by Bec McMaster
“Vengeance, dark and bloody…. It’s finally mine to take.” The Mother of Night whispers in my mind. “Crush their bones. Destroy these filthy ingrates that sought to trap me. Me. I will have them on their knees….”
“No!” I scream.
I can feel her in my head, messing with my thoughts, my power. She finds the burning ember of rage I feel toward my mother, and glee lights through her as she fans the flames.
I can see my mother, hands flared out as she tries to shield herself and her retainers from the flood of raw power. Our eyes meet, and for a single second I see fear reflected there.
“Yes,” hisses the Mother of Night. “Kill her for what she’s taken from me. From us.”
All these years she’s lied to me, mocked me, made me feel as worthless as a worm, when she was the one who wasn’t worthy of me. She took everything from me. My husband. My mind. My magic.
And now I’m going to take it all back from her.
“Vi!” Thiago screams.
I blink and see him crawling toward me through the gush of light and energy pouring through the Hallow. His cloak looks raw and tattered, as if the magic is tearing at him. The magic chains binding and gagging him are gone.
“Vi, stop! You’re going to tear the Hallow apart, and everyone here, with it.”
What is stronger? My love for Thiago, or my fury at my mother?
Anger is a flame that burns everything. You may destroy your enemy with it, my nurse’s voice murmurs in my head, but you’ll also destroy yourself.
I clench my fists, reining in the fury and choking the Mother of Night down. We may be directly linked now, but I’m still the one in control. And until I pay my tithe, I can’t allow her to gain one foothold in this world.
Or within me.
The power flickers and then dies in a sudden quenching of light, leaving me wrung dry and shaking.
My eyes are night-blind, but I can hear shocked gasps and startled cries.
Fear. I can practically taste it.
When my vision returns, it’s not Thiago or my mother I see first, but Andraste, staring at me in horror.
“What are you?” she whispers.
She who knows me the best.
I did what had to be done.
The axe is gone. Solid iron melted into slag by my magic. The enormous troll who wielded it has vanished. All that remains is blood sprayed against the stone steps that ring the Queensmoot. Shadows scorch the earth where some of the lesser fae once stood. Only those with enough power to shield survive, slowly lowering their arms in shock and horror.
Thiago lifts his head. He’s the only one the magic didn’t touch.
“What… did you do?” he rasps, eyeing the glyphs burned into my skin.
“What was necessary.” I capture his face in my hands and press a desperate kiss to his lips. “I love you.” Our mouths meet again, mashing against each other in our urgency. “I remember you!” It’s almost a sob. “I remember you.”
“Vi, get out of here.”
I turn, trying to see what’s caught his attention.
“Abomination,” my mother spits, forcing herself to stand. Her crown of thorns quivers with her anger, but for once, I feel almost as tall as she is.
I turn and stare at her, and even now, there’s a kernel of that anxious child still inside me, wanting to please her mother. No matter how much I learn, how far I go, I think I will always have that scar.
But it no longer needs to direct my actions.
“You should know, Mother. You were the one who begat me.”
“I should have drowned you at birth when you came out wrong.” She rises to her full height, and thorns spring from the ground, curling around the hem of her charred skirts. “Herald,” she says. “Blow your horn.”
The herald lifts his horn and a long, sweet note cuts through the air.
The entire crowd stands with bated breath.
“Adaia,” the Queen of Aska warns.
My mother’s smile chills my blood as a chorus of answering howls echoes around the Hallow’s standing stones. Banes. Dozens of them, by the sound of it. I can see shadows streaming across the bracken-covered hills that surround us. Enormous, writhing beasts conjured from all manner of monstrosities.
“You dare bring those creatures here?” says the Queen of Ravenal.
The Queensmoot is sacrosanct, its laws written in stone thousands of years ago. To break its laws means risking everything, for the Alliance will not stand against it.
But if there’s no one left to speak of war and broken laws, then who will question her?
I should have known.
My mother doesn’t lose. No matter what she must do.
“Vi,” Thiago says, pushing me behind him and drawing his sword. Somehow, he’s cut his hands free. “Are you armed?”
Only with the knife she gave me to kill him. Instinct must have made me bring it. “Not really.”
And then chaos descends as banes tear through the outer flanks of hobgoblins and courtiers.
45
“Stay behind me!” Thiago yells, settling into a defensive stance.
The first few moments are mayhem.
Fae scream and scramble for cover, trampling each other in their wake. Hobgoblins go down, ripped to shreds by beasts that were curse-twisted for war.
The Queen of Aska turns furious eyes upon my mother and starts to conjure a cloud of darkness between her hands.
“Walk away,” my mother tells her coldly. “You and your court are free to leave.”
Queen Maren considers it. The darkness between her hands dissipates. “We will talk once this is done.”
A wise decision on my mother’s behalf, for Maren did not earn her title lightly.
Lucidia is not so lucky. Turning toward the approaching pack, she doesn’t see the bane that stalks her from behind.
“Look out!” I cry, but as she turns, its teeth sink into her throat and she goes down with a startled cry, buried in more snapping banes.
