I FLOATED on a sea of darkness. I was surprisingly calm about that, given my last encounter with a large body of water, but apparently, you didn’t need to be able to swim in the afterlife.
Overhead, a canopy of stars bristled in the firmament, prickling with the promise of other realms. I was perfectly happy bobbing along on the nothingness, trying to count them. I kept losing track, but having to start over was no bother. I had nothing to worry about here. I floated for an age and felt civilizations rise and fall. In the dark, I observed the universe, and the universe observed me back.
I was born and died a hundred times.
And then I saw something that shouldn’t have been. A bird.
It flitted around me in the void, its beautiful wings flashing blue-green. It sang a song so sweet that I remembered what it was like to have a heart, if only so I could feel it ache. And oh, it ached.
I remembered more.
Jade, the color of new grass.
Winter mint and the promise of snow on cold mountain air. A crooked smile and dark, thick waves of hair.
I remembered pieces of him, and all at once, and I remembered how to drown.
I needed him like I needed air.
I reached for him like I was reaching for the surface of a still, flat lake. Kingfisher. My Kingfisher. My mate.
“FISHER!”
I sat up, panting, soaked to the skin with sweat. My head spun in the worst way. Oh gods, I—I was going to be sick. I leaped out of the…the bed, I’d been in a bed, and immediately tripped over a bucket that had been strategically placed by the nightstand. Sitting on the floor, legs splayed wide, I grabbed that bucket and puked into it for all I was worth. Once my stomach was empty, I sank back against the side of the bed, panting as I took in my surroundings.
The room I found myself in was high-ceilinged. Dark green drapes hung at the windows. Heavy, dark oak furniture decorated the space—a wardrobe by the door, a chest of drawers, another armoire by the window, and a bookcase full of books. The rug I was splayed out on was a soft dove grey. Plush. It felt lovely when I buried my fingers into—
Oh.
I grabbed the bucket and heaved into it again. My stomach muscles throbbed uncomfortably when I set it aside.
“They call it the great purge,” a male voice said. Taladaius had opened the door while I was vomiting and was now leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded over his chest, watching me with an amused smile on his face.
Vampire.
Malcolm’s second.
I cast around the room, looking for a weapon, and realized for the first time that I was dressed in a pair of scandalously tiny black silk shorts and a sheer camisole made of the same material that didn’t leave much to the imagination. Gasping, I gave up my search for something to defend myself with and looked for something to cover myself with instead.
Taladaius chuckled as he crossed the room and fetched a robe from the ornate privacy screen by the window. He made a point of looking away as he came toward the bed and held it out for me. “Your body has undergone some stark changes of late,” he said. “The general consensus is that you’ll be able to eat normal food again soon, but it might take a day or two. When I transitioned, it took me six months before I didn’t hack up anything I tried to eat like it was a hairball.”
Snatching the robe from him, I threw it around my shoulders. I flared my nostrils, hating the strange, overpowering burn at the back of my nose. “What do you mean, transitioned?” I asked sharply.
Taladaius let his head fall to one side. He gazed at me pityingly. “You know exactly what I mean by that word. Don’t you?”
Vampire. Vampire. Vampire.
I glared back at him, refusing to accept it. “I’m nothing like you,” I hissed.
Taladaius nodded, scuffing the toe of his beautiful leather shoe against the edge of the rug. With his hands in his pockets, he said, “Oh, I know that, Saeris.”
“What does that mean? That tone,” I demanded.
“Here.” The vampire with the immaculately coiffed silver hair and the strangely soft eyes nodded toward the large mirror on the wall. “Come and see for yourself.”
I was wary as I walked over to the mirror. Wrapping my arms around myself, I prepared for the unknown. I had no idea if I would recognize the person staring back at me in the glass. But I did. Aside from the faint shadows beneath my eyes, I was wholly entirely myself. Saeris. Same dark hair. Same blue eyes. Same…
I hesitated. Turned my head. My ears.
