by Alexia Purdy
Ever Fade
(A Dark Faerie Tale #9)
Copyright © October 2019 Alexia Purdy
www.alexiapurdybooks.com
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Designed by Melancholy Muse Designs
Get the low down on future books, giveaways and more:
Sign up for Alexia’s Newsletter HERE
To my family. You are my heart.
Chapter One
Dylan
“Your Grace, they’re waiting for you.”
I jerked from my reverie and looked up at the servant. He was young, no more than a couple decades old, from what I could see. The poor fool was so unjaded and whole, so unlike the eldritch souls clinging to this room and to my mind.
Running my hands through my long obsidian hair, I exhaled painfully slowly before waving the servant away.
A few moments later, another voice interrupted my thoughts.
“Your Grace?”
“I said I’ll be right there,” I snapped, but stopped as I realized it was no longer the servant from before but the twins’ nursemaid, Lorn. “I’m sorry… are the twins okay?”
“Yes, Your Grace. I apologize for the interruption, but I just wanted to know if you still want them to attend the ceremony. Jade and Lana are sleeping now. Do you want me to wake them? Their schedules are still erratic and Jade just got to sleep.”
“No, thank you, Lorn. If they wake, you can bring them. If not, let them sleep. No sense in bothering them to attend.”
She appeared relieved and bowed before excusing herself. She was an excellent nursemaid, but her presence always brought a tinge of resentment to my mind. I knew she could see it. Shade should have been the one taking care of our children, not a hired faery nursemaid. The world was fractured.
No. My world was fractured.
What frightened me more than anything was that Shade had forgotten all about us, our plight, the destruction she’d left in her wake. The mess was apparent in everyone’s faces, yet no one spoke a word about the new Ancient, fearing her wrath were she to abruptly show up. No one dared speak against her even though the absolute catastrophe of her transformation had cost us almost everything.
For some, it had been everything. Like Soap.
For me, it might as well have been everything.
The past several months since Shade’s abrupt departure had lasted an eternity, and now it was time for the ceremony of mourning to send tribute to the new Ancient of Faerie and basically bid goodbye to the former ruler of the Scorching Scren Palace. It felt like a wake, rightfully so. It would also include our mourning for the figure lying in the glass case before me, slumbering away in a deathlike state.
Soap.
As I stood and hovered above his resting figure, my throat tightened. Silently screaming, I placed my hands on the reinforced glass keeping him separated and protected from this treacherous world. I hated to think he could be aware while trapped in his corpse-like state. It would be a dreadful torture. Could he be trying to call for help, willing his arms to move so he could scratch against the surface of his prison? How had Kilara’s curse lasted past her death, damning him for all of time? I was afraid to believe we could never wake him. He may have stolen part of Shade’s attention when she was mine, but he was still a brother in more than one sense of the word.
Damn her. Shade had made a choice. She could have stayed with us forever, but instead she had left with Arthas to become the Summer Ancient then deposited our offspring on the palace steps without a word when they were born. How could she have been so selfish? What madness had driven her from my embrace when there’d been nothing but my entire heart to give her? I couldn’t fathom it. I dared not try.
I had to believe there was something left inside of her that fought to resurface, to return to me. To us. She had to, even though we were not of the same life anymore. The thought of what her letter had told me still broke my heart, over and over.
I bestow the care of the twins to you, Dylan. May their life be long and prosperous. Please tell them I love them, no matter what.
She’d left without a word, a visit, or anything. Nothing to acknowledge this heart she’d shredded without a thought. I’d been left to pick up the pieces of so many shattered fragments. But with Soap’s endless slumber and my never-ending broken heart, I knew there had to be more. This wasn’t the end of it all, was it? It couldn’t be. There was more for the three of us. This abandonment had to have a strong reason behind it, and I swore I would find out what it was, even if it killed me.
“Your heart calls me.”
I turned, my chest squeezing as my eyes took in an unbelievable sight.
“Shade.”
“Do not fret. I hear your pain. Your suffering.”
“If you hear it, why does it not cease?” I stepped toward her, but she snapped her hand up, stopping me mid-step.
“Do not come any closer.”
“Why not?”
Her cold, dead eyes never wavered from me, and it was that frigid stare that had me hesitating. Was my Shade still in there? Where had the magic of Faerie tucked her away? Could I reach into the shell of her body and pull her out? I hoped so. With all my heart and soul, I hoped so.
“You think I do not care. You think this faery doesn’t possess the heart of the girl she once was.”
“Tell me she still does. Shade, come back to me. We can make it work. You do not have to rule at the side of Arthas. He’s toxic. Evil. You can return here and be where you belong. Your children need you. I need you.”
Her dark eyes hovered over the glass box containing Soap’s body.
“And him?”
“He needs you too. Can’t you see? We’re destroyed without you. I can’t fix him without your help.”
