The Emperor of Evening Stars (The Bargainer Book 3)

I dissolve into the darkness, barreling after him. It’s almost impossible to sense him at first. The night is nearly infinite and it’s full of thousands of creatures. If Galleghar was just another fairy, it would take time to locate him. But then, the king right now isn’t another fairy. He’s the darkness, just as I am.

  I feel a ripple through the night, the power immense and terrifying and so very similar to my own.

  There.

  I hone in on the Night King, who’s ahead of me and to my right, and I spirit after him. We shoot through the night, both of us nothing more than shadows ourselves.

  How am I supposed to catch my father? Like this, the Shadow King is just as insubstantial as I am. There’s nothing of either of us to hold, to break.

  Suddenly, his power blasts out, flowing through the darkness. I think it’s going to pass right through me, but instead of doing so, it slams into what feels like my chest.

  I choke as his power digs into me, forcing my body to coalesce.

  That, apparently, is how you make something insubstantial substantial.

  I manifest in midair, my body solidifying. All around me the stars twinkle. For a moment I feel like just one more of them—a pinprick of light in the infinite universe.

  And then I remember that I’m not the light, I’m the darkness. And right now, my body rigidly locked up, I’m not even the darkness. I’m just a man.

  I begin to tumble out of the sky, Galleghar’s spell locking up my limbs. I try to dissipate back into the shadows, but I can’t.

  “Foolish boy,” the night air whispers around me, “you thought you could beat me at my own game? I was the night long before you ever were.”

  His magic has frozen nearly every part of me; I can feel the spell crawling across my skin, slipping through my veins, moving into my very marrow. Every second that passes brings me closer to the ground.

  It moves in on my heart, and if I don’t stop the dark enchantment now, I won’t have to worry about my body cracking against the ground; the spell will freeze my heart before that happens.

  There’s a part of me that wants to give up, to give in. This life of mine has been a sequence of struggles, one right after the next. So much easier to just give in to the inevitable and die.

  The trouble is, when nothing ever comes easy, you get used to the struggle. Sometimes, you even crave it …

  I draw up my magic. Even it moves sluggishly. I glance at the ground, only seconds away from smashing into it.

  Gritting my teeth, I release my power, forcing it out. For one precious second, nothing happens. Then, all at once, Galleghar’s enchantment shatters, dissolving away in my bloodstream. The rest of my power blasts out, shaking the night air.

  My wings unfold, and I rapidly pump them. My body lifts back up into the air, my talons gleaming in the moonlight.

  Galleghar stops, hovering in the middle of the sky. He stares at my wings, his own splayed out behind him.

  “My undoing …” He says this so quietly that I almost miss it.

  A split second later, his body dissipates back into the darkness, and once more I dissolve into the night and chase after him, preparing myself for another hit of magic.

  It never comes.

  Galleghar reappears in one of the royal courtyards, his body forming in an instant. I join him a second later, the two of us facing off.

  After the incident in the throne room, his guards are ready for me. As soon as they catch sight of me and the king in the courtyard, they begin to close in from all sides, throwing binding spells that make the air ripple. Before any of them have a chance to hit me, I unleash my darkness.

  My shadows billow and spill out, greedily eating up the guards’ spells like food before sweeping over the guards themselves a second later. The soldiers don’t even have a chance to scream; the night descends on them, consuming them in seconds. Only their bones and weapons survive the attack, clinking as they hit the ground moments later.

  I will my shadows towards Galleghar, but they part around him like a stream around a rock.

  My father, who idly watched me kill his soldiers, now narrows his eyes. “If you understood your power better, you’d know that the night doesn’t feast on its own.”

  Galleghar unsheathes the sword at his hip, holding it loosely near his side. Its blade is a dark metal.

  Iron. Brave man to be carrying such a weapon around. One cut to his own skin would weaken him, and when it comes to battle, chances are you will nick yourself with your own blade once or twice.

  “You want my kingdom?” he says. “You’ll never get it.”