The tips of my ears were pointed. They poked up through my mussed hair, as if they had always been this way. I opened my mouth to curse, saw the state of my teeth, and my heart set to racing. Canines. I had very long canines. And they looked sharp.
“I’m…Fae?” I asked Taladaius’s reflection in the mirror.
He smiled politely but shook his head. “As far as we can tell, you’re a half-vampire, half-Fae. Something none of us have ever seen before. As of now, we’re not sure which traits you’ve adopted from the Fae and which you’ve adopted from the vampires. All our healers are sure of is that you’re no longer human.”
No longer human. Not fully vampire. Not fully Fae.
My throat did its damnedest to seal itself shut. I tore myself away from the mirror, screwing my eyes closed. I couldn’t think about this now. I needed my mate. “Where’s Fisher?”
Taladaius gave a shrug and eyed the ornamental plaster on the ceiling rather evasively. “Oh, I don’t know. He’s around here somewhere, I suppose.”
“Is he hurt? Is he—”
“Just relax, Saeris. He’s fine. He’ll be along shortly.”
I wasn’t about to trust the word of a vampire. Looking down, I saw that my marks were still there, declaring for all the world that I was Fisher’s mate.
I reached out, feeling for him with my mind. Moments later, I was rewarded with a deep sense of concentration. Not mine. Fisher’s. He was here. Close by. And he was focusing on something very hard. I didn’t sense any pain or alarm from him, which allowed me to breathe a little easier. It seemed as though Taladaius was telling the truth.
“Where are we?” I asked, skirting around the bed, trying to make sure I kept ample room between us. Where was Solace? I wanted my fucking sword.
“Fisher asked me to let him tell you where we are,” Taladaius answered. “What? But…why?” I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to get a read on him. Taladaius seemed equally relaxed and amused, which told me nothing about why he kept our location a secret. Annoyance flickered in my chest. I crossed the bedroom, clutching the robe tightly around my body, and ripped
the curtains open.
Pain exploded behind my eyes. It was barely even light outside, the last of the sun’s rays vanishing beyond the horizon, but it felt as if I’d just been smashed in the head with a sledgehammer. “Ahh!”
Careful to stand in the shadows, Taladaius gently removed my hand from the curtain and drew it closed again. “You’ll be able to tolerate that better than most soon enough, too. This will all just take some getting used to. What about your memory? What do you remember about Gillethrye, Saeris?”
The name of that place sent a shiver down my back. “I—we were fighting them. Malcolm, Belikon, and Madra. There was a coin. I flipped it…”
“And then?”
“Then…” I stared at him, a strange dread tugging at my lower belly. “He wounded me. I—I killed him. You and Fisher came. And then…”
“And then I bit you,” Taladaius said, nodding. He looked away quickly, as if he were suddenly uncomfortable. “I placed a memory block around what happened next. Transitioning is hard. And, well, it is in a sire’s power to suppress those memories, if—”
“Remove it,” I demanded. “Remove the block.”
Taladaius looked like he wanted to refuse, but he said, “If you’re certain you want me to, I will, but it can be very traumatic—”
“Remove. It,” I snarled.
“As you wish.” He didn’t need to touch me. It was simpler than that. One minute, I had no recollection of the moment when Taladaius’s teeth had sunk into the top of my shoulder. No recollection of the horror show that followed after. And then, the next minute, I did.
The bite from Taladaius.
Fisher, carrying me in his arms. Opening a shadow gate. Me flying through the air toward the quicksilver pool. The brief but tense conversation with Zareth that followed.
Then, Fisher pulling me out of the quicksilver. He and Carrion, arguing like they were about to kill each other.
Lorreth, sitting by my bedside, playing some kind of lute and singing softly to me while I thrashed and moaned.
Three days of me lying in this bed, in this room, begging for Fisher to kill me because I couldn’t face the pain for another second.
