Darkest Mercy

  She stopped at the mouth of the alley. Five of Niall’s thistle-clad fey had captured a Ly Erg.

  When Donia stepped into their field of vision, one of the thistle-fey slit the Ly Erg’s throat. The other four faeries turned to face her.

  She formed a knife of her ice.

  One of the thistle-fey grinned. “Not your business.”

  “Does your king know—”

  “Not your business either,” the same faery said.

  Donia stared at the corpse on the ground. The red-palmed Ly Erg was one of those who often lingered in the company of War. They were all members of the Dark Court, but the Ly Ergs gravitated to whoever offered access to the most fresh blood.

  Why are they killing their own? Or is this a result of factions in the Dark Court?

  The murderous faeries turned their backs to leave.

  “Stop.” She froze the metal fence they were about to scale. “You will take the shell.”

  One of the thistle-covered faeries looked over his shoulder at her. The faery flashed teeth. “Not your business,” he repeated again.

  The Winter Queen advanced on him, icy blade held out to the side. It was a sad truth that the fey, especially those of the Dark Court, responded best to aggression. She raised the blade and pressed it against the dominant faery’s throat. “I may not be your regent, but I am a regent. Do you question me?”

  The faery leaned into her blade, testing her resolve. Some residual thread of mortality made her want to retract the blade before it was bloodied, but a strong faery—especially a queen—didn’t fold under challenges. She willed serrated edges to form along the blade and pressed it hard to the faery’s skin. Blood trickled onto the ice.

  “Grab the body,” the faery told the others.

  She lowered the blade, and he bowed his head to her. The thistle-fey held their hands up in a placating gesture, and then one after another they scaled an unfrozen section of the aluminum fence. The rattle of the metal joined the growing din of traffic as morning broke.

  The last faery heaved the corpse over the fence, and then they ambled off with the body in their hands.

  Beside her, Evan said quietly, “Violence is here, and conflict is growing. Bananach will not stop until we are all destroyed. I would suggest that you speak to the Summer Queen and to the Dark Kings. Divisiveness will be to our detriment. We need to prepare.”

  Donia nodded. She was tired—tired of trying to bring order to a court that couldn’t remember life before Beira’s cruel reign, tired of trying to find a balance between discipline and mercy with them. “I am to see Aislinn soon. Without Keenan . . . between us, we are communicating better.”

  “And Niall?” Evan prompted.

  “If Bananach is striking Irial’s family, she is either testing for weaknesses or has found one already.” Donia whistled, and Sasha came toward her, the wolf appearing from the shadows where he’d waited. “We need to find out who the girl was before I seek out the Dark King. Summon one of the Hounds.”

  Evan nodded, but his expression darkened.

  “It is the right course of action,” she said.

  “It is.”

  “The Hunt is not all bad.”

  Evan snorted. The rowan had a long history of discord with the Hounds. Her advisor did not, however, object to her plan. She took comfort in that. The tranquility of Winter was pervasive in her fey. Typically, they could consider the situation, weigh the possibilities, and bury their tempers under the cold. Most of the time. When those tempers came screaming to the surface, the winter fey were a terrifying force.

  My terrifying force.

  As comforting as it was to have such a strong court, the pressure was daunting. She’d never thought to be sole monarch of a court. Once when she was still mortal, she’d dreamed of joining Keenan, ruling at his side. Barely a year and a half ago, she’d expected to die at Beira’s hand. Now, she was trying to function in the role into which she’d been thrust. “Some days, I am not ready for what approaches.”

  “No one is ever ready for War,” Evan said.

  “I know.”

  “You hold the most powerful court. You alone. You can lead the way to stopping Bananach.”

  “And if I can’t, what then?” She let her defenses drop for a moment, let her fears show in her voice.

  “You can.”

  She nodded. She could if she didn’t let her doubts get in the way. She straightened her shoulders and peered up at Evan. “If I allow another early spring, Summer will grow stronger, closer to an even balance with our court. I will speak to Aislinn. You will find out what you can about the Dark and send word to the Hounds. Sasha and the Hawthorn Girls will see me home.”

