Servant of Earth (The Shards of Magic, #1)

by Sarah Hawley

I’d been born on a frozen, moonless night, screaming as if I were furious with the world. Perhaps I had every reason to be.

That was the way of some men. Their tongues wagged in an imitation of love while their fists dealt pain. I stroked the dagger’s outline at my thigh, thinking about what it might be like to live in a world where women didn’t have to depend on people they feared for safety.

“What are the virtues?” I asked past the flare of anger at the thought of the solstice ritual. “Courage, discipline, cunning, strength, hedonism, and magic.”

I understood why Fire, Void, and Blood had rebelled. To destroy a tyrant who laughed at butchery, who had held the throne for centuries by mercilessly eliminating any challengers, even those with no power to defy him at all.

It was a risk to take that flippant tone, but it paid off when he smiled slightly. Maybe if I amused him, he would let me go. “I’m afraid the gossips give me powers I don’t possess,” he said dryly. “You are free to think about me whenever—and however—you wish.” Curse faeries and their insinuations. I hoped he wouldn’t notice my blush in the darkness. “Your turn,” I said.

Well, I preferred plain speaking anyway. “Me, specifically?” I asked just as softly, hoping my blush didn’t show in the low light. “Or someone placed advantageously in Earth House?” His eyes flared slightly, then trailed over me. “When you ask questions like that, the answer is definitely you, specifically.”

“Bold but clever is a rare combination.”

“Lord Kallen,” I said, fumbling a curtsy. “Are you fucking the Fire prince?” he asked. I flinched at the crude word. “N-no, my lord.” “Hmm.” His gaze traced over me. “You will be soon, I’ll wager. He’s never set his sights on anything he cannot have.” A secret smile touched his lips. “For the most part.”

“If you give too much of yourself down here,” he continued in an odd tone, looking down at me intently, “you risk losing everything. Because no one will ever return that loyalty. You’ll give and give and end up hollow…or dead. Remember that.”

I tried to suppress my flush. I knew what this was. He was trying to keep me off-balance, disconcerting me with forced intimacy, trying to intimidate me with his beauty and his power. One of the games the Fae so loved to play.

I’d kissed a few village boys before. It hadn’t been anything like this. Those had been uncomfortable mashings of lips and teeth, usually abruptly begun and just as quickly ended—an urge or a curiosity or a liberty taken, nothing to pursue.

As suddenly as it had begun, the kiss ended. He pushed me away from him, breathing hard as he stared at me with molten eyes. “You should go. Unless you want to finish this now.”

“You smell like smoke.” I flushed at the memory of Drustan’s lips on mine and the fiery taste he’d left in my mouth. “I was near the kitchens.” As I walked away, his voice followed. “Liar.”

Aidan winked. “Someone’s always drinking or fucking in a corner, too.”

Kill. To my horror, the dagger began creeping up my arm, ready to strike. No. You can’t kill him. If the dagger killed him, I would certainly be put to death. Punish, it said, and punishing sounded perfect, but if anyone realized I carried a weapon, it would be taken away. I couldn’t afford to lose it now.

The dagger began slithering down my arm towards Markas’s imprisoning fists, singing a melody of hatred in my head. Punish. Punish. Punish.

My hands raced over Drustan, ripping at his shirt. I was desperate to touch him, to bare all that hot skin. He swore as I tore the shirt to shreds, then pulled back to rip the remaining tatters off. He gripped my throat with a strong hand, and I arched at the domineering gesture, but his clever fingers were working at the clasp. Within seconds the collar had been unhooked from my neck, and then he pulled the top off. The skirt soon followed, and then the scrap of underwear.

I thought we were done then, but Drustan drew back and dropped a hand between my thighs to coax another climax out of me. I screamed, tears trailing down my cheeks as I closed my eyes, my entire body vibrating with release, my soul practically soaring into the sky. I’d never felt so free.

Aidan raised his eyebrows. “That’s the face of a woman with a secret.” “It was nothing special.” “Darling, I hate to tell you, but that means he didn’t do a very good job.” I couldn’t help it. I snorted with laughter and had to clap a hand over my mouth and nose to contain the sound.