And me…biting…someone.
My eyes snapped up to Taladaius’s neck. I’d bitten him.
He saw my realization and gave me a small smile. Angling his neck, he showed it to me—his smooth, unblemished skin. “No harm done,” he said. “You barely broke the skin.”
“Why did I do that?” I pressed my hand to my mouth, too afraid to part my lips and accept a truth that I already knew but was too afraid to face.
“Fisher should really be here for this,” Taladaius said. He started for the door.
“No! I—” I didn’t know what to say. “A part of me feels like I should thank you for saving my life.”
“And the rest of you?’
“Wants to kill you for what you’ve done,” I whispered.
The vampire nodded, studying his boots. “I felt the same way for a long time. There were whole centuries where I hated what I’d become, and I wanted to destroy Malcolm. I wanted nothing but to die and be gone from this world so badly.”
“What made you decide to stay?”
Taladaius gave me a small, very sad smile. “I didn’t. I wasn’t given a choice. Malcolm wouldn’t let me go. I tried to kill myself once, and he forbade me from ever trying again. His word was law.”
“But now he’s dead…”
“And I am free.” Taladaius rocked on his heels. “I’m still trying to decide what that means for me. But things have gotten rather interesting recently.” He looked me up and down, frowning a little, as if weighing up what he wanted to say. After a moment, he said, “There are two kinds of forever, Alchemist. One is heaven. The other is hell. It doesn’t matter what I do. Make sure you choose your version of immortality wisely.”
 |
I blinked, trying to force this version of Carrion Swift to make sense in my head.
Still the same artfully messy copper-brown hair. Still the same blue eyes and that roguish grin.
But also the sloped ears. And the pointed canines. And he was so tall.
I punched him in the chest. “Ow! What was that for?”
I shoved a finger in his face. “Because you’re an asshole. I’ve known you since I was fifteen!”
He shook his head, hands palm up in the air. “And? I’ve known you since I was a thousand and eighty-six. Do I win a prize?”
“You didn’t tell me that you were heir to a fucking Fae throne!”
“Well, it’s hardly something you just tell people, Fane. And anyway, my grandmother made me promise not to.”
“Except she wasn’t your grandmother, was she!”
Carrion pulled a face. “No, not really. She was more of a ward. Or a playmate when she was little. And then a friend. And then I was her ward. I
don’t know, it always got very complicated as people aged.”
I shook my head, still valiantly trying to put all of the pieces together. “So, Fisher’s father took you to Zilvaren when you were little to save you from Belikon. He glamored your ears and your canines so you wouldn’t stand out. He brought a bag of books along with you, so you could learn about your heritage and return when the time was right. And…some woman saved you?”
“Her name was Orlena,” Carrion said. “Orlena Parry. She was a slave in Madra’s palace. But that night, the night she pulled me out of the quicksilver, she fled the palace and escaped. She went to the Third, knowing she could get lost in the crowd there. And that’s where she stayed. She found work as a seamstress and secured somewhere for us to live. She raised me like I was her own son.”
I couldn’t believe it. I squinted at him, this Fae version of him, his true form, and almost burst out laughing. “And you were trapped there when Madra closed the gates. And then you spent the next thousand odd years just…living in Zilvaren?”
“That’s pretty much the long and short of it,” Carrion said. “I had the books that Finran brought for me, about the Fae and my people. Orlena got married when I was nine and took the name Swift. She had a daughter not long after. Petra. Petra grew up and had a daughter, too. The books were passed down the female line, and so was I. They kept me out of trouble as best they could and made sure I kept a lookout for signs that the quicksilver had opened again. They thought it was cruel that I was stuck in the Silver City and that I should go home and rule my people. The females of the Swift line have always been very bossy and overly concerned about my love life.”
“So you knew what to expect when the quicksilver awakened again?”
