“Surrender, Highness.” Stavrin’s glaive is pointed right at my throat. The sharp tip grazes me, and a trickle of blood rolls down my neck. “Do as your father bids and marry me.”
Oh, right. That. I’d forgotten.
“Fat chance, pal.”
Stavrin raises his helm to look me and speaks in grave tones. “Then you go no further.”
I roll my eyes. “Someone’s been watching too much Lord of the Rings.” I rack my brain, trying to think of a way out. All around us, the three kids are destroying Rook after Rook, but Father always makes more. Einslie still clings to me. Poor kid. She’s no use in a fight.
Except, she’s still a liannan sidhe. And that means…
“Hey, Stavrin,” I call. “Catch!” I toss Einslie at him.
Instinctively, he puts his hands up, and the adorable little ball of liannan sidhe lands in his hands.
“Get ‘im, kiddo!”
“Okay!” She turns her hypnotic stare on him, gesturing like an old carny magician. “You are getting sleepy. So sleepy.”
His lip curls. “That won’t work on m—”
Ska-doosh! Dude goes down like a ton of bricks.
Einslie leaps off him. “I did it! I did it!”
“You sure did, kiddo.” I scoop her up as the rest of the Ebon Knights come after us. Turning, I toss her to Etana. “Help us.”
“Help us, mama!” Einslie cries out.
All right. Dark Fae are heartless, but we’re not THAT heartless.
Seeing their kids fight, the arch-Eld stand up.
And now the throne room really comes to life.
Mag Mucklemouth summons a massive waving curse that slams into the Rooks, making them all fall down like they’ve slipped on invisible banana peels. Etana can’t hypnotize automatons, but she pulls out two curved daggers and gets to work, slashing her way through them, Einslie on her shoulder. Mizumichi gestures, and his koi and dragons leap from his tattoos to join the fray in a spray of water. Unsheathing his katana, he charges in, black hair flying. Vanya Visya casts a massive illusion of a wall and corners a huge section of Rooks. Turning, she snarls, golden eyes glowing, and gnashes her teeth, slicing through another two where they stand.
But they just keep coming.
I can’t get to Syl. There’s so much blood. She fights, but she can’t free herself from the throne.
Wait a minute. She can’t free herself. But I can.
I harnessed the power of UnderHollow before. I can do it again.
But I have to be calm.
Smashing two Rooks aside, I exhale. Calm, Roue. Be calm. Three more rush in, Ebon Knights behind them. I dodge and sidestep, lashing out with lightning, my pulse racing.
Be calm. For Syl.
I breathe out, and suddenly, the calmness comes. In a single exhale, I’m filled with serenity. I reach out and tap into my royal power, calling all of UnderHollow to me. “Hear me, UnderHollow. Obey.”
Without warning, all the power of Dark Faerie slams into me, filling me up, expanding inside me painfully, a power that’s too massive to contain. The midnight-black glow bursts from my eyes.
I push my will toward the Throne. “Release her.”
The Adamant Throne shudders, and then, shink! Shink, shink, shink! The spikes pull back one by one by one. Syl falls to the floor in a puddle of blood, gasping.
Relief sings through me. I did it.
Not to mention, the arch-Eld cleave and carve through the last of the Rooks. I face my father. “Your dark self is running out of allies, Father.”
His lips curve upward in a smile. “You really should know better than to taunt me, Rouen.” He grips the hearthstone, and more shadows burst from it.
More Rooks coalesce, replacing the ones we’ve downed. Plus, in a flurry of wintersteel, the Adamant Guard charge into the chamber, their eyes that blank, soulless grey.
They’re still under the hearthstone’s control.
Syl might be free, but we have a small army of guards to face. And with Father’s connection to the hearthstone, he calls even more Rooks. They pile into the chamber, forming wall after wall after wall of black armor and bristling weaponry.
We’ll tire, but he has an endless army.
“Syl.” I reach out to her through the bond.
She sends back all her love and fear. “Roue.”
Maybe we won’t get out of this alive, after all.
