The Emperor of Evening Stars (The Bargainer Book 3)

  Cold, clammy fear takes root low in my stomach, and it’s spreading like a vine through me.

  Cautiously, I become one with the darkness again, vanishing in one instant, and materializing behind a slimy, mineralized column a moment later.

  From where I stand, I can see my mother, her back to me, and across from her …

  My blood runs cold.

  I see my hair, my eyes, and my jawline all worn by another man, a man I’ve read about so many times I feel like I know him. He’s a man I’ve come to loathe.

  My father, Galleghar Nyx, the King of Night.

  254 years ago

  I stare at the tyrant king of our realm.

  Galleghar’s white hair halos his face; it looks like he’s run his fingers through it far too many times. His black outfit is heavily adorned with gold, his boots so highly polished they shine like mirrors.

  His face is inarguably handsome in a cruel sort of way, and from his imposing stature it’s obvious that he’s not just magically gifted but also physically dominant.

  … monstrous man …

  … murders babes …

  … tortures innocents …

  … hunts mortals …

  … makes even the darkness weep …

  The shadows gossip; even they have no loyalty to their king.

  All around Galleghar fairy lights hang in the air, though I get the impression he doesn’t need light to see in the dark.

  “Eurielle D’asteria,” he says, “my fallen star.”

  Whether it’s those words or that voice, my blood runs cold.

  “For sixteen years you evaded me.” His eyes drink her in.

  A protective instinct in me flares to life when I see the way he stares at her. Like he wants to possess her.

  “I looked everywhere. Questioned everyone. Followed every lead. But they were all dead ends.” He begins to pace, never taking his eyes off of my mother. “My favorite wife vanished from my palace, hours after I attended her, and it was as though she never existed in the first place.” He snaps his fingers and opens his palms as if to demonstrate the act of disappearing.

  My mother doesn’t respond, just watches the king.

  “In fact, when I tried to track down your family, your friends—anyone who came before me—I found they never existed at all. There were fake names for imaginary people. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a spy employed into the royal house had a resume built on lies. A spy that became my wife.”

  “You chose me, Galleghar,” she says quietly, finally breaking the silence.

  He laughs, and worlds should tremble at that terrible sound. “I did, didn’t I?” His smile disappears. “I do like clever creatures—and how clever you were. It took you one night to deceive me.” He holds his index finger up. “Just one.”

  He takes a couple steps closer to her, his footsteps echoing throughout the cavern. I can tell just by the way the air darkens at his back—right where his wings should be—that he’s angry and exhilarated all at once.

  “I should’ve known,” he continues. “You did warn me how much you loved keeping secrets.” He narrows his eyes. “There’s one secret in particular I’m curious about. You see, when a report came to me a few days ago concerning your whereabouts,” he steps in close to her, his voice dropping to a menacing pitch, “it said I have a son.”

  My body stills, fear roaring through my veins. My magic pushes against the underside of my skin, begging to be set loose.

  I need to act, I need to save my mother, but the King of the Night is rumored to be one of the most powerful fairies in existence. There’s no way I can subdue him. But every moment I hesitate is another moment wasted. How can I possibly get my mother and me out of here?

  “Well?” he pushes, “is it true?”

  Even from what little I can see of my mother, I can tell she’s lifted her chin. “What use is my word, Galleghar? Haven’t we already established that I’m a liar?”

  The Night King eyes her shrewdly. He’s about to do something, I can sense it. There’s so much pent-up aggression behind his eyes and he wants to unleash it. Needs to unleash it.

  I’m about to reveal myself when he drags his gaze away from my mother and looks at the caves that surround us. I duck back behind the column just before his gaze moves over the section of the cavern I’m in. Whatever his malevolent intentions are, he reins them in.

  “So, this whole time, this is where you’ve been? Arestys’ caves? No wonder I never found you. Even the lowliest slave wouldn’t willingly subject themselves to this shithole.”

  “How it must wound you then,” my mother says, her voice lilting, “to know I chose this over you.”

  His eyes snap back to her. He stares at her for a second, and then he flicks his wrist. A burst of his magic blasts into her, and my mother is viciously thrown to the cavern floor.

  I swear my heart stops for a moment, and then my fury rises, drowning my fear. It rushes through my veins, thicker than blood.

  No one lays a hand on my mother.

  I step out from behind the column, my magic making the shadows gather around me.

  “I came here planning to kill you,” the king continues. His entire focus is so fixed on my mother that he doesn’t see me, even though I’m in plain sight. He has eyes only for her.

  He threads a hand into her hair and jerks her head up to face him. “But on second thought, perhaps I’ll keep you and let you live. Perhaps every night I’ll let you choose the man who will force himself on you.”

  My power is building on itself, my wrath fueling it. I take a step forward, and then another, but neither of them notices. They only have eyes for one another.

  My mother laughs in the king’s face, mocking his threat. “So long as it’s not you attending me, I welcome the punishment.”

  The hairs on my arm rise. Both my mother’s words and her voice sound different. I’ve always thought she was soft, but she’s not. Gods, is it clear to me now more than ever that she’s not. She’s whoever she wants to be—loving mother, royal spy, reluctant concubine, clumsy scribe. And beneath all her masks is a woman that should make men quake.

