Chapter 1
VALANCE
I ran through the dark forest with the former Tuatha queen, hunting dark fae who tried to run from me. My boots crunched in the snow, flakes from the trees sprinkling quietly on my head.
This creature would not escape me, especially after ignoring its new king’s command to halt when it darted from its hiding place behind a fallen log. I could have stayed in my carriage, let the creature run away, continue with my quest.
I was in no mood for easy.
Speaking of easy, I could snare my prey with magic, enchant it to come and face me without the need for this hunt.
It wasn’t too far ahead, its breathing loud enough to be a song for the forest. Yet I enjoyed hunting, the sensation of my heart racing, the ache in my chest from the burning cold of the air. The distraction both brought me.
Distraction from him.
Kormac.
The human. A man I had come to grow found of, despite him initially being my enemy.
At first, I’d been attracted by his handsome exterior, drawn to his roughness wrapped in masculine beauty.
A morbid curiosity, lusting after a man I should hate and did hate.
A soul bond forced us together, tempered our mutual loathing, saw us through a journey to Winter to meet my destiny.
I believed we would face a becoming together in the land of snow and dark fae—the latter a term for any fae from the north.
But the human and I were not meant to be, not beyond the taking of power, the awakening of my dark caress—the caress of the Tuatha, the lost blood.
Kormac was gone, killed by my hand, an action forced by Brigid, a darkling now a floating head acting as my counsel.
I had taken his undying essence, that ability now mine.
I was already immortal from being Sidhe fae but could die by the sword.
Kormac’s gift changed that, gifting me with true eternal life.
My gift giver…
Along with this powerful immortality, I also wielded silver magic. As the new Tuatha king, my power nurtured the lands of Winter. Restored them, brought life back with the added power of the undying magic.
Winter was waking up from its curse, ready for revenge with me at the helm. I just had to unite my people. It had been a long time since Winter had a Tuatha monarch.
I am of Tuatha blood…
The blood passed through time, through generations, dormant until it awoke in me. The first Tuatha born in centuries, my strange features not of a regular Sidhe fae a result of the blood.
Tuatha. King.
Heartbroken…
I was heading south to meet the giants of Winter. The giants, according to Brigid, would be great weapons in my impending war with the rest of the world and would also help in my quest for unity.
As I moved across the snowy landscape, I did my best to unite the creatures of this realm I encountered to my cause. Promised to give them back the strength to rise up and take revenge upon the rest of Faerie.
Faerie would yield. Those who refused would be destroyed.
Vengeance would be mine, it would be Winter’s after so long being cursed by the uniting of seed and shadow magic.
Faerie would bend the knee to a new king and a new dawn.
I paused at the edge of a clearing, lingering in the shadows of the trees, listening to the rustle of bracken on the other side, the snapping of twigs.
Snow fell from a sky shimmering dark purple hues into the clearing, already covering the dark fae’s footprints. A luminous full moon ignited the forest in silvery light, the first time a moon so bright had kissed the ground in centuries.
Thanks to me.
“What is it, Your Majesty?” Queen Orla wondered.
The last Tuatha queen of Winter before the end of the Tuatha, now my soldier, a powerful creature in black armor like mine, skin as pale as the snow at my feet, hair as black as onyx. Her eyes were twin orbs of midnight—the black eyes of the Tuatha fae we shared.
Beside her, the preceding King Eoghan. A handsome man of rich, dark brown skin, long curly black hair, and wide, Tuatha black eyes. Slain in battle centuries ago, alive again. Returned to life by my new power.
Kormac…
I closed my eyes against the horrible memory of me driving the silver shard into him. The memory tried repeatedly to trip me up, to break me. My feelings for him had been changing, blooming into something new, something I wanted to explore.
I was robbed of that.
Kormac…
Taken from me.
Not mine to have. A companion, a diamond within the gloom. A creature of hidden layers I’d unpeeled, seen something better than the sum of his parts. Seen a man who’d slithered inside me, soul bond and more, a man who made me see things differently.
Because of Brigid, he was gone.
When this was done, I would find a way to obliterate her. I kept her alive for now because of her usefulness. She would not have her body, though.
I sniffed the cold air. “A strange scent,” I said. “Smoke with the smell of wet soil. As if it isn’t what I think it is.”
“Smokeless fire,” Queen Orla said.
“A jinn,” King Eoghan added. “I should have known.” He and the queen took it in turns to breathe in the smell.
“It certainly is smokeless fire,” the queen offered. “They are dangerous creatures. Always keen to bargain, always slippery.”
“Slippery?” I questioned.
“They grant wishes for heavy prices, one that serves their interests more than the one making the wish.”
“Will they make decent soldiers?” I wondered.
“I’m not entirely certain, Your Majesty,” King Eoghan answered. “In my day as Tuatha monarch, I did not deal with them. There were too many stories of wishes gone wrong.”
“Their groves are to the west,” Queen Orla said. “Close to the mountains bordering Autumn. They never stray too far from them. Yet these are new times, not like the years of my reign.”
They certainly were.
“Tell me a story,” I commanded. “One of a wish gone wrong.” I angled my head to the side, my eyes on the clearing, the king and queen there in my periphery.
“One that always stayed with me was of the human who wanted a golden touch,” the former king said.
“To turn anything he landed his hands on to gold, thus granting him untold wealth. He wanted to take the gold to Spring and strike deals with the Gentry fae, given their proficiencies with metal. Build a new life for his family, leave his Tuatha masters for good.” A brief pause.
“He, along with his wife, were servants to a Tuatha fae in the east of Winter, working within a manor as groundskeeper and maid. They had one son.”
“Did this take place within your reign?” I asked.
