Princess of Blood (The Shards of Magic #2)

Chapter 1

The Blood Tree rose before me, tall and impossibly ancient.

Its branches had been bare the last time I’d been in the vast stone chamber leading to Blood House—during the immortality trials, when the tree had shown me a lifetime of my sins—but now they were covered with crimson leaves.

The stone tiles beneath my feet felt alive.

Power thrummed through the chamber, an invisible current that brushed against a strange new inner sense.

I shivered at the sensation, just one sign of the tremendous and frightening change I’d undergone.

I wasn’t human any longer.

I was a faerie—and the new leader of Blood House.

Welcome, Princess Kenna , a voice whispered inside my head. Liquid, female, throbbing like a pulse.

“How do we get inside?” These words were spoken out loud, and I turned my head to look at the speaker.

Lara, my former mistress and the excommunicated heir to Earth House, looked as exhausted as she sounded.

Like me, she had one arm around a drooping, distant-eyed woman with a shaved head and skin newly lined with scars: Anya Hayes, my best friend from the human world, who I’d thought dead until a few hours ago.

She’d been unresponsive but capable of walking when we’d left the corpse-filled throne room, but she’d sagged more with every step. Now she seemed barely conscious.

My chest hurt unbearably as I looked at them. The three of us had survived months of danger and a night of carnage, but at what cost? Lara had been stripped of her magic, her family, and her home; Anya had been tortured in unimaginable ways.

“I’m not sure yet,” I told Lara. “I need to figure out what the trap is.”

All six Fae houses in the underground city of Mistei had dangerous traps at their entrances.

They were tests only house faeries could pass, while intruders were killed gruesomely.

Fire House burned unwelcome visitors with a curtain of flame, Earth House drowned them in a tunnel of water…

What would the faeries of Blood House, who could magically manipulate bodies, have done to keep their borders safe?

They were my borders now, I supposed. The entirety of Blood House had been massacred five hundred years ago by King Osric, but now Osric was dead and the house had been resurrected in the form of…

me. Just me. The six Sacred Shards that had brought magic to this world had gifted me with immortality and magic, and in exchange, I was supposed to “restore the balance.” Whatever that meant.

However one person could possibly do that.

My gaze ran over the entrance hall. The checkered black-and-white stone tiles were etched with the faces of monsters, and the gray walls were carved with beings of all types, too: Noble Fae, Underfae, and the dark, twisted Nasties that inhabited the lowest levels of Mistei.

The Blood Tree dominated the chamber, reaching its gnarled limbs towards the distant ceiling, and beyond it was an enormous silver door covered in spikes.

I wondered if the Blood Shard was listening to my thoughts, since it had spoken in my head in that dark, welcoming voice. Any help? I thought towards the room in general. A hint on what the trap is?

The Shard didn’t respond, but a coil of metal around my bicep did. Caedo—my bloodthirsty, shape-shifting dagger—was currently in the form of a spiraling armband, but it writhed like a serpent beneath my sleeve and sank sharp teeth into me.

I yelped in surprise, looking down at my arm. “Was that necessary?”

“What?” Lara asked, sounding confused.

Caedo nipped me again. You wanted a hint , the dagger said, its voice metallic and genderless in my head.

I eyed the projections on the door. If Caedo could drain a body in seconds, it made sense the house entrance could as well. Now I needed to figure out how to get it to not kill my friends.

“Can you hold Anya?” I asked Lara. My arm should have been aching from supporting her for this long, but I didn’t feel the physical exhaustion I would have expected after the throne room fight and the long walk here.

The Noble Fae were stronger and more resilient than humans, and I was one of them now.

I was immortal . It was unfathomable.

Lara nodded and looped her arm more firmly around Anya’s waist. I let go, heart pinching with grief when Anya wouldn’t meet my eyes. Did she still believe I wasn’t real? She sagged into Lara’s grip, shivering in her flimsy taupe garments.

She needed to get somewhere safe and warm. I would empty any number of veins to make that happen.

I walked around the tree, trailing a hand over its rough trunk. The leaves whispered and sighed. There was a pulse beneath the bark, one that sped until it mirrored mine. It was simultaneously welcoming and unsettling.

