“Every last one,” she said, with no small measure of pride. This time, she did smile.
But instead of seeming content, Erik stared at her as he had at the bar. He looked like he wanted to consume her, and she liked it. Maybe it was because fire was always close to her surface, but raw hunger always drew her near. She forced herself to step back. Humans were too vulnerable, even those who were raised on guns and lies.
“You’re amazing,” he said.
“No. I’m fae-blood.” Violet lifted one of the knives she’d made more recently. It wasn’t fae-steel, but it was stronger and lighter than anything but the finest blades in this world. “You’ll need to carry something more than guns.”
He accepted it reverently. “I’ll treat it well.”
“No,” she corrected. “You use it. You bloody it. You keep yourself safe. Lily needs that.”
Erik stared at the knife in his hand. It was good enough to be mistaken for the expensive fae-wrought ones sold illegally. In a way, it was. She wasn’t full fae though. She’d thought she was, but that was a lie. Still, her blade was true. The edge wouldn’t dull, and it would not grow slick if blood soaked it. Violet showed him the rest of the knives and swords she’d created as ways to harness her need to make use of her fire and learn control. She admitted to herself that it was an attempt to be friendlier to him.
“And you?” he finally asked, eyes lifting from a clumsy rapier that she’d tried and still kept as proof that there were things that were unwise to do in a truly foul temper.
“I could learn to tolerate you,” Violet allowed after a moment.
Erik smiled widely. “I would like that.”
“So be it,” she said with a shrug.
“Friends is a start,” he said with a far too happy smile.
Friends were fine. Friends weren’t as dangerous. Maybe if she offered him her friendship, he’d see that anything more was a terrible idea. Most people only found her attractive until they got to know her better. After that, they had the good sense to realize that she was too much like her affinity to want to try anything other than friendship. Erik wouldn’t be any different. They never were.
twenty-six
ZEPHYR
Zephyr held Alkamy long after she was gone. He was sure there were things he ought to do, but just then, none of them mattered. It was as if everything outside of them had vanished. There was a dead body in the garden, a stranger he’d killed. His sword was bloodied from it, and no one who came upon them would misread what had happened.
As the grandson of the Queen of Blood and Rage, Zephyr ought to be handling the details. He knew that. He couldn’t. Letting go of Alkamy would mean that he’d never hold her again. She was dead, but he wasn’t ready for the last moment of holding her.
His phone rang. He ignored it. Nothing anyone said would matter. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there before he heard someone approaching.
“Zephyr? Kamy? Are you . . .” Lily’s words ended on a gasp. “Zephyr!”
“She’s cold,” he said.
Lily drew her sword.
Creed dropped down beside him. “Zephyr? We need to call someone or—”
“No.” He tightened his hold on Alkamy. He wasn’t ready to let go, wasn’t sure if he ever would be ready.
“We need to move, Zeph.” Creed didn’t touch him, just crouched there. “No one needs to see her like this.”
Zephyr nodded. “She wouldn’t like that.”
“Was anyone else here?” Lily asked. She stood like a guard surveying the area for threats.
Zephyr inclined his head toward the dead man. “Just him. He had a gun. It’s . . . somewhere.”
Lily nodded once. “You have them?”
“I do.” Creed stood as Zephyr did. He didn’t reach out though.
They stood in silence. Creed didn’t cry, but Zephyr suspected he would later. They all would. Right now, they couldn’t.
After a few moments, Lily came back. “I’ve sent word to your father.”
Zephyr swallowed. “He liked her.”
“Everyone did,” Lily said softly. “She’s . . . she was wonderful.”
He nodded. “We stepped out. There was no time. No warning. No fight. We just stepped out. She was bending down for her shoes, and when she stood, she was bleeding. It was . . . there was nothing I could do.”
Lily heard the question before he even realized he was asking anything. She met his eyes and said, “That happens. Sometimes there’s nothing. It just happens. You know that. Alkamy knew it.”
