ARWEN
“HOW COULD YOU?” THE WORDS dodged past all my shame and pride to hurtle from my lips. “And why?”
To her credit, Amelia didn’t flinch or shift on her feet. She didn’t gaze back to the glimmering reflecting pool. She didn’t reach for me. “My entire kingdom, all those lives…To me, they were worth one Fae. Even someone I liked. I’m sorry, Arwen. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly.”
Loneliness had swamped me so thoroughly the last two months. Stifling loneliness that poured out though shameful midnight tears, and yet it had never felt more crushing than in this very moment, standing in front of someone I thought I knew. I had no words for her.
“As you can imagine,” she continued, “I haven’t spoken to Kane since.” “He’ll kill you.”
“I’m sure.” Her eyes finally cast downward. With remorse or fear I couldn’t tell. “But he won’t wage war on Peridot’s people for my mistakes. And that’s all I care about.”
“So Kane still thinks…”
“You’re dead? Yeah. I’m sure they all do—I did.”
“And you’re here in Lumera only as Lazarus’s ally.” Not a plot, then.
She was simply a guest of honor at a Fae masquerade.
“My deal with Lazarus was that my land would remain neutral. My armies won’t fight in the war for either side. And if he wins, and takes all of
Evendell, he won’t decimate us.”
“After everything he’s done, what makes you think he’ll keep his word now that he has me? If he’d killed me, like you thought, he would be unstoppable.”
“Peridot is worth more to him intact. Our fresh water, produce, livestock… He’ll need all of it when he turns Evendell into this.” She gestured at the landscape—the ashy, sickly air, the barren trees, and dry, brittle hedges.
“Amelia, you have to help me get out of here,” I pleaded. “They drain my lighte every few days. I think Lazarus needs it for something. Could he be weakened or sick?”
“I doubt it. But…” She tilted her head, considering. “Those Fae assassins who shift into those monstrous forms—Lazarus’s elite fighters—they’re rare and precious to him. Maybe he’s feeding them your lighte to strengthen or create more of them.”
I shook my head, feeling the mask tremble against my face. “You know I can’t shift.”
“You’re a full-blooded Fae. Of course you can.”
Desperation rose in my throat. “Is there anything else? Anything you know about his plans?”
“Even if I could somehow help you escape… you’re low on lighte, and this realm is a nightmare. Earthquakes, thieves, beasts, harvesters—it’s chaos here. Even if you could make it through all that, the journey back to Evendell would take months, and you wouldn’t survive it alone. No one crosses realms without a portal anymore. And to find a witch powerful enough to open one…there are probably only six or seven in the entire realm.”
Tears stung behind my eyes. “I cannot just give up.” “That’s the wrong way to look at things.”
I must have made a face, because Amelia sighed before saying, “At least you’re alive, Arwen. There’s real power to be had at Lazarus’s side. You can still help people.”
“What are you saying?”
“You could change this realm, and Evendell, too, when he takes over.
You’ll be queen consort.”
“I will not roll over and be mated with so I can have a meager slice of symbolic power.”
Amelia’s stern expression didn’t waver. “You’d get used to it.” I recoiled. “Could you?”
“In some ways I did. For a while, at least.”
My stomach hollowed out with her implication.
“My father made it clear before I was grown that my value to him—to my kingdom—would be found between my legs. He spoke often and crudely of how I’d be married off to please a royal man one day. Of the children I would bear, and the security my union would bring our kingdom. I was a token. A piece of meat, for the majority of my life. Eventually I learned to live with it.”
Her voice was callous and detached but not even Amelia’s unfeeling exterior could hide the pain laid bare in her words. The shame and sadness there. Despite everything, my heart ached for her.
“I got used to telling myself that one day I’d inherit my father’s kingdom or my husband’s and would put my symbolic power to real use.”
I nodded, thinking of Powell. I’d told myself all kinds of things to make it through each lash of his belt. I’d survived, despite the pain and shame. It dawned on me that Amelia and I had both been thoroughly failed by the men who’d raised us.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m just…” She sighed. “Trying to offer you the best advice I can.”