  The king reels back, just as shocked by her words as I am.

  I see the moment that shock melts away, the cruel lines of his face sharpening. His anger is so like mine. It churns right beneath the surface, gathering force.

  No wonder my mother stared at me so fearfully all those years ago when I lost control of my own anger and my power lashed out of me. No wonder she’s drilled into me the need for control. She saw what I’m only now seeing—

  I am my father’s son.

  “Anyone but me?” he says. “Is that it? You’re used to servicing slaves and thieves?” That anger of his is mounting. “Perhaps if I am so bad, then I should do the honors.” His hand reaches for his belt, and that’s all I can take.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I’m propelling through the darkness. I materialize in front of my father, my body still hurtling forward, my fist cocked back. An instant later I slam it into his face, roaring as I do so. I throw all my rage, all my fear, and a healthy dose of my power into the hit.

  He goes flying through the air, his body colliding with a pillar that shatters against his back.

  I mean to grab my mother and run, but this is my father. The father who degraded her, threatened her, struck her. The same father I once pined for. The man my mother has protected me from. The man whose cursed blood runs through my veins.

  I feel that potent, rotten blood of ours. It’s enticing me to be vicious, to end what I started. And I still have too little control of my own anger to resist my magic.

  I straighten my shoulders, my wings fanning open behind me.

  “Desmond,” my mother says behind me, “don’t.”

  Ignoring her, I stride over to my father, the darkness gathering around me as I watch him sit up. I step up to him just as he wipes away a line of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

  He stare
s up at me, his eyes moving to my wings. “So the rumors were true.” Then his gaze moves over my frame, which I know is slender and wiry, then my face. “Pity you are not much to look at.”

  I say nothing, though my jaw clenches.

  The two of us lock eyes, our rage moving like a river beneath our skin.

  Finally, my father flashes a cruel smile. “Yes, you are my son indeed. That power is a terrible burden, isn’t it?”

  I’m not sure I could answer him if I wanted to. I need to release this magic before it devours me.

  My mother’s hand clasps my shoulder, breaking the spell. “Leave him, Desmond,” she says quietly.

  But not quietly enough.

  The king’s eyes move to my mother. “Leave me?” he says, his eyes narrowing, even as he begins to grin. “You think I’d let either of you escape me twice?”

  One second my father is in front of me, the next he’s gone.

  I startle.

  Same power as mine.

  That’s all I have time to think before my mother’s hand is ripped from my shoulder.

  I swivel around in time to see the king at her back, a knife to her throat.

  He doesn’t hesitate. Faster than I can react, he drags the blade across her delicate neck, slicing the throat of the only person I’ve ever cared about.

  Time seems to stop. Everything seems to stop.

  My entire life condenses to this one instant, this one terrible instant. And it can’t be real. None of this can be real.

  Not that blood, which spills down her throat like some strange necklace. Not my mother’s surprised face, or her choked breath, which bubbles out of her wound. Not my father’s pleased face and his wrathful eyes.

  This … this can’t be possible.

  All at once, time whooshes back to life, and I realize this is possible. This is real. This is what death looks like. This is what true, endless loss feels like.

  I’m still that dying star, all my magic, all my grief, all my fury and fear pressing inward. The pressure of it all builds until it’s unbearable. The cavern darkens with it.

  I stare at my mother, and I can barely feel the hot tears tracking down my face.

  My eyes move to my father.

  Everything silences—my pain, my power, my dying heart. I can only hear my breath sighing in and out of me.

  And then my magic detonates.

  254 years ago

  My power explodes around me, the shockwave rippling out. My father only has a second to see me with horror-filled eyes before he winks out of existence, leaving the caverns in an instant.

  My magic vaporizes everything in its path. The rock, the rubble, the home I was raised in, the fortune my mother saved for me, the soldiers still lying unconscious outside our front door, the tunnels I called home for the last sixteen years—it all disintegrates the moment my magic touches it, gone as though it never were.

  My hair and clothes whip about me, caught up in the vortex of my power. And still it pours out of me. I can’t hear anything over the deafening roar of it. It’s in my ears, in my head, in my heart. It builds faster than my anger, swells larger than my anguish, and cuts deeper than my pride. It’s a sea, and I’m drowning in it, getting sucked farther and farther down into that abyss, that dark, dark abyss.

  Just as I feel it’s about to consume me, the magic dies away.

  For several seconds all I can do is take shallow breaths, the sound of air whistling in and out of my lungs deafening in the eerie silence that follows.

  I sway on my feet, blinking as I take in the sight around me.

  Gone. Everything is … gone. The caves, the soldiers, the king.

  I stare up at the night sky above me, a sight I yearned for all those years I lived in a windowless house.

  And then my eyes land on my mother. She’s the only thing left untouched by my power.

  But even she is gone.

  I stumble over to her, falling to my knees at her side. I gather her to me, cradling her body in my arms. Her beautiful, violet eyes stare sightlessly past me, her neck gaping open.