Chapter Eighteen
Syl
Fair Fae are just as filled
With trickery and mischief
As any dark Fae ever was
- Glamma’s Grimm
Roue’s saved me, and now I’ve got to help her.
Released, I fall from the throne, bleeding in a gazillion places. Who knew I had so much blood anyway? I’ve lost more than is humanly possible, but my Summer power’s keeping me afloat.
When this is all over, I’m sure I’ll feel like ten miles of rough road.
But for now, I manage to struggle to my feet. My vision greys over. I’m woozy as anything, but I make out Roue on the floor below me, fighting.
She’s stolen Stavrin’s glaive, and she swings it around her body in deadly arcs.
Like a dark, avenging angel, she sings, all power chords, flashing glaive, and violet lightning, her black hair flying, her beautiful face fierce as she sears through Rook after Rook—and slams into her father full force.
The throne room shudders as they clash in the center.
The king summons a black-lighting shield and wastes no time pulling out the vorpal blade. It carves trails of silver from the air the way it carves fear into my heart.
I need to help her!
Straightening, I try to summon my white flame. Right now, sleeper-princess power would be a game-changer. But it fizzles out as I call it, white sparks falling from my fingers. Etana’s neuroblocker is still in my system, restricting my “greater powers.”
Darn it all!
With the vorpal blade, her father stabs at her face.
“Roue!”
But my Roue is fast. “Don’t worry, princess.” She whirls the six-foot glaive up to meet his strike.
Sssshhik! The vorpal blade slices through Roue’s borrowed glaive, shearing through wintersteel like it was paper. She comes away with two short staves.
Our gazes meet.
She spins away, ducking his next attack. “We have to separate him from his dark self somehow.”
Around us, the arch-Eld fight off the Ebon Knights and the ever-increasing waves of Rooks. If we don’t help the king regain control of himself, he’ll drain the hearthstone creating his shadow puppets, and when he’s done beating everyone down, he’ll use it to control them all.
He’ll keep using and using…
Until the hearthstone shatters into a million pieces.
Unless… A wild idea begins to form.
“I have a plan.” I send Roue the basics, and a sly grin curves her lips.
“Ooh, I like it.” She sidesteps another slash.
“Thanks.” I preen a little despite the blood. “Just came up with it.” Glamma always said necessity was the mother of invention, but really?
This is less necessity and more like life or absolute death.
Roue’s loving my new plan, though. She dances back and taunts her father. “What’s wrong, old man? Can’t defeat me without your vorpal sword?” She spins one short staff, singing lightning down its haft.
Okay, I take a second to ogle her, because the Rouen Show?
It’s pure bad attitude, leather-encased, power-stance awesomeness.
And it’s working. Reinghûl takes the bait, hook, line, and sinker. “Why would I need the vorpal sword” —he sheaths it on the back of his belt— “when I have this?” He raises the glowing hearthstone, his rotting power wreathing it in sticky tendrils.
Instantly, the pressure drops. My ears pop.
He’s calling on the power of Dark Faerie. “Roue, look out!”
Too late.
A thousand sticky black roots leap from the black gemstone, lashing out at Roue, wrapping around her legs, her torso. She fights to get an arm free, blasting him with lightning. It crashes harmlessly off his black shield.
“How easy,” he gloats, striding toward her, all swagger and confidence.
He’s forgotten all about me. He knows I don’t have much longer to live.
Even now, blood from my vorpal wound—from all my wounds—slicks down my body, pooling on the dais floor. The coppery scent makes me woozy.
My Summer power is finally failing.
Fine. I’ll go out with a bang.
I narrow my eyes on him, calling on my Fae-sight. Work, please work! Thankfully, my Fae-sight isn’t considered a “greater power,” at least as far as Etana’s neuroblocker is concerned. My vision blurs and then settles, my Fae-sight picking up the gooey dark tendrils warping around him, wisps of shadow cloaking him, wrapping the hearthstone in his dark will. The same black wisps wrap around the Adamant Guard, imprisoning them, forcing them to do his bidding.