“No,” Aidan whispered, sounding utterly scandalized. “Kenna, you absolute witch, tell me everything.” I ignored him. Drustan’s eyes traced down my body and up again. He gave me a slow, lazy smile that made my stomach turn over, and then his tongue darted to the corner of his lips; a small, careless gesture, but I knew what it meant. “Great Shards.” Aidan sounded like he was about to pass out.

Do you have a name? I thought suddenly. Caedo.

“There are many blood-drinking creatures deep underground.” Osric sounded enchanted by the thought. “The knife marks on his body were probably a diversion to cover up how it really fed. It was a foolish choice. The Nasty should have known no one but a Noble Fae from Blood House would have been able to wield a weapon like that.” Not true. Caedo tightened affectionately around my arm. They are fools. They certainly were.

My breath caught. This wasn’t just a mystical dagger. It had been one of the most important weapons in a war fought centuries ago. Caedo had belonged to Princess Cordelia of Blood House, leader of the rebellion, who had refused to bow to a tyrant and had died with her people instead.

“I like it when you’re cold,” he whispered. “But I like it better when you burn.”

My stomach churned. That was me he was speaking so coldly of fucking. Only one faerie glanced at me, and this one had a trace of pity in his expression. Kallen. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew. I met his eyes, forcing myself to look indifferent. He looked away.

“I find balls dull.” “That’s no reason to spend time with a servant, much less a human.” He made a humming noise. “ ‘Much less’ isn’t any kind of term for you, Kenna.”

“You don’t want to hurt people,” I said wonderingly. “You don’t have to sound so surprised.” “I’m not surprised, just…” I hesitated. “All right, surprised.” He barked out a laugh. “I appreciate your bluntness.”

I faced him fully, dropping my hand from his arm. His own palm slid away from mine reluctantly. “I think you need to learn how humans dance.” His brows shot up. “Do I?” “Yes.” “Why is that?” “Because balls bore you, and they shouldn’t bore anyone.” If I were free, I would love to be twirling down there. “Besides, this dirty human knows a few tricks that might surprise you.”

“What step should we do?” His hand flexed on my waist. “I’m going to teach you something new.” And I did, teaching him a rollicking dance I’d always loved. It wasn’t dignified or elegant, but it was fun. We spun madly, and as he threw his head back and finally laughed freely, I laughed with him.

I was in the village, hunkering behind the tailor’s shop as a pack of other children threw stones at me. My forehead started bleeding, and the pain made me furious. I threw the rocks back at them and screamed as they ran. When I hit one of the girls in the head, I laughed. I was fighting boys in the Tumbledown schoolyard, no longer willing to wait until rocks were thrown. They pulled my hair and punched me, but I punched harder, and besides, I bit. The parents called me a wild animal when they came to retrieve my latest victim. “She’s half feral.” “She shouldn’t be allowed near the other children.”

I was staring at my reflection in a pond with the angst and fury of adolescence, wishing I was dead so the villagers who looked down on me would feel the guilt they deserved. Wishing they were dead. Wishing all of us were dead. I was throwing a rock through the window of a woman who mocked my mother for being unable to keep a husband.

I was slicing into my skin to feed Caedo. I was scratching Drustan during sex, overwhelmed with a primal rage and lust I didn’t know how else to express. I was twisting the knife in Garrick’s gut, smiling as he stared up at me in terror. His blood was hot on my palms. His throat gaped open in front of me, and for a terrible moment I felt joy.

Look. I looked. Every wound had been torn open inside of me all at once, and what I’d learned from it was how small and terrible and violent I could be.

Yes. You enjoyed it, or Caedo did? Both. Seeing my past laid out in front of me and feeling the visceral pain beneath the images, I’d been confronted with a dark truth about myself. I enjoyed getting revenge. I enjoyed making Garrick afraid of me. It was only for a moment, but I felt it.

I wanted to stay. You feel that? Blood asked, her tone triumphant. I do, Light responded. And so the decision is made. I say yes. I felt that great, echoing presence focus on me. Kenna Heron, you have been found worthy. Take this gift and restore the balance. The wind swept me away, and I saw no more.

That was what love was. Not just romantic love, but any type of love. It was caring so much for another person that you would do anything to see them happy and whole.