A Broken Blade (The Halfling Saga #1)

by Melissa Blair

The king scoffed. “I’m sure my Blade is already aware that my son is too much of a fool to realize the very kingdom he expects to inherit may be primed to fall.”

Winvra was one of the few magical plants that still grew in Elverath. Most recognized it by its crimson vines and black leaves, but its true magic was held in its berries. Berries

The city was built in two parts above the large dam. The west bank, where the rich merchants and lords would stay, was a city of stone. Grand houses that had multiple levels and plumbing circled around a small castle that was said to have been carved from a mountain. It had been a small city of Light Fae before the Mortals claimed it too.

The east bank was built by men and therefore much less grand. The lesser merchants had homes of brick that were patched and maintained from centuries of wear. The poor built shelters out of whatever scrap materials they could lay their hands on.

If the ghosts of those Halflings still lingered among the trees, I never saw them. Perhaps the ghosts who already haunted me kept them at bay.

She lay beside me. As she always did. Her blond hair tickled my face as we whispered about our distaste for the king. For the Crown. I had asked her the same question. Who will hold the king responsible? Her answer still haunted me all these years later. We will.

blades. “May the worthy win,” he said.

“That’s the thing about crowns,” I whispered. “When one head falls, they’re placed on another.”

Behind her stood a statue of an Elvish warrior. The statue was dressed in leathers stitched with each of the elements across her limbs and torso. I instinctively pulled at my sleeve knowing the same pattern was carved into my skin. My hidden rebellion against the Crown was not safe to reveal to anyone,

session. “It’s easier,” I said, letting my shoulders fall, “when you have someone at your side.”

The king had sought to sire a child with the Fae to cement the peace with the Faeland. Or so he’d said. Regardless, Killian was born, and his mother died in childbirth.

her tether. Gwyn was bound to the palace as part of a life debt. Not one she made, but an ancestor of hers long ago. She was tied to the palace grounds by some long-lost magic and would remain so as long as the king lived. Just as her mother and grandmother before her. I remember the day her mother died, three years before.

“You have more than your ghosts, Keera.”

coolly. “I know who you’ve come here for. I don’t know if you came on your own accord or at the king’s command, but I know you came out of desperation. Why else make a journey you didn’t expect to survive? But maybe you’ll find more than survival here. Maybe you’ll find redemption.”

It had been years since I gave up on my promise to kill the king, to end his reign and the Crown altogether. I had silenced the guilt in barrels of wine. Two decades passed in oblivion. Now I couldn’t stop thinking about that promise. About trying again.

“Your work so far is admirable; I don’t deny it. I’m grateful to anyone who spends their time getting Halflings to safety, especially after seeing the lives they have here. But you don’t get to judge me for the sixty years I took to cross the king. Not when you’ve had lifetimes to come to the same decision.”

“Hope that our shared distaste for the king is enough to keep us honest.” “And if it’s not?” I asked, kicking the mud off my toes. “Then one of us is a traitor. To the Halflings, and to themselves.” It was more than just a statement; it was a dare. Riven wanted me to prove him right. That I was nothing more than a Halfling who had crossed her own kin. I wasn’t merely untrustworthy to him. I was irredeemable.

When Riven barged out of the door, his brow was creased, and I swore the shadows swirled around him. I scented the rage pouring off his skin as his heart raced.

“No, this glamour is tied to the land. It uses its magic,” she answered, her black eyes studying me. “Once you know the truth it hides, a glamour loses its effect on you. You now hold a secret of the Faelinth. I hope you are worthy of that trust.”

“You don’t get to judge them for being the monsters the king turned them into. The Shades weren’t born as weapons. They weren’t born as killers. They were born as children. Stolen. Ripped from their parents and placed on that godsforsaken island.”

“They were children faced with a simple choice: survival or death. You have no right to judge them on how they survived it. If you want to liberate the Halflings, you liberate them all.”