These are manifestations of his dark self. Roue’s right. If we can cut him off from his dark self somehow, we’d be golden.
It’s the only way, but I’m weak. I can only windwarp once.
Gotta make it count. I call to the Summer in my blood—whatever’s left of it—but it’s sluggish. I’ve taxed it to the limit. Still, I pull on it. Come on, Summer! Come on!
Reinghûl’s gloating, rubbing his win in my girl’s face. He stalks toward her.
Fwoosh! Finally, the Summer in my blood responds, and I’m there. I grab for the king’s belt. For the vorpal blade.
I tear it free.
“What the—” He whirls on me, eyes flashing, but I dart back.
“Roue, incoming!” I sling my prize across the floor, between his legs.
The vorpal blade spins end over end like a shining, icy star.
The look of fear on Reinghûl’s face is worth the price of admission.
The vorpal blade hits Roue’s boot and stops. Rockstar that she is, even bound, she kicks it up into her free hand. “Thanks, princess.” Her smile curves around her fangs as she slashes downward, tearing through the black tendrils imprisoning her. They evaporate into smoke, and Roue steps through them like a heroine in a Hollywood movie.
“Now, Father, where were we?”
Chapter Nineteen
Rouen
Never gonna be
Your perfect daughter
Never gonna be
Anything but me
- “Defy,” Euphoria
The vorpal blade slides into my hand like it was made for me.
In that one spinning moment, time seems to spiral outward.
All around me, the arch-Eld and the kids fight a losing battle against Ebon Knights, the Adamant Guard, and never-ending waves of Rooks. They’re tiring. Blood stains Etana’s green and black gown, Einslie clinging desperately to her shoulders. At her side, Mizumichi flags, his dragon and koi tattoos ragged and bleeding energy. Miz is next to him, throwing her water funnels. On the circular rise above, Mag Mucklemouth slams four Rooks against the wall with her powerful arms, only to be swarmed anew. Two Rooks fall under Marrow’s curse-touch. Kshirin darts through Rooks’ legs, slashing, but more and more come. Even Vanya Visya with her poisonous bite and illusions is tiring against the tide.
Father will enslave them, too, when they are defeated.
I won’t let him.
My people have a right to free will. I will fight for it, for them.
“Father!” I hold up the vorpal blade, glinting and bright and razor-sharp. My eyes meet his, and his fear hits the air, acidic and stronger than the stench of his rotten magic.
I see the darkness in his soul. Even now, it swirls in black tendrils, swarming the hearthstone, sapping its energy.
I look his dark self right in the eyes. “Your hold over my father is over.”
“UnderHollow, grant me your power!”
I slash down, pouring all the strength of my royal blood into my stroke.
Shimmering deadly, the vorpal blade carves through the air in silver trails, severing every tendril, every root and wisp, every speck of my father’s shadowy, rotten magic. It cleaves him from his dark self, tearing the darkness in his soul away from him in one fell swoop.
Slash!
His power to the hearthstone cuts off.
All around us, the Rooks shiver and jerk like spastic marionettes. They shatter into a million glimmering black shards, pat-pattering across the polished floor, then dissipating in a steaming hiiiisssss. Instantly, the Adamant Guard’s eyes fade from grey back to their normal silvers, violets, emeralds. Confused as if waking from sleep, they lower their weapons, shaking his power off the way a snake sloughs off a dead skin.
“Your Majesty.” Liriel turns her Twilight Sword on the arch-Eld who sided with my father. Alystin steps to her side, and so do the six other Guard. They and my arch-Eld corner my father’s against the upper rise.
They wait for my command.
I feel Syl waiting, too. She wants to run to me, but in this moment I need to stand alone, to face my father. Whatever he’s become. I turn toward him, waving away the last of the shadows and smoke. They plume away, like bad dreams.
His dark self shattered, my father slumps to the floor at my feet.
I stand over him, vorpal blade in hand, terrified. What if it didn’t work? “Father?”
