Simultaneously, Calder swung his sword forcefully enough that only Torquil’s agility spared him from genuine injury.
Louder, Eilidh repeated, “I said stop.”
Solid walls of earth surged up between Calder and Torquil.
Calder immediately tried to go around it, and Eilidh sighed in irritation as she bent the earth like a prison around him. “Do you truly want to challenge me? I am the only fae who could kill Father’s son with impunity.” With one brother imprisoned, she turned to her other Seelie brother. “I will not have you kill my betrothed or my brother because you hate me.”
Nacton lowered his sword and glared at her. Rhys and Torquil lowered their weapons as well, but they both kept their attention on the Seelie fae.
“Do not make this more unpleasant than it already has been,” she managed to say in a falsely steady voice. The combination of her emotions and the forceful use of one of her affinities made her slightly shaky. It wouldn’t do for any of them to know that, however, so she forced the tremor away.
Torquil and Rhys came to stand on either side of her, as if they were all at a formal gathering. They still had weapons at the ready. Although Seelie fae were thought by humans as more benevolent, the Seelie were just as untrustworthy as the Unseelie, and the princes were both particularly biased against Rhys.
Calder’s earthen prison exploded outward, and if Torquil hadn’t pulled air to him like a shield, they would all have been knocked to the ground by the force.
“Bitch!” Calder’s blade swept upward into the falcone position, the sword raised high like a bird of prey waiting to strike. In the next moment, he swung on a downward diagonal that would very likely be a fatal strike.
Before he could touch her, Calder’s sword was knocked away by Nacton. “Stop. We are done here. I have said my piece, and that one”—he nodded at Eilidh—“understands that her time is limited.”
Rhys tensed at Eilidh’s side, but he merely said, “The queen will not take this kindly when she hears of it.”
“That matters little to me,” Calder said. “She is no mother or queen to me, and the king won’t let her strike us—else it would’ve happened the first time we attacked you.”
“Stop,” Nacton ordered his brother. He might not be reasonable, but he understood that there were limits to how far they could push the Queen of Blood and Rage.
Calder turned and stormed off, leaving Nacton alone with them.
Eilidh met her Seelie brother’s gaze and vowed, “I have no need of enmity between us, but there will be if you harm or cause Torquil and Rhys to be harmed.”
“I think you misunderstand the role of guards,” Nacton said.
She shook her head. “Don’t be droll, Nacton. I know their roles, but I am also my mother’s daughter. Injuring those who are mine, those I love, would necessitate my showing you exactly how much of the queen’s blood propels this broken body. I can be as calm as our father . . . until harm comes to my loved ones.”
None of the three fae spoke for a moment. Eilidh kept her Seelie brother’s gaze until Nacton nodded and said, “The warning is noted.”
Once he left, Eilidh turned to Rhys and Torquil.
Rhys stared at her with something akin to hope on his face. If he were any other fae, she might even suggest there was fear in his eyes. When he realized she was staring at him, he straightened his features into their usual implacable mask, but his words belied his mien. “Love, sister? How did you form such an extreme lie without pain?”
“There was no lie, Rhys.” Eilidh reached out and squeezed her brother’s forearm. “You are my brother, and I love you—as I love Mother, and Lilywhite, and Father.”
Rhys said nothing.
“Your son could love you too,” she added. “He was unsettled tonight, but what else could he do? Your blood runs in him. Mother’s blood. Ours is not a family known to respond gracefully to surprises.”
Torquil coughed in what she was sure was an attempt to hide a laugh. Eilidh smiled softly at him. He knew her, and by extension, her brother better than most fae. Fortunately, that also meant that he wasn’t going to call attention to the truths he noticed—mostly because none of the queen’s descendants were receptive to such observations.
Instead of commenting, Torquil stayed silent at her side as they walked deeper into the Hidden Lands. The trees seemed to part as they walked, and Eilidh sent a whispered plea that they not do so. Her affinity with earth was strong enough that the plants often seemed to anticipate her needs, but she preferred to keep the extent of any of her affinities as private as she could. One never knew when unwanted witnesses were near.