“She’s dead. She’s dead.” He said it, spoke that word, a word that should never have been said about Alkamy. She was vibrant and happy and giggling and . . . now she was gone. Between one heartbeat and the next, she was gone.
And he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on without her. The only dream he’d ever had that was his own was her. She was all of his hopes and wishes given form, and this morning, she’d been kissing him. This morning, everything he could dream of was his.
Now, he had nothing.
He stared at her. She wasn’t in there anymore. Zephyr knew as much. The things that made Alkamy uniquely her were gone. The way she giggled, the tone of her voice, her mind and her spirit, they were all silenced. All he had left was her body, and that was cold and motionless.
“Son?”
Zephyr looked away from Alkamy.
“I’ll take her home.” Rhys extended his arms.
But Zephyr couldn’t. He shook his head. That wasn’t her home. He’d hoped it would be, had hoped they would build a life there one day. “She doesn’t belong there.”
“It is your home, and she loved you.” Rhys’ words weren’t as stilted as they often were. Dealing with death and loss seemed less foreign to him than most emotional things.
“She’s gone. I would’ve stopped them if I knew. I would’ve. . . .” Zephyr’s words broke. He’d have done anything for Alkamy, but she was killed, and he was powerless.
Rhys took Alkamy from his arms. “When you are ready, I will take you to the earth where her shell will be. Unless you want to come now?”
Zephyr allowed his father to take her body. He wasn’t sure he could see the earth swallow her. He knew the way of death for fae and fae-blood. The earth sustained them, and the earth embraced them when they were no more.
“I can’t,” he said. “You’ll take care of her, though, right? Maybe I should . . .”
“I will take her to her rest,” Rhys said. “And when you are ready, you can see where the earth holds her.”
Zephyr was vaguely aware that Lily and Creed were watching. Lily still held her sword, and Creed stood beside her. He looked ready to stab someone. The anger he’d seemed able to manage of late was all but radiating from him in burning bursts on the air currents.
“What do I do now?” Zephyr asked his father.
Rhys met his eyes and said, “Your duty. There are threats here. You keep yourself and the heir safe.”
“I failed Alkamy and—”
“No. You did not,” Rhys interrupted. “Was there any way you could’ve known there was an attack?”
“No, but—”
“The enemy outsmarted you. That will happen. Death will happen. It is not always avoidable.” Rhys looked past Zephyr to Lily and Creed before adding, “You may not be safe enough here.”
No one replied. There was no argument to make with Alkamy’s dead body in his arms. Whatever else had happened before now seemed inconsequential to Zephyr. They’d had several attacks, and this one cost him the only thing that wasn’t his duty.
Duty was all he had left.
“I will not fail the heir to the throne,” Zephyr swore. “My cousin will be safe as long as I draw breath.”
“As long as we do,” Creed added.
When Zephyr glanced back at him, Creed added, “Alkamy was one of us, and even if we didn’t love her the way Zeph did, we loved her. . . and we won’t let him get hurt because she’s not here to remind
him to be careful.”
Zephyr looked away. It wasn’t that he’d intended to be foolish, but when he’d realized that he could get killed defending Lily there had been a flicker of dark interest. He knew that it was grief and desperation. He’d felt it before when he was weary of trying to keep all the Black Diamonds safe. Alkamy had been his way of keeping that at bay.
And Alkamy was gone.
“It is good to watch him carefully while he mourns,” Rhys said. “My mother’s grief has started rivers of dead. I would not think that any of my family mourn gently.”
“We will protect each other,” Lily added. “You have my word, Uncle.”
Zephyr walked several steps and lifted the sword he’d dropped after killing the man who’d shot Alkamy. It felt right to hold it. The blood on his hands soaked into the weapon. Alkamy’s blood was within his sword now. That, too, felt right.
He glanced at his cousin, knelt and said, “I offer you my fealty.”