“Even if I could survive it…Lazarus already wishes to see all the mortals in Evendell exterminated. Once he has enough full-blooded Fae heirs, he’ll force them to repopulate both realms. Eventually he’ll have halflings killed, and then all other Fae that aren’t full-blooded, too. We can’t allow any of that to happen.” I took her cool, ring-stacked hand in mine. I’d been away too long—if Wyn had gone looking for me in the salon…I had to
hurry. “You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. You’re tough and decisive. If there’s anything you can do, just try, all right? I believe in you.” Amelia jerked back as if struck, wrenching her hand free from my grasp.
“How can you say all that? After what I did to you?”
I pulled my mask back over my face. “We’re more powerful together than at odds.”
I turned to leave—
“Wait.” She grasped my arm. “If somehow you do get out of here…Will you tell your brother that…I’m sorry? That I never meant to use him?”
Ryder? What did he—
Oh, Stones. I’d told Ryder we were going to Hemlock Isle. Had he been the one to tell Amelia? I didn’t even know they spoke…
She didn’t wait for me to answer her before she said, “Good luck, Arwen.”
I didn’t look back at her icy eyes, covered once again by that remarkable mask, as I dashed through the courtyard and back into the boisterous ball. Up the sprawling stairs, my heels clacking in time with the music, and down that bustling hallway, to the doors of the women’s salon.
No Wyn in sight.
Not good, not good—
Inside, it was even more packed than it had been before. I shoved through peals of laughter and gossip-tinged whispers until I found the latrine stalls and locked myself inside one. Itchy coat and mask shed, I breathed until my heart rate had slowed.
Only then did I emerge—
And spot Wyn backlit by gauzy pink light, prowling through, scaring women right and left.
“Wyn,” I croaked. “Over here.”
Even under those curled horns I could see his eyes light with relief. “Where were you?”
“Terribly sick. It got all over my mask…”
He appraised me, eyes narrowing. “I checked each stall. You weren’t here.”
“Where else would I have been vomiting for the last ten minutes?” I sucked in a breath.
An excruciating pause as he appraised me. Then the stalls behind me.
I didn’t exhale. Couldn’t as his lips pressed into an even line.
“Come on,” he said at last, pulling me by the arm from the salon. “I’ll find you another mask.”
Wyn led me back down the stairs and across the throne room. By the time we reached the dais I’d managed to loosen the unbearable tightness in my lungs just a bit. He guided me to my seat at the banquet table, and I found Lazarus’s chair beside mine empty.
“Here,” Wyn said, handing me a great gilded mask to match my dress. Solid gold and glimmering like the sun. Near-blindingly shiny, and as heavy as a slab of granite, the inside padded with sorrowful, mottled moth wings. The feel of them against my face as I slipped it over my head told me they were real. Cruelty. Everything in this palace—
“I’ll be watching from back there.” He motioned to where the other guards stood and I merely nodded, still a little shocked I’d gotten away with my deceit.
Nobody at the table spoke to me, and I was grateful. My mind was a whirlwind, and I needed…I needed…
I had no idea what I needed as I gripped a chalice filled with some bitter spirit.
Nobody was coming for me.
Kane, my family, my friends—all of them still thought I was dead. I had no options. No plan.
I beheld my distorted reflection in the medley of sweating refreshments. A glistening, fatty spread stretched across the banquet table. Gold-flecked peas, bowls of spiced milks and stews, garlands of mulberry pastries—all of it oily and odious and pointed toward a whole roasted peacock, sitting directly before me, plumes of its magnificent, delicate tail feathers still intact.
Maybe I really would be sick.
A laugh that strung me as taut as a harp string ripped from my left. Lazarus wrapped up whatever conversation had brought him such mirth and took a casual seat beside me.
“Where have you been all night?”
He wore no mask, as if he were the only man in the palace—in the city
—on equal footing with the Gods. No mask, but the richest golden coat and pants I’d ever seen, stitched with care and precision, and fit to his muscled body like a glove.