“Perhaps we can discuss our plans tomorrow,” Rhys suggested when they reached her tower.
“Of course.”
Torquil stepped toward the tower, but when Eilidh moved to follow him, Rhys put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
“Love . . . No one has said that word to me before, sister. I will endeavor to be worthy.”
Impulsively, Eilidh hugged him, wrapped her arms around his statue-still body and squeezed as if she were comforting a small child. “You are already worthy, Rhys.”
He didn’t enclose her in his arms or move in any way. For all of his affect, she might as well have been hugging a tree—although with her affinity, the tree was more likely to embrace her in return.
After a moment, Rhys patted her shoulder and said, “And I . . . you, sister.”
Then he stepped away from her. He nodded at Torquil once and strode off toward the courtyard. She suspected her brother needed to vent anger from the ambush and hoped that there were participants aplenty willing to spar with him.
As they watched Rhys leave, Torquil wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned back against him. How much things had changed since the day he stepped onto the forbidden staircase! She felt less alone than ever in her life. She had her best friend as betrothed, her brother as friend, and her niece back in her life. If things didn’t go poorly, she might come to know Zephyr too.
“You realize that you just threatened two of your brothers and earned the undying devotion of the third,” Torquil said in a low voice. His arms stayed around her, and despite the attention they were drawing from the fae who always watched her and the tower, she felt no urge to move.
“I already had Rhys’ devotion,” she said just as quietly. “Now he knows he has mine as well.”
“And your other brothers?”
Eilidh turned to look over her shoulder at Torquil. “They deserved a fair warning. If they are so foolish as to strike out at us, I will kill them. I alone answer to no other fae. Would Father be pleased if his sons die? No, but I am the heir. I would not be sent to exile for it, and if I were”—she shrugged—“so be it.”
Torquil shook his head.
“Come,” she said, stepping out of his embrace. “I feel the need of a nap. Join me?”
Her betrothed gave her the sort of hungry look that she’d never thought to see directed at her.
“I always feel the need of sleep with you,” Torquil murmured and then he kissed her in full view of the watching fae.
When he pulled away, she laughed in sheer joy and tugged him into the tower to dream with her.
twenty-nine
ZEPHYR
Zephyr wasn’t entirely sure what happened after Lilywhite and Creed arrived at the Row House, but he woke up facedown inside the vat of soil in Alkamy’s sofa. Someone had obviously removed everything but his shorts. Soil covered his entire body, and he was grateful for the healing nourishment it offered. Despite spending what he guessed was hours burrowed into the earth, his head felt like it weighed an extra twenty pounds, and his mouth felt like something had died in it.
He rolled to his side, blinked burning eyes, and looked up to find Violet watching him. In a voice that sounded almost as bad as he felt, he rasped, “What are you doing here?”
“Babysitting.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leveled a disapproving stare at h
im. “We all took shifts, so Lily and Kamy could sleep without worrying that you were going to die of alcohol poisoning.”
“All?”
“Will, Roan, Creed, and me. Seriously, Zephyr, what were you thinking?”
She handed him a glass of water, which he gratefully accepted and sipped.
Voice less scratchy, he said, “I’m sorry you had to do that.”
“But not sorry you got so drunk that we had to carry you? Or that you practically humped Kamy in public? Or that—”
“I get it, Vi. I fucked up. It’s okay for you or Kam or Creed to get drunk, but I can’t. I get it.”
She stood and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re an idiot. Seriously. I don’t care if you make mistakes. I care that you’re going to be upset now, that you’re hurting. You put yourself in danger. I care that you were in pain.”
He started to sit up.
Violet’s hand came down hard on his side. “Stay in the soil, Zeph. Let your body heal from all of the poison you swallowed.”
Despite being embarrassed by his weakness, he obeyed her and burrowed his feet deeper into the soil. He’d only used Alkamy’s soil once before when he was injured in an explosion. Doing so for excessive drinking seemed foolish, but he wasn’t up to arguing with Violet—or ready to go back to his suite and deal with Creed.
