Prologue
P ROLOGUE
ESTRELLA
The Queen of Air and Darkness believed that to love was to weaken oneself—that the adoration I felt for my mate would be my ruination. As I floated in the water, my eyes on Caldris’s as the bodies around me disappeared one by one, I couldn’t even say that she was wrong.
Only that he was worth it, anyway.
My own fear was nothing compared to the terror in those helpless blue eyes that I forced myself to hold, shutting out the others watching with disdain and undisguised curiosity from the beach, even as I felt the tentacle of shadows I’d seen moving beneath the surface of the water wrap around my ankle to pull me under. I didn’t let myself look away or lose sight of my mate’s gaze, knowing it might very well be the last time I saw it.
I moved my hands along the surface of the water, attempting to disguise the shadowy figure below so that Caldris wouldn’t see what I saw—the jagged teeth in the open, gaping mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him just one last time, but it was too little, too late. I knew it with the first feeling of that tentacle tightening around my leg, holding me firmly in a grip I had no hope of escaping.
As slowly as it had seemed to wrap around me, the tentacle jerked me beneath the surface. One moment I uttered a single word, and the next, water filled my mouth. The brine of the salt water was intense, forcing me to sputter and expend the only air in my lungs.
I stared up, watching the sun shining from above as it trickled and played with the water’s surface. If it hadn’t been for the pressure of the water filling my ears as the shadowed squid pulled me deeper and deeper into the cove, I knew I would have heard the roar of my mate.
I felt it in my soul, felt his anguish in every one of my limbs like the jagged edge of a blade peeling the skin from my flesh and leaving me raw. My heart lurched, desperate to offer him an apology I knew he’d demand if I survived. I’d put myself at risk to save him, but he never stopped to think about what would happen to me if he was gone.
There’d be nothing worth saving left and I too would soon follow him into the afterlife anyway.
I forced my gaze away from the surface when the ache in my lungs became too much. Even as a Fae, even with the immortality in my body and the knowledge that this would not kill me, my chest felt as if it had been stabbed with white-hot blades. The pressure in my head grew as I fought not to breathe, not to draw the water into my lungs for fear of what it might mean if I lost consciousness before emerging from the waters and into Tartarus.
The salt stung my eyes, but I forced them to remain open. I made myself watch as the limp bodies of the sacrifices to the Tithe were carried to the watery depths of the cove. In spite of the shadowed squid holding me in its grasp, the water surrounding us was filled with life.
Coral of all colors jutted out from the edges of the cove, surrounding me in a circle like a grotto as we dove straight down into the bottomless pit. The breath in my lungs faded, making my vision hazy as I fought to stay awake through the lack of air.
Others had been sent to Tartarus on Mab’s behalf before. I forced myself to remember they’d returned, having survived not only the descent but the prison itself. It couldn’t be all bad, not with the vibrancy that surrounded the entrance. The sheer beauty was like nothing I’d ever seen before, schools of fish swimming through the coral and brushing against the squid as if he was no threat to them. As if the great, gnawing mouth was a falsehood rather than a murderous weapon. A large turtle darted through the reefs, twirling his body around them with an elegance that seemed impossible. The turtles I’d seen that came up onto the shores of Mistfell had been awkward and slow, nothing like the smooth glide of this one through the water.
He came closer, brushing his shell against my arm as he swam past without a care in the world. I would have laughed if it hadn’t been for the lack of air, for the way my head filled with the thick haze of terror and my consciousness began to slip.
The sun faded as we plunged ever deeper, darkness surrounding me as my eyes drifted closed slowly. The walls of the deepest parts of the cove seemed to shimmer, offering the only light as the sun faded out.
I forced my eyes open again, the pain in my head becoming too much to bear. Taking in the beauty of the tiny, glowing dots on the walls of the cove, I wondered if this was how it was all meant to end. My body forced me to draw in that last breath, the burn of water filling my lungs in a single, searing fire.
Surrounded by a thousand colorful lights, the pain faded as quickly as it had come.
Everything faded.
Until there was only black.