  I bark out a bitter laugh. “You think that’s why I’m here?”

  He doesn’t respond, merely scowls at me.

  I pace forward, my hand feeling empty without my sword in it. My weapons were lifted from me before I entered the palace. “I’m here because you killed her. Eurielle.”

  My mother. It’s strange to call her by the name she took first as Galleghar’s spy then as his concubine. It makes her somehow bigger and more foreign to me. And she was—she was so many things before she was ever my mother. Spy, maiden, lover, fighter. It took her death for me to learn about all of them.

  I move to the outer edge of the courtyard, bending to grab one of the fallen guards’ swords from the ground. Thinking me distracted, Galleghar throws a bolt of magic my way. I lift my forearm and grunt as it breaks apart against my vambrace. The military issued armor I wear is enchanted to defend me against such attacks.

  I straighten, shaking off the dull throb in my arm while I palm the sword hilt. “You had to know that wouldn’t work.”

  “It’s killed many fairies before,” Galleghar says.

  I move towards him, loosening my wrist. “Were they all infants? Or just some?”

  A muscle in his jaw ticks. The Night King might be an abominable man, but he doesn’t like being thought of as such. A dragon that wants to be a knight. How quaint.

  My father and I begin to circle each other. Around us, I can hear shouts, and dimly I’m aware that more guards are heading our way. My darkness makes quick work of them.

  “You will die for this,” Galleghar says. “It’ll be slow, and just when you think it’s over, you’ll be pulled back to the land of the living. I will break you so many times before you die that you won’t remember your own name.”

  I smirk, not bothering to respond.

  “Look at how proud you are,” he says, taking me in.

  I can tell it bothers him, my confidence. How unusual it must be for him to meet someone he cannot scare.

  His eyes flick over me, and he sneers. “One would’ve thought you were already crowned king. But you’re not a king. Born to a whore, raised as a bastard, destined to marry a slave.”

  I almost miss a step.

  How does he know about my mate?

  He smiles, the expression cruel on him. “Oh, I know all about the weak Desmond Flynn.”

  How?

  Do the shadows whisper to him as they do me?

  I feed the night a bit of magic. Can he hear you? I ask.

  … cannot understand us …

  … not the way you can …

  So he didn’t learn it from my shadows.

  “Tell me,” he continues, “I’m curious—did you know that you were destined to mate with one of those stupid swine?”

  My grip on my sword tightens, and warm fury threads through me. I force it back. Galleghar wants me angry, he wants me sloppy. He wants me to burn bright like the sun with my fury.

  But I am the farthest, iciest reaches of night. I am the impenetrable darkness. Cold, distant, aloof. This man will not be my undoing, I will be his.

  “I almost didn’t believe it,” he continues. “Not my bloodline. But considering your upbringing,” he curls his upper lip, “I figure you got more of your mother’s traits than mine.”

  That mother of mine saved me when he’d have me dead. Rather than hate me because I was his, she loved me because I was hers.


  “I pray to the gods, you’re right,” I say. But I fear he’s not. When I look into the mirror, it’s him I see, not my mother.

  Galleghar continues to move around the courtyard, stepping over the bones of some of his fallen guards.

  “So all this time you hid yourself in my army,” he says. “How bitter you must’ve been. Fighting for me.”

  Yes, for a time I was. But no longer.

  “It got me an audience with you,” I say.

  He laughs, the sound so hollow that it rings false. “So you kill me, and then what? You take over my realm? The people will never respect you, a dustback.”

  Even after everything, this is still what he’s concerned with? His stolen kingdom?

  Wait a moment.

  I halt.

  An idea so profound, so utterly life-shaking, hits me. In all this talking, there is something he let slip through.

  Galleghar knows about my mate, and now he keeps mentioning my interest in his throne …

  He has foreseen the future.

  My shadows burgeon, closing in on us from all sides. “You spoke with a prophet and learned the truth,” I say, the realization slamming into me. “They saw your death. And they saw me cutting you down.”

