Chapter 11
The Grand Hall thrums with anticipation. Opulent shadows flicker in the candlelight, and it is all so different and so far away from the forests of the Leafborne that my soul feels like crying.
I am standing amongst a sea of Sunborne fae from the citadel. Gathered together like this, their magic is palpable. I felt it as I walked through the streets towards Eldrion’s castle. But now they are pressed together, at least one hundred bodies filling the throne room with huge wings and even bigger egos, their strength so noticeable it brings beads of sweat to the back of my neck.
I always wondered why the Sunborne considered themselves so superior to other fae. Despite reading about arcane magic, and mind magic, and all the other kinds of magic the Sunborne possess, I still didn’t fully understand.
Here, now, I do.
For – even with the gates of my empathy sealed tightly – I can tell that their magic is different from elemental magic. It is stronger, and more dangerous, and it fights against the very air itself.
Leafborne fae might be able to control the air if they are so aligned, but there are Sunborne here who could extinguish the air completely. Who could make the universe implode if that is what they chose. It is a miracle they do not, and it makes me wonder what power Eldrion must possess that he is able to rule over them all the way he does.
At my side, Briony tugs on my sleeve. I glance at her, adjusting my gloves and trying not to let the significance of Eldrion’s gift creep insidiously into my consciousness.
If he is playing games, I will not join in. I will not be manipulated.
“There will be a performance,” Briony whispers. “Then the feast.”
“How often does this happen?”
Briony shrugs. “Whenever Eldrion feels he has something to celebrate.”
I wrap my arms around myself and rub my forearms. A shiver runs through me, and I have no idea whether it is because of the poison that still lurks in my veins or in anticipation of the night to come.
“He is not bringing the others to watch?” I ask, scanning the room even though I know I will not see any sign of a Leafborne in the crowd.
“No, only you.” Briony looks away from me and nods towards the centre of the room.
Usually, when I am in a crowd, I am noticed, stared at, backed away from. But at this moment, all eyes are drawn in the same direction. Waiting for the entertainment to begin.
“Why is Eldrion allowing me to walk free like this?” I whisper.
Briony simply shrugs. “He knows you can’t escape,” she says. “There are eyes on you. Always. Remember that.”
Before I can reply, darkness descends further, then a spotlight appears.
A figure emerges. His bare feet caress the stone floor silently as he strides into view, positioning himself in the centre of the spotlight as if he is presenting himself for our appraisal.
He is tall and slender, with the physique of an athlete, not a fighter. Cords of muscle run in rivulets down his arms, and beneath a black leather mask, he wears charcoal around his dark brown eyes.
Those eyes... I feel the urge to move closer.
“That’s Finn,” Briony says. “Eldrion’s favourite jester. His only jester since the others were...” She hesitates and glances at me. “Executed.”
“Executed?” The word thickens on my tongue.
“They were no longer to his liking,” Briony replies, hugging her waist as if she is very keenly aware that this could be her fate too if she displeases the man who owns her.
In front of us, the jester reaches up, grasping a length of black rope that dangles from the high ceiling. With a powerful leap, he swings himself upwards, his body twisting and contorting in mid-air as he climbs higher and higher.
The audience gasps as he performs a series of breathtaking aerial manoeuvres, his body spinning and flipping in ways that seem to defy the very laws of gravity. He wraps himself in the rope, using it as an extension of his own body, dancing through the air as if he is flying.
Except, his wings are small – painfully small, like Briony’s – and he is not using them.
“He is Shadowkind, like you?” I ask her.
She nods solemnly. “We all are. All the servants.”
The jester’s aerial display lasts for several more impressive minutes, then he descends back to the ground. Breathing heavily, he splays his fingers and pushes out his chest.
He drops the rope and stands completely still, watching the crowd.
A drumbeat sounds from somewhere at the back of the room and the jester paces out of the spotlight. In time with the beat, he walks slowly around the inner circle of his audience like a tiger prowling in a cage.
A belt of silver chains encircles his waist and he wears leather pants but nothing on his torso. As he paces, I slip forward in the crowd. My breath swells, straining against my ribs; he is captivating. I cannot look away.
As I stare at him, the air around him darkens but, amongst this ocean of power, his lack of magic shines like a beacon.
