Court of Rogues

by Ann Gimpel

  My words about trusting him rose to the fore. I did, but was it enough to leap into the crack? What if this whole thing had been some elaborately staged charade aimed at trapping me? What if—? I ripped my negativity out by its roots. This was Cynwrigg. We were partners, allies. He’d never hurt me. I’d tested his intent from here to Sunday and not found anything that gave me pause.

  “Dariyah?” His gold-and-silver eyes bored into me. “I cannot leave you here alone. You must come with me. And we have to do this now.”

  It was one of those fish-or-cut-bait moments. Either I accepted he knew what he was doing, or I had no business being here at all. I’d come this far; now wasn’t a time to backpedal. If I said, fuck no I wasn’t jumping into that pulsing hole, he wouldn’t go, either. And we’d lose something I had no name for.

  Even beyond whatever he was after in the trench, he’d realize I didn’t have enough faith in him to follow his lead. I hadn’t obeyed anyone’s instructions since leaving Mother, and he probably knew it.

  My heart was pounding hard, my mouth dust-dry as I gritted, “Let’s go.”

  He didn’t waste another second. When I looked at the ground instead of him, I understood why. The gash, which had been expanding, was definitely moving in the opposite direction. It had torn open, but now it was closing.

  Crap. Had I dithered too long? Were we too late?

  Darkness enveloped us. A dusky shroud shot through with magic burned and prickled as I fell through it. Unlike a teleport spell, we fell in real time. Seconds ticked past, and then minutes. The only constant was the pressure of Cyn’s hand around mine. I tightened the weave where our magic was joined. Bands of light broke the unremitting black, becoming more frequent as we continued. The longer we persisted, the surer I was we weren’t falling at all.

  That had to be it. The whole thing, rift and all, was illusion. Cyn had recognized it, and— All my conjecture was stupid. He was right here, front and center. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “Wondered when you’d get around to inquiring. By the way, thanks for trusting me. You almost didn’t.” He traded my hand for wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “The power eddying around us is Titania’s. It’s been a long while, but I’d recognize it anywhere.”

  “She opened a path for us?”

  “It sure as hell wasn’t that ridiculous pack of jokers up there.”

  “How much farther? Do you know?”

  He shook his head. I felt rather than saw the motion. “It only feels like we’re traveling. She’s being cautious, and I don’t blame her.”

  Yeah, neither did I. “You don’t suppose her jailers, um…”

  “They wouldn’t have dared lay a hand on her.” Cyn picked up the drift of my unspoken question about rape. “She might have been a prisoner, but she was still their queen.”

  “How does that work?” I asked. “Oberon sort of abdicated, and—”

  “Except he didn’t, which is why we have to rework the covenant. Get ready. We’re nearly at an end to this enchantment.”

  He hadn’t been kidding. The darkness exploded with a resounding thwack. In its place was a whimsical structure. I’d have called it a castle if it were larger. Built from uneven chunks of what looked like quartz and large timbers, it spread before me in a scene right out of Grimm’s Fairytales, complete with a miniature moat, a drawbridge, turrets, and a portcullis.

  A sharp intake of breath radiated dismay. I looked at Cyn. “You know this place?”

  He nodded. “I do, indeed. This is the original version of Dubrova castle, but on a much smaller scale.” Jets of seeking magic flowed from his raised hands, and his worried expression deepened, adding lines to his high forehead.

  “Talk to me,” I urged.

  “The only thing holding this place together is Titania’s magic, and it’s fading. Damn Oberon’s eyes. I hope we got here in time.”

  I didn’t require further explanation for that statement. Absent something like what we did to the greeting party, Fae don’t die, but we do fade to nothing but spirit. Sometimes, the weight of millennia is enough to push us over the edge. Sometimes, the pull of the Dreaming with its idyllic pathways is too much to resist. Mother had said it fulfilled all your dreams, ensured you wanted for nothing. It had sounded enticing and scary as fuck. Not the being there, but the prying yourself away.