“I swore I’d find a way to wake him. I intend to keep that promise.”
“Then return and keep it. Don’t leave.”
I took another step forward but froze, and not by my own doing. She’d placed her hand back in the air, sending a whisper of cold arctic wind my way. I shuddered, the magic penetrating through my glamour and past the heat of the blue fire and electricity crackling along the surface of my true skin. It was like a shard of ice piercing my heart, hardened, frozen, and fatal.
“Shade, don’t.”
“I cannot stay. But I will check on the children often. I’m sorry. I never meant any harm.” Her eyes slid down to my left hand, where the metal of my wedding band had melted and fused into my flesh. Long ringlets of metal ran up my arms in bloodlike drips, the memory of the broken oath burning into me like the moment the ring had turned molten. That was the moment she had turned from us and become the Summer Ancient of Faerie, one of the most powerful beings to ever exist. She’d taken over for Kilara, a corrupt and fatally ill ancestor who could no longer serve the land as she had sworn to do. Her downfall had swept Shade from my arms. Her last words had frozen Soap in his deathlike state.
“You may not have meant any harm, but we are destroyed and lie in pieces. You’re the only one who can save us. You’re the only one.”
Her cold stare didn’t waver, and she was gone a moment later, blinking out of existence as though she had nev
er been there. My heart went along with her.
Chapter Two
Shade
I gripped the arms of the throne and winced, hoping the carved stone would dig into my flesh enough for me to feel the pain. But it didn’t. Nothing hurt me anymore. As an Ancient of Faerie, I was impervious to such minor things. It was a skin which didn’t belong to me. It belonged to Kilara and was much more of a curse than a blessing.
“What ails you, milady?” Arthas kneeled at my feet, but I ignored him. His usefulness outweighed his annoyances, so I stayed, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t take my leave soon. It was all about timing, even though my patience was waning.
“Nothing,” I answered. I felt tired, but I knew I didn’t ever really tire. Not anymore. I could go on for days without food, without water, without sleep or need to rest. I wasn’t quite used to it yet. My body adjusted in small fits. One day, I could sleep through the day and night. Another, not at all. Today was a day of no appetite, mainly because I had visited them.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remember every outline of each one of their faces.
My daughters. Dylan and Soap. My mind not only wandered to them but to all those I loved, to my brothers and my sister, and finally to my mother. Why was it that as each day passed, their faces began to blur, forcing me to pull at their images? I had pictures I’d stolen from my old house, where the Pyren slept, its power beating like a heart beneath the floorboards. It was no longer a part of me, but I could feel its magic pulsating beneath my feet, alive and slumbering, when I’d gone to snatch the small photographs from my family’s albums and jaunted back to this place where darkness reigned and my blood burned with fire.
“Must you come here right after you do your rounds of the hearths? You reek of metal and sweat.” I frowned at Arthas. He was supposedly my mentor, my cohort, and my friend. No, not truly any of those, but I didn’t know what to make of him. He wanted more of what I couldn’t give him… wouldn’t give him.
“Unfortunately, it’s a duty I must attend to. We would not have such extravagances without the labors of the fae below our feet. They’re building our home with their blood, sweat, and tears.”
And lives, I thought, pressing my lips together, afraid of what sour words could pour out next. I knew there were people suffering for our luxury. It was something the old Shade wouldn’t have tolerated. But this woman, this new creature parading around like she belonged in this skin of my former self, didn’t truly care that they cried out in pain, that they spent their days full of exhaustion, bound to serve the Unseelie king, begging for mercy. The whips of our lieutenants were strong, biting, and true. Cruel to the bitter end.
This creature could no longer care or empathize with anyone, and it frightened me to the core.
I frowned. “At least rinse yourself of their stench before you come here.”
“Why? Don’t you like to see me like this, Shade? Dirty, sweaty, heated?” His eyes flared to life as they searched my face. What was he looking for there? Love? Desire?
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
My heart was colder than the depths of the ocean and had hardened the day I’d become an Ancient. There was no looking back, and to me, there was no forward, so I’d encased myself in this shell and tucked away what little humanity was left.
I now understood why Kilara had kept her sarcophagus deep beneath the water. No wonder she had chosen to lie there for years upon years, all alone. The freezing depths of Lake Tahoe, known to the fae as Lake Elidar, was the perfect place to hide from the pain of the world. I almost wanted to make a sanctuary there myself and lock this corpse away beneath the darkness of the lake, to never reawaken again. I saw the appeal of it. I craved the isolation.
This heated castle, with an inferno roaring beneath it, was oppressively hot and chafed against my soul. Why remain here? There were so many places I could go. Why did I let Arthas humor me and talk endlessly about his plans and aspirations? I hated him. I hated all this, and yet I didn’t leave. My body refused to move from this dreadful place.
