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Harron stood in front of me, his dark brown hair painted with strokes of copper beneath the torchlight.
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. Her skin was fair and flawless, her
cheeks flushed pink. Her hair was the color of spun gold, thick and braided into complex knots. Bright, quick, intelligent blue eyes
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.
The king was an imposing male. His hair was black as jet, tinged gray at either of his temples. His eyes were a deep, dark, murky brown, sharp, and unfriendly.
Thousands of years ago, the Alchemists used their magical gifts to alter the state of compounds and transform them into precious metals.
“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.”
The design on the back of my left hand was simple. Ish. The lines were fine and twisted together beautifully, forming a shape that almost resembled a flower if you squinted at it long enough. The one on my right, however… It was bigger and covered the whole span of my hand. The lines were bolder. They twisted around one another, forming a variety of knots that I had trouble even picking apart with my eyes. It wasn’t just one rune. It was many, interlocking, woven one on top of the other, on top of the other. One of the runes wasn’t even black, but a dark, iridescent blue-green color that
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“I was wrong, y’know. You are a good thief.”
“Don’t you dare die on my watch, Saeris Fane! Fisher will never forgive me if his sole reason for living is torn to pieces on her first fucking battlefield.”
“Not you! Me!” He thumped himself in his chest, suddenly furious. “My weakness! My vulnerability! I’ve known for centuries that you were coming. That you were just going to show up one day and change everything.
“The Oshellith hatch once in most Fae lifetimes. Up north, in the wastelands, far beyond Ajun Sky, where the dragons used to live. The air’s so cold there that it’ll freeze in your lungs if you breathe it in without a mask. No life exists there for long. But once in a thousand years, the howling winds drop, signaling the coming of the Oshellith. News of that event travels quickly. That’s when the bravest of our kind set out. They go on foot where no horse can go. When they reach the valley where the Oshellith hatch, they find the butterfly’s cocoons and they shield them with their bodies. They
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“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t spend another night without each other again.”
Soft and light as a butterfly’s wings, the feeling even lighter now but still clinging on.
yet here I was, giving in to the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in my chest.
“You had better pull through this, Oshellith,” I told her. “For better or for worse, I get the feeling that you’re about to turn everything upside down.”
