More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
This wasn’t just an amphitheater. It was a slaughterhouse.
“Release us.”
The captain of Madra’s guard, Harron, stood inches from Lorreth’s back.
They crept forward in an encroaching tide, but a twitch from Harron’s hand kept them at bay.
To the right of the dais sat Belikon. To the left… Madra.
I tried to blink them away, but there they remained, impossibly, sitting beside the vampire king.
“You should have at least let them try, Brother. I was looking forward to seeing the look on their faces when they realized how much trouble they were in.”
Belikon had known? All these years, he’d known that Madra was the one who had closed the gates, and he’d blamed Fisher’s father.
“War?” Belikon sneered. “We haven’t been at war, you fool. I’ve simply been feeding my brother’s army.”
“I think we should ask them,” he said in an airy tone. “After all, they’re the ones he killed.”
“I left Ren and the others, and I went to find Malcolm. I’d decided I was going to try and kill him by myself. But it wasn’t Malcolm that I found. At least not at first. It was the bastard who murdered my mother.”
“You think you can shame me by airing my sins? Think again. Your bitch of a mother was supposed to be the greatest oracle of our time, but she was useless.” He cackled. “I admit it. As soon as she was done pushing out the brat I forced upon her, I slit the bitch’s throat. I was sick of her fucking lies.”
He said if the coin hit the ground and landed leaf-side up, Malcolm would call off his horde and leave the city without hurting another living thing.
if the coin hit the ground and landed fish-side up, he would take the city as his own and destroy it, and I would have to leave those still alive to their deaths and meet him on the field of battle at a later date.”
And he agreed. He was so desperate to save a handful of peasants that he made the blood oath with me.”
“And I caught it!” Malcolm held his glass aloft, toasting himself. “The coin never hit the ground,” I whispered.
“I torched the city, then,” Fisher said.
“I barricaded it and trapped everyone inside. Malcolm’s horde had either bitten or killed everyone. They were transitioning right before our eyes. Gillethrye was home to nearly two hundred thousand High Fae and Lesser Fae.
“I hid Belikon’s coin at its center, and then I created this colosseum around it and filled the stands with the perpetually burning bodies of all the creatures our poor little bleeding heart here had wanted to save. All he had to do to end their suffering was find the coin and make it fall to the ground. Obviously, it would be too late to save the Fae from death, but at least it would end their suffering. And then,” he added with a dramatic flourish, “he would be free to seek his vengeance by calling me out onto the battlefield.”
“I play back,” Fisher spat. “It might not be today, but oh, I am coming to find you, Madra. Fear the shadows, bitch. I’m made of them. One night soon, I’ll climb out of one and slit your fucking throat.”
“You spayed my mate when she was a fucking child,” he seethed. “For that alone, I’ll make your undying existence an unending agony. An eternity of suffering the likes of which even your evil mind cannot comprehend. You’ll know no peace at my hands. I will destroy your empire and erase your name from the annals of time. When I am done with your legacy, Madra the Undying will never have existed. And you’ll live on at my behest, suffering for all of eternity. And no one will know. And no one will care.”
His eyes were back on me now, locked fast, as if I were an anchor in a storm, the only thing capable of grounding him.
The vampire king bared his fangs as he leaned in close to Carrion’s neck.
“I don’t need magic to mess you up, you fuck,” he growled. “This is for me. But mostly, it’s for my parents.”
I should have died at his hand, and that knowledge had made me fear facing him again. But now that the moment had come… I realized that I was better than him.
Feigning shock, I said, “Wait a minute. I think Death just remembered your name, Harron.” And then I snapped his neck.
Tell me you have a plan. It was a hell of a lot easier speaking into someone’s mind when you were sprinting for your life. Fisher replied, Yes, I have one. Great. What is it? He answered right away. You.
It was three times the height of a full-grown man, with more legs than I could count. Its hind abdomen was a fleshy bulb, mottled red and black and covered in coarse long hairs.
Its front half was part Fae. A male torso with a distended, bloated stomach. Thin, emaciated arms. Wisps of greasy black hair stuck to its otherwise bald head. It had no ears. No eyes or nose, either. Its face comprised nothing but a massive circular mouth, with concentric row after row of jagged teeth.
“It can’t see or hear you. It tracks movement.”
“That’s not a spider. That’s Morthil. It’s a demon. And it’ll stun you with its stinger and eat you alive if it catches you. Slowly. Over a period of days—”
“There’s a quicksilver pool at the center of this labyrinth, Saeris. You need to find it.”
“No rush or anything, Fane, but if you could sniff out that quicksilver pretty quickly, I’d sure appreciate it,” he said, his voice three octaves higher than usual.
reacted on instinct, first darting back against the wall and then spinning my dagger over and plunging it down into the demon’s abdomen. I had been aiming for its stinger, but the hit I landed was still decent. Fisher took advantage of the demon’s howl of shock and lopped off another of its legs.
“You’re right. I apologize. I’m just a little on edge right now. I’m not my best self.”
I used it to craft this place especially for our Kingfisher so that he wouldn’t be plagued with such tiresome requirements as rest and sustenance.
You can’t kill any of us with a mere blade. We are the Triumvirate,
Three crowns sharing one source. To kill one of us, you must kill us all, and that is no easy task.”
Amazingly, it was Carrion who stepped forward first, Simon held aloft. “We might think Fisher’s an arrogant ass, but we’re not just going to let you kill him.”
“We especially aren’t going to let him be killed by a bastard who’d hand over his own daughter to be tortured and enthralled by a fucking vampire.”
It burned Malcolm’s hand when he caught it. He wouldn’t even be able to stand on so many silver coins without them affecting him.
he only seemed to flinch a little when he drew closer to Carrion’s sword.
“Nothing’s stopping you. Go ahead, Leech. Bite me and see where it gets you.”
Head tipped back, he stared at the vampire defiantly as Malcolm snapped his head forward and sank his teeth into his throat.
“My name is Carrion Swift. But there was a time when I was known as Carrion Daianthus. Firstborn son to Rurik and Amelia Daianthus.”
“You tricked me?” He choked, vomiting up another gush of blood. “You tricked me into drinking Daianthus blood?”
“I love him,” I said. “I can’t bear for him to die.” The Kingfisherrrrr, the whisper buzzed. Yes. Your mate.
A small favor, then, the whisper said. We will do it for a favor. And for a restoration of balance. And for love.
My skin was stained black with ink. Runes upon runes upon runes. The God Bindings flared metallic blue around my wrists as if consolidating and becoming more real, somehow. My whole body rushed with heat. I’d said it out loud, hadn’t I? I’d acknowledged that Fisher was my mate.
“I won’t help you,” I spat. “I can’t. I can only work with the quicksilver.” Malcolm clucked his tongue—a wet, disgusting sound. “Little girl, your ignorance is shocking.”
