6. Seren
Time moved more slowlyin Elysia, but somehow, my court had been plunged into chaos as if it hurdled forward instead. What should have felt like home instead felt foreign. It had a coldness to it that had nothing to do with the physical chill that settled over my court, so opposite of the warmth that radiated from the sun-trapped heat of the desert sands from whence I’d come.
I arrived in my court cloaked in fury.
I’d been betrayed by those I trusted the most, by those who were sworn to stand at my side.
I’d come back to my court to set things right, but the moment I stepped into Elysia, I knew more was wrong than the treachery I’d set out to address.
I felt it, not just in the atmosphere, but in myself.
Something had changed. Something wasn’t right.
The hall of portals was empty.
The last time I’d stepped into this place, it had been with Delphine at my side. I’d pulled her through the portals as the realms collided, emerged with a fae so long forgotten we’d not known to seek her out until she appeared in that pool we’d gifted to the Woodland Court. I hadn’t believed my eyes when I saw her, saw the fae inside the human fa?ade.
Nothing had visibly changed about my court, but I still felt a change as I strode into the halls beyond. Only this time, I was the one being looked at like the foreign creature who no longer belonged.
The glamour had not been leaching from my court long, but its sudden return had flooded Elysia with a barely contained panic.
I was a stranger among them, my existence going completely unnoticed as I stepped out into the sea of silver hair.
They should have felt my presence, should have sensed my return. I was their high king.
That’s when I knew that something was deeply wrong with Elysia. Something was deeply wrong with my court.
The last time that I was here, I was betrayed by my own kind. I was betrayed by those I trusted the most. I’d not known it at the time.
But I did now.
Time heals most things, but this was not one of these things.
I stopped only when the whole of Elysia was spread out before me, when the glittering, gem-encrusted streets were beneath my feet and the stone archways of the palace were at my back. I stopped only when I knew my voice would echo through every hallway, every alley, up every turret until it reached the fae that I hoped it would strike fear into the heart of most.
“Tarrack!”
Fury engulfed me at the sound of his name on my lips.
I feared for him, too.
I was no stranger to betrayal, but all those who had betrayed me were strangers to me, now. All those who had betrayed me no longer existed in this plane. In this realm. In any place but the Afterworld, where I’d made sure to send each and every last one of them.
It had been a long time since one of them dared betray me.
I wondered if Tarrack would have dared stand against me if he knew our Judge had returned, if he knew the consequences he would have to face.
Now that I was back.
He never expected me to come back.
I saw it on his face the moment he was brought before me. My voice should have shocked Elysia back into its rightful state. It should have sent my guards running to attend me. It should have calmed the wave of paranoia that had fae running huddled around the streets, their heads cast over shoulders as if they feared they were being followed. But, instead, it only seemed to unsettle it, further.
But I didn’t care. Not as much as I cared to face the fae that had wreaked all this havoc to begin with. He was the start and end of the tragedy we now faced.
Mordrigal was back, because I wasn’t able to stop Nyx, because I’d been powerless.
I’d been too slow.
I would have pulled every ounce of magic left in Elysia to stop him, but because of Tarrack, I’d had to sit back and watch the fae I love suffer the kind of loss she was never meant to suffer. Because of Tarrack, we’d already had one casualty in the war—before it had even truly begun. Two, if my lover’s heart was counted.
And I counted it.
Because of Tarrack, I was ready to rend my own realm, tear it to pieces, just to do her justice.
The seconds ticked into minutes, and the minutes dragged on. The few fae who had the displeasure of laying eyes on me, recognized me but didn’t stop, didn’t bow only turned and fled with wide eyes. That infuriated me more than anything.
My guards should have brought Tarrack to me. My voice should have shaken the realm, should have made all my subjects answer to me. Me, the high king.
Instead, all I was met with was silence.
Fine. If they wouldn’t come to me, I’d go to them.
It wouldn’t be just Tarrack now who would pay the price of betrayal.
They may not have felt me, may have chosen to ignore me, but I felt them.
I was not going to ignore them.
Tarrack was not alone when I found him.
