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Or was entering this pool now the only thing that would save me? Was this the key to my magic? Was this something I had to do to bond with the quicksilver? To show it that I trusted it? No time to decide.
Foolish child. Power is always a weapon. Wield it, or it wields you.
Wield it! the speaker snapped. A dark horizon looms. What will you do to prevent it? Anything! You would die?
Yes! You would kill? Yes! You would give up that which is most dear to you? I opened my mouth… and nothing came out. I tried to form the word, but I couldn’t. “No. I can’t,” I said. “I won’t sacrifice him.”
It was over, then. This was a test, and I had failed. I could feel the quicksilver’s claws invading my mind, sinking deep, sharp and cruel.
Good,
Every Alchemist must have something they are afraid to lose.
This pathway is clear, the speaker declared. Receive this gift all in fear and trembling. In the end, it will be your end. I flew backward, out of the pool.
The fucking Firinn Stone. Lorreth had told me all about it once—how they knelt before it when they came of age and pledged to be bound by their word on pain of death for the rest of their lives. For honor’s sake. This bastard was right: Every single member of the Fae who fought and defended the banks of the Darn at Irrín had pledged to serve the Winter Palace—to serve Belikon—my friends and my mate included.
didn’t need a forge anymore. Would never need one again. A door had unlocked within me. Behind it, a vast knowledge waited there for me. It belonged to me, as I now belonged to the quicksilver. I only had to think now, and the fabric of reality shifted.
“How does an oath-sworn Fae break their oath, Fisher?” He drew back immediately, searching my eyes. “They don’t,” he said. “Why?” There were freckles on the bridge of his nose. Just a few small dots of brown against the paleness of his skin. I focused on them, too afraid to repeat what Orious had said back in the tomb. “You’re sworn to Belikon. So are Lorreth, Ren, Danya, and everyone else who fought at Irrín. Orious said that he can command you—” “Orious was trying to scare you. Belikon can command us until he’s blue in the face, but he can’t touch us here. The wards that prevent him from
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“It’s an important role,” Zovena blurted out. “The Keeper of Missives is in charge of all communication in and out of Ammontraíeth. Battle orders, news, secrets. All must go through me.”
“So, explain something to me, then. My mate and my friends have written a number of letters to someone here at the Blood Court over the years. Did those letters not reach Ammontraíeth?” Zovena bared her fangs, brow creasing with unnaturally deep furrows. “That male is not a member of this court. He is shunned. The shunned do not receive missives. And the enemies of my home do not get to address their allies here!”
“He called me Daianthus.” “Oh. Right. Yeah, well, I mean… you are a Daianthus.” Poor Carrion. Ever since we’d discovered who he really was, we’d kept calling him Swift. No one had thought to ask him if he wanted to be referred to as his proper name: Carrion Daianthus.
The writing spoke of Alchemical magic. All of the pages—so many pages!—were full of text about Alchemy. My mind would not comprehend it. I’d picked the library at Cahlish clean. Both Algat and Foley had confirmed that there were books on Alchemy in this library here, but neither of them had considered the stargazers. The birds had been here for centuries. Longer than anyone could remember… And all along, they had been the pages of a book.
Before my eyes, they organized themselves into a single, ordered pile… and then they were a book.
I held my breath as I picked it up. The spine creaked as I drew back the hardcover, as if it were any old book that simply hadn’t been opened in a long time. For you, gods blessed. Thank you for loving my boy. —E
Find it. But do not tell him about it. I mean it. It’s important. He can’t know about the book. Only you. Do you understand? Edina’s voice echoed through my mind. Memories of her, cloudy-eyed and desperate as she’d spoken through Everlayne back in the bedroom back in Cahlish. She hadn’t just asked me not to tell Fisher about the book. She had commanded me not to.
I produced the book from behind my back and held it out to him. “Your mother told me about a book,” I said. “Back in Cahlish, when she told me I had to seal my runes. She told me I needed to find it, and that once I did, I shouldn’t tell you about it, but…” I shook my head, holding it out to him. “That doesn’t feel right. Here. I found it. This is the book.”
“This is what she wanted. I trust her. And I trust you, Little Osha. Whatever revelations might be in that book, they’re for you and you alone. You’ll know what you need to do with them.”
she was an Oracle. Not for a long time. Some Seers become distant as their gifts grow. They know too much. They see too much. But not Lady Edina. She remained exactly who she had always been.
The fire sprite was a ball of fire, his black, rock-like body kicking and scrambling at its center. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t get free. The feeder bared its teeth, snarling, and then it sprang up the wall, holding on to the thick vines of ivy that covered the face of the stonework with its free hand.
I threw the blade I was holding—not Erromar or Selanir. The null blade.
The second the dagger struck the feeder, it sank into its body, as if it were being absorbed. The monster threw back its head and unleashed an unholy shriek that sounded more like ecstasy than pain. Muscles bulged along its back, multiplying, its biceps doubling in size. It was responding to the blade somehow. Growing. Becoming stronger.
The feeder sank its teeth into Archer’s neck and tore it wide open. I wouldn’t have known a fire sprite’s body could be penetrated by tooth or blade, but I watched as it happened, horror scaling my spine like a ladder.
The monster convulsed, its ink-black eyes widening as an awareness that hadn’t been there before returned to it. Its jaw hinged, too wide, opening and closing, its mangled, black stump of a tongue protruding from its mouth as the feeder let out a silent scream. Its waxy skin started to melt from its body. Wherever the glowing hot magma touched the fell creature’s body, the black, knotted veins beneath the surface of its skin bulged to the surface and split open, disgorging the foul-smelling decay within.