“We need to retreat,” Thiago tells me, shoving me back through the stones.
Retreat isn’t in either of our natures, but a swift glance proves him right. The Queensmoot is—or was—a place for peace.
To bear steel on this hallowed turf is against all the rules.
To draw blood is cause enough for execution.
Each queen or prince is only entitled to twenty-five courtiers, guards, or retainers. And right now, they’re all being overrun. Nobody was prepared for this. The break in tradition is catastrophic.
I knew my mother had ambitions, but to watch them play out like this…. She knew. She planned for this. She always intended to strike at the Alliance and place herself firmly on a throne that rules the entire south.
If she’d succeeded, then Thiago, Kyrian, and Lucidia would all be dead.
Kyrian foiled her plans by walking away with his entourage, and I ruined her intentions toward Thiago, but we’ve lost a staunch ally in Lucidia and the Kingdom of Ravenal.
And with the Kingdom of Evernight in the north of the Alliance and Kyrian ruling the Island of Stormhaven, far to the south, the entire center of the Alliance will be split between my mother and Maren.
Not to mention, the Unseelie in the north are like a knife to our throats.
I nod as Thiago starts to cut a path back to his people. Retreat is the only option.
“Vi!” Thalia yells from the melee ahead.
“There they are!” I tell him, pointing toward her pale face.
The only problem is, between us lurks an entire pack of banes, tearing into a gaggle of Lucidia’s courtiers.
“Can you summon your magic again?” Thiago demands, catching sight of a bane lunging toward us. Timing it perfectly, he steps to the side just as he brings the sword down. Steel slices through matted fur, and the bane’s headless corpse crumples to the ground.
“No.” I’m too far from the Hallow that channels the ley line’s power.
And I don’t k
now if I dare open that link again. Judging from the tremble in my arms and legs, I’m facing the backlash of handling so much raw magic, and I can feel the Mother there, just waiting to close her trap.
Finn appears out of nowhere, mounted on a dappled gray stallion. “Here,” he yells, tossing me one of his swords.
It feels like it belongs in my hands.
I turn to wade into the battle, but a hand reaches down and grabs me by the back of my dress, hauling me up.
With a squeal, I land in Finn’s lap.
“Get her out of here,” Thiago yells.
“Don’t you dare!” I elbow Finn in the side. “Thiago!”
He’s turning to face a pair of banes with his hands held low at his sides. What in Maia’s name did he do with his sword? He’s virtually defenseless.
“Thiago!”
He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t look at me. Merely walks forward.
“While I’d usually enjoy having a beautiful woman in my arms,” Finn mutters, “I think I’d prefer it if she wasn’t trying to emasculate me.”
“If you try and haul me out of here,” I snarl, “then an elbow will be the least of your troubles. Ride after him.”
“Princess, as much as I’d like to oblige,” Finn says, grabbing the reins and wheeling the gray around, “he’s not the one in any danger.”
Wisps of fog stir around Thiago’s hem. I blink and realize the shadows at his feet are stretching, growing. Every step he takes, he seems to grow taller. The cloak starts to twitch, and then enormous glossy black wings unfurl.
My breath catches in my throat.
Every Unseelie has a bit of the beast inside them somewhere, and if Mother’s been searching for proof that his origins are impure, then she’ll have it.
But as the shadows around him swirl, I realize she’ll have to survive.
I am an army, he said once.
And I remember those snapping, snarling voices that fill his shadows. I remember the way his eyes turned pure black and dark runes sprang up all over his skin.
“Ride,” I tell Finn. “I’ll cover your back.”
Slinging one leg over the pommel, I haul a handful of my skirts up so I can grip the saddle.
I glance back only once, as the stallion launches forward, smashing a pair of dueling fae nobles out of the way. Thiago vanishes within a cloud of darkness that leaps hungrily forward, consuming everything in his path.
He may be Unseelie.
He may be a monster.
But he’s my monster.
I kick one of Mother’s guards in the face, and he flips backward in a stir of red and gold. Asturian colors, though I’ve turned my back on them forever.
It hurts, just a little, though I’m sure the black and silver of the Evernight court will suit me better.
Then we’re free of the melee and streaking through the bracken.
Howls echo behind us. Then pained yelps and the sound of a bane’s high-pitched scream.
This time, I don’t dare look back.
The cost of channeling the Mother of Night’s power is heavy.
I can barely see by the time Thiago returns to Valerian, carrying me through the portal in his arms. He’d found us by the Hallow, and I vaguely recall fainting forward into his arms.
“Why Valerian?” I whisper.
He hesitates as he sets me down. “Because I don’t know if I can entirely trust everyone in Ceres. And it’s the first place your mother will attack.”
I shudder, staggering sideways.
“You broke the curse,” he says, his eyes locking on me intently. “But you didn’t remember me until it was too late.”
I look away. Now comes the time of reckoning.
“End yourself,” he whispers. “Kill the queen. Or find something with more power to break the spell. I should have paid closer attention to you in those last few days. What did you do? Why?”
