Chapter 39
thirty-nine
It was chaos from the start.
Hil said attack, and not even loudly, and those animals that had come alive shot forward, straight into the morvekai and the fake king and queen and the soldiers who were still there—and Lyall.
Lyall, who had his hands lit up and pushed them back as they came—a fox, a wolf, and a raven, and they fell, slammed against the ground.
They were attacked by the morvekai, too, but they did not bleed.
When one of them cut the head off a brown fox, it had already turned to a statue before the two pieces hit the floor rolling.
Pieces of marble or whatever the hell they were—not animals anymore.
Ravens flew, and the edges of their feathers really cut, but the morvekai bled black. Old blood. Thick, too thick to be normal. Like fucking tar.
Lyall’s golden light pulsated among the chaos, and the fake king and queen were now standing behind the ordinary soldiers, too, hands to their mouths, arms interlinked as they watched in horror and screamed something at someone behind them—the staff members outside the throne room doors, who’d gathered to watch.
The morvekai refused to go down, and the animals refused to stop, and more and more of them ended up as pieces of marble on the dais, and my magic gnawed at my insides, demanding action.
Death.
The fake king Lox, who was almost at the doors, and who controlled the morvekai.
The fake king Lox, who, if he ran away now, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find him again.
I didn’t think, couldn’t even tell you when I made the decision, or even if I did. Death didn’t sit well with me. It never had, but then again, this was Verenthia. Normal didn’t apply here. Common sense or empathy for the people who wanted your blood only got them their wish granted faster.
And so, I attacked.
From the top of the stairs, right next to the Unseelie throne, standing with the Unseelie heir, I raised a single hand and I released frostfire straight from the bottom of my being, aiming it at the face of the fae named Lox.
The silver light traveled like a ball of actual frost and shimmer, between a stag’s antlers, and right below the talons of a raven, over the head of a morvekai and past the blade of the sword of a soldier. It moved in slow motion for me before it struck its target.
It hurt like my soul was being ripped out of my body, the frostfire so powerful, full of sharp edges as it traveled down my arm, but it hit the fae with the same strength, so I didn’t complain.
It slammed onto his chest and it spread all around him fast, silver magic that glimmered under the orange lights, spreading up to his neck and his chin, slipping into his open mouth.
He stepped back, disoriented, looking down at his chest, trying to dust off the magic in vain.
It clung to his clothes as the woman screamed at the top of her lungs.
I only realized I’d fallen when I could no longer see them, and the room tilted before my eyes. Now I was looking at the pieces of broken marble around us, what had been animals just moments ago.
Hands on my face, slapping my cheeks, and I saw Hil’s orange eyes as he pulled me to sit up, but I must have passed out for a moment or two there, because all I remembered after was darkness.
All I remembered was what Rune had told me about the fae kingdoms of Verenthia, about the Unseelie who could once possess animals to do their bidding whenever they pleased.
I found that cruel. I found that fascinating.
And I knew deep down inside me that I’d killed a man, this one all by myself. That’s why the entire weight of him rested on my shoulders now, heavier than a mountain.
Then I heard his voice.
I would know that it was him calling my name even among a million other screams, shouts, whispers.
I would know the shade of Rune’s voice, the way he called me like he thought my very name was sacred, like he didn’t think himself worthy of speaking it.
The way his sheer will transported itself with the sound and I had no choice but to look, to give it my entire attention, even when I was unconscious or about to be.
My eyes opened wide. I expected to find the animals fighting, the morvekai fighting, and Lyall throwing his golden light at us while Hil held me to sit up, but no.
The doors of the throne room were open, and there were Unseelie fae outside in the hallway, and there was a dead body right by the doors, and a wolf and a man were standing over it.
Maera and Rune. Alive, their eyes on me.
I breathed then. I settled the new weight on my shoulders better.
We were going to be okay.
It took me a while to clear my head, to touch Rune’s hand, see the blood on him, the wounds on his chest and neck, and convince myself that he was okay despite them. He was in front of me, and we were sitting on the stairs of the dais, and he was smiling as he looked at me. Relieved. Tired.