  My undoing. That’s what he’d said in the sky.

  “Not today, my ill-begotten son.” Without warning, Galleghar flings his magic at me.

  I clench my jaw as it glances off my armor and shoots into the sky. The next hit follows the first. I do away with it, dropping my sword and throwing a blast of my own magic back at him.

  It’s raw power pitted against raw power. Our hits shake the earth, whipping about the delicate plants bordering the courtyard and dislodging the pale cobblestones from the ground. Even the stars seem to quake, their light brightening and dimming.

  Galleghar spins away from me, lobbing another hit my way, and it’s everything I can do to deflect it. The two of us are locked into a deadly dance. I fling a cornucopia of hits at him while dodging his own. I begin to smile even as sweat drips down my face.

  Finally, a worthy opponent. One I can unleash my full potential on. If I weren’t so eager to kill my father, I’d actually say I was enjoying myself.

  I leap into the sky, throwing another blast of magic his way while I attempt to dodge one of his hits. But I underestimated the span of my wings. His power clips the edge of one, punching through the membranous skin.

  I hiss, my wing folding up, and I begin to plunge towards the ground as his magic burns through me. My own magic thunders out of me as I fall, and Galleghar doesn’t evade it in time. The full force of it slams into his chest, throwing him into a nearby hedge.

  In the next instant I hit the ground hard, the stone cracking beneath me. I force myself to rise, even as my body protests. My wings fold behind me as I straighten.

  Galleghar groans from where he lay, slow to get up, and I use this to my advantage, pummeling him with one, two, three, four blasts of my power. His body recoils over and over with each hit, jerking about against the shrubbery.

  The Night King lays there unmoving, and then, just when I’m beginning to think I finally overpowered him, his body dissolves into the night.

  I want to growl in annoyance. Those successive hits should’ve blown him away; they would’ve any other enemy. Instead, he still had enough energy to dissipate away from this place.

  I’ve been using everything I have. I’m not sure it’s enough. Our power is too alike. You can’t drown water with water or burn fire with fire.

  If I want to end him, I won’t be able to use my magic at all.

  I pick up the sword I dropped earlier, looking around me. Galleghar hasn’t reformed, but I know he’s out here somewhere, waiting to catch me off guard.

  He manifests in the air overhead, bearing down on me with his weapon poised. I bring my sword up just in time, clenching my teeth as I hold off all of Galleghar’s power and weight.

  He must’ve figured out the same thing I did: that we cannot kill the other with our magic alone. It takes something baser—such as a blade—to do us in.

  With a grunt, I eventually throw him off. He tumbles into a roll, getting back up a moment later with his sword bared.

  I always imagined my father to be a weakling who liked to hide behind his threats and violence and prestige, but begrudgingly I admit that he’s an impressive foe, and not just because of his raw strength. Even though he hasn’t visited a battlefield in recent history, he’s a skilled fighter.

  He thins his eyes at me, then disappears.

  I’m moving my sword before he reappears, and it’s a good thing too. My blade meets his just as the tip of it nicks my throat.

  I’m so close to him I can see every trait I inherited from him. The icy grey eyes, the proud brow and curving lips. I was a fool to think that I could hide in plain sight all these years. I’m nearly his twin. I’ve been a lucky fucker to not have been found out.

  Our blades squeal as I force his away. Before I can surge forward, Galleghar vanishes once more. I only realize he’s reformed behind me when I feel the slash of his blade against my back, the iron sizzling my flesh and eating away at my magic. I clench my jaw against the pain, turning to face him. But again, he’s gone.

  He winks into and out of existence, only lingering long enough to swipe his sword across my skin, and with every hit, I weaken. My clothes soon become a patchwork of scarlet lines. I move slower and my strikes are weaker.

  Cannot keep up. The insidious thought slips through my mind.

  I might have combat experience, but my father has had centuries to cultivate his power and perfect his fighting skills.

  That and he has an iron sword.

  I’m no match.