  “As you wish.” With a fiercely proud look, Evan nodded and walked away, leaving her with the wolf and the trio of Hawthorn Girls, who were silent but for the whirring of their wings.

  Chapter 2

  When he’d left Huntsdale, Keenan had spent the first month wandering, but after centuries of leading his court, he could only remain unoccupied so long before the reality of being Summer King became too pressing. Violence seemed more inevitable by the day, and the Summer Court was not yet strong enough to face conflict, so Keenan had used the last five months pursuing alliances—with no success yet.

  His meetings with various solitaries, especially those in the desert, hadn’t gone well, but Keenan held hopes for those in the ocean. Over the past several months he’d shown himself at the ocean and then withdrawn. This time, he was staying until they spoke to him.

  Entice and retreat. Appear and retreat. Approaching the solitaries was in many ways no different from the seduction he’d used on countless mortal girls over the centuries: they required strategies fitting to their personalities. With court faeries, he had to observe protocol. With various solitaries who functioned in pack mentalities, he had to demonstrate those traits they valued. In the desert, that meant strength and manipulative negotiation; at the ocean, that meant temptation and feigned disinterest.

  A green-skinned merrow opened his whiskered mouth in a faux yawn, flashing serrated teeth at Keenan, and then resumed staring silently. The water fey weren’t often likely to ask questions, not finding themselves interested in land dwellers’ dramas, but with patience, their curiosity could be piqued. Keenan had counted on that.

  With their volatility, they were closer in temperament to his court than any others, but water creatures were unpredictable in a way that perplexed even the regent of the most impetuous court. Whether river fey, lake fey, or ocean fey, they had moods that were as fluid as the water in which they existed.

  Keenan walked on the beach. Waiting. The water lifted in well-formed waves; the sky was purest blue; and the air was mild this far south. If he looked at the water with only a mortal’s gaze, he’d see colorful fish darting in crystal-clear water. Shells drifted and skittered over the sands, pulled and pushed by the waves, and the Summer King took pleasure in the beauty of the sea. It was a welcome respite: in nine centuries, he’d never had time to be anything other than the Summer King. When he hadn’t been trying to tend a weakened court, he’d been seeking or romancing the mortals he hoped would be his missing queen. Once he’d found Aislinn, he’d needed to be there while she adjusted, and then he’d needed to be there while she was mourning Seth’s abandonment—both to help her and to encourage her affection for her king and court.

  It was what any monarch would do.

  The Summer Court needed a queen who was tied to her court and king first. Her divided affections had weakened them in a time when they should be growing stronger. If Seth had stayed in Faerie, Keenan had no doubt that his court would be strong, with two monarchs who, if they were not truly in love as he had hoped they would be, were fond of each other.

  It could’ve been enough.

  Instead, they were facing an even more complicated dilemma. He was drawn to his queen—and she to him—on such a level that ignoring their connection was impossible. He’d been guiltily
grateful that she clung to her mortal lover; it had given Keenan one night with the faery he loved and couldn’t have, but when Solstice ended, so had the dream of being with Donia. The second Winter Solstice since Donia had been queen had passed while he was away, and the inability to run to her that day had made him despondent. She is not mine . . . and neither is my queen. The boy Keenan had thought would be a brief distraction to his newly found queen—a distraction that allowed Keenan time with Donia—had become a faery. Worse still, he was now protected by an angry Dark King and the dangerous High Queen. Keenan wasn’t sure how one previously mortal boy had become such a problem.

  Between Seth and the external threats the court faced, Keenan was more afraid for the future than he had been when his powers were still bound. Then, he’d had a single threat: Beira. Now, his court was headed toward dangers from too many directions. Bananach had grown stronger, as had Niall’s Dark Court. Even Sorcha’s High Court, which stayed hidden away in Faerie, had still managed to cause complications. Keenan had heard enough to know of her recent instability.

  Over Seth.

