Chapter 61
The palace greens are a dazzling array of costumed fae dancing in concentric circles under every tree. Lumiral globes float through the air like tiny glowing stars, illuminating the vast spreads of food on overflowing tables and a dizzying number of sloshing goblets.
I turn away from the pockets of debauchery happening in the shadows as the full moon rises overhead. Instead, I watch the beautiful dances, the elaborate costumes on display, the children running around with friends and pets. One magnificent fae is dressed like a weeping willow, with long trailing leaves and a twisted trunk. Another is sea green, like a foamy ocean, with white hair and bright green-blue eyes. Ash isn’t wearing a costume or a mask, and even my pouting mouth couldn’t make him change his mind on that front.
Not that I truly mind. I like being able to see his beautiful face.
Faradir sits on his temporary throne—the one that is brought for him for these outdoor celebrations. His long golden hair falls over one shoulder, and he wears a new crown of shooting sunbeams. His mask is made of living fire that licks around his eyes, always burning but never devouring.
He finds us right away. I hold his gaze for a moment, then find something more interesting to give my attention to. I don’t have to be concerned about him just yet, and I intend to enjoy the celebration with my husband.
Two long fangs from a dripping wolf’s maw snap in my face. I flinch, stumbling backward into Ash, even though only a second later, I realize it’s just a mask. Still, my heart thumps wildly in my chest, and I become aware of the weight of curiosity pressing into me from all sides.
Do I have a reputation now, having come back from two supposed poisonings? Perhaps they think Ash is crazy to bring me here at all. Perhaps they believe me truly resurrected, not believing the High King’s proclamation last night that I wasn’t dead.
Children stare at me openly, and I could swear some of them do so in adoration. They don’t flinch when a tall fae with a mask of writhing tentacles passes between them. One of those tentacles reaches for my face, only to withdraw at Ash’s fierce glare.
“It seems you have become a legend,” my husband murmurs to me.
“I think I liked it better when they ignored me,” I reply with an uneasy chuckle.
But then the singing starts, and every thought in my brain is suddenly gone.
At first, I’m not sure where it is coming from—it is so all-encompassing, so all-surrounding. Until I realize it is coming from everyone, even Ash beside me.
The dancing has stopped. The eating, the drinking, the conversation, even the debauchery—all of it stops. Instead, every person sings, tilting their head back toward the sky, toward the moon climbing its way to its zenith.
The song washes over me, sung in words I do not know or understand, but the meaning of which transcends language. It is light, ethereal, but even as I listen, it deepens, broadens, until I can do nothing but look up at the sky with tears streaming down my cheeks.
I look at Ash, find him looking at me with warm, glittering eyes. He bends down to my ear, whispers softly enough not to disturb the soaring music around us.
“It is a song of thanksgiving. Gratitude that no matter what these last hundred years held, that we are still here, that the moon still rises, that the tides still come and go.”
“I know,” I whisper back, closing my eyes and letting the glory of the song sweep through me. I’ve always known fae music held magic, magic that could turn me foolish and make me forget my own name. Magic that could make me a slave.
And yet, part of me wonders if that is not as terrible as I once believed it to be. Perhaps it is a thing that can be used for evil. But in this moment? I see how it can be so soul-transcendingly good.
“Come with me,” Ash says.
He takes my hand, leads me quietly through the throngs of singing people. I follow gladly, even when the farther he leads me, the quieter the music gets. We reach a cliff that overlooks the sea, and Ash bids me look over the climbing vines to the reflective water below.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
He only smirks. “Wait a moment.”
I wait, listening to the strains of music as stars glitter across the waves breaking against the rocky shore. Then, suddenly, at the swell of the music, the waves surge upright. I gasp, my hands landing on the railing and holding tight as the water splits in half. It starts at the shore, peeling back like two curtains, water reaching as high as the face of the cliff.
“What is happening?” I cry.
“It happens every Lulythinar, so the people of the sea can sing too.”
The words are hardly out of his mouth before a multitude of voices from below join the chorus. I nearly stagger at the beauty, the expanding strength of the music.
But then Ash is tugging me again, and I barely let myself be dragged away. The song stays with us as we go. Not even when we enter the garden I love so much—the one outside my window—is the music entirely gone.
Ash pulls me through the tunnel of roses, and I laugh as I try to keep up with him without tripping on my gown. My mask goes askew, but I don’t have a free hand to fix it.
We reach the overgrown gazebo. Singing wafts on the breeze that tangles in my hair and ruffles the sleeves on my gown. Ash stops before the steps and sweeps me a grand bow. I grin even as I blush.
“Would you dance with me, fair maiden?” he asks, pinning me with that heated gaze like a thousand fallen stars. When he looks at me like that, he holds more sway over me than fae music ever could.
He extends his hand to me.
I place my fingers in his. He presses a kiss to them.
Then he draws me up the steps, into the dark gazebo. With a sweep of his arm, a host of tiny glows like fireflies light up the small space, the cracked stone and twisted vines.
“Dance with me,” Ash whispers.
“Always, my prince,” I reply.
He reaches out, straightens my mask. Then he takes my waist and draws me to his chest so not even an inch separates us. His mouth hovers above my hairline, warm and intimate as we begin dancing. Slowly, to the strains of the song on the air.
“I want to know everything about you, Ash,” I say to him, tilting my face up. “I want to know everything about your people. Next Lulythinar, I want to sing their song with them.”
With my glamours, I can find a place to belong where I am not always at risk.
Ash’s grip on my waist tightens. His chest expands against mine, and then his exhale stirs my hair. “Then you shall.”
At some point, we stop dancing. We simply stand together, our gazes melding into one. Ash slowly lifts a hand, places a knuckle beneath my chin, and tilts my face up to his. I close my eyes as the warmth of his mouth descends to mine.
Ash stops.
A shock goes through him.
I freeze. My eyes fly open. On instinct, I look behind us, searching for a threat. When I find nothing, I turn back to Ash.
He gazes at the back of his hand, his face turned white as the rising moon.
“A-Ash?”
“The wings are gone,” he rasps. He lifts desperate eyes to mine.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I say, unable to keep the shaking out of my voice. “Don’t the tattoos only vanish when the bargain is fulfilled?”
“Or when it becomes impossible to fulfill them.”
“Oleria,” I gasp.
We’re running down the rose archway before everything finally processes in my brain. Ash’s face is hard, grim.
“But . . . she wasn’t supposed to do anything yet!”
His grip on mine is like iron. He doesn’t run too quickly for me to keep up, but it doesn’t take long before I’m panting, anyway.
I hate to ask, but I must know. “Does this mean . . . Does this mean she’s dead?”
The flintlike set of his jaw answers my question. Sickness swells in my stomach and nearly gets the better of me.
The music stopped.
The realization hits me like a blow. When did it stop? The moment Ash’s tattoo disappeared?
Ash comes to an abrupt halt when we reach the palace greens. I almost go racing past him, but he pulls me back and tucks me behind him.
At once, I realize how loud my breathing is.
How quiet everything else is.
How still the hundreds of fae around us have gone.
Sweat slides down my back as I peer around Ash to see what has made him stop short. My blood runs cold as ice.
Because there, in front of Faradir’s throne, is a young woman I’ve never seen before, shuddering on her knees, her wrists bound behind her. Perhaps I wouldn’t have recognized her at all, if it hadn’t been for the pair of ripped, bloodied wings lying in the dust at Faradir’s feet.
The High King looks up, directly at me.
He smiles.