Crown of Smoke and Starlight (Courts of Aetheria #4)

Chapter One

Aelia

The scent of blood clung to the wind like a second skin. Metallic. Familiar. It curled beneath my nose as I hovered above the battlefield, brilliant luminescent wings streaked in shadows spread across my shoulders. The weight of my power pressed down on the broken world below.

They waited for me. All of them.

The Light Fae with their shining blades and pristine alabaster uniforms. The Shadow Court with their swirling nox and umbral weapons. Even the Night Court poised behind me, their dark armor glinting beneath a sunless sky, bristled with anticipation.

But none of them mattered.

Because he had come.

Reign.

His name swirled through my mind like smoke.

It was dangerous, intoxicating, half-remembered.

A tug echoed low in my chest, aching and foreign, as if some long-lost part of me stirred.

But I buried it beneath the roar of power coursing through me.

Zar slithered across my skin like venom.

Nox simmered beneath the surface. Rais burned behind my ribs.

A storm of gods-given force waiting to be unleashed.

The child of twilight. Infantum od twilit.

The Night Fae chanted my name, the ominous hisses growing in strength with each iteration. Half the army sat astride creatures of smoke and shadows, the very beasts nightmares were made of.

I didn’t need a name. I didn’t need memories.

I was power. And I belonged to the gods themselves.

“Strike when I say.” Helroth’s voice slithered across my ear, though his lips never moved.

He was in my head, permanently embedded.

There was no getting him out…even if I’d wanted to.

The pull of his command thrummed through my veins like tethered chains, forged in zar and sealed with the blood vow I hadn’t meant to take.

By blood and night, you are bound. Swear now, child of twilight, to bring down the Courts of Light and Shadow, until none but Night remains to rule the realm. By the will of the Night King, this vow shall hold.

But I had taken it.

And now, my grandsire owned me.

I touched down, wings slicing the air in a gust of searing light and obsidian flame.

Across the scorched field, Reign dismounted in one smooth motion, Phantom screeching her fury into the heavens behind him.

His presence struck me like a blade, sharp but grounding.

Gods, even at this distance, he smelled like the memory of something I’d lost.

I blinked, and he’d already devoured the ground between us.

He took another step toward me. “Aelia,” he whispered, something akin to concern with a mixture of fear—of me, or for me, I couldn’t be sure—crossing his handsome face.

His voice. That voice. It cracked something open.

My name on his tongue ignited something deep inside me. Something ancient. Something I wasn’t allowed to remember.

But in that moment, I desperately wanted to.

Something strong and more powerful than the blood vow throbbed violently between us, wild and frantic like a heart torn in two.

Pain lanced behind my eyes, sharp enough to splinter bone.

I staggered a step from the memory trying to claw its way free.

I could feel his pain. His love. His certainty.

It tangled across my insides, bloating my hollow chest. And it terrified me.

Because I knew, somewhere buried beneath the cage Helroth had built around me, I once felt the same.

But right now, all I felt was power and the restrictive chains of the blood vow. Destroy them. Ruin them all. Reclaim your kingdom.

I raised my hand.

A heady mix of zar and nox bled through my fingertips. Then a blade of pure void erupted from my palm, blacker than night and pulsing with ruin.

Reign didn’t flinch. His eyes, steady and unyielding remained locked to mine.

“You’ll have to kill me,” he said, lifting his sword in defense, not aggression. “Because I’m not leaving without you.”

My heart stuttered.

That voice inside me, the one I’d silenced, the one Helroth had attempted to bury, rose like a scream. He’s yours. He’s mine. Reign.

He smelled like amber and rain-washed obsidian. My body, not as easily dominated, remembered what my mind could not—the calloused warmth of his palm, the rasp of his voice whispering my name in the dark.

A bond… the cuorem, I suddenly realized, flared, that living, breathing sentient thing racing between us. The symbol on my chest ignited; not the mystical engraving Raysa had carved into me, but rather the one that made me feel whole. The mate mark. Images flashed across my mind in a chaotic loop.

The luminescent cave.

The feel of Reign’s body entangled with mine.

Whispered words.

Heated kisses.

But Helroth was already there, not merely a voice in my head this time. Before I could fully process those memories, his presence sliced through the bond, poisoning it. “Finish this, princess,” he ordered, moving beside me, crimson eyes burning into mine.