  “No, Mom …” My voice breaks.

  In a matter of seconds, her blood coats my arms and stains my clothes.

  This can’t be real.

  My eyes fall to her neck wound. I press a shaky hand to it, willing my magic to heal her. Nothing happens. I try again and get the same result. Maybe I used up all of my power earlier, maybe I’m no healer.

  Or maybe it’s just too late.

  Some strange, wordless sound bubbles up my throat. Because it is too late.

  No pulse, no breath, no life.

  She’s gone. She’s gone.

  Above me, the stars twinkle down.

  She’s gone and the stars still twinkle.

  I let out an agonized cry, and then another, and another. And then my cries become sobs. I bow my head over her broken body, holding her close. If I could, I’d claw my heart out. It hurts so godsdamned bad.

  I bury my face in my mother’s neck. I feel her already cooling blood smear across my cheek and into my hair.

  I don’t know how long I hold her to me. Hours or minutes might have passed. My grief can’t distinguish the difference. At some point my sobs taper off, replaced by a heavy, aching numbness.

  And then, my skin prickles.

  My shoulders tense when I sense hot gazes on my back. I know without looking that the townspeople have come to investigate. My wings are still out. My mother is still cradled in my arms. Still dead.

  It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. I have no mother, no house, no fortune, no future.

  People begin to whisper behind me, and I can practically feel their curiosity and their fear. My entire life, they thought me a bastard, a poor, magicless bastard. Only now are they seeing my true lineage and power.

  Just a day ago this would’ve felt vindicating. Now their eyes feel intrusive.

  One of them messaged the king. Told him of my existence. One of them caused this. Whether it was that village girl, or her father, or someone else who saw something they shouldn’t have. They told the king I lived. Surely they knew he’d come for me, surely they knew their words would doom us.

  I stand slowly, my mother still in my arms, then turn to face them.

  “Who did this?” I say slowly, my eyes moving over the faces of the gathering crowd. “Who wrote to the king about me and my mother?”

  No one speaks, though many of them begin to shift uneasily, their eyes moving between me and each other.

  “Who did this?” I shout again, my power sweeping out of me. Fairies scream as it knocks them to the ground.

  My distinctive wings flare out. For once in my life, I deliberately keep them exposed. Those who haven’t seen them yet now get a good long look at them. I see their eyes widen fearfully.

  No one comes forward. I stare at each one of their faces, and this is the moment where we all realize that the boy they thought I was, was a mirage. That this entire time they’ve been the field mice and I’ve been the viper lying in the grass.

  “I swear on my mother’s grave,” I say, my voice ringing out in the night, “I will find which one of you did this, and I will make—you—pay.” The earth shakes with my words, and again, people gasp, their faces terrified.

  I glance up at the stars. There is one other fairy who needs to pay. One other who deserves the bulk of my wrath.

  Without further thought, I bend my knees and spring into the sky, my mother still clasped to me. My wings beat at my back, and for the first time in my life, I force them to fly.

  I grit my teeth as they propel me into the air, and at first sheer willpower and a bit of magic keeps me airborne. But then instinct takes over, and my wings begin to move as though I’d done this a hundred times.

  And then I’m heading for the stars above me, and I don’t look back at my small town with its small people full of small dreams.

  Wrongs must be righted. A king must pay.

  And realms
will fall for my vengeance.

  Chapter 3

  The Angels of Small Death

  254 years ago

  It takes a day for me to bury my mother and another to leave her.

  She rests among the ruins of Lyra, one of the oldest temples dedicated to the goddess of new life, her body nestled amongst Lyra’s undying flowers. The story of the ancient goddess was always one of her favorites.

  I stare at the freshly turned earth, my jaw locked hard.

  She shouldn’t be buried here, in an unmarked grave in the land of Flora. But I can’t go back to Arestys, and that’s the only home I’ve ever shared with my mother. So I leave her to her final sleep in a land I’ve only ever read about.

  As I fly away from her grave and the distance between us grows larger and larger, my anger and pain smolder deep within me.

  I feel my identity tearing apart, refashioning itself into something harder, colder. There’s no more room in my heart for softness. I have one reason for existing, and one alone: to kill the king.

  My mother wanted me to seek asylum in the Day Kingdom, but that was before, when my mother had saved up riches to give the King of Day. What are the chances that he’d take me in now, when I’m penniless?

  I already know the answer.

  She wouldn’t have saved up the money if I didn’t need it.

  Which means that the last fourteen years of her savings, of us living off of beet stew and sleeping in Arestys’ caves was all for nothing.

  All. For. Nothing.

  The unfairness of it burns through me.

  I’m a wanted man, and there’s no place for me to go—

  My wings almost freeze mid-beat as a realization slams into me.

  Of course.

  There is a place that might welcome a bloodstained, penniless fairy. A place where violence and vendettas are born.

  The City of Thieves. Barbos.

  254 years ago

  I sit inside some disreputable pub in Barbos, nursing the dregs of the last ale I can afford. I don’t have enough money in my pocket for much more than another meal. I’ll have to sleep on a rooftop tonight and hope no one discovers me before morning.