Somehow, he feels pure. Different from anyone I’ve ever encountered before and, yet, familiar at the same time.
I watch him meet the eyes of every man and woman in the audience, not speaking, just staring into their souls. When he reaches me, my hand involuntarily goes to my stomach and my entire body fizzes with heat.
He lingers longer on me than any of the others. His eyes find mine and hold my gaze steady as waves of warmth drip down my spine.
I know those eyes.
Staring at me, he does not blink or move, just holds me there. Captured by the secret that swells between us. He inclines his head the smallest fraction. A movement so slight no one else would ever notice it.
I do the same.
Because I know exactly how I know him and where I last saw those eyes; I saw them looking down at me while he held me close and the falls thundered around us.
I know him because he fucked me, and because – for the first time in one hundred years – he reminded me what it was like to be wanted.
I want to drop my guard and feel him. I want to pull off my gloves and slam my hand against his skin and absorb every bit of him because he is so completely different to anyone I have felt before. I felt it then, and I feel it now – amplified by the strength of the Sunborne and by our surroundings.
The sensation is sudden and overwhelming, and I am almost certain I’m blushing.
But then he turns, and his wings appear. Paper thin and almost completely devoid of colour, there are places where the light shines right through them as if they are not even there, and the fibres that strengthen them are almost completely invisible.
They are more like the memory of a pair of wings. A whisper. An illusion.
When he turns and I see the piercings that puncture their delicate ridges, the heat in my belly turns to ice. I have never seen so many but I know what those piercings mean, and I know now why he kept his wings hidden from me in the forest.
Because if I’d seen them, I’d have known he was Shadowkind and I’d have asked him to explain why he was there. In our forest. At our festival.
He moves, and the piercings at the tops of his wings catch the light. I have read about them; there is one for every generation of his family that has been in servitude to the Luminael. And there are almost too many to count.
The ones at the very top chime gently as he returns to the spotlight, catching the eye of a woman with bright blue wings and silvery hair.
With deliberate grace, he beckons her forward. She grins and turns to her friends, who are nodding and smiling with approval. The jester – Finn, his name is Finn – holds out his hand and she accepts, a smirk playing on her lips.
Jealousy constricts in my throat.
He positions her in the centre of the light, then runs his hands down her arms and turns her palms up towards the ceiling. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a piece of thick, black rope. He presses it into her hands, then whispers something into her ear that causes her eyes to widen.
“What’s happening?” I turn, looking for Briony, but she has disappeared amongst the swathe of unfamiliar faces.
The drums beat faster, and the jester begins to dance. He contorts his body to the beat, telling a story I can’t interpret. Then – when the drums reach their crescendo – he stops, splays out his arms, and looks down at his feet. There is a moment of complete silence, and then he turns to face the woman and kneel at her feet.
The woman looks down at him and licks her lower lip. She assesses the ribbon in her hands, then pulls it taut.
The jester looks up at her and nods.
She smiles, then steps around him and – pressing all her weight onto his wings – pushes so they curl inward.
Finn lets out an anguished cry. The crowd claps and cheers. Beneath my skin, my own wings shudder with sympathy and I yearn to be closer to him.
When his wings are fully curled in, pressed against his back in an impossibly painful position, the jester raises his arms. Without hesitation, the woman begins to bind him. She snakes the rope around, and around, and around his body – pulling it tighter every time his wings twitch or he moans in discomfort.
This Sunborne fae revels in the control she’s been granted and the audience watches with a mixture of fascination and arousal.
Gracefully, Finn stands. His wings are bound tightly, his movements deliberately restricted. This time, when he paces the circle, he keeps his back to us, allowing us to see the way the rope presses against the tissue-like flesh of his wings and how they visibly pulsate with pain.
I flex my fingers, ice-cold inside my gloves, and look away. I’m about to push back through the crowd when the air changes. The drums return – louder, faster, harder. The jester roars. His muscles strain, his eyes flash. And with a sudden, forceful motion, he breaks free from the bindings, his wings springing free.
A smile parts my lips but quickly fades when this moment – which in another place could signify a reclaiming of power – is met with laughter and applause. As if it is a hilarious joke.
