Chapter 50
KORYN
The tower buzzed with excitement as we joined the mass of courtiers returning to the masquerade.
Many had dispersed to nearby rooms to partake in the physical matings that the Winter Tithe at Balar Shan demanded.
Had it been only an hour ago that I’d been wrapped in Garrick’s arms, with Syleris’ mouth on mine?
So much had shifted in that time. Maybe not for the better.
I had more answers. But those answers only underlined the danger of our situation.
There was no doubt that we were heading into the king’s domain. The presence chamber was symbolic of fae royal power. Even in covenant with Auri, I was at a disadvantage.
Isanara pressed in against my hip.
Would you listen if I sent you back down to our room?
She snapped her jaws—fangs within inches of my hand. I didn’t flinch. A fae male nearby crashed into the wall in his haste to get away from her.
No, she added. I’d already gotten the message.
What if I mentioned protecting your hoard?
My hoard is well protected in my absence.
What did that mean? But I did not get a chance to ask. The crowd spilled into the presence chamber but then stopped. Instead of spreading out around the dais and lining the walls, there was a strange bottleneck. A row of onlookers, several people in front of us, was not moving at all.
I took the moment to brush my fingertips along Garrick’s sleeve. “We cannot stay long. If I can feel the talismans, so can Maura and Elodie. They will know they are nearby, no longer hidden.”
“As soon as we can slip out,” Garrick agreed.
Once the king’s spectacle concluded, there was no reason to stay in Balar Shan.
We had the talismans. We’d collect Garrick’s mother, and we would flee.
Hopefully, the ongoing celebration of the Winter Tithe would give us enough of a head start that we could reach the Unknown Gate before any pursuers.
Maura would come after us. She would not let her plans unravel gracefully. She would kill us all if she found out.
My power moved in my veins, the icicles clinking against each other like wind chimes and echoing in my ears.
I’d felt my power before, of course. But I’d never heard it.
Was it responding to the proximity of the talismans?
I shivered. I spent half of my damn life shivering.
But this was not the Dark God, and it was not the cold.
Something was wrong.
My fingers closed around the edge of Garrick’s sleeve. We had already stopped, but he felt the change.
“What is it?” he asked.
It took me a few seconds to recognize, short as I was. But even over the heads of the taller fae courtiers, the thrones should have been visible.
“The dais is gone.”
Garrick’s head whipped around to verify for himself. He was tall, even among the fae, but many of the costumes for the Winter Tithe boasted feathers or helmets or ornate crowns, and he’d been distracted.
But why would the king remove the dais? Whatever the spectacle was, wouldn’t they want everyone to see it? I doubted the king himself would be content to watch from among the lowly courtiers in lieu of his throne.
Garrick pressed us forward through the lines of onlookers, now spreading out to get a better view. There was something to see at the center of the presence chamber, even with the thrones and dais removed.
Stay close, I urged Isanara. The last thing we needed was to be separated in this melee. But she was already pressed into my thigh, her tail wrapped around my arm that wasn’t tangled up in Garrick.
That wrongness I’d felt before built with every step.
Every brush of an arm against mine or heated exhale in the crowded space ratcheted my anxiety higher.
Fear—I’d seen fear in Auri’s eyes. I’d assumed it was because of the talismans, but I felt it now, myself.
I could not even attribute it. I was just… scared.
Garrick stopped moving. We hadn’t reached the front of the crowd. But he could see over their heads, now.
His hold on me tightened to the point of pain.
“Witch,” he whispered.
That word was the last warning I got before my world spun completely out of control.
Isanara.
She understood my request. She hissed and snapped her jaws, creating an immediate opening for us. I shoved my wide body through it, not caring how many lithe fae I elbowed out of the way in my desperation to see with my own eyes.
The crush of bodies had disguised the scent of blood.
The last time Maura had painted the pentagram, she used ash. But there was no mistaking the coppery tang or deep burgundy color of the lines inscribed atop the orange bricks of the presence chamber.
My body went rigid. “What is this?”
Maura did not stop her ministrations. She walked the lines of the pentagram, chanting as she did.
“Syleris.”
There was no answer.