  The water edged closer as the tide came in, and Keenan stepped away from the lapping waves. In doing so, he moved toward a rocky outcropping. The sand under his bare feet wasn’t as soft now, but it wasn’t yet covered with the sharp-edged black mussels.

  “What do you seek here?”

  Even though he’d hoped to gain conversation with the water fey, the suddenness of the faery’s appearance startled Keenan. He lifted his gaze to an indent in the rocky alcove beside him, where a slender salt faery hid. Her salt-heavy hair hung in thick ropes to her thighs, covering much of her translucent body; the exposed skin glistened with the crystals that gathered there when she left the water for more than a few moments. One partially webbed hand was splayed out on the rock, as if to hold herself upright.

  She didn’t move any nearer, but her proximity was already enough to unsettle him. The touch of such fey would leave even him weakened. For many, a salt faery’s embrace was fatal. For regents, it was merely debilitating. Her position had placed him securely between her and the water, where other equally unpleasant faeries lurked.

  “I’m seeking allies,” he told her. “My court, the Summer Court—”

  “Why?” Her gaze darted toward the water and then returned to him abruptly. “Land concern is not our concern.”

  “War has grown strong, and she—”

  “The bestia?” The salt faery shivered delicately, and the motion sent a glittering shower to the sand and rock around her. “We do not like the winged one. She is not welcome in our waves.”

  “Yes,” Keenan said. “The bestia . . . she’s found her wings again. They are solid now. She flies well and far.”

  After flicking her salt-crusted hair over her shoulder, she stepped closer to him. “You falter.”

  Keenan reminded himself that retreating at this point would be a mistake. Even the water fey chased. And running would put me in the water. He let the sunlight that resided in his skin rise up. He’d rather not strike her, but if she reached out, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to resist.

  “You are strong, and”—he gestured to his right, where the waves lapped very near his feet—“your kind are unsettling.”

  The faery smiled, revealing sharp teeth. “We mean you no death this moment.”

  The fear he felt rolled over him as a wave surged up his legs, drenching him to the thigh. “And the next moment?”

  Instead of answering, she pointed to the alcove where she’d been waiting. “You will stay here while I tell them—unless you trust me to take you under the waves?”

  “No.” Keenan went to the fissure and leaned against the rock. His objection wasn’t merely a matter of trust: water folk didn’t think like land dwellers. She was as likely as not to forget that land dwellers needed air, and he couldn’t convince anyone to ally with his court if he were unconscious.

  “I’ll stay on the shore,” he added.

  The salt faery stepped into the water and dissolved. The foam that lingered where she had just stood scattered as the next wave receded. The transition between solid and fluid was instantaneous and complete. The salt faery was gone.

  He climbed higher on the rock. Being within reach of the water seemed unwise, especially while the tide was coming in. As he climbed, he donned his usual mortal glamour, lightening his copper hair to a mortal hue that was almost common, dulling his eyes to an only slightly inhuman shade of green, hiding the sunlight that radiated from his skin. The illusory image gave him an oddly comfortable feeling, like slipping into a favorite jacket. The glances of the mortal girls on the beach were a welcome balm on his still injured pride.

  In front of him an unnatural wave rose up. Mortals pointed, and Keenan repressed a frown. Coexisting with mortals meant learning what was too extreme for them to explain away. A single twenty-foot wave in an otherwise tranquil sea was definitely too extreme.

  Atop the wave sat a figure. He’d call it a faery, but beyond that he knew no words to fit it. Bits of gray skin and solid black eyes were obvious, but the faery’s body was cloaked under strands of kelp that were crossed and layered in a great fibrous mass. The mortals didn’t see the faery; of that, Keenan was sure. There are no screams. On either side of the towering wave a kelpie pranced. The horselike beasts slashed the water with their hooves. At their touch the sea frothed. If he were easily intimidated, their entrance would be impressive, but he’d grown up under the watch of an overly dramatic mother—one who wielded Winter—and he was the embodiment of Summer. It made him difficult to impress.