The kings of Elysia had gathered together in the throne room where not so long ago they had bent the knee to me, acknowledged my claim to the high king’s throne, and sworn their fealty to me. Not so long ago, at all, and here they were now, gathered without me. Ignoring me. Ignoring my call.
It was akin to blasphemy, the kind of betrayal that would justify war and bloodshed, if it weren’t for the look of surprise on all of their faces. I knew the moment I looked at them that they had not felt me. Had not expected me. Had not even heard me. The glamour that was supposed to awaken within them at my return, as it had in the realm itself, had not called on them.
It was dormant.
Or sleeping.
Or so I thought.
Some of that rage within me settled, quieted in place of my own curiosity, my own surprise, until I saw him.
Tarrack.
The fae king who had imprisoned me in a collar without a key.
It did not matter his intention. It only mattered that because of this, that without my powers, Nyx had escaped us. Sol was dead. A prince of Avarath, Tethys, was lost to the old gods.
It only mattered that because of Tarrack, Mordrigal was back. War was inevitable. Again.
Tarrack had betrayed me, willingly or unwillingly, and the look on his face when he met my gaze told me he knew it, too.
He knew what was coming next.
Looking into that face again—a face that had once been so familiar to me, a face of a trusted advisor, a true confidant, and more than that, a friend—my rage rekindled with a burning fire that soon turned into an inferno.
I wasn’t Caldamir. I didn’t have a problem with rage. I didn’t have a temper that consumed me.
But this consumed me.
All I could see was Delphine’s face after her brother was taken from her.
All else faded away until all I felt was her pain. And then, all I felt was my own rage.
All for Tarrack, the ancient fae standing before me, his throne forgotten behind him as I strode to meet him. It didn’t matter that the Judge was not here. I would judge him myself, now, and face the consequences of it later. I would send his soul down to the Afterworld while his body remained here in pieces.
I would have too, I had no doubt of it, if the only fae who was able to stop me, even in my darkest moments, didn’t rise from her own throne to stand between us.
“No, brother.”
Itris stood nearly as tall as me, her head held high as she blocked my path.
Nearly.
If it were anyone else, I would have shoved her to the side, torn her apart if I had to, just to get to Tarrack. He now stumbled back, and as he did, as Itris’ stony frame barred me from reaching him, the rest of the kings rose and slowly moved to stand beside Tarrack. Behind Itris.
They moved to stand against me.
Something deep settled in me, something darker than rage, something more poisonous than fury.
Rather than cower back as Tarrack did now before me, I looked down at all those lesser kings standing before me, and I held my head even higher.
“What’s to stop me?” I asked. “I’m high king. This is my realm.”
“No, you’re not.”
Itris stood firm when she spoke the words, but I felt the way her magic shifted. Felt her reach for it slightly, as if preparing for me to reach for my own. And I did.
But when I did, when my fingers wrapped around that starlit glamour, I felt it.
I felt, at last, what was wrong with Elysia.
What was wrong with my realm.
But more so, I felt what was wrong with me.
Luckily for the other kings of Elysia, it was fear, not pity, that painted their faces when they saw me come to the same realization they had. I might not be high king, might not have that great power, now, but I still had all the rage. Their fear quelled some of that in me, and in that slight stillness that followed, I felt the loss of my power like water slipping between my fingers. I was not powerless. I was just…less. I’d grown so accustomed to the power of the high king before Tarrack put the collar on me that, in the absence of it, I’d forgotten. Now that I reached for it and couldn’t find it, I felt like I’d lost a part of myself.
Even without that great magic, I was still a force to be reckoned with.
I stole myself again. “Move aside, Itris. I may not be high king, but I’m a king, still.”
She didn’t budge.
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
Itris held her ground, unflinching as she met my gaze. Her words, each one, were like a dagger piercing ever deeper than the last.
“Tell me what you mean.”
“I am king of our line now, Seren. As I was when you took the high king’s throne. When you completed the court.”
My eyes wandered to the circle of thrones, to the one still sitting empty. The one that had been rightfully mine for a time, but no longer called to me the way it once had.
“And the high king?”
Tarrack, emboldened now that I’d been caught off guard, stepped forward.
“Delphine.”
“Delphine, what?” I snapped, my hands already bracing for the glamour about to wrap around my fingers.