The fear I’d felt—still felt—was a warning. My power had tried to get me to pay closer attention. But I’d been distracted by the talismans. Maura had more than one treachery in play… and I did not understand this one at all.
Stay back, I ordered Isanara.
While you risk your life? Not likely.
“Garrick, keep her back,” I said, shaking my hand loose of Isanara’s tail.
As if he could!
He looked equally dubious at the prospect. But even though he darted a glance at my familiar, most of his attention was on me. “Be careful, Koryn.”
He did not try to stop me. That show of trust helped me push past the fear.
If I got myself killed, the Lifebind would take him, too, and there would be no one left to protect his mother.
We would not make it to the Unknown Gate.
It was more responsibility than I’d ever wanted.
But I loved Garrick, and I wanted every part of him.
At least Alize would still have a chance at lifting the curse if something happened to Garrick and me.
Elodie stepped free of the crowd on the opposite side of the pentagram and took a place at one of its points.
I made sure to keep my feet well away from the bloody line painted on the floor.
My power thrashed, but I forced it back so I could speak. “What are you doing?”
The whispers of the crowd faded away, leaving behind only the chanting. Elodie had joined in with Maura. The words were in the old language of the witches, but it was not a spell I had ever taken part in. Still, it felt familiar.
Maura reached into a pocket of her cloak and sprinkled ashes inside the pentagon formed by the intersection of the five straight lines of the pentagram.
“Take your place, Koryn,” she said without looking up.
It was not just the words that were familiar. The entire setup was the same as…
The same as it had been when Maura murdered the fae woman by drowning her in blood.
No one was in the middle of the pentagram. Yet.
But there were people everywhere. Potential victims who did not realize what was coming. Maura and Elodie’s chanting only got louder.
Power was everywhere. Mine, Maura’s, the talismans. It was impossible to distinguish. Maura wouldn’t know we had the talismans. Even she could not sort through this much power effectively enough to pick them out. Not while she was actively casting a spell.
And then there was Auri. She’d been right behind us. My fragile sense of family was shredded apart as she slipped from the crowd and took a place on the second point of the pentagram.
Garrick lurched behind me, but whether he reached for me or tried to block Isanara, I could not turn around to look.
“What is this?” I demanded.
Maura finally straightened. She brushed the last of the ash from her hands as she considered me.
“This is a coven working together for the good of the whole,” she said. “Join us, Koryn.”
A tremor rippled through the crowd. Everyone turned away from the pentagram. Stupid. Do not turn your back on Maura—
But the fae of Balar Shan had learned to fear their king above all else.
The crowd parted, but not for the king himself. It was Alize who marched ahead. The king walked several paces behind her, Margeaux at his side. Queen Parry was nowhere in sight.
Alize’s movements were slightly jerky, lacking the windswept grace that I’d come to associate with her.
Like the rest of us, she still wore her costume.
It was hard to tell—several of the rays of her gold headdress had broken off, and her draped gown was ripped.
But I thought she’d dressed herself as the sun.
She stumbled over the torn hem of her gown, but before she could fall, her own knee bent out at an unnatural angle to catch her. Dark God save me. Alize was not moving on her own. The fae king compelled her.
He compelled her through the crowd to where the witches waited, to the center of the pentagram painted in blood where my once-sister witches chanted their spell.
My mind refused to believe what my eyes saw.
Garrick understood, too. He’d been there weeks before when the other fae woman was murdered. I’d stood aside and told myself it was because I needed Maura’s trust. I’d tried to accept that sometimes good and right were not perfectly aligned.
“You are going to kill her.” I’d meant to scream it as an accusation, but it came out as a whisper.
Maura’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot complete my work without an air-bound witch.”
The talismans.
No. No, no, no. I could not believe it. There had to be another explanation.
Garrick was at my side. Where was Isanara?
“Syleris, where are you?”
Garrick threw himself between Alize and the king, but it had no effect. Physical obstacles did not impede the king’s compulsion magic. Alize knelt in the center of the pentagram and held her hands together behind her back.
“Father.” The plea in Garrick’s voice echoed around the near-silent presence chamber. He was a second away from begging. Whatever he said about his relationship with Alize, this moment told the truth of it. I’d never heard him honor the king with that word, even though it was a physical fact.
The king looked past him.