“It’s an element, really. Brimstone. A kind of magic all on its own. It gives the fire sprites life.” “And it kills the rot,” Carrion said. “Yes. It looks that way.” Lorreth’s eyes darted to me, troubled. “The feeder up there was destroyed. It seems to have partially melted and then burned away to ash. The rot had started to spread to the vines along the wall, but we used some of the brimstone that Archer lost up there to burn the affected plants, and yes, it killed the spread there, too.”
the fire sprite’s brimstone is like our blood, and yet it is not,” she said. “The brimstone keeps them alive.
they cannot lose a significant amount of it. A few drops at most. It does not regenerate as our blood does. There is a finite amount of brimstone in Yvelia, and every last drop of it is spoken for by the sprites. When they want to procreate, the whole community agrees to donate a small part of themselves. Archer will only live because other members of his pyre have given some of their own brimstone to bring his core temperature back up again.”
We can’t use the brimstone. To secure enough of it to eradicate the rot and kill the infected feeders, every fire sprite in Yvelia would have to die.
You will change if you choose to walk down this path. But with the brimstone rune sealed to you, there is a chance you will be able to use it to help save Yvelia from the veil I see descending upon it.
Ren left their stronghold a day and a half ago and hasn’t been seen in the Shallow Mountains since.”
think Ren might be in some kind of hot water. And I have no idea how to find him so we can get him out of it.”
Consider a sixth. Only the golden-toothed wolf can be trusted. —Entry from the journal of Edina of the Seven Spires
“The Hazrax is not a member of this court. It has not sworn fealty to Sanasroth or a single vampire here, and yet it has been a Lord of Midnight for many centuries.” “Yes, but that’s—” “Different? I fail to see how.”
“It was Malcolm I wouldn’t swear fealty to,” Foley said softly. “I’ll swear it to her.”
I swear myself to you, Saeris Fane. I will carry out your bidding so long as there is breath left in me.
“I accept you as my sworn male,” I told him. “I accept your loyalty and your service. In return, I offer you the protection of my house. I name you Lord of Midnight.”
Left and right, high bloods started vomiting blood, staining their fine clothes red. Male and female alike, they went down, trembling, fingers grasping, bloody eyes rolling back into their heads. Soon, most of the vampires in the hall were writhing on the ground. And in the midst of them all stood Taladaius, towering over them like some silver-haired harbinger of death. “Brothers and sisters!” he cried. “Your judgment has come for you at last!”
“Your gluttony is your undoing! Welcome to your final death. But who am I to deny you one last chance at redemption?
You will be reborn, back into life, back into your Fae bodies, where you will face the horrors of what you allowed yourselves to become! Refuse the vials, and you join the other demons in hell with me posthaste!”
“This is what should have been done a long time ago. They were never going to change, Fisher,” he said. “They’re incapable of it. Evil through and through. And I wasn’t about to put this on your shoulders. I wasn’t going to do it to you, either, Saeris.” His eyes searched for mine. “I made the hard choice so that neither of you would have to. This was my final act as a Lord of Midnight. Now I’ll go pay for the sins I have committed.”
We should have noticed the wineglass in his hand. We should have stopped him from throwing back the viscous red blood inside. We watched in horror as Tal swallowed—whatever was in the glass was a far greater dose than had been delivered to the other high bloods. There was no delay for him. Blood welled in his eyes and trickled from his nose as it immediately took effect.
“I told him I didn’t want to come back as a vampire. Well, now he doesn’t get a choice. He’s coming back Fae whether… he likes it… or not!” Taladaius did not like it. He raged and he spat, but in the end, Foley forced the clear contents of one of the vials down his neck and massaged his throat until he swallowed.
The residents of Ammontraíeth were Fae now. They were confused. Even down in the Cogs, the high bloods were all dead, and disoriented Fae wandered the streets, not knowing what to do or where to go. Was I still their queen? Was this still their home? I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it. Leaving right now did not seem like a good idea, but what else was there to do?
“She knows all about what happened at Ammontraíeth, don’t you, Iseabail?” I said. The witch pressed her hands to her skirts, wiping her palms against the material—they were probably slick with sweat, as they damn well should have been. “I do,” she answered in a clear voice.
Iseabail’s defiant expression collapsed in the face of the healer’s accusation, but she maintained her stiff-backed posture, chin held high regardless.
I needed a reason to stay here at Cahlish. I had to be close for the spell to work.” “Ahh. I get it now,” Carrion said. “You’re the one who cast the spell that killed the high bloods. You gave Tal those vials to cure the Blood Court!”
“As soon as those high bloods were affected by the blood in that wine, they were freed from the Blood Court’s control, weren’t they?” “Yes,” she said. “Any of them could have attacked us.” “Yes.” “And it was your blood the thralls dripped into their glasses, wasn’t it?” “Yes. Tal brought them to the river, and I marked them with sigils. When they cut themselves, I bled through their veins. A simple transference spell, really. My blood—” “Your blood is a curse to all vampires. It kills them unless they take the antidote that your clan created.”
The fucking tattoo. The one I’d seen covering Tal’s chest back in the Hall of Tears, beneath his loose shirt. It hadn’t been a tattoo after all. It was a witch mark.