The Sunborne view the jester’s display of strength as simply part of the evening’s entertainment. They clap, and laugh, and the Sunborne woman who bound his wings sashays back to her husband with a smirk on her face that makes me want to scream. Her husband squeezes her arm and kisses her cheek, staring at her as if her participation in the dance has affirmed her dominance rather than undermined it.
The jester stands completely still, breathing heavily, eyes closed. A strong jaw and a stubbled chin protrude from the mask he wears. His lips are full, and his hair protrudes in unruly tufts. His throat twitches when he locks his gaze on mine.
A shudder runs through me and settles beneath my skin, simmering, fizzing, vibrating. How is he here? What does it mean that we have been brought together like this?
The music changes. The drums are no longer sinister heartbeats but pulsing rhythms that nudge the Sunborne court into a flurry of movement.
As they filter towards the centre of the room and begin to dance, the jester remains amongst them. Now performing magic tricks, winking and smiling, his entire demeanour has changed. And I do not need to be feeling in order to see it.
With a flourish of his hands, he captures the attention of those nearest him. While some continue to dance, others form a small crowd around his slender figure. I linger on the periphery, entranced by the shift in his aura. It is as if he possesses two different faces, and it is impossible – even for me – to tell which is real.
Grinning at a pale-haired Sunborne male, the jester plucks a single leaf from the air – a leaf that wasn’t there a moment ago. Vibrant green and seemingly ordinary, it twirls between his fingers. His lips begin to move and, with a whispered incantation that is barely audible above the murmur of the crowd, the leaf starts to shimmer, casting a soft, emerald glow around him.
Onlookers lean in as the jester, with a sly grin, folds the leaf in his palms. When he opens his hands again, the leaf has transformed into a fluttering butterfly, its pale, purple wings catching the light as it takes flight amongst the audience.
“Is that all?” A woman nearby coughs.
“Shadowkind have little magic,” replies another. “What did you expect?”
“He should stick to dancing.”
The other woman hums in agreement, and something snags in my gut when her eyes catch on the jester’s muscled physique. Jealousy? Am I jealous that she is looking at him that way?
I’m still watching her, trying to interpret my own emotions – which somehow seems so much harder when I am blocking others’ – when her eyes widen.
With a subtle flick of his wrist, the jester has directed the butterfly in a graceful arc over the heads of the onlookers. It flutters inches away from the woman who asked, is that all?
She stares at it, a pitying smirk on her face.
Then, in a blink, the single butterfly becomes two, four, ten, fifty... a cascading effect that continues until a small, mesmerising swarm of identical pale purple butterflies flutters up to fill the ceiling of the ballroom.
Each butterfly moves in perfect synchronisation, forming intricate patterns in the air – first the shape of a blooming flower, then shifting into the form of a dancing fae, and finally, a delicate, fluttering crown that seems to hover directly above the jester’s head.
As he moves, the piercings on his wings chime gently and a smile parts my lips because my butterflies are always purple too.
As the butterflies dissolve back into harmless leaves, floating gently to the floor, a round of applause fills the room. The jester bows deeply, his eyes sparkling with mischief and the faintest hint of pride, before moving on to his next trick.
The dichotomy of his auras is enchanting. I cannot stop staring at him. While he is now full of jovial smiles and laughter, the first part of his act meant something. Deep in his soul.
And I wonder if it meant something to Briony and the other Shadowkind of Eldrion’s court, or if that is why she walked away – because she couldn’t bear to watch him.
For the audience, it was entertaining. For him, it was bigger than that. It was a fuck-you to the man who keeps him here.
A hand on my elbow forces me to turn away from him. Briony blinks up at me. Her face is pale, and she is worrying her lower lip with her teeth.
“What is it?” I ask, my brow crumpling into a frown.
She glances towards the empty throne at the helm of the hall. “Lord Eldrion requests your presence,” she says, staring at her feet, swallowing hard. “In his chambers.”
I cross my arms in front of my stomach, bringing my wings with them to cradle my shoulders. “I assume I cannot refuse?”
Briony shakes her head. “No, you may not.”
“Very well.” I draw myself up, determined to fight with every breath in my body rather than let this man lay a single finger on me – because that is clearly what he has planned. “Take me to him.”