no match for her shadows. He needed another approach. As he lifted his weapons, he focused on the tree roots at Decuma’s feet. He used his Autumn magic to turn the roots snakelike, curling them around her feet then yanking her to the ground.

  For a moment, this held her in place. With her hands pinned to her sides, she laughed.

  “Your determination is darling,” she said.

  Raith plunged his daggers at her face, but before they struck her, she disappeared, causing his daggers to stab into the earth.

  Something tapped his shoulder.

  He turned to see her smirking.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t give up, I’ll be forced to.” She sighed.

  Raith used the tree roots again to trip her.

  As they curled around her and trapped her again, she groaned.

  Scarlett hurled more light at Ankou, taking in the scene around her as Ankou blocked her attacks.

  Kaelem and Sage fought Morta together while Cade and Poppy and Rowen faced the redcaps. Raith had Decuma pinned to the ground.

  She couldn’t risk anyone else’s life. Losing any more friends would only make things worse. But she couldn’t let Ankou get away with what he’d done. She was a Sidhe ruler, too. Her power should be just as feared as his.

  Instinctively, Scarlett pulled the dagger from her boot and lifted it in front of her, pointing at him.

  Ankou’s eyes widened as he realized what she held. “How?”

  A vision attacked Scarlett.

  Ankou faced a pale, dark-haired woman. Strands of silver mixed in with her black locks. “Please. I can keep you with me.”

  Half-dried tears lingered on her cheeks. “You know I can’t. My time has come.”

  “Please,” he repeated. “This is the only way for us to be together. The curse has kept us apart for so long.”

  She dipped her head. “I’m sorry. You must let me go.”

  “No.” Ankou lunged toward her and rested his hand on her shoulder as he closed his eyes.