Birthright

  Or, in this case, a princess.

  “Are you sure that this is what you wish to do?” Ceff asked, standing rigid at my side.

  I knew that he would stand by me, no matter what I chose. I also knew that above all else, he wanted to keep me safe. His concern warmed my heart, just as his solid presence gave me strength, but on this I wouldn’t yield. I’d tried being a ghost, hiding from the fae of Harborsmouth, and I’d hated every second of it.

  No, I would present my case to the Unseelie Court, and prove that I was no longer a threat to our kind. I would demonstrate my ability to cast a convincing glamour, and I’d make damn sure that they called off their assassins. The last thing I needed was to survive Faerie only to return home to an arrow through the heart.

  But walking through these gates was a monumental step with ramifications of epic proportions. Mab had ruled the Unseelie fae, since the very birth of this world. Her departure, along with that of Oberon and Titania the rulers of the Seelie fae, had rocked all of Faerie. But my existence? That was a shift in the balance of power that could cause an even greater upheaval—one that might end with me on the end of Mab’s sword.

  Entering my mother’s palace would change everything.

  It was a good thing that I was used to shaking things up. I glanced at Torn who was grinning from ear to ear. It’s probably the main reason that the cat sidhe kept me as an ally. I was a surefire cure for boredom. Never a dull moment when I’m around, that was for damn sure.

  I wet my lips, strode past the shaggy, white furred guards, and prepared to change the history of Faerie forever.

  Chapter 55

  “I request an audience with the Unseelie Court,” I said, voice ringing through the courtyard.

  A motley group of fae hesitantly approached. More than a few held weapons, though these weren’t guards. The predators of the winter lands flanked us, cutting off our escape. No, the fae who scuttled toward us were likely the administration, and if their fidgeting and wary, befuddled glances were any indication, I confused the hell out of them.

  Good, that made both of us.

  A goblin with a clipboard waddled over. She lifted some kind of writing stylus, and arched a brow as she looked me over.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

  She looked down her bulbous nose, taking in my muddy boots and blood smeared pants. At least I was wearing black. Otherwise she’d probably be horrified at the state of my dress. As it was she sniffed, and gave me the stink eye. It was all I could do not to laugh.

  “No,” I said. “But I’m sure they’ll want to hear my case once you tell them who’s here.”

  “And who would that be?” she asked, rolling her eyes at me as she lowered the stylus to her clipboard.

  “Ivy Granger, daughter of Will-o-the-Wisp,” I said, pausing for dramatic effect. Torn caught my eye, and smirked. He must be loving this. These fae were in for the gossip of the century. “And daughter of Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness.”

  I never understood the phrase, “you could hear a pin drop”, until now. The acoustics of the frozen courtyard had elevated the shuffling of feet, clanking of weapons, and constant whispers as the fae had speculated about their strange visitors. But now the courtyard was devoid of sound.

  “Now may I please have an audience with my court?” I asked, edging my voice with haughty annoyance.

  The goblin dropped her clipboard, and ran into the palace. The other fae, including the apex predators who’d been guarding our retreat, close at her heels.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Chapter 56

  The Unseelie Court was a vertigo inducing inversion of the Great Hall of the Wisp Court I’d grown familiar with. Where the Wisp Court had held its proceedings on the moss covered stone bottom of a cavern glowing with moonlight, beside a pool of water teeming with life, the Unseelie Court gathered on a drafty precipice, high above a dark, lifeless pit.

  Balconies ringed the pit, giving palace residents a bird’s eye view. Unfortunately for me, petitioners to the court had to make their way across a narrow path that cut through the dark like a knife’s edge, leading to a circle of stone that sat like an island in the greasy darkness. Mouth dry, I tried not to look down as I made my way to the speaker’s stone.

  I had no idea why Mab had built her palace on top of a tunnel that likely led straight to Hell, but I imagined that this path kept the number of petitioners to a minimum. I bent my knees, and closed my eyes as another gust of frigid wind blasted me, freezing my eyelashes and threatening to tip me over into the bottomless pit. Maybe this was a trap, a way for Mab’s minions to get rid of the potential usurper to the Unseelie throne. If so, I had to commend their creativity, and their moxie.

  Ceff walked a step behind me, a solid wall of muscle at my back. After months in captivity, he was leaner, and the muscle more defined, but that didn’t detract from the threat he posed to anyone who dared strike out against me. In fact, I’m pretty sure that two years bound in iron had lent a steely glint to his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  Ceff wasn’t the only hard eyed demon in my entourage. Torn was having a bit too much fun dangling my uncle over the precipice, as they followed behind us. At Kade’s whimper, I shot Torn a glare over my shoulder.

  “Stop playing with Kade like he’s a mouse, and get your ass over here,” I said.

  Torn grinned, showing his teeth.

  “As you wish, Princess,” he said. “My ass is yours to command.”

  I sighed, and turned back to face the council members who’d assembled in front of us across the pit. I imagine that distance gave them a false sense of safety, but it wouldn’t save them from a well placed fire ball. Not that I planned on immolating council members. The council had the final word of the Unseelie Court, and right now, I needed to be in their good graces.

