Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
THE PRAYERS OF DUST
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.
—Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6
Three Weeks Before the Midnight Ball
A ncient, arresting grief snatches my breath as I enter the cemetery. Staggering, I let myself fall to my knees and press my forehead to the damp ground, digging my nails into cool soil.
I've never felt something like this.
Not when the sleeping Prince killed my mother in the House war, not when Lord Baroun used me as bait to lure my brother into a trap.
Certainly not when High Lord Embriel Gauthier, son of the Prince and my brother's best friend, lay dying in my arms, his blood soaking my lap and turning his pale hair scarlet, vengeance ashes in my mouth.
Irises of the purest cerulean had stared up at me, old affection in his eyes.
“Don't blame yourself, Aerinne,” he'd murmured. “But don't hide from the consequences. Power wielded without consequences creates waking nightmares. The Dark Fae never learn.”
His eyes will haunt me until I take my last breath. I'd targeted him, killed him in revenge for my mother and brother.
Killing doesn't bother me, but that? That was murder. The weight of the secret drives me mad from waiting. The day the Prince returns to living and discovers what I've done, I expect no mercy.
All warriors hope for a quick death; I doubt that will be my fate.
I swipe tears from my cheeks and glance up, frowning, then push to my feet and close the distance to my mother's grave.
Streetlamps flicker. On, off, as if the hybrid solar, gas, and magical grid helping support Everenne is overloaded. Fear uncoils in my gut. That invasive tidal wave of grief…what Fae could propel a psychic emotion of that strength across an entire city?
My abdomen clenches, stomach roiling. He’ll know as soon as he wakes his only son is missing and presumed dead.
Darkan? I need you.
There’s no response, only silence, the silence he maintained for weeks after Embriel died.
Letting out a breath as I kneel at my mother's grave, I murmur the prayer, the light of a half-moon shimmering over her headstone in Faronne District's cemetery .
“If any Ancients still answer the prayers of dust, let the blood and tears I've shed be enough.”
As it has a hundred times before, my iron blade bites into my skin. There’s a brief line of fire before my partial humanity quells the iron poisoning, then my blood drips down.
Grant us victory in death’s stead; Faronne will endure.
Are you there, Dark angel? Please.
My lips twist. Darkan might be a figment of my imagination, an aspect of my personality split off to help me cope with the trauma of war, but I don't care.
When I reach for him, invisible arms circle me.
When I call him, he comes. Some days his acerbic tutelage drives me insane, and other days his calm wit keeps me from the brink.
If loving him means I’m loving myself, I’m good with that. If loving him also means I’m insane…I'll join the billions of other crazy people on this planet.
I stand. I’m a fool to think anyone might hear?—
A noiseless percussion of power picks me up and throws me against a nearby tree, shaking the trunk until leaves fall down around me. At my back, the subtle hum of streetlamps outside the stone walls of the cemetery dies. If we'd allowed cars in Everenne, they would have stopped as well.
Silence. Awful silence, then the impression of a tearing veil, a wrathful being stepping fully into this Realm. Sharp, focused awareness.
A gaze turning toward me.
Seeking.
My fingers clench. My heart rate trips, then lunges into a gallop as every fear I've nursed for the last several years floods my mind .
I push to my feet, and run.
Something is awake.
I think…it was triggered by my prayer.
Faronne’s cemetery is in the heart of our District, and it's a swift jog through the misty night to the rendezvous point, my feet silent on cobblestone streets. No one's out. Wooden shutters are tightly latched on the stone rowhouses, which tells me I hallucinated nothing.
“Aerinne!”
Juliette's hawk-eyed gaze zeros in on me when I arrive at the basement op room of a small safehouse where an eight-person unit gathers for tonight's strike.
Numair and Juliette, Lela and M?r?ngar? among them, all Knights of my House. Faronne’s Commander should arrive soon along with his mate.
Juliette wears black molded leather armor, blade-resistant pants, and a long-sleeved shirt like the rest of us, blades at her back and side, her honey-blonde braid draped over her shoulder.
She strides forward with her usual edgy energy and grabs my bicep. “Did you feel the power concussion?”
It’s a rhetorical question. Every Fae with any power will have felt it.
Numair approaches more slowly. A familiar pang assaults me. There'd been a third once, but she languishes in the palace dungeons.
