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During reckoning, when the suns, Balea and Min, were at their closest and the afternoon air shivered with heat, being
This bastard would shit himself if he realized he had the Saeris Fane in his grasp.
There was no punishment for leaving the Third; no one had ever done it before.
noticed the small plague bag hanging from his belt and realized that he, like thousands of others in Zilvaren, was a Believer.
A recruit underwent formidable training before being accepted into Queen Madra’s guard. Those who were selected for the grueling eighteen-month program were repeatedly half-drowned and had the tar beaten out of them via every martial arts system recorded in the city’s dusty libraries.
I’d spent half my life running the tops of these walls, slipping from one ward to the next, finding ways into places I had no business being. I was good at it. Moreover, it was fun.
Sometimes, objects shook around me. Objects made of iron, tin, or gold.
Carrion Swift: the most notorious gambler, cheat, and smuggler in the entire city. He was also uncommonly good in bed—the only man in Zilvaren who’d ever made me scream his name out of pleasure rather than frustration.
I’d planned on crushing that ego of his once I’d finished with him, but then he’d done the unthinkable and proven that his swagger was well-earned. More than well-earned. It made my blood boil just thinking about it. The man was a thief and a liar, and he loved himself far too much. I mean, who in their right mind wore this kind of finery? To a tavern full of savages who’d cut your throat and steal the dirty boots off your feet as soon as look at you? He was mad.
“No, of course not. Like I said. Ask a question, and you’ll get sent to the Third. It isn’t disease that’s contagious in my ward, Captain. It’s dissent. Anarchy and rebellion spread like a wildfire. And what do you do with a fire? You blockade it. Trap it behind a wall. Give it nowhere else to go until it burns itself out and dies a quiet death.
Do you know much about metalwork, Captain? I do. It’s under the most unbearable conditions that the sharpest, most dangerous weapons are forged. And we are dangerous, Captain. She’s turned us all into weapons. That is why she won’t suffer my people to live.”
For the next one hundred years, anyone foolish enough to think twice about stealing from me will remember the black day Saeris Fane offended the Zilvaren crown and a hundred thousand people paid the price.”
“Obsidian. Ob-obsidian!” exclaimed Harron. “Broken. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Down in the ground. In the passageways. In the walls. They move. In the ground. I can’t… it won’t die! It has to!” he screamed.
Everlayne scoffed. “Superstition and sacrilege. Your queen is human. And even though the sand and the wind swept away the names of the gods, I assure you Madra knows them. That she’s chosen to let them vanish from her people’s history speaks volumes of her corruption.”
“Styx, god of shadows.” She moved along the line, inclining her head and touching her brow to each of her gods before she named them. “Kurin, god of secrets. Nicinnai, goddess of masks. Maleus, god of dawn and new beginnings. These two are often counted as one god,” Everlayne said, gesturing to the two beautiful females who stood arm in arm atop the same marble plinth. “Balmithin. Twin sisters. Goddesses of the sky. Legend says that they once were one god, but a mighty storm came, and Balmithin refused to take shelter as it raged across the land. The powerful spirit within the storm was
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“That’s Zareth, god of chaos and change.” She
“Even in times of peace, the Fae are always at war. There are those among our ranks that might pretend to be your friend, but often they’re hiding knives behind their smiles, ready to sink them into your back. You’d do well to remember that.”
she knows she’ll be swept away by a sea of Fae warriors thirty thousand deep once Belikon wedges the door into her world open. She lied to him. Tricked him. Cut off his trade lines to the other realms. Not to mention the fact that there are still rumors floating around that the Daianthus heir is in Zilvaren somewhere.
Everlayne bowed and touched her head to them as she hurried by. Ren grumbled, giving them a cursory nod. Kingfisher stuck out a hand and flipped all seven of them off as he stormed by.
Oshellith.
“You’re my brother,” Everlayne hissed. “Though I sometimes wish you weren’t!”
“An Oshellith is a type of butterfly,” he called as he went. “Osha for short. They hatch, live, and die all in one day. The cold kills them very fast. Isn’t that right, Renfis?”
The quicksilver pools are pathways that connect different realms.
“The quicksilver itself is volatile. Some of our elders believe it possesses a low level of sentience. Whether this is true or not doesn’t really matter. The stuff is dangerous. If the quicksilver comes into contact with bare skin…”
handsome face. “I have to say, I was expecting that to go differently,” he mused. And then I punched him square in the mouth.
“Careful, human. We Fae have an excellent sense of smell. You’d be amazed what we can scent floating on the air.”
“It’s going to bite you,” Kingfisher said. “No, it won’t. It—” It bit me.