We matched perfectly. Nausea swirled in my gut. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
“I’m sure.” His tone sent my stomach plummeting down a ravine. “Your Majesty—”
Lazarus turned to greet a heavyset man who ambled over to the banquet table with surprising grace given his size. He bowed to his king, and under layers and layers of rich green robes his large body jiggled with the movement.
“My truest apologies to have missed the gift-giving. But I did not arrive empty-handed.”
“What kind of gifts?” I asked them both.
Knowledge was the only currency I’d be able to spend on an escape.
The weighty man’s already-pink cheeks deepened their rosy hue. “My son is young, but already shows significant strength. The missus and I were able to juice him of almost a gallon.”
My face held no neutrality. Not a drop. I knew it was not only shock— but repugnance—that contorted my expression. “You and your wife… drained your own child of his lighte?”
Interest sparked in Lazarus’s eyes when he cut them to me.
The man in question didn’t falter. “But of course! ’Tis the Solstice. And we had an abundant bounty.”
Lazarus gave the man a generous nod. “But why?”
The man’s fuzzy brows lowered as he considered me, eyes sliding back and forth between Lazarus and me. The Fae king nodded at me as if to say,
Go on, tell her.
“His Majesty has built a sanctuary here in Solaris. His court is bountiful and lush. He will conquer new realms for us to grow and become stronger…It’s the least we can do, for our king.”
Bountiful and lush? I’d only noticed the lack of flowers, of wood, of cheer, but now my eyes found the hanging, glittering stars of lighte, the decadent banquet spread, the extravagant clothes and jewels…
The portly man took my stunned silence as dismissal and bowed once more before leaving us. Lazarus only released a brazen laugh and returned to his chalice.
He wasn’t just stealing lighte from his people. His own subjects were giving it to him willingly. I almost hurt for them, falling for his fantastical lies. His power reviled me, of course, but the abuse of such staggering power…Such a malicious, smug display of utter control. Such brainwashing of his stupidly loyal court.
“They think you’re going to save them from the wasteland that is Solaris. They’re sycophants, and fools, but you…” I studied his clean- shaven, coldly handsome face. “You plan to start an entirely new world without them. You feed off their hope.”
Lazarus shrugged. “I only make promises I intend to keep. I will rebuild Solaris to its former glory. And I’ll craft Evendell into the same for our offspring. The Fae here will throw themselves at my feet for what I’ll have built them. What we will have built them.”
“At what cost? Look at what your attempts here in Solaris have already done! All your finery and weapons and palaces with baths large enough to wash ten cities…Your greed has ruined the realm. How can you not see how wrong it all is?” I gestured at the banquet, the dancers—an entire celebration for reaping resources from innocent people.
Lazarus didn’t even balk. His eyes only skated over me, rife with pity. “I’m sorry that’s how you see it.”
I fought the urge to gouge at his eyes with one of my three forks. “Go for the snail fork. Sharpest prongs of the lot.”
Nausea engulfed me.
He was inside my mind again. Which meant—
Lazarus didn’t unleash his gloating, gleaming grin. He didn’t raise a full graying eyebrow in my direction. He only nodded once, confirming my fears before turning to the noble Fae across the banquet table in jovial discussion.
Lazarus had regained his lighte. And I—
I couldn’t feel anything yet, but I had no doubt I’d recover my lighte tonight, too. It had been three days since my last harvesting. And I was getting stronger. Every time they took my essence from me, it was as if my body was so angry, so fueled by rage, it replenished itself that much quicker.
And Lazarus was the most calculating, shrewd monster I’d ever met. He’d planned patiently for decades to wage war on his last living son so that he could ensure his win.
He’d taken a dose of lighte just as mine had regenerated.
Which meant now we were both powerful enough to conceive a full- blooded heir. He’d waited for the right moment like a toad eyeing a fat, fuzzy fly until snap—he latched his tongue around his prize. And tonight—I understood with perfect clarity and mind-numbing horror—that prize, that harvest, wasn’t lighte.
It was me.
