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Oh, gods. Something was coming through.
My name is Orious. I am seneschal to the king.”
Death is unavoidable, it seems. It’s too late for these lands… but my master would provide shelter and protection from the spread of this vile disease. He offers safe harbor at the Winter Palace for you, in exchange for a small number of concessions on your end.”
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. We were so fucked.
the movement also showed him the back of my hand. Which was still covered in a mass of runes, yes… but now, at the center of my shield, a single, bold, circular rune bisected with an arrow-like shape glowed brilliant blue.
I only had to think now, and the fabric of reality shifted. Placing both hands around Solace’s hilt, I imagined the sword becoming two.
Not Solace’s power, halved to accommodate the new split weapons. This was twice the power, and it was electrifying.
Without thinking, I slammed my short swords together, and suddenly they were one again, Solace humming with energy in my left hand. I thrust my right hand up, out in front of me, and— “Holy fuck!” Carrion’s shout bounced around the tomb. He was there, on the other side of the tomb. His face was bathed in blue as a giant icon formed in the air in front of me, projecting from my hand. It was my shield! The interlocking runes were an exact copy of the sigil on the back of my hand.
The sprite who had been cleaning the nightstands was standing over by the bookshelf now and had a little knickknack in his hands. A ceramic bird, by the looks of things.
That ornament is how Kingfisher got his name! Lady Edina saw it in a market in Ballard when she was pregnant with the master. She wasn’t usually taken by things like that. She didn’t own many knickknacks, but she said she had to have it. She was so taken by it that on his first birthday, she announced people should call her son Kingfisher.
“I still don’t know what the writing means. The engraving is in Old Fae. The one on the right with the abalone inlay in the hilt says Erromar. The one on the left with the ivory inlay says Selanir.” Fisher angled his head, frowning as he read the inscriptions on both swords. He nodded, smiling softly. “Erromar means mercy,” he said, in a reverent voice. “Selanir means honor
If you can bear the fact that our bodies aren’t touching for one more second, then you’re a better person than me, Saeris Fane,” he whispered.
“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 coming here also prevent his compulsion from reaching us. As long as we stay here in Cahlish or in Ammontraíeth, we’re all fine. And even if we do leave these lands, we would have to be in his physical presence for him to command us. There is no way he’s leaving the Winter Palace—”
I saw the ink on the back of his hand had changed, too. The quicksilver rune was solid now, marked in metallic blue-black.
“You have no flaws, Saeris Fane. You are perfect in my eyes, imperfections and all. I’m in love with every part of you. Your stubbornness. Your wicked tongue. Your foul temper when you’re tired. Your inability to close any door quietly—” “All right, all right, I think that’s enough of that, thank you.” “Every part. I love all of you.” He blew a dark curl out of his eyes. “I’d spend the fortunes of the universe to protect you. I’d drain the seas dry. Fell every tree. I would sacrifice the sun from the fucking sky and surrender the stars, too, if I could. But those things aren’t mine to give.
...more
Only he could do this for me. Only him. This thing between us, it was love, yes. But it was obsession, too. He was the making of me and my ruin.
THE FOX SMELLED like wild winter and frost-bitten mornings. I held him tightly under one arm, humming a lullaby that my mother had sung to me as an infant quietly under my breath. Not to the fox. I wasn’t humming to the fox. That would have been weird.
“And the fact that she’s half vampire? That she’s the ruler of this place?” “Means nothing,” I said. “She isn’t a half of anything. She’s all Saeris. I love her.”
Rurik and Amelia Daianthus never got the chance to name their firstborn son. He had been called Carrion by the woman who had saved him from the quicksilver pool back in Zilvaren.
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. Navy blue cloth cover. Thick. A tiny silver butterfly was stamped in foil on the front cover.
“Is it dead?” I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the feeder. “Yes,” Carrion answered. “It looks like that stew. That null blade is all that’s left of it.”
“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.”
“Don’t say I never give you flowers, Osha.”
Consider a sixth. Only the golden-toothed wolf can be trusted. —Entry from the journal of Edina of the Seven Spires
You can wear your leathers and fight every day of the year. I would never ask you not to. But sometimes, if you wanted to… you’re allowed to soften, Saeris. You’re allowed to stop baring your teeth at the world and take a breath. Because I’ve got you.”
Because I’ve got you. He did have me, didn’t he? He was the anchor that kept me from drifting away.
“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.
“She knows all about what happened at Ammontraíeth, don’t you, Iseabail?” I said.
“I do,” she answered in a clear voice. “And I’m sure you want me to be sorry for it, Kingfisher, but I’m not. I can’t be.”
“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.
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
“If I don’t get to him immediately, it’ll kill all of us.”
But then Saeris was leaning over Tal’s flaming body, and she was pressing her hands to his chest. Her whole right arm was illuminated brilliant white-blue. In the space between heartbeats, where my seized lungs tried and failed to take a breath, the glowing filaments of Iseabail’s spell fell apart, and the fires of hell went out.
If there’s a look, it’s because I’m horribly distracted by you, and I’m trying to talk about very serious things.”
“Tell me,” he rumbled. “Why isn’t this good news? Regardless of how much I disapprove of Iseabail’s methods, there are no high bloods in Ammontraíeth anymore. You don’t have to be a high blood anymore.”
“Because what if it doesn’t work on me? I’m not a full vampire, am I? What if it kills me?”
What if it makes me human again?
What’s to say it wouldn’t revert me back to mine?”
“And what would happen when I get old and die?” He shrugged. “Then you get old, and you die.”
“I would go with you, Osha.”
“And yes, there are plenty of things I still want to see and experience in this realm. But I wouldn’t want to see any of it without you
The more he spoke, the more the plant next to him on the sill flowered. New shoots formed as he rambled, and those shoots became branches.
He snapped the book closed. “This plant isn’t even supposed to flower,” he said. “It releases spores once every ten years instead. But those… those are flowers, right? And they keep blooming every time I speak, don’t they? I’m not losing my mind?”
I have come to provide aid to you, child queen.”
“A two-part gift,” it said. “I gave you the first part last night.”
I held up my hand, showing my runes. “This was from you?”
The rune is my name. It does not grant you magic, the same way other runes do. The ability my rune grants you is complicated. It allows you to… undo. Or maybe…” It pulled a strange face that I could not decipher. “Break?” it offered.
It is a silent rune, already sealed to your soul. It will act as a grounding rod for the runes you already have, and the ones that are yet to come, too. For a while, anyway. It will buy you some time while you work on sealing that brimstone mark.”
When it flipped its hand over, a ring dropped at my feet: the ring of office that marked it as a Lord of Midnight. A large polished ruby flashed at the ring’s center, winking in the fading light. “Give it to the apostate with the golden smile,” the Hazrax ordered. “He will need it.”
