Heir of Ruin: A Hades and Persephone Paranormal Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae of The Saintlands Book 1)

by Leigh Kelsey

  “But the boat,” Ev growled, throwing a glare at him. “Do you know how much it costs to rent that thing?”

  “Not as much as our lives are worth,” Az said firmly, grabbing Siofra and ignoring her bark of complaint as he picked her up, setting her on his hip. “We run. Now.”

  As much as he wanted to unleash himself and his magic on the Foxes, it was more of a fuck you to the crown if they escaped, if they lived. So, he gave the Foxes a sharp grin and ran.

  Chapter Two

  Clouds chugged across the Vassalaer sky, their fluffy bottoms lit in shades of peach and rose as the sun began to set over the City of Skies. Maia watched the cloudy pastel sky through every tall window the royal procession passed, even though she should have been paying attention to her aunt Ismene, Queen of the Vassal empire. The view from this wing of the palace had always been her favourite: the pale spires, the low-slung mist and clouds, and the moonstone towers that thrust up to the sky, higher than every other building.

  Maia arched her neck for a glimpse of her favourite building, a sprawling construction of arches, towers, and golden domes that contained more books than she could ever hope to read in a lifetime. This was the Library of Vennh, named for the Hunchback Saint—the patron of knowledge. Hopefully this meeting would be over quickly, and Maia could shove off the mantle of being the loyal princess of the Vassal Empire—and all the darkness that came with obeying the queen—and cross the city to her little attic room in the library. It had once been a study room for lords and ladies, its close proximity to the skies befitting their status, but Maia had filled it with secrets and theories.

  “Daydreaming again, princess?” Lord Erren’s silken voice asked, the captain of the royal guard’s shadow falling over Maia’s view of the city.

  Her gaze went flat, the only outward sign of irritation she let show. She was an expert at this, at masking her real thoughts and opinions because they weren’t suitable for polite society. Honestly, if Maia let her mask slip and allowed her aunt’s people to see the coarse, foulmouthed woman she really was, they’d be scandalised.

  A smile curled her mouth at the thought, but then Erren spoke again, and her gaze went even flatter.

  “Don’t let your aunt catch your mind drifting; you know how much she hates inattention.” About as much as she hated untidiness. Maia eyed the three buttons undone on Erren’s shirt, the balding spot in his corn silk hair, three sweaty hairs messily covering the area.

  “I was paying perfect attention,” Maia replied sweetly, giving the slimy royal adviser a placid smile. “I saw you and Lady Mindal exchange a touch just minutes ago. I’m so glad to see you happy, Lord Erren, you truly deserve all the good things that are coming to you.”

  Like a broken nose and a black eye when Lord Mindal found out.

  Maia gave him an innocent smile full of so much sweetness it rotted her teeth, and increased her speed to catch up to her best friend, and the queen’s lady in waiting, Naemi.

  Naemi slid an amused glance at Maia, her golden hair pinned tightly with an owl comb and not budging even with the movement. Maia hid a smile, knowing exactly what Naemi would have to say about Erren.

  Both forced to attend the same events, Naemi and Maia had been friends since childhood, when Maia had arrived from Saintsgarde in a political exchange between her mother, the queen of the Sainsa Empire, and her aunt. Her cousin Ilta had been raised in Saintsgarde, like Maia had been raised in Vassalaer, in a bid to continue the good relations between the empires and sister queens. Not that Maia’s parents and her aunt actually got along; no, they hated each other, but to save face, they pretended to be a normal family.

  The whole palace was made up of it: pretense.

  Maia was no stranger to pretending herself, keeping her expression placid and her eyes carefully neutral as they reached a tall, sweeping staircase with bannisters capped by large, lifelike air drakes, the motif of the Eversky, saint of the skies. Sunlight gilded the lifelike veins in their wings, lovingly tracing their long, elegant necks and feathered wings. Maia had a favourite one, on the right bannister at the bottom. It was as big as a carriage and had a chip in its right ear, as if a rival drake had taken a bite out of it. Maia liked to imagine the drake was secretly a fighter, all elegant lines and beauty but a menace of teeth and claws lurking beneath, just like Maia.