  I sprinted across the drawbridge after Cyn. He barked a couple of words, and the portcullis creaked upward. We could have teleported through it, but this was faster. I scanned the still waters of the moat, half expecting to see serpents, but none reared their heads. We’d reached the castle’s imposing front door. Crafted of the same wood as the structure’s timbers, it had been inscribed with runes. I recognized a few and shook my head. “We have to erase those, or she’ll never be able to cross.” To be on the safe side, I scoured the door with destructive magic. Maybe two-thirds of the runes glowed an angry red before being absorbed by the wood.

  “You’re efficient.” Cyn grinned approvingly.

  “Eh. I try. Obliterated the worst of them. The others shouldn’t pose problems.”

  “I have faith in Titania’s power,” he said, “unless she’s given up hope.”

  “She hasn’t,” I said firmly. “She opened a path for us. If she’d truly renounced all faith, she wouldn’t have cared who was here.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Cyn paused in a generous hall inlaid with marble. How in the hell had whoever built this place come by quartz and marble and hardwood? From what I’d seen of this world, none of those elements were native to it, but then I’d only viewed a very small portion.

  He said, “This way,” about the same time a wraith glided toward us. Lush royal robes in blue and silver hung on her emaciated frame. White hair spilled to the floor around a sharp-boned face.

  “Cynwrigg. Is that really you, or one more flight of fancy on my part?” Titania hung back. The hand she extended shook as power pulsed weakly from it.

  “It’s really me.” He rushed forward and fell to his knees before his queen. “Thank the goddess I didn’t arrive too late.”

  A tear formed in one of her eyes and crept down her wrinkled cheek. “Get up,” she said gruffly. When he did, she threw herself into his arms, and he held her, crooning softly. If I’d been in her shoes, a prisoner for half a century, I’d have sobbed my heart out at the specter of imminent rescue.

  Not Titania. She let go of Cyn after maybe two minutes and straightened, locking gazes with him. “You should have come years ago.”

  He inclined his head. “Aye, my lady, I know. Let me get you out of here.”

  It might have been a trick of the light, but she was standing taller, not looking as frail or pallid. “You killed my guards, most of them. I felt some pass, and the others are weakening.” She fisted one veined hand. “Good. I didn’t believe it possible. They were some of Oberon’s best warriors once.”

  “Pfft.” I tossed my head. “They were nothing but rotters and cowards. It was a pleasure to—”

  I wouldn’t have believed Titania could move so quickly, but one minute she was next to Cyn and the next she stood in front of me poking and prodding with strong magic that stung my skin. The singed places in my scalp vibrated unpleasantly, but I held myself still beneath her scrutiny.

  “How is this possible?” She fixed me with eyes of molten gold.

  I didn’t flinch beneath her gaze. “How is what possible?” I considered adding “my lady,” but I wasn’t part of Faery, and so I chose not to.

  “You’re Auril’s daughter. Do not deny it.”

  “Why would I?” I shot back. “I’m proud of Mother. She could have sacrificed me. She didn’t.”

  Titania ran a hand from my ruined hair down one cheek, letting it rest on my shoulder briefly. “You’re supposed to be dead. Oberon inferred as much, but I can add it to the pile of his other half truths.”

  Not sure where she was going with this, I said, “Mother and I ran for five ye
ars. It took that long for your people”—I stressed the your part—“to leave us in peace.”

  “Where is she, child?” Titania’s voice was soft, too soft.

  Suspicion raked me. “I will not tell anyone where Mother is.”

  Cyn had walked behind me. “Auril is your mother?” Incredulity scored his words.

  I twisted to glance his way. “I just said as much. The Fae only care about rounding her up and ending her.”

  “Not such an easy task, the rounding up and ending. She’s the Queen of Air and Darkness,” Cyn murmured.

  “The who?” Confusion scoured me, and I shifted my attention back to Titania. “Mother was royalty? Did that play into our headlong flight to escape Faery?”

  “Oh my, child. She never told you.” Titania frowned, her white brows forming a single line.

  “Told me what? Come on, both of you. Whatever this is, spit it out.” What had Cyn called Mother? The Queen of Air and Darkness… An impressive title, but not one that had ever fallen from Mother’s lips. Not in my presence.