  “What is the purpose of the case you bring before us today?” a somber man asked.

  He had a long, gaunt face and spindly hands that never stopped moving, as if he were dangling those hands out of a car window, surfing on waves of chill air.

  “I bring two issues before the court,” I said.

  “That is…most unorthodox,” a stout boggart grumbled.

  “And I’m not your typical petitioner,” I said, arching an eyebrow at the council.

  Council members shifted noisily in their stone chairs, and I fought a smile. I wasn’t looking forward to a family reunion, but being Mab’s daughter sure had its perks.

  “Then state your case, or rather cases,” Somber said.

  I nodded, and took a deep breath.

  “First, I request that my uncle, Lord Kade of the Wisp Court, be stripped of his magic,” I said.

  More than one council member gasped, and whispers and cries broke out from the balcony above us. A troll pounded his fist on the arm of his chair, and the room once again went silent.

  “What crime is Kade accused of that we should sentence him to such a harsh punishment?” Somber asked.

  “Treason,” I said. “He knew of my birthright, and yet he kidnapped my friends, lied to me, and tried to manipulate me to become his…consort. I believe that ultimately, he wished to take Mab’s throne, perhaps in revenge for her rejection.”

  It was all true, but for a moment a pang of guilt tightened my gut. I disliked airing out my family’s dirty laundry, but this was the only way to strip Kade of his magic—the only way to allow him to live.

  “That is a weighty charge,” Somber said.

  “Yep, I know,” I said. “So I’ll give you a minute to wrap your heads around it.”

  Ceff shot me a wry look, and lifted my shoulder in a one armed shrug. The faster we finished this business, the better. Mab’s ice palace, and an audience with the council of the Unseelie Court, was making my skin crawl. If being pushy got this done faster, then I’d push. I wanted to go home.

  “If he is truly guilty of treason, is stripping him of his magic enough of a punishment?” an eleg
ant highborn faerie asked.

  I held up a hand, gesturing to interrupt.

  “I have also exiled him from his ancestral home of Tearlach and the wisp lands of Nithsdale,” I said.

  The faerie nodded, and I held my breath as the council’s sibilant whispering continued.

  “We will grant you your wish, Princess,” Somber said. “But that is our final favor. Think on this before you bring another issue to our attention.”

  Great, that didn’t sound ominous or anything. I guess being princess wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  “I appreciate the warning, but I will address the court with one more issue,” I said.

  The council members shared meaningful glances amongst each other, and nodded.

  “You may continue,” Somber said.

  “I was deemed a traitor,” I said, and the entire room gasped. It was like the entire pit drew in a breath and sucked it into the void. Yeah, looks like I’d been right and they hadn’t put two and two together, realizing that the Ivy Granger who was Mab’s daughter was the same half human Ivy Granger they’d ordered to be executed in the human world. Now to see what they were prepared to do about it. “But I can prove that I am not a threat. I will not break the One Law. I will not betray our secret to the human populace.”

  “That is why her name was so familiar!” a banshee wailed, pointing a hooked finger at me.

  More than one faerie glared at me with venom in their eyes, and maybe their fangs. For the moment, I was glad of the pit that spanned between us.

  “Look,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm. “I can prove my ability to create a glamour. This was all a misunderstanding…”

  Their voices rolled over each other, and my mouth snapped shut. I’d have to wait them out, if they even let me speak again, but there was one thing I could do while I waited.

  I reached for my power, drawing it up through my body and out through my skin. The fire burned, but I embraced it, letting it wrap around me.

  I remembered the heat shimmer that my uncle had likened my glamour to, and bit my lip. If only he’d remained my mentor, and not a madman driven by power, lust, and revenge, but that was water under the bridge. What mattered now was proving mastery over my magic, so that the court didn’t decide to have me executed on the spot, princess or not.

  I drew forth my power, wove it into a complex skein of fire magic, and draped the glamour around my body. When I opened my eyes, the world still seemed the same, my body was still my own, but my efforts must have paid off. Every faerie, from the harpies perched on the ornate balconies to the centaurs circling the stone council seats, stood rigid, attention focused on the woman who now looked even more like her mother.

  According to Skilly, my human glamour looked exactly like Mab’s. I’d thought it was an unlucky coincidence at the time, but now I knew that it was a result of my birth—and it presented an opportunity to gain the attention of the council.

  My friends and I might have known what to expect, but the rest of the room was unprepared. I’d stunned the palace residents once again into silence. If I kept this up, I might get a complex.

  I was almost relieved when the shouting began anew. The noise wasn’t doing anything to improve my headache, but at least they were no longer gaping at me. The inside of some of those mouths were a sight best left to the imagination. If these fae were any indication, Faerie was in dire need of dental care.

  I smiled, and nodded. I’d achieved my goal. I had the council’s attention, now to plead my case. I held a hand up, and the noise began to lessen.

  “Within this glamour my…otherness is contained,” I said. “The glowing of my eyes and skin—a gift of my father—are not at risk of being seen by humans.”

  “But we were told…” Somber said.