  Not that she had an animal form, like the beastkind the queen hated so much. It would be nice sometimes, though, to escape this skin and prowl through the woods as a panther, or soar the skies as a fearsome hawk.

  Maia trailed her fingertips over the neck of the air drake as she passed it at the bottom of the stairs, and imagined she could feel its body expand with a breath. Anything to distract her from what came next. It was never good when she was asked to accompany her aunt and her retinue; it meant her aunt had a use for Maia’s magic.

  But Maia had been raised as a dutiful princess—and the consequences of disobeying were too painful and bloody—so no matter how much she hated the tasks she was given, she completed them. And got rip-roaring drunk afterward to blot out the memories of empty, staring eyes. And worse, the screams and hate-filled glares of those who fought back.

  But it could have been worse; at least her skull wasn’t stuck in a crystal box in the middle of the atrium for all to see and sneer at. The retinue of ladies and lords did just that as they passed the skull of the last Ghathanian Queen, a warning to anyone who thought to topple Ismene.

  Maia secretly thought the crown were scared of the old queen’s magic, even though it had died out two hundred years ago with the first Delakore Queen—saintslight, that divine magic of the saints themselves.

  Maia wouldn’t have minded having some saintslight herself; maybe she could use it to escape this hell.

  “Maia,” her aunt’s clear voice rang through the hall as the retinue turned away from the high-ceilinged atrium into a low, cosy reception room. It was clearly meant for putting guests at ease with its informal setting. Curtains of rich Delakore orange framed tall windows, looking out on a silver curve in the Luvasa river and its many sunstone bridges, clouds drifting by beyond the glass. Plump soft furnishings invited the people who sat on them to relax, to let their guards down. And it worked. Grateful to not be paraded through a court of watchful eyes to stand before a high throne, the guests who entered this room were calm and easy targets.

  The retinue parted, and Maia swiftly moved through lords and ladies and guards, pausing at her aunt’s left side, a step behind, waiting for orders. For the axe to fall.

  “We’re meeting the V’haivan emissaries today; you’re to stay close by us and be unremarkable as you do your job. This is your target for the next hour,” she added, and neatly passed back a small square of cream paper, upon which a sketch had been drawn. Maia’s target was an aging bronze-skinned man with dark hair threaded with grey, deep set eyes, and pouchy cheeks. A man his age would either succumb easily to her magic, or resist, long used to holding his own. And there’d be no way to tell which type he was until she’d already wrapped the invisible strands of her power around him.

  Her mission was the same every time: get them to agree to whatever the queen wanted. The faces changed, the reasons shifted, but the outcome was always the same. Guests bent and surrendered, and Ismene Delakore, queen of the Vassal Empire, got her way. Maia was an unwilling tool of it all, but she didn’t fancy adding more scars to her body, so she did as she was told.

  Taking another glance at the portrait until she had a clear image in her mind, Maia crumpled up the paper and stuffed it into the pocket of her dress. Today she wore deep charcoal grey, with accents of orange—of course—and heavy beading all over. The fabric of her skirts shone like streaks of fire whenever it caught the light just so. It was her favourite dress to date, and she’d been planning to wear it to Silvan’s music hall with Naemi tonight, but this job would ruin her love of it. It was always the same, the guilt-laced memory attaching itself to what she wore, or how she had her hair, or
what strain of music was playing, or what she was eating at the time.

  Shoving the dread far away, Maia sat on the sofa to the left of her aunt’s high-backed chair as silver-clad men and women bustled into the room with a tea-cart, setting out smoky teaglasses—the only hint to Ismene’s Sainsan heritage—on the short table before them. Maia took a drink just to calm her nerves, letting the warm infusion work its magic on her tense muscles. She shared a smile with Naemi as her friend sat beside her, reaching for a lightning biscuit and snapping it into two pieces along the bolt impressed in its surface in honour of the Eversky’s immense magic. She passed Maia one half, and Maia mouthed, “Thank you,” already feeling less stressed about this task with her friend beside her.

