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“You were supposed to have been born Fae, in the same realm as your Kingfisher. So I separated you. Hundreds of years before you were born, I shifted the events around your birth. Moved the pieces on the board and placed you far away, in a realm that should never have come into contact with his.
I foresaw then that no matter how the boughs and branches of this tree were manipulated, you and he would always collide. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”
I should have been born Fae. The God of Chaos had simply interfered.
“No. I orchestrated events so that he would be brought here as a young male. His mother had just died, and his disposition wasn’t very polite.” Zareth frowned, as if the memory were troubling even now. “He made an enemy of my family. He was only allowed to live because I demanded it.
“These oaths mark you as my ward. They protect both you and Fisher from the unwanted attentions of my brothers and my sister.”
“For them, I’m willing to take a chance. If you truly accept Fisher as your mate, then you must agree for the thread of your life to be severed from the tapestry of the universe. Once you do, none of us may affect your future. We won’t be able to see you at all, nor will my brothers and my sister be able to interfere with timelines or events that affect you, either. You’ll be on your own.”
“How would you do it exactly?” “By transforming you into something that has never been seen before,” he answered cryptically. “The universe cannot focus on that which it does not recognize.”
“I’m not just the God of Chaos, Alchemist. I’m also the God of Change. I will it, and it is done.”
The tips of my ears were pointed. They poked up through my mussed hair, as if they had always been this way. I opened my mouth to curse, saw the state of my teeth, and my heart set to racing. Canines. I had very long canines. And they looked sharp.
“As far as we can tell, you’re a half-vampire, half-Fae. Something none of us have ever seen before. As of now, we’re not sure which traits you’ve adopted from the Fae and which you’ve adopted from the vampires. All our healers are sure of is that you’re no longer human.”
“Except she wasn’t your grandmother, was she!” Carrion pulled a face. “No, not really. She was more of a ward. Or a playmate when she was little. And then a friend. And then I was her ward. I don’t know, it always got very complicated as people aged.”
“So, Fisher’s father took you to Zilvaren when you were little to save you from Belikon. He glamored your ears and your canines so you wouldn’t stand out. He brought a bag of books along with you, so you could learn about your heritage and return when the time was right. And… some woman saved you?” “Her name was Orlena,” Carrion said. “Orlena Parry.
Orlena got married when I was nine and took the name Swift. She had a daughter not long after. Petra. Petra grew up and had a daughter, too. The books were passed down the female line, and so was I. They kept me out of trouble as best they could and made sure I kept a lookout for signs that the quicksilver had opened again. They thought it was cruel that I was stuck in the Silver City and that I should go home and rule my people. The females of the Swift line have always been very bossy and overly concerned about my love life.”
Fisher’s father had been the one to secret the true heir to the throne out of Yvelia. A thousand years later, his son had been the one to bring him back. It meant something. What, I couldn’t say, but I was sure we were all going to find out soon enough.
The Darn. We were on the wrong side of the Darn. We were inside Ammontraíeth.
“In the Fae courts, the crown is passed down to a regent’s heir. But if the regent is murdered, the crown is claimed by the one who slew them. The vampire court has only ever had one king. Malcolm never named an heir. He planned on living forever. He never conceived of the possibility that someone might kill him…”
“Tell them that. As far as the vampire court is concerned, you’re to be coronated. In two days’ time, you officially become the new queen of Sanasroth.”
On the other side of the courtyard, Taladaius sat on the edge of a stone seat covered in ivy.
“What, then? The bastards know each other’s minds well enough. Malcolm knows what he’s up to.” “If he does, then I am not at liberty to say.” “Bullshit. You’re his Keeper of Secrets. You know everything he know—”
Tal goaded me into using my problem-solving skills whenever he could, especially when it meant that I might guess something he couldn’t tell me and circumvent Malcolm’s will in the process. There was always a way. And Tal hated the leash his master had fastened around his neck as much as any caged animal did.
“Ahh. The Breach, and then the Balquhidder lands on the side of it.” Tal smiled softly, going back to staring at his coin. The fact that he could touch it meant that it wasn’t the coin I was looking for.
“I wonder what Belikon might want from the witches,” he mused. “The Balquhidder Clan hates everybody, it’s true, but they hate Belikon the most. I wond—” He coughed, his breath catching in his throat.
“Zovena’s stirring up all kinds of trouble back at Ammontraíeth. Malcolm’s tasked me with tamping down her little insurrection before it can find its feet.” The vampire’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t often that he mentioned that name. He didn’t bring the female up of his own volition.
He had to hurt me. I didn’t have to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt him . . .
I felt it, then. Something I hadn’t felt in over a hundred years: the will of a god sword tugging at my soul. Nimerelle was here with me. She was propped up against the wall ten feet away, where I’d left her after the drills I’d run a few hours back.
I might have been escaping my prison cell, but I was leaving Tal to his. In another life, we’d find the words we needed to say to each other and maybe even stumble across a way to forgive each other, too. But for now, the nod he gave me and the nod I returned to him would have to suffice.
She was holding a sword, and not just any sword. She was holding Solace. The last time I’d seen the god blade, it had been in my father’s hands. I lowered Nimerelle, numbly studying the female again.
I realized with no small amount of horror that I knew her face. I had seen it a hundred times, sketched into the pages of my mother’s notebooks. I knew who she was supposed to be to me—the one my mother had told me would come. My counterweight. The female I would love and scourge the worlds for. And she was beautiful. Breathtakingly so. The way she stubbornly clung onto life, refusing to die even as her body failed her, was remarkable.
Moving passages? In the ground. Made out of obsidian? He was talking about the maze. How could he possibly know about that?
It didn’t matter in the end. Where I lacked the conviction to end the man, the quicksilver did not.
The pulling sensation I had felt back in the maze was growing weaker by the second. I could barely feel it. It had become faint—a gentle pulse, as light and delicate as an Oshellith’s wings, fluttering inside my chest.
No, it hadn’t been the sword calling to me. It had been the girl. And she was dying.
It was insanity, trading one enemy’s prison for another… but the decision had already made itself in my mind. I was going to have to take her to the Winter Palace.
I was being pathetic. I should have gone and taken my revenge, and 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.”
