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I was far more concerned with all of the incredible things I was going to forge with his impressive gauntlet. But first, I was going to melt the glorious thing down to slag.
Elroy’s business was glass. With an abundance of sand at his fingertips, he’d made it his life’s work to become the best glassmaker and glazier in all of Zilvaren.
Once upon a time, Elroy used to make illicit weapons for the rebel gangs who fought to overthrow Madra.
then they were kicking it down, hunting for mythical magic users who didn’t even exist.
Madra’s reigned over this city for a thousand years. She will live as she has ever lived, and
“What if they track you down and realize what you can do? The way you can affect metal—”
Sometimes, objects shook around me. Objects made of iron, tin, or gold.
She’d never seen snow, but that’s what I had been to her: her ice storm. Distant. Cold. Sharp.
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. His bright auburn hair was a signal flare in the dimly lit tavern.
Carrion wanted his off-the-cuff comment to remind me of how long he spent working with his tongue between my thighs. He wanted me to recall just how long he held back his own pleasure—like it was his godscursed job—while he teased out mine. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
How, after over a thousand years, did the queen still live? Madra was human, so why didn’t she die? He claimed to have access to the fount of her eternal youth and peddled that in bottles, too.
“If I seem healthy to you, then that’s because I’ve been stealing from the Hub’s water reservoirs my entire life.
Ask a question, and you’ll get sent to the Third.
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.”
“It used to be a hall of mirrors,”
Queen Madra emerged from the darkness as if she were made of it. People said she was young. Beautiful. Magnificent to look upon. I’d seen her from a distance, but never this close. It was hard to comprehend how someone who had ruled for so long could look like this.
“It was the Fae, wasn’t it?” she hissed. “They’ve found a way through. They’ve come for me at last?”
“It strikes me that the Fae haven’t really thought about how they might destroy an immortal, Saeris. It seems that the Fae are foolhardy and are ill-prepared to deal with the likes of me.”
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.”
there was something inside of me, something cool, and calm, and made of iron, that rose up and claimed Harron’s knife as its own.
As if I had a third, invisible hand, I reached out toward the dagger, and I wrapped my will around it.
“I can’t go. She won’t let me!”
But this close, I could see that it was, in fact, a sword, buried halfway up to its hilt into the ground.
“Saeris, no! Do not touch the sword. Do not… turn the key!” he panted. “Do not open the gate! You—you’ve no idea the hell you will unleash on this place!”
Emerging from the silver, the huge figure rose up from the pool as if ascending from the very depths of hell itself. Broad shoulders. Wet, shoulder-length black hair. Tall. Taller than any other man I’d ever seen. His eyes shone an iridescent, shimmering green, the pupil of the right eye rimmed by the same shining metallic silver that ran in ribbons from the black leather armor that covered his chest and arms. He towered over me, his lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing gleaming white teeth and sharp canines. In his hand, he held a monstrous sword forged out of a black metal that vibrated
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Kingfisher’s intro
My silent scream died on my lips as Death carried me into the pool. The darkness took me before the silver could.
Everlayne said quietly. She placed her hands in her lap, all of her effervescence quickly fallen flat. “You’ve heard of my kind?” she asked.
Everlayne is Fae
“He is Belikon De Barra,” Everlayne said evenly. “King of the Yvelian Fae.”
Everlayne is Princess of Yvelian and knows Kingfisher. It sounds like he was banned or sent away by the king
“It’ll grow well here. Long hair is a sign of high-born status for Fae women. Others will be jealous of your dark coloring, too. Dark hair is a royal trait amongst the Yvelian Fae.”
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.”
“Magic, of course,” Everlayne replied. “There are wards cast over all of Yvelia to keep the cold at bay.”
“A dragon. The last dragon,” she said meaningfully. “Its name was Omnamshacry. A legend amongst my people.”
need to get back to Zilvaren. My brother—” “Is already dead.” The finality in Belikon’s words made my head spin. “The Bitch Queen put an end to your home and all who resided in it.”
“This Kingfisher does not die by your hand. Not today,” Malwae droned. “The Kingfisher shall not die by your hand.”
“The pendant,” Malwae interrupted. “It must be returned.” “That pendant contains powerful magic. It doesn’t belong around the neck of a treacherous dog. It belongs to me. I’ll be cold in the ground before I give it back to this… this…” “The gods must be obeyed lest House De Barra fall!” Malwae cried.
“Oh, well. We’ve been at war with Sanasroth for longer than I’ve been alive.
“We don’t know what she is just yet. Kingfisher felt Solace calling, and he answered. He found it in Saeris’s hands.”
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. The King will want a war and a bloody one at that. He’ll use it as an excuse to make sure there are none in the Silver City who might challenge him for the throne. Madra won’t have torched ten percent of her people to exact revenge against one silly girl. She’ll have conscripted them.”
“Our ancestors were cursed millennia ago. As a result, we ended up with these,” he said, gesturing to his canines. “We used them to drink your kind dry. We drained you by the millions before the blood curse was lifted. This was long before our time, of course, but the Fae line still bears the marks of its past. We might not need blood to maintain our immortality anymore, but by the gods, do we still have the teeth for it. Our dirty little secret.
The Fae sucked on humans like vampires? WTF👀
“You’re my brother,” Everlayne hissed. “Though I sometimes wish you weren’t!”
Is Kingfisher the King’s son or is he a bastard?