  “They’re approaching,” Lord Erren announced, standing beside the queen with his back straight and strands of white magic twining between his fingers, ready to jump in front of the queen to defend her if the V’haivan emissaries decided to turn this meeting into an ambush. Some had tried over the years; they were all rotting in the bottom of the Luvasa.

  “Let them stew for a minute outside,” Ismene said, sipping her tea. She was the picture of composure, not a pale strand of hair out of place, not a wrinkle or frown line in her beautiful face. Icy—cold enough to burn. “It’ll do them good.”

  Maia crunched the honeycomb biscuit, sweetness bursting across the tongue as well as a sharp, fizzing sensation that only the head cook of the palace could achieve, a creation of baking and magic. But the sweetness soured in her mouth when the queen nodded minutes later, and the retinue entered the room.

  Two haughty lords, a handsome prince, a bored knight, and three eager merchants. All with wings on show, as was the V’haivan tradition. Maia couldn’t imagine having that vulnerability exposed every moment of every day. Her wings—like most people’s in the Vassal empire—were always, always hidden in a pocket of magic. But the wings of the emissaries caught the pale gold sunlight streaming through the bank of filigree windows, as sheer and beautiful as gossamer, varying in shades of sunset, ocean, and forest. The prince’s were a rich copper membrane threaded with bright gold. Maia’s were jade green and silver, not that she’d shown them to a single soul. Not even Naemi. It was taboo in the Vassal Empire—and a good way to signal weakness to your enemies. As part of the crown, Maia would have to be mad to show her wings.

  Her target turned out to be a merchant, and a cloth one judging by the fine quality of his long tunic and the silk trousers he wore beneath. Maia watched him from the corner of her eye, beginning to hum a tune no one would hear but her, sending invisible strands of power across the expensive rug as he sat, deep into the merchant’s mind. She didn’t hear his name when the emissaries were introduced; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was human, and had no magic of his own, and when Maia hummed louder, not letting her lips move, blending into the background so no one would notice her working magic, his mind gave way as easily as a knife through jelly.

  Her stomach twisted into a knot at the sensation of tumbling into his head, but she ignored it, weaving a more intricate melody into her song. The merchant’s brown pupils dilated, just slightly, and he was hers.

  But when the queen spoke next, Maia wanted to turn her power on her aunt, twist her mind until she was screaming and howling and clawing at her skull. If Maia even tried, the palace guard would have her impaled with swords, spears, and magic within seconds. And a worse fate than death would be waiting for her after. She knew; she’d already lived it once.

  “And what do you say, Sir Valleir?” Ismene asked, managing to be both regal and friendly, her pale head tilted and her brilliant blue eyes crinkled with an artful smile. “Are you opposed to expanding our trade caravans to include more merchandise?”

  Such a normal word—merchandise. A word used to describe spices and cotton and books. And people. They traded in beastkind mostly, and lesser fae sometimes; those who wouldn’t be missed. Those Maia was supposed to sneer at and despise. Except she never had. Her greatest secret was that she hated her aunt’s laws, but she could never speak out about her beliefs. Maia had angered her once when she was thirteen, and she still bore the scars of her punishment.

  It was easier, and safer, to be the dutiful, obedient princess in public, and to rage in secret. Even if condoning it—no, actively encouraging it—left a taint on her soul. Made a kernel of self-hatred form in her chest, in the heart of the wooded glade that Maia had always pictured her soul as.

  Valleir blinked at Ismene’s question, and then said, “I agree, both our empires could benefit from an increase in the caravans. But doubling the number could be too much too soon,” he added, as Maia hummed, twisting his mind to and fro, moulding it until the thoughts she placed felt as natural as his own, his voice full of nothing but genuine feeling. “But a quarter increase this season would be easy enough, and then if that goes to plan, we can increase it again next season.”

  “We should be talking about decreasing the trade,” the prince growled quietly, giving Sir Valleir a dirty look. Like all his people, Prince Kheir had deep gold skin, but instead of his companions’ black locks, he had thick, wavy hair the colour of bronze. Passion shone from chocolate eyes, and with the dark stubble on his jaw, he was somewhere between rugged and elegant. A strange counter to the icy tones of Vassaler. And devilishly handsome—with morals to boot. It was a damn shame visitors were off limits for sleeping with, or Maia would happily tangle with the prince. “Not increasing it,” he went on, growing louder. “Dress it up however you want, you’re trading in people.”