“Because friendships get you killed.”

reign. We would either succeed and the Halflings would be free, or we would die. I was fine with either outcome.

Perhaps it had been a kindness to end Alys’s life instead of forcing her to live in the world without Elinar at her side. Friends or not, they were all each other had. All each other knew. Life after a loss like that didn’t feel like a life at all.

“I do not pretend to know the details of your pain, but I know the weight of it. I will not judge you for how you lighten the load.”

“A broken blade can be mended.”

I rarely showed my fangs. Those in the Order who had them were trained to keep them hidden. Fangs were a sign of being unclean.

I just hoped if they saw me as a monster, they saw me as a necessary one.

Maybe she was. I was finally doing what I’d promised. Taking down the king and his kingdom just as we had sworn to do together. But now I would do it for her. I’d fulfill the oath I had spent so long running from, so long trying to forget. And if I didn’t, I would join her.

“Keera?” a voice called behind me. I felt my body relax with relief. Riven was the only one here to know me by that name. “Riv—” I said, turning around to face him. But the Fae behind me did not have violet eyes or dark hair trailing down his back. He wasn’t a Fae at all. He was a man. A prince. Just not the one I’d been expecting.

Riven had promised to keep me informed from now on. It was a small step, but a meaningful one to me. Riven guarded his trust even more than I did. I knew the weight a promise like that carried.

The Shades are all the same height, aren’t they?” The Halfling nodded, biting his lip. “Exactly, they’ve been trained to have similar gaits too. They could’ve been rotating every night and your scouts would never notice the difference.”

“I was born just over ninety years ago. I am the youngest of our kind, born of a Fae named Laethellia Numenthira.” The name stirred something in my memory, but

Death did not scare me. Death is the only certainty in this life. Those were Riven’s words. The Shadow’s. The Fae who clung to me, willing me to live.

He saw the scars. He knew the meaning behind them. And still he found beauty in the darkness of it, in my light and my shadows.

“I have only lived sixty-eight turns.” “Have you?” she asked, yellow eyes narrowing. I shook my head. “I think I would know.” I was grateful that this woman saved my life, but she was obviously losing her senses in her old age.

“It’s not me. She was healing before I even touched her,” Rheih said, taking a sip from her own mug. “I was what?”

Valitherian,”

“It means the gifted ones,”

“No one has seen eyes like yours in a millennium. Just as violet eyes mark the Dark Fae, silver eyes mark the Light Fae.”

“The last of the Light Fae died out a thousand years ago,” I said, still staring at my hands and the secrets my amber blood kept, even from me. “Perhaps not,” Rheih said with a shrug. “Either some Light Fae remain hidden, or you are over a thousand years old.”

“I saw it happening, Keera,” Riven said, shaking his head. “When I picked you up after the dam exploded, half your face was blasted away. By the time we reached the wood, it had almost healed.” Riven’s jaw was hard. He seemed angry.

“I am a Mage,” Rheih said, still sipping her tea. “My daughter and I are the last of the Talon bloodline.” I sat down in disbelief. Mages were magic wielders—Mortal magic wielders.

“But one thing is for certain: you were born of Fae. Perhaps the Light Fae are truly gone, but one was alive the day you were made.”

“Brenna,”

“She was my roommate in the Order. We didn’t like each other much at first, but eventually we became friends, the best of friends … and then something more.”

me. “But it was more than that,” I continued, my eyes cutting to Riven. “We were all the other had. Friend, family, lover, hope. Most don’t find any of those at the Order, let alone all.”

Part of me wanted to tell Riven all of it. Tell him exactly how Brenna had died. What Prince Damien had done to her. Done to me. But the words didn’t come.

cheek. “You have kept her alive. And you will see your oath through, Keera. I know you don’t make promises, but I will make one to you. As long as I live, I will work to take down the king. For the Halflings, for Elverath … and for Brenna.”

“Because the only thing I want right now—the only thing I ever want—is to kiss you. But not if you won’t enjoy it.”