Very much alive.
“What’s taking her so long?” Hil said as he paced in front of us, hands on his hips, his shirt ruined, but he was no longer bleeding.
It hadn’t been too long now since those statues who’d come back to life had gone back to their places, had frozen in the exact same positions they had been before, and had gone back to being white.
Not marble, but definitely something close.
“Let her take her time. She’ll make sure he isn’t hiding anywhere,” I said absentmindedly, holding Rune’s hand between mine.
We were talking about Maera, of course, who’d gone to search for Lyall and the fake queen, who had run away, apparently, after Lox fell dead.
His body was still there, on the floor in front of the doors—really dead, even though there was no blood on him.
Even though I’d only hit him with my magic. With frostfire.
Knowing that he would die, and I couldn’t even tell you how I knew. Just that I did.
And the morvekai had followed him the very same second. Hil had seen it with his own eyes, and that’s how we knew that those piles of ashes on the floor was what was left of them. They’d turned to fucking ashes like vampires did in the stories back home when they were in contact with sunlight.
Ashes, and they were gone. Their armors and weapons all over the floor.
Hil squatted in front of us. His clothes were a mess, his hair falling in his face, but his eyes were more alive than I’d seen them before.
“What happened to you?” he asked Rune, and it was a question I wanted to know the answer to myself, desperately.
“They were waiting for me. They’d set up a trap—sorcerer magic.
Knocked me out cold for a few seconds, and Lyall had enough time to chain me and lock me in a cage in this makeshift throne room that the first usurpers built for themselves.
” Easy to hear in the sound of his voice that he was furious about it, though he tried to hold himself back.
“Lyall,” I spit, so much hatred inside me at the moment that I barely recognized myself. I’d disliked people my whole life but never with this intensity.
“Yes. He came here before us. Spoke to them, prepared for our arrival. He promised them access to this room and an alliance with the Seelie Court,” Rune said through gritted teeth.
“And now he’s gone.” For which I was glad because I couldn’t keep myself from wishing to see him dead, and Lyall couldn’t die. Not unless we wanted to ruin this entire realm.
Yes—my sudden thirst for blood didn’t go unnoticed with me. I was just choosing to ignore it for now.
“He won’t stay gone forever,” Rune said. “He’s proving to be a bigger problem than I anticipated.”
That was definitely true.
“So…what now?” asked Hil, sitting on the stair in front of us.
“Because…because it’s real.” He shook his head, looked around at the pieces of marble that had once been statues.
Those animals that had awakened. “It’s all real.
I felt it. I felt them, and I’m not entirely sure what to do with myself now.
” His eyes locked on Rune’s, then mine. “I’m open to suggestions, since this was all your brilliant idea. ”
“You’ve claimed your throne, and your throne has claimed you,” Rune said.
“Has it, though?” Hil said, his voice pitched high.
Rune paused for a second, looked at him like he wasn’t sure whether Hil was kidding or not. “Royal protection is only activated for royals.”
“Except I didn’t activate anything—I just bled on the chair,” Hil said.
“That would signal whatever protection magic the Fire Palace has installed, yes.”
“Installed—who installed protection magic to this place when we all know that it hasn’t even opened in forever?” Hil definitely looked like he was losing it.
“Our ancestors,” Rune explained. He didn’t look as pissed off as a second ago, and he most definitely believed that Hil wasn’t joking.
“The very first kings and queens eternalized their best magics through the years. For me, there are layers upon layers of shadows in every corner, in the bedroom and the throne room and the king’s study, set there by dozens of Midnight kings and queens, that would come very easily for me to use with minimal energy and effort. ”
I remembered exactly what he talked about—the shadows that had looked like stairs in the throne room floor at the Midnight Palace, and all the others in his bedroom, too.
“If that’s true, then why didn’t these animals protect the original royals back in the day?” Hil asked. That, too, was a question I wanted the answer to myself.
“Outside. They were attacked outside in a ballroom during a celebration—a prince’s birthday, if I remember correctly,” Rune explained.