He laughed. “Nope. Not even a little bit. But I felt it, that day when you were taken up to the palace. Something shifting in the air. A kind of energy that felt familiar somehow. I recognized it the second time it happened, and somehow, I just knew it had something to do with you. I went to The Mirage to see if you’d escaped, and that’s where Fisher found me. I really did say I was Hayden because I thought I was protecting him, Saeris. I hope you believe that.”
“It’s okay. I know.” I really did believe him.
Gods, how interlinked this all was. Fisher’s father had been the one to secret the true heir to the throne out of Yvelia. A thousand years later, his son had been the one to bring him back. It meant something. What, I couldn’t say, but I was sure we were all going to find out soon enough.
And all of this time, there had been a Fae royal living in the Third, smuggling goods, starting fights, and generally making a nuisance of himself. I was on the verge of asking Carrion how he preserved his sanity while the people he cared about were born, grew up, lived their lives, and died of old age, but I already knew the answer to that question, and I didn’t want to hear him say something lewd about whiskey and women.
Speaking of which. I glared at him even harder. “You slept with me.” He grinned shamelessly. “You’re welcome.”
“Carrion!”
“What? You’ve been fucking Fisher for the past gods only knows how long!”
“Yes, but I knew what he was when I decided to sleep with him. And he was my mate.”
Carrion huffed. Folding his arms over his chest, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “All right. I’m sorry I didn’t disclose to you that I was a magic- wielding political asylum seeker, posing as a human when I slept with you. Does that make you feel better?”
“No.”
“Ahh, come on, Fane!” He nudged me with his elbow. “I’m Fae now. You’re Fae now. Kind of. It’s all water under the bridge. You’re only grumpy with me because you were worried about me. Go on. Ask me how I survived Malcolm’s all-powerful venom. I can tell you’re just dying to know.”
“Lorreth already told me, actually. So there.” Lorreth had been the second person to visit me after Taladaius had left my room. He’d laughed when he’d seen my Fae ears. Laughed a little less enthusiastically when he saw just how sharp my teeth were. The first thing he’d told me was that Everlayne was alive, and Ren was watching over her, though she had fallen into a deep sleep and couldn’t be roused. Te Léna and Iseabail were confident that she would wake any day, though. He’d then stayed for over an hour and explained much of what had happened after I’d bolted back into the labyrinth. I’d been sick with guilt when he’d told me how all three of them had nearly died at Belikon’s hands while they bought me time to find
the coin. He’d called me crazy when I’d apologized for taking so long and said that it had felt like a miracle when the wind had swept away all of the death magic and allowed their swords to channel again. Madra had fled through the quicksilver immediately. Belikon had put up a prodigious fight, but the second Lorreth’s angel breath had torn out of Avisiéth, he, too, had fled like a fucking coward.
“Oh really?” Carrion quirked a dubious eyebrow at me. “And how did Lorreth of the Broken Spire tell it? Let me guess. He said my blood was too rancid to be affected by vampire venom.”
“No, he said that your father’s blood was used to create the blood curse that allowed Malcolm to become a vampire, and that a vampire can’t drink from the living members of the bloodline that created them, nor can they enthrall them. He said that drinking from you should have killed Malcolm instantly, but because he had lived for so long, he was too powerful.”
“Hmm.” Carrion grunted. “That’s pretty accurate, actually.”
“He also said that’s why Malcolm had Belikon kill your parents. That they were the only thing that posed a threat to him.”
Again, Carrion grunted. He wasn’t grinning anymore. “I barely remember them.”
“I do.”
My heart stuttered in my chest. I’d been waiting for him to come for what felt like an age. Fisher stood just inside the door, a stony look on his face as he nodded to Carrion. His expression softened for me.
Hey, you, he whispered into my mind.
Hey back, I answered.
It was unbelievably comforting to know that this remained the same between us. He could still talk to me in my mind, and I could still talk to him. Of all the things that had changed so dramatically in the past few days, the bond between us seemed to be the same as it had been before.