  “Auril was—is—my only sister. I’d thought her dead centuries ago.” The queen’s eyes narrowed as she repeated her earlier question, “You know where she is, don’t you?”

  I nodded slowly, looking for a catch, a trap door that would swallow Mother and me if I weren’t cautious.

  “Use a truth spell,” Titania urged. “Test my words. You’ll find them accurate.”

  A flicker of amazement in Cyn’s eyes told me how rare her invitation was. She was queen of Faery. No one questioned her. I should take her word—and Cyn’s—but I had to be certain, so I draped a soft weave around the queen’s head and shoulders and urged, “Tell me about Mother.”

  “She is my sister, my older sister. Many sisters hate one another, but Auril and I were heart-sisters. I loved her more than anyone else. When she came to me and told me she was pregnant and had to flee, I was devastated. I searched and searched but couldn’t come up with a way to hold her in Faery. Already, others suspected her condition.”

  “I remember,” Cyn cut in, his voice deep, warm, and steady.

  “As do I, all too well,” Titania went on. “Oberon suspected something was up, but he never put two and two together until after the babe were born. I did manage that part. Auril intended to leave right away, but I didn’t want her to be alone through her pregnancy. So much could have gone wrong. She and I found a deep cavern, straddling the boundary betwixt Faery and Earth. We swathed it with our combined magic. Faery helped keep our secret until the birth. My sister was weaker than she’d expected, so she remained with Faery and me for a fortnight before fleeing with her child.”

  It was the first account of my birth I’d heard that hadn’t come from Mother. I’d always believed I was born on an alien world, one we’d abandoned as soon as Mother was strong enough to run some more. I dismantled my truth casting and looked into Titania’s ancient eyes. “You know who my father is.”

  She nodded. “Aye, but such is for Auril to tell you, not me. Shall we go to her?”

  I wanted to ask for time to consider everything that could go sideways, except we didn’t have any. We needed to leave this spot right away before Oberon rode in with a vigilante regiment.

  “My turn to share your thoughts,” Cyn murmured. “I agree. We should have been gone as soon as Titania joined us.”

  I sucked in a breath and took a chance. Everything Titania said about Mother had passed the test of my truth weave, and—

  “Child.” Titania’s stern tone broke into my shillyshallying. “I shall restore Auril to her rightful spot in Faery. Together, she and I can bar Oberon from our land forever. She is queen of the dark court, while I command the light one.”

  “So, that wasn’t idle legend?” Cyn inquired.

  “No legends are idle. We maintained the same dark-and-light-court arrangement as the Sidhe. They allied with us, and we joined their festivities as well. It always rankled Oberon, and he never missed an opportunity to make Auril’s life difficult. Shall we?”

  I led the way through the door I’d prepped so she could pass beneath its lintels and built a spell as quickly as I could. If I stopped to think, I might lose my nerve. This was sounding too good to be true—the part about Mother getting a pass to return to her rightful place.

  I’ve never trusted fortune when she walks across my grave bearing gifts, though. The other shoe would drop, but I had no idea when it would happen. In the meantime, my intuition about accompanying Cynwrigg on this quest had been dead accurate. I was here for reasons stretching far beyond me, and I’d see things through.

  Eventually the enchantment powering my not-so-chance meeting with Titania would burn itself to cinders. What would emerge from the ashes?

  Patience, my inner critic noted dryly. No turning back now.

  * * *

  You’ve reached the end of Court of Rogues. Misfits and Magick is a serial that’s continued in Midnight Court. While Court of Rogues is fresh in your mind, please take a moment and leave a review. They mean so much to authors. Doesn’t have to be fancy. A line or two will do.

  Curious what happens next? Read on for the prologue to Midnight Court.

  Book Description: Midnight Court

  Urban fantasy and slow burn romance wrapped into a serial that will keep you up reading long into the night.

  * * *

  Strange bedfellows rock worlds.