“I felt it,” I say .
“So did I,” M?r?ngar? says, dark eyes serious as the team gathers around. My father's nephew, despite his witch blood he shouldn't have noticed the magical signature of a psychic Fae attack.
Now I understand the grim faces. A human felt the silent blast. If I had doubts before, I have none now. “Have any injuries been reported?”
Juliette shakes her head.
I turn east in the direction of the palace. “It’s him.”
Fae don't have true deities. We have our Ancients, so old and powerful that to retain shreds of sanity they mentally retreat from life, maintaining brain activity by drifting on several planes of consciousness.
We also have the Old Ones.
édouard, Commander of House Faronne, enters the room, his mate Tereille at his side. Tereille greets each person, his easy smile and affectionate manner decreasing the tension several notches.
Ash-blond hair falls loosely over édouard's shoulders, but the romantic waves do nothing to soften the harsh angles of his face and his perpetual scowl, or the agate hardness of his black eyes.
Even as an older cousin, he technically doesn't outrank my status as presumptive Heir.
“Why now?” Lela is asking.
“Because he's finally aware of what Aerinne did,” édouard says.
Several piercing gazes turn on me.
Juliette explodes first. “What did you say?”
Annoyance edges édouard's flinty gaze as he stares at Juliette. “You heard me. But since I doubt your ability to comprehend simple sentence structure, I'm happy to repeat myself if you ask nicely. I’ll wait.”
I curl my hand into a fist but remain silent. I can't fight with my own Commander and expect cohesion in the ranks.
Juliette bares her teeth. “Maybe he's waking because you're an ass, and your attitude stinks all the way to the palace right up into his nostrils.”
“Or I'm right, and her childish temper put our entire House in jeopardy. What was the one rule? Don't wake the fucking Prince. What did she do? The one action, that, above all others, was guaranteed to wake the fucking Prince.”
“Maybe he should be concerned about waking me.” I keep my voice even. Somehow.
Tereille slips an arm around édouard's stiff shoulders, whispering in the Commander's ear. Probably trying to calm him down.
Piercing gazes sharpen to points. No one here is stupid, unfortunately for me.
Juliette unsheathes a blade and turns on them. “Any of you speak of this, and I’ll slit your throats and make bloodbroth to serve your children.”
Lela is the only one in this room with offspring, but point taken.
Numair touches Juliette’s shoulder, his hazel eyes hard as he adds support to her statement. “We remain loyal. If High Lord Danon finds we ill-treated his sister once he returns, he'll be pissed.”
“You think he's still alive after years rotting in the palace dungeon?” édouard sneers, voice flat .
Juliette lunges for him and Numair grabs her arm. Technically édouard can reprimand her for this display since she’s a knight under his command…but she'd get him back for it later.
Tereille shifts in front of his mate, calm and smiling, but his expression a bit harder around the edges.
“Ard, that's not helpful,” he says, and casts me an apologetic smile. “Dan is still alive. We're sorry, Rinne. Everyone is under stress right now.”
The words stab into my heart. Danon is the only living relative of my mother's direct bloodline, at least on this side of the Realm gate. I can't lose him.
…perhaps I should have thought of that before I murdered Embriel.
The thought almost feels like a whisper of Darkan’s voice. Malicious, tearing away any delusions I allow myself.
“We have work to do,” Tereille continues. “Can we fight on our down time?” He gives the others his disappointed puppy look. That puppy morphs into a slavering Darkhound when triggered, but okay.
“What downtime,” someone mutters.
After a moment, édouard flicks his gaze around the room and narrows his eyes.
They nod. My cousins will hold their tongues. For now.
“édouard's right,” I say as we begin a final weapons check. “The Prince is waking because of me.”
Juliette glances at me, her body vibrating with tension. “You don't know that, and speculation is as pointless as your useless guilt.”
She turns her back on édouard. Numair angles himself to keep an eye on her and the blade still in her hand .
“It doesn't matter. We can't abort.” I answer the unspoken question despite gnawing worry.
Numair glances at me, eyes softening. Pretty even for a Fae male, brown hair brushes below his ears, just touching his broad shoulders. “You should sit this one out, Rinne—no, don't give me that look.”
édouard speaks, terse with strangled hostility. “She should be holed up in a safehouse before her presence draws the Prince and gets her and us killed.”