“The girls made me promise to wake one of them when you woke,” Violet said, her tone still disapproving. “After I do that, I’m going to see Roan and Will, so I can tell them you’re okay. Then I’m going to snuggle up with whichever one of them is asleep, so I can get some sleep.”
Zephyr grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
Violet stopped, met his gaze, and told him, “You’ve done the same for most of us.” In a flicker of a moment, she softened and added, “I’m sorry about your father being who he is, about your grandmother being . . .” She swallowed, unable to even say the words. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Zephyr said again. Violet was terrifying sometimes, but under it all, she had nothing but love for the rest of the Sleepers. She would protect them if she could. He felt the same way, but he couldn’t express it with the ferocity she embraced so openly.
“I need to wake them,” Violet said in the silence that had filled the room as he thought about the things he’d learned.
“Not Kamy,” Zephyr half ordered, half begged. “Just Lilywhite.”
Violet said nothing, but a few moments later, Lilywhite was sitting in the chair beside him and Violet was leaving the suite.
“I’m not sure whether to yell or hug you,” Lilywhite said quietly.
He looked at her. “I’m sorry I worried everyone. I’ve never done that.” He winced as he tried to sit up so he could at least pretend not to be incapacitated. “I don’t know how they do that repeatedly.”
“Zephyr,” Lily began, “what we learned—”
“Changes everything,” he cut in. “You need to explain to Creed—”
“No.” She shook her head. “It changes very little. I’m still not hers to command, or yours to have, Zephyr.”
“Did you not hear everything I did last night?”
“I did actually.”
“You’re the rightful heir.”
“I am my father’s daughter, and if I take any hereditary duty, it’s to the Abernathy family businesses. I’ll accept that I’m a little more fae than I thought, but that’s it.” Lilywhite folded her arms over her chest, and Zephyr couldn’t help but think that she was painfully naive. She might be wise in the ways of drug dealers and money laundering, but when it came to the fae, she was almost pitiably clueless.
“No one tells Endellion no,” he said. “You will be wed against your will if necessary. You will be threatened if necessary. She doesn’t accept refusals.”
“She’ll have to. The queen may be our grandmother, but I am my own person.”
“We’re only half-cousins, Lilywhite. In the Hidden Lands, that’s not so much. I don’t like it either, but we just need to learn to—”
“No,” she said again, far more firmly this time.
“Am I that horrible?” He didn’t mean to sound weak, but his pride stung. It hurt to be rejected so thoroughly.
“No, but you love Alkamy, Zephyr, and I . . . I like Creed.” She blushed briefly, but she didn’t look away. “Even if I didn’t, I won’t be commanded like that. You’re a good person, but . . .”
Zephyr laughed bitterly, eliciting a frown from her.
“And I’m glad we’re family,” she continued. “I was raised to believe that family is everything.”
“Endellion is your family too.” Zephyr sat up. “We need to figure out what to do. We can talk to the queen and explain that—”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “I won’t serve her.”
“The queen will make us both bleed or worse.” Zephyr thought about the rest of the cell, about his friends, about Alkamy. “If you tell her about the true depth of my feelings for Kamy . . . You can’t tell her.” He reached out and grabbed Lilywhite’s hand. “I can’t swear fealty to you like Creed did, but ask anything else of me. I can’t let you say anything that will cause Endellion to hurt Alkamy.”
Lilywhite didn’t pull away. “I don’t need you to make any vows,” she insisted. “I wouldn’t do anything to risk Kamy either.”
“I must obey the queen, Lilywhite. If she orders us to wed, you know that we will. Maybe we could at least forestall that if she saw that we were together.” Zephyr tried to find words that were gentle, but he didn’t know if gentle would get the point across. “You cannot disobey her, but maybe we could compromise for now.”
“What are you saying?” Lilywhite’s grip on his hand tightened painfully.