  My days as Faery’s reluctant regent have crashed and burned. Either I left the land to rot in a squalid soup of broken promises, or I destroyed her enemies one by one. No choice there. Not really. I’d known some of those “enemies” since childhood, which was centuries ago. They say familiarity breeds contempt. In my case it bred sorrow as I consigned Fae who’d been friends to eternal destruction and fed them to the land.

  Dariyah, the Witch-who-wasn’t-one, crossed my path for reasons I’m still figuring out. Her long-lost mother presided over one of Faery’s many dirty secrets, the Midnight Court. Some like to believe Fae blood is pure. It’s not. The Sidhe and us are joined at the hip, and the Midnight Court was once a living symbol of our bond.

  I’ll fight to maintain a magical world that’s open to all. If I’m quick, ruthless, I might beat Oberon at his own game. Sly bastard that he is, he still holds the link to Faery. If I can’t wrest it from him, the land—my land—will wither and fade.

  Midnight Court, Prologue, Auril

  Auril clung to patterns, to sameness. She had little choice; consistency made the impossible bearable. For the first couple of centuries, she’d kept track of time passing, but it was depressing. So many days, weeks, years had dripped past, time no longer mattered. This wasn’t like prison because it never ended. And it sure as hell wasn’t anything like the Dreaming, a retreat anticipating your every whim. No Dreaming for her. Not ever. She’d always viewed herself as a loner, self-contained. Until she was faced with endless isolation. Then she realized she’d been deluding herself all along.

  Once she’d been the Queen of Air and Darkness. But a queen requires subjects, and they were no more. She’d moved on, leaving the shell of queendom behind. The court she’d presided over was no more, erased by absence and the passage of time.

  Too late to do anything about it. It had been too late for an exceedingly long while. Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d had options. Not really. By the time she’d stumbled onto this world hidden from all others, the dice were tossed. No going back. She had a toddler to raise. Young as Dariyah was, power shimmered around her like a veil, spilling from her hair, her eyes, her fingertips in an endless stream of possibilities.

  The child was beauty incarnate, with a sweet and inquisitive soul. Bright, curious, inspired, she more than made up for everything Auril had left behind. She’d seen some of the future unfold in her glass. More in various pools. Regardless, she’d viewed enough to understand her child was a critical element, an instrument meant to shape the future.

  Her sister, Titania, wasn’t one to put
much stock in prophecies. She’d talked until no more words came, urging Auril to look past the life that had taken root in her womb. Many magic-wielders had walked in her footsteps, had taken the necessary steps to deal with mixed-breed offspring. Those had been Titania’s words: deal with it. Innocuous enough, except in this instance dealing meant death. Auril couldn’t have done that any more than she could have cut off an arm or a leg. The child was destined to be. Its call from the beyond—an amorphous spot where souls resided—was so strong, it had swept her up in its urgency.

  And so she’d fled from both Fae and Sidhe, from her duties to the Midnight Court, knowing there’d be fallout. And there had been. Her energy was a lynchpin keeping Faery whole. Between her and her sister, they’d balanced the dark and light sides of magic, feeding Faery and keeping her hale and hearty.

  She’d asked questions a million different ways, working to tease out if her worst fears for Faery had come to pass. No answers had been forthcoming until a few days ago when a scrying attempt blew up in her face, showering her with water and leaving her with a deeply uncomfortable premonition the world she’d abandoned was finally unraveling at the seams.

  Auril wrapped her arms around her bent knees and slumped against the rocky wall behind her. Should she return? After all this time, no one would remember the whispered rumors about a forbidden pregnancy. Eh, the ancient librarian, Ysir, might, but he’d been well on his way to madness long before she left.

  Obscuring the relationship between Fae and Sidhe was another dirty little secret she’d been part of. The two lines sprang from common roots, and their power blended perfectly, creating awe inspiring magic. Remembering its perfection still stole her breath. The multihued strands of talent had filled her with joy as they knitted into various spells, but the same blended power terrified Oberon. Perhaps because it existed outside the realm of his control. Regardless of his motives, he’d done everything in his considerable power to squelch every juncture where Fae and Sidhe came together.