Ten more steps took me to the silver door, which was easily twice my height. The spikes covering it were as long as my forearm. Surely I wasn’t supposed to impale myself every time I wanted inside.

Then I spotted a sculpted silver wolf’s head on the right side of the door, nestled between several spikes at chest height. Its mouth was gaping, and when I bent to peer inside, I saw sharp teeth guarding a cylindrical silver rod.

I’m supposed to stick my hand in there? I asked Caedo silently.

Yes.

The nature of the trap came clear. If a house member grabbed the handle, the door would allow them inside. If an enemy tried, the wolf’s teeth would slam together, and the door would consume them.

I hesitated before sliding my hand into the wolf’s maw. Even knowing I was the new Princess of Blood, it was a relief when the door didn’t immediately bite my hand off.

The metal rod warmed under my palm, and the door started vibrating.

A rumbling sound filled the air, like the purring of some enormous cat.

Without any effort on my part, the door began to open.

I extricated my hand as it slid to the side on smooth tracks, revealing a blackened opening.

The air emanating from within smelled dusty and stale, with a faint, aromatic spice beneath.

There were more spikes at the edge of the door, thick ones that had been slotted into the wall. If someone tried to run through the door while it was open, I imagined it would either slam shut, or the points would shape-shift to skewer the intruder.

Welcome home , the Shard whispered in my head.

My skin tingled, and something in my chest—not my heart, but something dark and burning that wrapped around it—pulsed with awareness. The magic that filled me recognized its echo everywhere. A new sense had come to life inside me, like hearing without ears or feeling without touch.

I turned to look at my friends. Lara’s face was taut with apprehension, her brown eyes wide as they darted between me and the entrance. Anya still stared at nothing, lost inside her head.

“Blood Shard?” I whispered, not sure where it was or how I was supposed to address it. “Can I bring them with me?”

Claiming a new house member is no small matter , the Shard said in a dark purr. The tree trunk glowed red in one spot, and light began spreading across the bark in branching rivulets. You must be certain.

I faced the heart of that crimson shine. “I’m certain.”

“Is the Shard…talking to you?” Lara asked softly. At my nod, she looked even more anxious.

“I want them to be members of Blood House,” I told the Shard more firmly.

Lara made a pained expression, though she didn’t protest. This couldn’t be easy for her. Earlier this night she’d been the first daughter of Earth, heir to a house of water and greenery. Now she was a magicless outcast, forced to take shelter in a house of bloodshed and death.

The bark parted, revealing a chunk of garnet-colored crystal.

It was hand-sized, curved on one side and jagged on the other.

Awe filled me. The Shard had been formed during the destruction of another world beyond the stars, if King Osric was to be believed.

It was the echo of a dead god, a vessel containing a fragment of magic that had been launched through the heavens to find a new home.

And it had chosen me to wield that magic.

Crimson light pulsed from the stone with each word. Then claim them.

“You approve?”

Nothing you do is for me to approve.

I wasn’t sure I liked that. The Shard had been a god once—it was supposed to tell me what to do, how to be a princess.

I am not the one who came before , the Shard corrected . I am magic and memory. The Shards are woven into the fabric of this world—we do not rule.

I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing up and down. The blue gauze of my half sleeves was wrinkled and dotted with flakes of dried blood. If it didn’t rule…apparently I did. “How do I add them to the house?”

Set the intention in your mind . If you will it, I obey.

The Shard was the house, I realized. Or maybe we were all part of something larger, connected by the magic we shared. The tree, the house, the Shard, Caedo…and me.

I closed my eyes, breathing in and out slowly. I claim these two as members of Blood House , I thought.

It is done , the Shard whispered back.

It was that easy? I opened my eyes again, then beckoned Lara and Anya forward. “You’re part of the house now.”

Lara looked mistrustfully at the spiked door. “Are you sure? What if it stabs me?”

“It won’t,” I said, though my underarms were growing damp from nervous sweat. Putting my faith in the honesty of a sentient rock was difficult, but that sentient rock had also saved my life and given me magic tonight, so I tried to project confidence.