Do you have any idea what those boots cost me?” “Let me guess. Your virginity.”
Fisher grinned so hard that a small dimple appeared, forming a deep groove in his cheek. A godscursed dimple.
“Rule number three. Do not make me do any physical activity,” he snarled. “What part of ‘I am hungover’ did you not fucking understand!”
the stall, heading back to the tack room. “I said, verbatim, ‘I go, and I try to get your brother. You help me and assist me in any way I ask you to, and you do as you’re told. You agree to this pact?’ to which you replied, ‘Yes, gods, I agree! Just get on with it!’”
“The quicksilver closes the gap. With it, we can travel to the realms that orbit those stars.” He said it so simply. As if he hadn’t just told me that Zilvaren wasn’t hidden through some mystical door somewhere. My home was up there. Amongst the stars.
me, Kingfisher was a surly, foul-mouthed bastard who I wouldn’t piss on even if he was on fire. To everyone inside this tavern, he was a living fucking god.
Kingfisher’s mouth ticked imperceptibly. “As you wish. Word for word. I swear I will release you and allow you and Carrion to return to Zilvaren the moment you have made enough relics for my people. There.
I trailed off, a sinking feeling of dread crushing my chest. I’d done it again. I hadn’t paid attention to the details, had I? And it was even worse this time because I thought I’d done a good job.
“You know what’d really piss him off?” I knew he wasn’t talking about Onyx. “Just don’t, Carrion.” “Revenge fucking on his bed.”
“You’ve been in Yvelia for five seconds, and you’ve already had a foursome with a different species of magical creature?” I didn’t know why I was surprised. It was absolutely something Carrion would do.
“I do not need to use a training sword!” “Oh? You have experience wielding a blade, then? A proper, full-length sword and not some badly forged back-alley shank?”
Ever since Harron had bound my hands behind my back and run me through, I’d felt vulnerable. Weak. Incapable. But now… I was myself again. The girl who’d taken down three of Madra’s guardians outside The Mirage. The girl many a Zilvaren thug had underestimated at their own peril. All of the rage and the fear that had been choking me since the Hall of Mirrors welled up inside of me and rose up the back of my throat.
“Go in. Please.” He winced when he said please; manners were evidently painful to Fisher.
I watched it happen: the pain on her face, and the point of her sword aimed at Fisher’s throat, and the way his shoulders sagged, as if he’d made his peace with whatever came next and was ready for it. I had no intention of standing. My hand raised of its own accord. The shout of panic tore out of my mouth without any doing on my part. “STOP!” Danya’s body rocked sideways. She slammed into the table, her hip colliding with the wood. But that wasn’t what drew twenty pairs of stunned eyes toward me. It was her sword, splintering into a thousand shards, the quivering steel needles shooting
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“She’s mine,” Fisher said.
“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.”
“On the basis that a liar who didn’t want to get caught telling a lie would one hundred percent lie about being unable to tell lies. Gods, that… was confusing.”
If I knew Carrion, he understood my meaning perfectly well and didn’t give a fuck that I wasn’t thrilled to see him.
he began to sing. To all those who’ll listen or haven’t been told, of the day the last drake woke and rose from the cold. Of the young warrior who came veiled in shadows and blood to defeat the foul creature and save those he could. Of the Fisher King, and the wolves at his back, who came howling in the night, together, a pack. The frost blessed the morning. The warriors faced their fate. And thus begins our tale, The Ballad of Ajun Gate.
The drake, he did stir, Old Omnamshacry observing the world through ink-black, mad eyes. The drinkers of night pledged him death and decay. That he’d feast on his foes and the flesh he did flay.
So long as he rose and he joined them in war, against the Fae who protected the sacred, blessed ore. With glittering sharp scales of gold and of red, the drake, he consented, and bidden, he fed. The Fae in their towers stood mighty. Stood proud. But soon they were scattered, their fear shouted loud. Dark wings shaded mountain and blotted the sun. And mad old ’Shacry, he watched them all run.
The drake saw them coming, and knew where they’d stand So there he did meet them, and there they did clash. And Old Mad ’Shacry dressed the mountain in ash. His fire ran in rivers. It melted the snow. There was no escaping the glowing hot flow. With teeth bared and dripping, the drake trapped the Fae, laughing with cruelty above the warriors he’d slay. But the wolves held their ground, all dauntless and brave, determined to send Old ’Shacry to his grave. Swift came the chant, then, so all close could hear.
A war cry of old that strengthened those near. The wolves ran the charge and at the head of the swell came the proud Fisher King bearing Nimerelle. The drake saw his courage and was filled with a rage the likes of which unseen in more than an age.