“Zephyr!” Lily reached out to pull him to his feet, but he refused.
“I need a reason to live,” he told her bluntly. “I will protect you as my father has protected the queen. I will give my life for you as I couldn’t for . . . as I wish I could have.”
“Zeph . . .”
“No.” He shook his head. “The only thing that mattered more than the throne and our people is gone. Give me a reason.”
Lily drew a sharp breath, but she nodded. “So be it. With Violet, you are my protector.”
No one mentioned the fact that she didn’t list Creed as such, but Zephyr understood. There was no way he would’ve let Alkamy die to protect him if he had a choice, and everyone standing there understood that Lily would not let Creed die to keep her safe either. Mutual love was the willingness to die for someone who would rather die themselves than see you harmed.
And the future queen did not love him enough to die before him. They both knew that. He would die for her safety because it was his duty and because there was no other person or cause he held above that duty now that Alkamy was gone. In that instant, he understood his father for the first time. The Unseelie prince had chosen his duty to the Queen of Blood and Rage above all else.
Zephyr would do the same with the new queen-to-be.
twenty-seven
EILIDH
Eilidh wasn’t ready to face her mother, but she needed to update her. Matters affecting family were the top priority. It had always been so. The queen might be bloodthirsty, but she was more so in the service of those she held dear. Eilidh made it as far as the training courtyard before she found the Queen of Blood and Rage.
She was in her armor, sword in hand, feet bare. It was as close to comfortable as the queen ever appeared.
“Alkamy Adams was killed,” Eilidh announced. “Zephyr is . . . emotional.”
The queen was silent. Then—
“The coronation needs to happen now,” Endellion said. “They need to know not to harm LilyDark. I don’t know who is helping these traitors, but I will find out. Lily and Zephyr both need to come home.”
“It’s not as if there aren’t threats here too.” Eilidh didn’t flinch despite the anger in her mother’s eyes at her words.
Fortunately, Eilidh was saved from the queen’s actual reply when a messenger approached them.
Before the young man could be chastised or worse, he said, “It’s from the king, your highness! If it were anyone else, I—”
“Be gone,” Endellion interrupted.
Eilidh opened the letter. It held only two words:
Come. NOW.
“What?”
“Father needs to see me,” Eilidh said. Her summons to the king’s court wasn’t unexpected, nor was the arrival of said summons when she was with her mother. For all that the two courts were at peace, the regents were still creatures of habit. That habit had included spying long before it included carefully scheduled dinners where the king of Seelie and the queen of Unseelie traded barbs as they broke bread.
“He mentioned that, but wouldn’t say why.” The queen’s sword sliced through the air as if there was a genuine chance that she’d allow it to knick her daughter. “I assume he didn’t know about you gathering information before I did.”
She glanced at Eilidh, who obediently agreed, “Of course not.”
“Well, then what does he want?” Endellion’s leather armor was bright in the early morning light, and the steel of her blade glinted. Despite all of that, the queen looked oddly childlike when she was vexed—not that Eilidh would dare to say such things.
“I tortured his son.”
“Truly?” The sudden happiness in her mother’s expression was no less childlike than her petulance.
Eilidh shrugged. “He injured my betrothed.”
The Queen of Blood and Rage laughed, a beautiful pealing sound not unlike the sounds that divine beings might make. Endellion was far from divine, but she was ethereal and lovely in her many moods. The queen’s sword flashed as she twirled it and re-sheathed it. “Well, then . . .”
“What?”
“I’ll join you.”
Eilidh stared at her mother briefly, but said nothing.
“Do not mention the girl’s death,” the queen said in that tone that was obviously an order. Then she looped her arm around Eilidh and started walking. Eilidh had no choice but to fall in step. The fae were watching, and even if they weren’t, a happy queen was such a rarity that there was little that Eilidh would object to in the moment. Her mother wasn’t gentle or doting; she wasn’t prone to embraces or the affectionate cheek strokes that many a reserved parent found acceptable.