“No, Your Majesty. Much before my time.”
“I see. I gather the anything part of this tale is to be taken literally?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. He went west to the jinn groves and made his wish. At first, the human made golden apples, such small things becoming glittering wonders. Until he picked up his child and turned him gold, killing him. Then his wife, then all food, everything. His master cast him out, and he starved to death alone, his body found on the banks of a river.”
River… Much like my brother, Daire. He was slain at Acorn River near Kormac’s village Riverleaf after he… after he crossed a line. Killed helpless children, and a pregnant woman in cold blood.
Let him rot in the seven hells.
“How unfortunate for that poor man,” I said, taking a step forward.
“But fascinating. The jinn could be valuable weapons in the war to come.” I felt my lips spreading ever so slightly into a smile, parted by invisible threads.
“Think of the chaos they could bring, the false hopes they could give the enemy.”
“Though much too dangerous for us,” Queen Orla said. “The same chaos could be—”
I held up my hand to silence her.
She knew to keep her mouth shut when I made that move. The queen might be alive, but she was also long dead, her power diminished.
“I appreciate your counsel,” I said. “And I hear your concern. Regardless, I still want to speak to this creature.”
“That is your prerogative, King Valance,” she responded.
Why was this jinn wandering a forest so far from home?
Slippery…
Wishes…
One wish to bring him back…
There, an invasive thought wreathed in hope.
I could have him back in an instant, wish for him to return, to be the Kormac before I killed him.
But what would be the consequence? The human with the golden touch’s price was obvious from the outset.
Wishing a man I cared for back from the dead would come with complications.
I would need to be careful how I worded things, look out for pitfalls, talk through the details with the jinn until the wish became perfect.
I wanted Kormac back—an alive and healthy Kormac with nothing changed. Almost like a reverse in time to how he was, how we were, but without going back.
Ah, could that be the consequence? Going back in time? Was that even possible? Could magic do it with the right push and pull?
Certainly not me, my silver magic was a force of enchantment and summoning, feeding Winter.
I could conjure things to life, things that existed in reality—summon them from my mind into existence.
Being of Sidhe blood, which still remained within, I retained my skills as a seed sorcerer with an affinity for the earth element.
I could call to earthly things, so long as they were around me, command them to bend to my will.
Like the trees and the dirt, now extending to the snow and ice and winds of Winter.
A growing and blending of my power into something great, but nothing like wishes. Nothing to change the course of fate.
“How can jinn make wishes come true?” I asked. “They are dark fae. They use a weaker form of silver magic than mine, do they not?”
Any creature of Winter with the proclivity for magic—namely darklings—used silver magic in some form.
“A wish is an enhancement,” the croaky, aged voice of Brigid filled my ears.
A chill beyond the cold of the forest licked across my skin. “I thought I told you to wait in the carriage.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I was concerned.”
“Were you now?”
“Always, My King.”
“Concerned enough to disobey my orders?”
“Do you require my counsel on the jinn?”
I glanced at her pale, lined face, her silver eyes the only vibrant thing about her. She blew a strand of greasy gray hair out of her eyes.
“Did I ask for it?” I countered her question.
“They are dangerous,” she responded with no regard for my authority. “They might be of lesser power than a Tuatha monarch, but they’re the most dangerous of the dark fae. Let the jinn run back to the west. Wishes are not for you.”
I loathed the sound of her voice, and her being right. My hatred for her, for her serious manipulation, forced me to push against her—no matter how foolish that push might be.
The last thing I wanted was to be her puppet, even if her strings still weighed heavy upon me.
One day, darkling. One day…
I drew my sword and broke from the trees, moving quickly across enchanted snow—enchanted by me, so we didn’t sink into its deepness.
“Your Majesty!” the floating head cried.
I held back a laugh at her panic.
What’s wrong, darkling? Did you not plan for the jinn? Are you worried I’ll wish away your schemes?
The king and queen joined me without protest, falling in line as they should with their new king.
We charged through the thick bracken on the other side of the clearing, snow bursting upward from the force of our impact. I brushed flakes from my eyes, delighting in the distant squeak of the terrified jinn.
Harder and faster, leaping over fallen trees, churning up the snow. Focused on my target, my curiosity an inferno in need of constant fuel.
There…
There it was.
I unleashed my power, silver ribbons tearing from my fingertips. They snapped and whipped like snakes on the trail of their prey. I felt the jolt in my bones, the snagging of the silver ribbons around a solid body. The jinn screamed, my run slowing to a walk.
Now it was mine, magic sliding deep into flesh, into blood, into bone. The jinn resisted, trying to fight back against the enchantment to halt, failing miserably.
“Be still,” I whispered into the dark, snowy forest. “You’re mine now.”
The creature stilled.
Stood between two trees, a beam of moonlight drowning its body, snow falling on its head.
The jinn’s yellow eyes fell on me. It was a small thing, no bigger than three feet.
Thin, most of it covered in gray fur from some skinned animal that dragged in the snow.
Its face resembled the texture of rough bark, its skin a faint blue tone—the color of cold lips.
The jinn hissed. “Stay back!” It spoke in a soft male voice, somewhere close to a baritone yet not quite.
It stank of that soil-like smoke.
“You would ask your king to stay back?” I said, sheafing my sword.
Those pupilless yellow eyes widened. “King?”
“Yes. Your king,” I replied. “Did you miss the change in Winter’s air?”
The heavy lines of his forehead twisted, splitting into something resembling a frown. “You’re him? The new Tuatha?”
“Yes.”
“The living old blood.”
“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”
“Your Majesty. I apologize for my insolence.”
“Good. Now tell me why you are so far from home.”