“And the other parts of this place don’t have statues that come to life?”
“I’m not sure, but the Midnight Palace doesn’t have shadows elsewhere. And the Queen’s Palace in the Seelie Court has light hidden in the reflection of all gold surfaces only in the sentient parts.”
Shivers rushed down my arms.
“And the Ice Palace?” Because I hadn’t seen or felt anything when I was there, not when the dais opened up and revealed the throne chair to me. I hadn’t seen any statues or lights or anything like it—though I hadn’t exactly looked because I’d had no idea what any of it even meant then.
“I don’t know,” Rune said, shaking his head.
“Again—what now?” Hil insisted. “What happens to me now?”
“Now you give it a moment,” Rune said. “I’m no expert, but you should access your bloodline’s power soon, and when you do…” He looked at me for a second, shrugged. “Then you rule.”
Hil opened and closed his mouth a few times, shook his head, looked down at the floor then back up at us again. “I’m a king,” he finally whispered with barely any voice, and it was easy to see that he hadn’t actually believed us before when we told him the story.
“Yes, you are,” said Rune, and he sounded just as certain as he’d been before, when he told me that it would work out. That Hil wouldn’t be thinking about finding the riches he stole so he could disappear once we brought him here—that he would choose to stay.
And indeed, I believed it, too. I saw it in the way Hil smiled one second, then looked absolutely horrified in the next.
“I don’t…I don’t know anything about ruling a kingdom. I don’t know anything about anything, really. I’ve given up on anything I’ve ever started.”
I was tempted to smile. Instead, I reached out and touched his hand. “You’re a hell of a thief, though, aren't you? Nobody was able to pull off what you pulled off.”
He raised his brows in thought.
“I don’t really know anything about ruling a kingdom, either, if that makes you feel better,” Rune said.
“Actually, it does,” said Hil.
“Neither do I,” I told them, and it was the first time I’d actually thought about ruling out loud in a way that implied I was considering it. Like, for real.
“Well, damn. This whole thing just got way easier,” said Hil and put his hand over mine on his forearm.
And then Rune’s shadows spread out right in front of him, three tendrils of darkness just hovering there in the air.
“I’d remove your hand from hers if I were you.” All this he said in perfect calm.
“Rune!” I hissed, pulling my hand back on instinct.
“Hey, hey—she touched me first!” said Hil with his hands up in surrender, but he was smiling ear to ear.
The shadows retreated slowly back inside Rune’s hand. “She can do whatever she wants. You can’t.”
Hil laughed—a short, throaty laugh.
“Are you serious right now?!” I demanded, but all Rune did was bring my hand to his lips and kiss it.
But before he could answer, Hil stopped laughing abruptly. Turned toward the closed doors.
My heart about fell all the way to my heels instantly, laughs and smiles forgotten.
Lyall, whispered a voice in my head. It was Lyall. He’d already come back.
“Do you hear that?” Hil said and stood up, turned toward the doors.
“No. What is it?” I asked because I couldn’t hear shit.
“The…the doors,” Hil whispered. “It’s like…” But he didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“A pressure,” Rune said, and together, we stood up, too. “It’s the palace telling you someone is coming.”
Hil looked at him. “And?”
“And you can choose to open the doors or keep them closed.” That sounded a lot like the palace, yes.
“I can just…open them?” Hil said.
“Yes. Think of them opening or ask them to. Whatever works,” Rune explained.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen him this patient with other people before, except me. He must have really liked Hil. Or most likely just felt bad for him, I figured.
Hil closed his eyes, breathed in deeply. It took but a second for the handles to push themselves down and for the doors to swing to the sides at the same time.
Hil laughed. “By Reme!” he shouted, but I couldn’t even be happy with him, for him. Because my eyes were locked on those of Maera, standing just outside the throne room, shifted back into human, naked. Pissed off, if the look on her face was anything to go on.
“He’s gone,” she said through gritted teeth.
Rune squeezed my hand in his, and I tried not to be relieved because I knew she was talking about Lyall.
I failed.