Just then, however, her mother bestowed a proud look on Eilidh. “I told him you wouldn’t take it easily. I warned him. ‘No, Dell, she’s too busy fussing over Torquil,’ he says. ‘Don’t think about what you would do,’ he says. Ha! Can you imagine that I’d torture someone for stabbing that old goat?”
Eilidh shook her head. Her parents had been together for centuries now, but her mother was no nearer admitting to loving her father than she was to taking up so-called women’s arts. The queen was soundly opposed to what she considered the frivolous emotions.
Wisely, Eilidh kept her silence even when her mother, the typically surly Queen of Blood and Rage, started to hum. Admittedly, Eilidh’s step faltered slightly, but she didn’t say a thing. If anything, she concentrated on not hearing the queen’s joyful little melody. It was disconcerting to hear such a thing come from her mother.
When they reached the king’s bright palace, Eilidh wished she’d been able to delay her visit until evening. That really was the best time to be in the Seelie court. During the day, the brightness of the sunlight on the odd gold and bronze detailing was too jarring.
Where the queen favored vaguely medieval trappings and earth-hewn rooms, the king was forever updating his court to the latest human innovations. He didn’t completely renovate, of course. That would be too consistent. Instead, he had animal print furnishings and stark white rugs, glittering stained-glass windows and ceiling fixtures of crystal that refracted and reflected light madly. Exotic animals that she couldn’t even name napped in the lush thickets that were inside his palace, and on one occasion a lion caught and ate a human that the king had brought home. That was the last time Eilidh could recall her mother seeming so cheerful as they walked down a newly added hallway that was seemingly fashioned entirely out of opals.
“I have been thinking about birds,” Leith said as he saw them enter the throne room, which was apparently modeled on some sort of chapel with high arches and a dome. “Hello, Dell. I don’t believe I invited you.”
The queen merely shrugged and walked up to him. Almost fondly, she shoved him so he was forced into his throne. The current week’s throne seemed to be a sturdy wooden thing, remarkably mundane for the odd surroundings. He typically was a bit like a bird or perhaps ferret, gathering things he thought interesting or replicating them if necessary. He collected things whereas the queen
trained in new martial arts.
“What, no kiss?” Endellion asked as she sat on the arm of his throne. Unlike most of his thrones, this one had arms wide enough for one to sit on them comfortably.
He tilted his head upward so she could kiss him. Then he wrapped one arm around her back, not pulling her to him or even holding her. He simply let it rest around her as if they always sat thusly. In that moment, Eilidh was certain that he’d expected his wife would be coming.
Eilidh looked at her father, wondering not for the first time if he manipulated the queen more than anyone realized.
When he caught her gaze, the king shook his head slightly. He winked at her, though, confirming her suspicions that the queen had been expected and behaved predictably. Her parents were so odd.
“I had a curious visit from my son,” the king said.
“There’s only the one now?” the queen asked mildly.
He ignored her, but he clarified as he continued, “Nacton tells me his brother is injured.”
Eilidh stood unflinchingly before her parents.
“Someone tortured him,” Leith said.
“And did your son tell you what fae would be so bold?” Endellion reached out and caressed the king’s cheek almost fondly.
“Are you trying to distract me, Dell?”
Eilidh’s temper slipped. “Honestly? You are both absurd. Mother, admit that you’re fond of him. Father, admit that you know that I tortured Calder, that I was right to do so, and that this is a formality.”
“She gets that from you,” Endellion said. “I’m never so impatient.”
The king laughed. “You ordered me to marry you, dear. That seems impatient.”
The queen waved her hand as if to sweep away his words.
“You slaughtered scores of men—”
“They deserved it,” the queen snapped.
“Or numerous occasions,” the king added.
“And they always deserved it.” Endellion wasn’t quite at the point of crossing her arms over her chest or drawing her sword, but she was no longer petting the king’s face or hair.