The corners of his mouth twitched the tiniest bit—the faintest suggestion of a smile. He kept it as he entered the room properly and placed a light kiss on my forehead.
“Are you going to tell me about my parents, or are you going to start undressing each other? Because I can leave. I don’t have to, but I can,” Carrion said.
“Please leave, Carrion,” Fisher said flatly. “I’ll come and tell you everything I remember about them later, but for now, I want to be alone
with my mate.” He said it with such pride. My mate.
Carrion left, grumbling under his breath, and the room suddenly became much smaller. We were alone.
“Are you sad you don’t get to call me Little Osha anymore?” I asked. Gods, what a confusing feeling. I was thrilled that, thanks to Zareth, a part of me was Fae now. I was less thrilled that a part of me was a vampire now, courtesy of Taladaius. Trepidation built inside me, growing more unbearable by the second, but Fisher hung his head in a very boyish way that made my insides squeeze.
He looked up at me from beneath his dark brows and smirked. “Human, Fae, or Vampire. It doesn’t matter how long you live, Saeris, you will always be most sacred to me.” His smirk faded, though. “Did I do the right thing?”
I hadn’t been able to answer for myself back in the labyrinth. He’d had to make the decision for me. And what a monumental decision it had been. After I refused to let him heal me with his soul, it was no wonder he was looking at me right now like he was worried I was never going to speak to him again.
This…was huge.
I wasn’t myself anymore.
I was the ward of a god, and not just any old god. By proxy, Fisher kind of was too. There was so much I still had to tell him. I had no idea how he would take the news when I explained everything that had happened to him during those brief minutes I spent talking to the God of Chaos, but I got the feeling Fisher was going to have questions. A million of them.
For now, the world was brighter. Sharper. There were threads of shining power in Fisher’s eyes when I looked at him. And there was a burning ache at the back of my throat that was getting harder to ignore.
Wait…
There was magic in Fisher’s eyes. But…less quicksilver.
I gasped, stepping out of his arms, and Fisher cleared his throat, looking a little abashed. “I was wondering if you’d notice,” he said.
“Wondering if I’d notice! Wha—how? What happened?”
“Te Léna found a way to dampen the quicksilver’s effects. I’ve been seeing her for months, trying to get it under control, but her sessions were growing less and less effective. And then Iseabail said that she could help.
Those two make a pretty good team. Te Léna helped to quiet the quicksilver, and Iseabail’s been teasing it out of me. I’ll have to have a million sessions. It’ll take a long time, but it should work.”
“That’s incredible! That means…” I was too nervous to say it. He wasn’t going to lose his mind.
We still had Belikon to deal with. And Madra. I still intended to find my brother and Elroy. There were a million other issues we had to overcome, but…
One foot in front of the other, Fisher rumbled, just for me. Let’s make it through today. And then tomorrow. And then the day after. That one will be particularly interesting.
Why? What’s happening the day after tomorrow?
He looked faintly worried as he took me by the hand. “Well. There’s this.” He took me to the curtain and drew it back slowly. The sunlight that had burned my eyes and my skin earlier was gone now. It was like peering into a black hole, staring out of the window. But then I saw the flickering lights of many, many campfires in the distance. And the pale silver ribbon of a river cutting through the black landscape.
The Darn.
We were on the wrong side of the Darn. We were inside Ammontraíeth.
“In the Fae courts, the crown is passed down to a regent’s heir. But if the regent is murdered, the crown is claimed by the one who slew them. The vampire court has only ever had one king. Malcolm never named an heir. He planned on living forever. He never conceived of the possibility that someone might kill him…”
My head was already shaking no. I retreated from the window. “Absolutely not. Fisher, I’m not even a full vampire. I’m half-Fae! I can’t!”
“Tell them that. As far as the vampire court is concerned, you’re to be coronated. In two days’ time, you officially become the new queen of Sanasroth.