He looks up, and for the first time since he woke from Winter’s Sleep, I see a glimmer of the man from my good memories.
The Adamant King.
He rises slowly, shaking off the aftereffects of the vorpal blade’s cleaving. Weak from the destruction of his dark self, he staggers, and I steady him. “Rouen?”
“Father!” Part of me wants to embrace him, but we are still dark Fae, and we are not given to casual touch or outbursts of affection. Instead, I stand there, all my conflicted emotions roiling up inside me like a building storm.
Is it really over? Is he really the good king and father I remember?
Suddenly, I can’t breathe, can’t think.
“My daughter.” He touches my arm, and all my doubts ease. He’s so weak, though, I worry that the shock of his dark self dying has been too much.
His voice creaks. “Have you…have you come to take the throne?”
His question floors me. There are still over fifty days until the Lunar New Year, but tonight, this night, my dreams of ruling can come true.
The throne is mine for the taking.
My heart throbs against my ribs. I could be queen. I could rule, force my people to do my bidding, to accept me and Syl upon pain of death.
Do it, my dark self urges. Rule or be ruled.
I take a single step toward the throne and then stop.
I look over the Adamant Hall at the arch-Eld and their children, at the Adamant Guard, the Ebon Knights—all my people fighting amongst ourselves.
All because my father listened to his dark self. Because he fell to the darkness within.
Determination steels my resolve. I turn away from the throne.
I may never live up to the Adamant King’s legend, but I will never be a tyrant, either.
“I don’t want the throne.”
Shocked murmurs ripple through the arch-Eld, the Guard, the Knights. Even Syl seems surprised.
I look to the dark Fae who supported me. Even now, they corral my father’s three arch-Eld, holding them at blade-point. These elders are representatives of three species of dark Fae—hundreds, if not thousands of my people.
And they don’t want me to rule over them.
My people are split in two.
“Some of you want me to rule, but others among you want my father. I won’t split our realm in two the way Faerie was split so many years ago. We wouldn’t survive it.”
I feel Syl’s pride in me from across the room. “You’re doing great,” she sends.
My heart swells with love. I want so
much to run to her, sweep her up, and kiss every freckle, but first, I have to take care of my people.
“I won’t take the throne, but I won’t let something like this happen ever again. We will have change here in Dark Faerie. No more will you be ruled by a king with absolute dominion over you.”
Father finds his voice, weak and reedy though it is. His dark self is gone, but he’s still steeped in all our old traditions. “I am still king here. I am king!” He shakes the hearthstone like it’s a favorite toy now broken. “Obey me. Obey me!”
But UnderHollow doesn’t answer.
The hearthstone thrums calmly, and I feel it in my chest, a familiar, serene pulse.
It’s going to be all right.
As for my father… He’s having quite the trying time adjusting to the new regime. Deftly, I pluck the hearthstone from his hand and push him down on the dais stairs—the same way he pushed me down—like a naughty child in a time-out.
“You’ll get used to it, Father.” I raise my chin, meeting the gazes of the arch-Eld. “From now on, you will rule with the arch-Eld as your Winter Council, able to overrule any decision they deem unruly.”
He crumples, shock shuddering through him.
Likewise, ripples of unrest and doubt race through the arch-Eld, but Vanya hushes them by stepping forward. She takes the hearthstone when I offer it. “We accept this solemn duty, Your Highness.”
“Good.”
“You…you can’t do this.” My father shudders weakly, drained from the destruction of his dark self. He can barely stand.
He definitely doesn’t have the strength to fight me on this.
“I can, and I did.” I fix him with a flinty gaze. I love him, but I haven’t forgotten all the wrongs he did me, all his crimes and cruelty. “The arch-Eld will make sure your rehabilitation sticks.”
They have all the power to do it, too. Etana, especially.
As the arch-Eld for all Lamiae (including baobhan sidhe like me and Father), she can restrict his access to his natural gramarye. Nothing’s stopping her now that Father doesn’t have her daughter hostage.
He knows it, too.
Dethroned_An Inimical Prequel Novella Page 11