  Galleghar must sense my moment of weakness, because he redoubles his efforts, his blade slicing left, right, up, down, whistling through the air with each strike.

  With a final blow, he kicks me down to my knees.

  I’m a bloody mess. The crimson liquid drips from a dozen different wounds. My magic won’t close up even the shallowest of them.

  Galleghar walks around me, his face gloating. “This was the best fate could throw at me? A whoreson dustback?”

  So tired. More tired than I ever have been.

  Sorry, Mother. You’ll get no justice after all.

  Galleghar spins his sword, a sly smile curving the corner of his lips.

  He was a man who liked killing. Not like you. The mortal woman’s words ring through my mind.

  If I don’t finish him, then more women like her will be bought and sold, used and killed. If I don’t finish him, more soldiers will die on the battlefield, more fairies will be taken for his pleasure or executed because they displeased him.

  I manage to rally a bit of stubbornness.

  Not going to let him kill me.

  I get one foot under me.

  If I don’t defeat him, no one will.

  I begin to rise. I’m coated in a sheen of my own sweat, my body trying to purge itself of the toxins that have entered my bloodstream.

  He lifts an eyebrow. “Not done yet, are we?”

  This is the man who forced my mother into his harem. Who demeaned her to my face, the man who murdered her.

  My magic begins to build again.

  He’s a poison more potent than iron, a scourge that needs to be swept from the land.

  With a cry, I launch myself at him, sword bared. No longer am I cold and impassive. I’m not the dark, untouchable night, but the dying star within it. I’m heat and passion, red-hot anger, and I feel so much right now. Every transgression, every slight, every life cut too short by this man. The ruin he’s wrought. I’m swifter than I’ve ever been, my moves more precise and powerful.

  His gloating smirk is wiped away as he parries the hits. He tries to disappear, but now I’m the Shadow King’s shadow, predicting each one of his moves. The two of us pop in and out of the night, forming long enough to strike out at each other before evanescing in
to the darkness.

  We appear over the bones of one of his guards, Galleghar’s sword lifted overhead, ready to cut me down. But in his eagerness, Galleghar leaves his own chest exposed.

  I move like the wind, wrapping one of my hands around his neck. And then, with the other, I drive my sword through his heart. It makes a wet, meaty sound as it enters him.

  Galleghar’s body jolts at the intrusion. Weakly, his hands wrap around my blade.

  No one warns you about this kind of death—the personal kind. How much power you need to put behind your strike to force a blade between ribs. How you can feel your weapon scrape against hard parts and cut cleanly through the softer flesh. How intimate it is when you stare a man in the eye as you take his life from him. It’s just as intimate as taking a lover, only different, more terrible desires drive death.

  Decades I’ve plotted and planned and waited for this moment. Finally, that moment is mine.

  The Night King begins to laugh.

  I look at him, aghast. He took a sword to the heart. The last thing he should be doing is laughing.

  “I knew this day would come,” he rasps. He sways on his feet before his legs crumble out from beneath him. He falls first to his knees, his hands sliding limply away from my blade. “I tried to prevent it, but you cannot outwit fate.”

  Galleghar slumps onto his back. He’s bent and twisted in a way that only the dying take.

  He laughs again, this time weaker as blood begins to coat his lips. “You think you’re better than me—I can see it on your face—but you aren’t. The need to conquer and kill is in our blood.”

  I stare down at him, stonily. I can feel his words slipping under my skin, and I know they’ll eat away at me in the coming years.

  Galleghar’s head rolls back and forth with his weak chuckles. “We shall see … what other things a soul can be.”

  Enough.

  I twist the sword in his chest. He chokes, his throat gurgling. He grabs my arm as I yank my blade out, his eyes wide, like he didn’t expect death after all. A torrent of blood slips from his wound. He squeezes my armor, those icy grey eyes locked on mine. Slowly the darkness leaves them until, eventually, there is no more Galleghar Nyx, just an empty shell.

  After four centuries of tyranny, the Shadow King is dead.