I couldn’t stop.

A dark, violent part of me didn’t want to.

And yet, as my blade came down—

The world shattered. Time fractured. The air burned.

The cuorem bond flared so violently it seared black. Not gold. Not silver. Not the shimmering strands I recognized.

Black.

And in that final heartbeat, as I held my blade inches from Reign’s throat, a floodgate of memories unleashed.

Laughter in a moonlit cave. Lips brushing mine beneath a sky full of stars. His voice, hoarse and reverent, whispering cuoré against my skin. A promise sealed in light and shadow. It all came back with a force that buckled my knees.

Reign. My love. My cuoré.

I’d made a vow to him too.

One I never intended to break.

By starlight and storm, ether and flames, I vow myself to you, Reign.

I choose you—heart, body and soul. In every breath I take, in every future I behold, I carry your name within me.

You are my anchor in the chaos, my peace in the storm.

I bind my soul to yours, not because I must, but because I cannot imagine a world without you.

A scream tore from my mouth, ripped from the deepest recesses of my soul.

“Aelia,” Reign whispered, the depth of emotion in that one word enough to sever Helroth’s hold for an instant. The ghost of a smile kissed his lips as if he’d felt the breakthrough.

And it was all I needed.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured in return.

Time ticked forward once again, and swinging the umbral blade around, I pressed it to my grandsire’s throat, instead.

Fury pulsed through my veins as the fog of his control lifted.

The sea of Night Fae soldiers tensed behind Helroth, weapons at the ready.

Reign now stood at my side, a torrent of nox flooding the air and a whirlwind of shadows poised to strike.

They clung to the air like wraiths, hissing and writhing over Reign’s head, tendrils of pure night and raw power.

Helroth held up a dismissive hand, calling off his forces. Those crimson orbs of pure darkness pulsed with rage, then a trickle of fear as they bounced between Reign’s ravenous minions and me.

“What are you doing?” he snarled as I pressed the blade closer.

For the first time, the great Night King flinched. Just barely, but I saw it. Felt it. The flicker of unease behind his crimson stare. He hadn’t expected the bond to survive. He hadn’t counted on love being stronger than his cursed illusions or blood vows.

“Ending a war,” I hissed.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, brushing the blade of pure void. A thin line of dark crimson bubbled up as the ethereal weapon split his skin with the movement. A feral smile pursed his lips. “Oh, princess, this is but a mere battle. The war for Aetheria has just begun.”

At that, a blanket of night dropped across the field, the toxic odor of zar slithering over my skin. Helroth’s hand shot out, thick fingers curling around my arm in a punishing grip. The sharp slice of his nails across my skin burned like hellfire, but the scream died in my throat.

Because I recognized the scent, and I knew what came next. The dizzying pull of the pocket realm skimmed over me, and panic surged from my core.

No. Not again. I’d never let him have me again.

The scene blurred around me, the Light and Shadow Fae soldiers a muted tangle of nox and rais. I fought the incessant tug with everything I had, digging the heels of my boots into the earth.

“Reign!”

A shadow of pure night streaked across my vision, and the iron grip around my arm fell away. Something hit the ground with a lifeless thud.

Then Helroth and the army of Night vanished.

And I was suddenly alone in the middle of the battlefield with my heart lodged up my throat, and my grandsire’s severed arm at my feet. I squeezed my eyes closed to erase the grisly sight.

Except, no, I was not alone.

The steady thrum of the cuorem reminded me I would never truly be alone again.

“I’ve got you, starlight.” That deep, warm voice, the one that had starred in my dreams for months drove away the turmoil in my mind.

Strong arms curled around my trembling form, drawing me into a familiar, unrelenting hold.

Piercing midnight orbs locked onto mine, and a familiar touch caressed my cheek.

“I swore to you that no one would ever take you away from me again, and it is a vow I intend to keep for as long as I draw breath.”

“You came for me,” I whispered, raw emotion tightening my throat.

“I will always come for you. I’d tear through realms to reach you, Aelia. There’s no force in existence that could ever keep me from your side. Ever again.”

But even wrapped in Reign’s arms and silky shadows, with his heartbeat thudding against mine, Helroth’s final words beat out a frantic rhythm in my mind.

The war for Aetheria has just begun.