  He waited while the sea stilled and the kelpies departed. The center wave delivered the creature to the rock where Keenan sat. In a blink, the amorphous water fey was a lithe mortal-shaped faery. Keenan couldn’t say for sure whether it was male or female, only that it made him think of both dancers and warriors. The faery folded its legs and sat beside him.

  “We do not speak to your sort. Not out here. Not often. Not as this,” it said. The voice rose and fell as if the sound of the water rolled into the words. “Why do you ask for speech?”

  “War comes. Bananach . . . the bestia.” Keenan fought an unexpected urge to stroke the creature’s bare leg. It shimmered as the water at the horizon does when the sun seems to vanish at the end of the day.

  The faery turned its head, so Keenan was staring directly into its eyes. The depths of the ocean were in those eyes, the deepest waters where all was cold and dangerous and still and . . . Not tempting. He forced his gaze away. “If she wins, your faeries will die too.”

  “Mine?”

  Keenan folded his hands together to keep from reaching out to the faery. “You are not just another faery. You’re a regent, an alpha, one who commands.”

  “You may call me Innis,” it said, as if that answered the question implicit in his statement. Perhaps, for Innis, it did. “I will speak for those of the water.”

  Innis’ words seemed to fall onto Keenan’s skin, dripping down his forearm as if they were tangible things. His skin felt parched, too hot, painful almost.

  Heat that strong needs quenching, needs water.

  “I knew your parent,” Innis said.

  “My . . . parent?” Keenan fisted his hands, hoping that the movement would keep him from touching Innis. “Which? The last Winter Queen or the Summer King? Beira or Miach?”

  “I do not remember.” Innis shrugged. “Your forms are all alike. It was pleasant.”

  Keenan stared out at the rolling waves before him. The shimmering surface was mirrored in the flesh of the faery beside him. It was an odd similarity. He had sunlight inside him, but he also had traits other than light. Innis was as if water had taken form.

  He glanced at the faery, and as he did so realized that Innis now faced him. They’d been side by side at the edge of a rock a moment before.

  “You moved . . . or something.” Keenan struggled not to back away from the water faery. “How?”

/>   “You looked at the water. I am the water, so now you look at me.” Innis stared at him as it spoke, and the faery’s proximity made the air taste like brine. “We do not want to be dead.”

  “Right.” Keenan let sunlight fill him, remind him what he was. “We don’t either.”

  “The flesh creatures?”

  “Yes. Faeries who live on the land.”

  “You speak for all of you?” Innis had his hand now. “On the not wanting to be dead?”

  “I think so.” Keenan forced the words to his lips. “I am the king of a court. The Summer Court. I want to be allies.”

  For the span of no more than six waves crashing, Innis was quiet. Then it said, “We have swallowed the sun. It does not shine after a while, and we left it on the sand then.” Innis sighed. “It faded.”

  “My father?” Keenan tried to clarify.

  “No. There were other summers.” Innis shrugged again. “We would not like the winged one here. Your War. It pollutes.”

  “So, you would be an ally? You would help stop her?” Keenan prompted.

  “I do not think drowning the bestia would be pleasure.” Innis stroked wet fingers over Keenan’s leg. “I believe I would enjoy seeing you drown, though.”

  “Oh.” Keenan felt a decidedly conflicted thrill of pride and surge of terror. I do not want to die. He forced more sunlight into his skin, trying to chase the clammy dampness away. “If I ever want to drown, I could . . . I would come here. Is that good?”

  Innis laughed and waves surged over the rock, covering them both, tearing Keenan’s breath away and filling his throat with salty water. He tried not to panic, but when he attempted to stand, to get his head above the water, hands wrapped around his neck. Lips pressed to his, and kelp slipped into his open mouth. His chest ached, and his eyes couldn’t focus.

  I could find you pleasurable, flesh creature. Innis’ words were in his mind as surely as its arms were around his neck and its tongue was in his mouth. I will be your ally. I will take the bestia into our world if she touches the waves. We will fight for you in exchange for an open vow. Yes?