She straightens as we approach, but it’s a weak attempt to look strong and alert. Her normally perfect, glowing complexion is marred by the dark circles under her eyes, and her long, blond hair doesn’t seem as silky as usual. She’s wearing a white tunic that fits snug around her slender frame, and something that I can only describe as half of a long skirt is tied around her hips. The lean muscles in her outer left thigh are visible, but her entire right leg is hidden under the skirt’s thick layers of blue and white feathers. Lena’s father, the elder of Zarrak, was the high noble of Adaris, one of the provinces King Atroth dissolved to gain the throne, so she usually dresses like she’s highborn, but this has to be the most ornate and impractical thing I’ve ever seen her wear.
“No one’s in here,” she says defensively.
“That’s the other problem.” Aren stops at the foot of the dais. “There should be. Where are your guards?”
“I sent them to the veligh.” Her expression is stony, as if she’s daring him to question her decision.
Beside me, Aren stiffens. “The remnants?”
“Of course,” she says.
Veligh translates into waterfront. Most of the buildings of the Inner City are to the south and west of the palace. To the east, there are no homes or stores, just a sliver of land before you reach the silver wall. The Imyth Sea is on its other side, and because that part of the wall and palace would be so difficult to penetrate, Lena’s kept only a minimal guard on watch. Apparently, the remnants decided to take advantage of that.
“Their numbers are growing, not shrinking,” Lena says, directing an empty stare at one of the tall, arched windows lining the wall to the left of the throne.
My gut tightens. The remnants haven’t met with much success these last two weeks. Sure, they’ve hurt and killed a good number of us, but we’ve hurt and killed a good number of them, too. They should be losing support, especially since Lena wants to make changes that will benefit the majority of the Realm. She’s promised to do away with Atroth’s unpopularly high gate taxes, and there will be no more special exemptions and favors for the fae who kiss noble ass—my words, not Lena’s. Fae will no longer have to worry about swordsmen invading their homes on hunches, and they will no longer be required to register their magics. I honestly don’t understand why the remnants are willing to kill to keep Lena from the throne.
“Do you think they’ve found another Descendant?” I ask as I take off my cloak. A Descendant with a traceable bloodline back to the Tar Sidhe, the fae who ruled the Realm centuries ago, might have a stronger claim to the throne than Lena. I might—might—be able to understand their behavior if that’s what has happened.
The palace archivist showed me Lena’s heritage after the king was killed. It confirmed that she’s a Descendant, and that she and her brother, Sethan, would have been high nobles if their parents weren’t murdered and their province dissolved.
Lena turns away from the window, but before she can respond, another voice answers my question.
“If they had a Descendant, they would have told the high nobles by now.”
It’s Kyol. His voice still affects me, sending a warm, anxious tingle through my body. It’s impossible to ignore his presence. Even without turning, I know where he is. It’s like the air itself recognizes his authority, and it’s difficult to describe what I’m feeling. Kyol is the man I loved for a decade, and what we had together didn’t just disappear overnight. I still care deeply for him, but I haven’t seen him in two weeks, mostly because I’ve been avoiding him. Or we’ve been avoiding each other. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, and I’m worried that seeing me, especially seeing me with Aren, will do just that.
But it will be obvious I’m uncomfortable if I don’t acknowledge his presence, so after setting my cloak down on the lowest step of the dais, I finally turn and see him striding toward us. His dark hair lies damp with sweat against his forehead, and there’s a smudge of dirt or ash on his left cheek. Jaedric covers his shoulders and torso, his forearms, thighs, and calves, and even though it’s obvious he’s been fighting the remnants, he’s almost more presentable than Aren, whose jaedric armor is slipshod in comparison. Aren would be the first to receive a new, well-oiled set of armor if he wanted it, but he chooses to wear these patched-together pieces.
Kyol stops a few paces away and gives me a slight nod. It’s the way he always acknowledged me in front of Atroth and other Court fae. Detached but respectful.
“We didn’t tell the high nobles about Sethan,” Aren says. His posture has changed. Before Kyol entered, he was annoyed at Lena, but he was relaxed. He’s not relaxed anymore. His left hand, which was resting casually on his sword’s hilt, has dropped to his side, and his right is now loose and open, ready to draw the blade if he needs to. He won’t need to, though. Kyol has sworn to protect Lena, and he’d never do anything to hurt me. Aren knows that. I don’t think he’s aware of the subtle change in his posture.
“We didn’t tell them about Sethan because we knew Atroth would attack Haeth if he knew who we were,” Lena says, referring to the city she and her brother grew up in. Sethan was the fae the rebels intended to put on the throne, but he was killed by the Court fae outside of Vancouver. If he were still alive, I think the transition to a new ruler would be going much more smoothly. He was prepared to be king, wanted it. Lena’s a different story.
“Maybe no one is convinced you would be different,” I say to Lena. “They might be afraid you’ll attack their homes and friends just like they attacked yours.” Then, reluctantly, I add, “They associate the rebellion with Brykeld.”
Mentioning the city’s name puts the taste of smoke on my tongue. Aren’s known as the Butcher of Brykeld. That’s one of a dozen reasons why I hated him when we met. He wasn’t actually there when one of his men gave orders to seal families inside their homes and burn the city, but most fae don’t know or don’t believe that. I didn’t believe it until I got to know him better, until I saw the pain of the memory in his eyes.
He looks at me now, his expression uncharacteristically closed off. He knows I have issues with some of the things he did to overthrow King Atroth, and I think he’s afraid I can’t get over his past. I’m working on it. This world isn’t my world. It’s more violent, more archaic. On the one hand, I understand that. On the other, doing things like exposing fae to tech until they break or turn tor’um is wrong. The sudden loss of magic makes them go mad. That’s why human technology is banned from the Realm—too much exposure cripples them for life.
I can’t accept Aren doing that or anything like it ever again. It’s one of the many reasons I’m trying to take things slowly with him. We still have things we need to talk about.
“Perhaps we’re dealing with a false-blood,” Lena says into the silence, a silence that grows heavier as we consider the possibility. That’s something we don’t need to deal with right now. I’ve hunted many false-bloods in the last decade, all in an effort to prevent them from gaining enough support to overthrow the king. Most of them were easy to capture. Most couldn’t prove they were Descendants of the Tar Sidhe, so they never had a big, loyal following. But for some false-bloods, that lack of proof didn’t matter. They gained enough support, with either cunning or brute force, to be dangerous. Thrain, the fae who found me ten years ago, used plenty of both.