“I’m saying that I don’t want to see any of us killed, and I don’t think that acquiescing to being mine would be a fate worth than death. Even if you don’t mention Kamy, there are ways she can find out, or did you miss my father’s truth extraction trick last night?”
“I’m sorry.” Lilywhite looked up at him, staring into his eyes, and said, “I made a vow to Creed, Zephyr.”
Zephyr felt like he was going to be sick, and he wasn’t sure it was just the alcohol he’d nearly overdosed on last night. “Ninian help us all.” He leaned back in the soil again. “Do you think you’re the only ones who have feelings that aren’t allowed? Will and Roan have been in love for years. I love Kamy more than I thought it possible to ever love anyone, but—”
“Then why not tell me that?” Alkamy said from behind him.
Any words he might have known vanished as he saw her standing there watching him with tears in her eyes. She didn’t move from the doorway of her bedroom. Her robe was loosely tied, and her hair fell around her face like a dark veil framing perfection like no one else in this world or the other.
“Just once, Zephyr. Say it to me,” Alkamy half ordered, half pleaded.
“I can’t.” He stood and went to her.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “I love you. Everyone knows. You think Endellion doesn’t already know?” Alkamy crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll stand by your side, do whatever you ask. I always have. I always will. If that means you being with Lily, I can accept it. I did accept it years ago.” Tears started to slide down her cheeks. “None of it means that I don’t need the words. Say them.”
“I love you,” he swore. In that moment, he wished he could be more like Lilywhite and Creed, that he could ignore the consequences and do what he wanted, that he could take Alkamy and run far from their responsibilities. But standing there with Alkamy in his arms, with words of love on his lips, didn’t change reality or duty.
A sound from Lilywhite’s room made Zephyr look into the half-open doorway. Creed looked back at him from his seat on her bed. He was clothed, so perhaps they hadn’t done anything to further complicate this mess.
He kissed th
e top of Alkamy’s head, and then he turned so he could see Lilywhite instead of Creed. “I love Alkamy, but I won’t sentence any of us to death at the queen’s order. That’s what it means to love someone: being willing to give them up to keep them safe.”
Lilywhite held out the object she’d been carrying then. “I told you my mother had left me a book. The others all read it last night while you were . . . sleeping.”
Zephyr looked down at it, read the title, and then glanced at her.
“Read the first bit,” Lilywhite said. “Then we’ll talk.”
Silently, he walked over to the sofa. Alkamy sat next to him, her hand in his, while he read what he quickly realized was a story of the past written by the missing heir to the Hidden Throne.
The Book of Secrets
Iana Abernathy
It was almost dusk when the Unseelie Queen started to swim toward the shore. Today was the last swim until her daughter was born. Children weren’t meant to be born into the churning sea—even children like hers. Although the babe wasn’t due quite yet, Endellion was near enough to her birthing time that from here on out, she’d restrict herself to land.
Her daughter would be the beginning of a new era, the start of a treaty that had taken both Unseelie and Seelie decades to create. As part of that treaty, Endellion had lain down with the Seelie King, Leith. The Queen of Sea and Sky would bear the daughter of the King of Fire and Truth.
The two fae monarchs agreed that their daughter would one day rule the two courts as one.
Endellion took a deep breath and dove down again, enjoying the lightness the water gave her now heavy body. Her hair was still unbound after her visit to Leith, and her stress was temporarily set aside in the aftermath of his affection and the joy of the sea. It wasn’t the sort of peace she’d known in past centuries, but she was closer to content than she’d been in more recent decades.
The burden of making decisions for her subjects had been heavy on her shoulders. Both the Unseelie and Seelie fae had been hidden away for several centuries, no longer meddling in the affairs of men. But faeries—as beings of nature—were left suffering from the consequences of the plague of humans that had spread over the world. The seas grew murky with poisons, and the soil had been exhausted from toxins that were discarded carelessly. To save their kind from the poisonous world, the two courts retreated to a series of islands hidden near the great whirlpool, the Coire Bhreacain.