  Ismene’s smile froze, and Maia’s heart tripped. She didn’t dare stop humming, keeping Sir Valleir in her thrall. It was an effort to keep her expression neutral, to keep her head still even as she wanted to nod and emphatically agree with the prince. He was the only person who’d spoken sense in this palace in weeks. The only person with a conscience it seemed.

  But beastkind were nothing but animals to fae like her aunt. Worse than animals, sometimes.

  “And harm the economies of both our empires?” Ismene asked the prince with a confused frown. Maia had known her aunt long enough to see the minutiae of anger in her unnaturally wrinkle-free face, but she hid it well. “This trade route kept our people fed and housed throughout the long siege of twenty-seven. To cut it, or saints forbid, end it altogether would remove a safety net we both need.”

  Prince Kheir’s lush mouth thinned, but he didn’t say anything else, sitting back in his seat and twisting a gold button on his embroidered sleeve around and around. Biding his time, probably, as Maia would have done. Ismene wasn’t the sort of queen to be convinced of something on day one. Day three hundred and one, maybe. Maia sensed a long and painful negotiation ahead, and she could already feel the headache of manipulating it to her aunt's victory.

  “Sir Gavan,” Ismene said in a neutral tone, turning from the prince, her expression open and friendly once more. “What’s your decree? For or against keeping our empires secure?”

  Oh, clever. Instead of selling people into wars they would never come home from, they were safeguarding the people they actually cared about. It was rare in emissaries like this to find someone like the prince, whose morals outweighed his greed and selfishness. As long as their own families were unaffected, most people Maia met in this room were happy to sign anyone else’s lives away.

  Ironic that most people she met out in Vassalaer—commoners without a crown or title to their name—were more compassionate than the people in the palace, who held millions of lives in their grasp.

  “I don’t see a reason to decrease trade,” Gavan replied, slicking white hair from his face. That was no surprise; he was a weaselly little man, and he and Ismene got along well. “Why not increase it?”

  And that pretty much set the tone for the whole meeting. Maia was glad when it broke apart; she gave Naemi a squeeze on her shoulder and made her excuses to her aunt, who didn’t show one sign of giving a shit as Maia slipped out of the door a
nd walked—calmly, though she wanted to run—through the pale, gilded halls of the palace and up to her room.

  Saints, she needed a drink. Naemi would be stuck with Ismene for another hour or so, but Maia knew her friend would meet her at the music hall. So Maia threw off the mantle of princess—a mental weight more than a physical one, and so much heavier for it—and added a dark line to her eyes, a rosy glow to her pale cheeks, and honeyed gloss to her lips, brushing out her hair until it shone like a sleek star. The dress was immaculate, so there was no need to change that, but she swapped her sensible shoes for a pair of strappy sandals and grabbed a glitzy bag she kept money and perfume in for these occasions.

  Even though she’d stopped humming minutes ago, she could still feel the doughy sensation of Valleir’s mind, could still sense the confusion that had filled his head in the split second before she took control and rearranged his wants, beliefs, and everything that made him him.

  It’s done. There’s no going back, only forward.

  Maia rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and banished thoughts of snaresong, manipulation, and slave caravans as she headed for the palace’s southern exit that led through the two-storey hedgerow and into Vassalaer proper.

  She’d better make it two drinks.

  Chapter Three

  Azrail held Siofra tighter to his side as the Foxes surged towards them, watery sunlight catching the brass buttons on their orange uniforms, the sharp edges on their spears and arrows shining like fire.

  “Zamanya,” Az bit out, whirling away from the Foxes, checking his sister and friends were following as he ran and not staying by the Luvasa to do something stupid and heroic. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Or the eighth. “Zamanya!” he snarled again.

  “Forsaken saints, Az, I know!” she snapped back. One glance at his friend showed her onyx arms slashed with golden magic, like sunlight through cracked bark. Streaks of burnished power gathered around her hands, strong enough to—with any luck—knock aside the Foxes who’d lurched after Az and his family as they sprinted away from that bloody square.