  “Do you doubt my abilities?” I asked.

  I put one hand on my hip, and looked at him archly. The entire council blanched. I guess I really did look like Mab.

  “No, no, Mistress,” he said, bowing obsequiously.

  “Then I am free to return to the human world?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course, Mistress,” he said. “We will send word to the Moordenaar, terminating the contract for your execution.”

  “See that you do,” I said.

  I looked around the room, but when I caught Torn’s smirk, I had to struggle not to laugh. I was playing up my connection to Mab, but it was time to wrap this up.

  “Is that all, Mistress?” Somber asked.

  “Actually, I have a question,” I said. I paused, and tilted my head. “How do you send your messages to our allies in the human world?”

  “Well…there is the scrying pool for sending missives to the Moordenaar,” he said. I frowned. That wasn’t all that helpful. “And though the roads to Faerie are closed, there is the portal, for when we need to send representatives of the court to the human world, or they to Faerie.”

  “A portal from this court to the human world?” I asked.

  It was as I’d guessed. There were more backdoors to and from Faerie, and Mab had one here in her palace. It made sense. Now to exercise my royal powers, such as they were, and gain access to this portal—and go home.

  “Yes,” Somber said. “But it is for court business only.”

  “Well then,” I said. “I guess we have one more order of business.”

  Somber let out a weighty sigh, and the negotiations began.

  Chapter 57

  “Can you send us anywhere in the human world?” I asked, following our guide through one of the many corridors of my mother’s palace. The place was a maze of ice, but anything was better than being suspended above a bottomless pit prone to wind gusts.

  “Within reason,” Somber said.

  “What are you thinking, Princess?” Torn asked.

  “I’m thinking that I have unfinished business,” I whispered to Torn. I turned to the gray skinned faerie, and bowed my head. “It is my wish that you send us to the Braxton junkyard on the outskirts of Harborsmouth.”

  The faerie raised a thin eyebrow, but didn’t comment on my choice of destination. I guess he thought it unwise to challenge the princess.

  Somber sighed, and waved his fingers in the air in a complex pattern. When he was finished, he slid his hands into the wide sleeves of his robes, and nodded.

  “It is done,” he said. “Follow this path to the ash tree, circle it three times widdershins, and step through the portal.”

  I guess he wasn’t going with us. Since the path led down into The Forest of Torment, I couldn’t really blame him.

  “The tree is the portal?” I asked.

  I didn’t want to walk face first into a solid tree, only to find out I was supposed to step onto a rock, toadstool, or patch of grass. When in Faerie, it was best not to assume.

  “Yes, you must pass through the tree to enter the human world,” he said. He looked me up and down from head to toe. “Forgive me if I hope you do intend to stay there.”

  With that touching farewell, Somber spun on his heel and stalked away.

  “Friendly guy,” Torn said.

  I shrugged.

  “I have that effect on people,” I said, a wry smile on my lips. “Come on, let’s go home.”

  The frost covered path, no more than a narrow game trail, led through a break in the hedge maze of Mab’s rose garden, down a steep embankment, and into the forest.

  The footing was treacherous, but at least we weren’t trying to navigate this with my uncle in tow. After he was stripped of his magic, Kade was given a choice. He could leave the palace to fend for himself with no magical powers, or remain as a palace servant. He decided to stay.

  My uncle was no fool. His chances for survival would have been slim outside the walls of the ice palace. Not that he would enjoy life as a lowly servant.

  Kade had fallen far, but he was still alive. I’d held his life in my hands, and I’d allowed him to live. He had an eternity to make amends for his evil deeds, but what he did wi
th the life that I’d granted was up to him. I’d done what I could, what I’d had to, and now it was time to move on.

  It was time to go home.

  “Torn, can you give us a moment?” Ceff asked.

  Torn shrugged, and nodded. After looking us over, and deciding we weren’t worth eavesdropping on, he turned and walked further down the trail.

  Ceff ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. But when his eyes met mine, they were glowing green with passion. My lips parted, and he leaned closer.

  “Before we left Harborsmouth, we made a promise to each other,” Ceff said. “Now that we’re going back, I have to ask you a question about that promise, and I need you to give me an honest answer.”

  Ceff started to say more, but I held up a hand. I needed to say this, needed to clear the air.

  “A lot has happened since that day,” I said. “I’ve changed, and…we now know the truth about my biological mother. So if you’re having second thoughts, I won’t hold you to the promise that we made.”

  There, I’d said my piece. I’d given him an out, a way for us to end things gracefully. My hand went to my stomach.

  I was going to be sick.

  “I love you, Ivy, and learning the truth of your parentage has not changed my feelings toward you,” he said.

  He moved closer, and I blinked. He slipped his hand into mine, and squeezed. I was wearing gloves—the action didn’t trigger my psychometry—but I didn’t need visions to see the way Ceff felt about me. His love was written in lines of his face and the desire in his eyes, but I still had to ask. I needed to hear it from his lips.

  “It hasn’t?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, smiling down at me. “If anything, I love you more. Not for your power or status, but for your strength. You are a survivor, Ivy. We both are.”