“I made a pact with the Mother of Night,” I whisper. “She would give me the power to break the curse—”
“And in return?” he demands harshly, because we both know that making deals with the Old Ones is more dangerous than jumping off a cliff without a pair of wings.
“In return, I have a year to find the Crown of Shadows and present it to her. Or….” I can’t say it.
“Or?”
“Or I must bequeath her our firstborn child.”
For a second, he looks as though I’ve punched him in the face. Fury lights his eyes. “You what?”
“I had no choice.” The very thought makes me feel ill. Could I have made a better bargain? I’ve tossed and turned over the thought every night since I made it, but the truth is, I would cut off my own arm before I ever gave a child to the Mother of Night. I will find the Crown of Shadows.
Making this deal was the only way I could buy myself some time.
“I offered my soul, but she wouldn’t take it.”
“Curse you, Vi! Why?”
“Because I couldn’t bear to watch you die, and I was afraid your faith in me was misplaced. I needed an answer. I needed a guarantee. And I didn’t set her free. I wouldn’t promise her that,” I tell him. “We have a year. And as long as I don’t fall with child in the meantime, then we’re safe. She cannot take what does not exist.”
“The Mother of Night wouldn’t make a bargain unless she thought she had something to gain from it,” he snarls. “If she made a deal that involves a child of ours, then she considers it to be more than a possibility. You could be with child now.”
“I’m not,” I assure him. “I’m not a fool. I would never have accepted if there was any doubt.”
He rakes his hands through his hair. “You don’t understand. What were you thinking?” he yells. “Or were you thinking?”
Days of worrying about how I’m going to save him, and this is his response? I tip my chin up in anger. “I was thinking that my mother was going to execute you right in front of me and I wouldn’t have even shed a cursed tear until it was too late.”
“You would have remembered—”
“I’m glad one of us is certain of that,” I shoot, “because I wasn’t. And even if I did, I didn’t have the power to challenge my mother.”
“All you had to do was free me—”
“And start a war?” I point out, though the irony of my mother’s betrayal does occur to me. “Because I’m fairly certain if I’d remembered you, we would have had to fight our way out of there. Or you would have had to fight our way out of there, and I didn’t even know what condition you’d be in. What if you were beaten? Unconscious? Your magic chained? What then? I am tired of hiding behind you. I am tired of not being able to face her. My mother doesn’t lose, Thiago. She will fight until the last breath leaves her body. And she would have rather seen me dead than happy in your arms. I had to make her fear me. I had to have the power to confront her, and I didn’t have any other options to get it from.”
“She’s the Mother of All Darkness, curse you!”
“Really? I had absolutely no idea.”
“The more you channel her power, the greater the hold she’ll have on you,” he warns.
It didn’t occur to me that he’d think the power I was channeling at the Hallow would be hers. As much as I want to tell him the truth, he was the one who considers it mercy to kill the leanabh an dàn .
The truth dies on my lips.
I just need a little time. I just need to convince him that I’ll never do it. I’ll never set them free. The Erlking is enough. I understand the damage they can cause. I’ll tell him. One day.
“I won’t use her power again. I promise.” It’s one I can keep.
I knew what the price would be if I traveled this path. I deliberately ignored his warnings, but what was the alternative? Watch him die? Wake up, many years from now, sobbing in my bed when I finally remember?
No. No. Every lesson my mother has ever given me taught me to fight, and to fight dirty. I’ll deal with the consequences when I face them. Time was a
lways our enemy, and now I’ve bought us another year of it.
But even as I think it, I can’t help remembering the Mother of Night’s words, “You were born to set us free.”
Have I even been the one making these decisions, or is that bitch silently laughing as she steers me in the direction she wants?
I’m so tired and heartbroken I don’t even know.
“We have a year,” I repeat. “And my mother lost. You have the disputed territories and—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the land,” he snaps.
My lips clamp together.
“Now what?” I whisper.
He scrapes at his face, fury still harsh across his expression. I can tell he wants to punch a wall or something, but he doesn’t like behaving like a savage.
The thought makes me blink.
I don’t know how I know that, but I do.
And just like that, the fire in his eyes banks. “We call in my people,” he says. “And start discussing our plan of attack.”
Relief floods through me. We. He said we. “You don’t want to dissolve the marriage?”
He looks at me incredulously. “Dissolve it?”
“Since it appears you are married to a monster.” They’re lighthearted words, but even I can hear the depth of emotion underscoring them.
Two steps and he’s right in front of me, though I don’t know if his hands quiver with the desire to put them on me or to push me away. “You’re not a monster.”
Aren’t I?
“Forever, Vi.” His voice roughens. “That was the promise I made. No matter what the cost is. No matter what I must do to keep you. You belong to me, and I to you, until the moon falls from the sky and the tides no longer churn. Forever.”
I remember those words, spoken the night we bound our hands together and married. The memories are still incomplete, broken fragments that slip through at the oddest moment, but some seem seared into my mind.
Until now, I’ve been channeling the exhilaration of the meeting, fueled by fear and rage and exhilaration. But with those words, I want to throw myself into his arms and cry.