This was Arthas’s new castle. The Castle of Coals and Fire. His first Unseelie Palace created just for him and not the domain of an Ancient. It would become one eventually, like The Withering Palace, but as of right now, it was all his.
I did not have a home or a dwelling to call my own. I had left it all behind when I’d become this thing. I craved nothing more than to feel nothing at all.
I turned to leave the room. It was Arthas’s side of the castle anyway. I could feel his eyes digging into my back. He thought bringing me here would bring us closer, but all it had done was make me resent him and grow restless. I couldn’t relate to him. I didn’t want to give him a chance even though I let him mentor me; he spoke of the events of the distant past and the extent of our powers, which did hold some fascination. Faerie was generous, and the four Ancients were powerful.
But I couldn’t remain here. I couldn’t stay by his side like he wanted me to. It was an impossible place to be. To me, he was nothing more than a man, and not the man I wanted. Not one of them, anyway. I paused and closed my eyes as I rubbed them. Arthas could never hope to be the kind of man Dylan and Soap were.
“Are. The men they are,” I whispered to myself. “They’ll be okay.”
Why was I lying to myself? I shook my head, biting my lip as I continued down the hall. The castle was near completion, and I had decided I would stay until the last brick was laid. Only then would I wander off into the world and seek some sort of solace, some solution to the terror manifesting inside me. Only then could I truly return to my roots, to my heritage, and find out who I really was now as an Ancient, as a pure faery. Only then could I mourn the loss of the human part no longer living inside this heart of mine.
Without that part, my heart sat dormant, a cold stone inside my chest.
Chapter Three
Dylan
The ceremony had gone off without a hitch. It’d been to officially announce that I was now the sole ruler of the Scren Palace, a fact which stung, but there were laws to adhere to in Faerie. One law stated that I must now find a new queen for the Southern Realm of Faerie. My firstborn daughter was officially the heir of the palace, but she was too young to rule. If anything happened to me, a new wife would be the interim ruler until my daughter was of age.
I didn’t want or need a new wife. The ache of fiery pain still tingled at the site of the molten metal on my hand and forearm, a constant reminder of what I had lost.
Trying to change my train of thought, I mingled with my people. They were gracious, bowing and curtsying as I passed. In the crowded room, I felt more alone than I ever had before. My twins were sleeping and had avoided coming to the ceremony. I envied them with every bone in my body.
“Dylan,” a familiar voice called out to me, and I turned to find Ilarial, the oracle from the Guildrin Court. My mood immediately elevated at seeing her. She always was such a great help to Shade and me in our times of need. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done to keep Shade safe. Now, without my wife around, she seemed as lost as I felt.
“Ilarial. It’s so good to see you.” I reached out to hug her. She let me, though she didn’t usually hug many people. Holding her at arm’s length, I beamed. “What brings you to the Scren?”
“I wanted to see how you were holding up. And I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of your beautiful children.”
“Well, they missed the party tonight. Sleeping beauties, you know? How long are you staying? I’m sure they’ll be wide awake come morning.”
“I’m staying a few days. I wanted to speak to you about Soap. Any changes?”
My smile dropped. I understood her concern, but frankly, Soap was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I shook my head. “There’s been no change. Apparently, Kilara’s curse is solid. I haven’t found any faeries able to break his sleeping spell.”
“Does Shade know what state he’s in?”
“Of course. She swore she would search f
or a cure, but I don’t know how much I can depend on her now.”
“I see.” Ilarial looked tired, as though this very problem had kept her awake for days. “Shade is not herself, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s still hard to accept.”
She placed a pale, thin hand on my shoulder, giving me an empathetic smile. “I understand. She’s an Ancient now, and that comes with its own struggles. She’s had to adjust to many things as well. Every memory of her ancestor is going to torment her until she wrangles it under control. Kilara was alive for many centuries. It’s going to take everything Shade has to come out on top. Give her some time; she’ll come around.”
“How do you know that?” I shook off her hand, anger bubbling up inside me. I tried to hold it, but it was too much. “She left us. She left her children! Her own flesh and blood. What sort of a mother does that?”
“She’s not just any sort of mother. She’s an Ancient.”
“I don’t care what she is. The old Shade would have never done such a thing. She is dead to me now.”
“She’s still in there, Dylan. She’s fighting to surface, I promise you. I can sense her struggle. I see it, and I can feel it.”
“Well, I can’t feel or see her anymore. She made sure of that.” I held up the metal gauntlet on my left arm, the constant reminder that Shade was gone. I no longer felt her heartbeat within me like before. I couldn’t tell if she was happy, sad, angry, or lonely. I couldn’t feel her at all, and I was willing to bet she couldn’t feel Soap or me either.
“Dylan—”
I held up a hand. “I can’t listen to any more about Shade. If you have anything to talk about besides her, please do so. I can’t do this anymore. It’s time to move on.”