“Delphine is high king.”
I’d been prepared to strike Tarrack down the moment he took that step, but he gave me the one answer that actually made me pause, again.
It was enough to make a small glimmer of hope light in his eyes, a spark of something that told him he might live to face another day, yet.
“She, like her ancestors, ascended the throne the moment she fully transformed into fae,” Tarrack said. “It was her birthright by blood, a claim far stronger than your own.”
I felt a sting at the sound of his words.
I knew the Judge used to sit on the high king’s throne, of course, but I’d never considered that meant Delphine, my Delphine, would inherit a throne now—or once—occupied by me. For a second, my fury with Tarrack was forgotten. All that consumed my mind in his stead was her.
This was no burden she should bear. She was so new to faerie, even newer to being fae. To have such responsibility thrust upon her like this, the duty of an entire realm set upon shoulders already set to break beneath the weight of her brother’s recent sacrifice… I bled for her.
I felt for her, not out of jealousy or my own loss, but for hers. It was no small task, the role of high king. I knew that all too well, and I’d only sat on that throne for a short while. I held my hands out before me, remembering for a moment the strength of the power that once flowed through them. Power that now flowed through Delphine’s veins. If she wasn’t careful that kind of power could ruin her.
In an instant, everything else was forgotten. I looked up to Itris.
“We need to get Delphine back here, train her to use this power.”
“If only it was so simple,” Tarrack answered, still. “Deimos figured it out first. He’s already offered her a deal.”
I felt, at first, the fury start to drain from me, but then I looked up at Tarrack again and it all came rushing back in.
In a second, Tarrack was no longer surrounded by kings so eager to protect him. He was, instead, pressed against a column with his feet dangling above the floor, my fist wrapped so tightly in his shirt that it nearly choked him too hard to answer me.
“Tell me she hasn’t taken it.”
I didn’t need to know the contents of the deal to know that if it was made by Deimos, the dark high king of the Afterworld, she shouldn’t take it.
“She’s still considering.”
“Deimos has threatened to take sides with Mordrigal,” Itris said, her hand reaching out to touch my shoulder. I tried to shrug her off, but her nails dug into me, pinning me in place. “They’re bringing war to the Sand Court, brother,” she said, quietly. “Tomorrow. In Avarath.”
Tomorrow.
The way time here worked, that meant only a few hours.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t high king anymore. Didn’t matter that I wasn’t even king. All eyes were on me, every ear listening as I reluctantly let Tarrack go. He collapsed to the ground in front of me, forgotten.
My only thought was back on her. On Delphine. On what I could do to save her, now.
“We have to fetch Delphine from Avarath. Bring her here at once. Protect her. Teach her. Make sure Deimos and the others cannot reach her.”
“It’s too late for that,” Tarrack said, and once again, all I wanted was to tear him into tiny pieces as I looked down at where he sat, crumpled sorrily on the ground.
“She’s not in Avarath anymore.”
His eyes were glazed over, that milky color of his power clouding them as he looked on at a sight only the king of his line could see without so much as a scrying crystal. When the cloudiness faded, his face was pale. He knew, when he met my gaze, that I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“She’s in the human realm.”
I stopped pacing.
“Well then, I’ll go to her there. I’ll bring her back here. We’ll end this nonsense before it begins, before she makes a mistake.”
I’d forgotten everything else, right up until my sister’s fingers dug even deeper, stopping me in my tracks.
“It’s not your call to make, anymore, brother,” she said.
“You would stop me from going to our high king’s aid?”
In that moment, I wondered if I might kill my own sister, after all. If she might be the blood that spilled between my fingers that day. She might be a king, a king who had all but stolen my old throne, and now held it above me, but I was filled with the kind of righteous rage that overwhelmed all else.
“No, Seren,” she said, “but we would stop you from bringing her here against her will.”
Footsteps shifted behind her, and suddenly, I was surrounded.
“Delphine is high king now, and we, the Starlight Court, stand behind her.”
My gaze was drawn to Tarrack so suddenly, the room spun.
“You knew.”
The words made him shrink back slightly, the target of my rage once more.
I finally tore myself free of Itris’ grasp and stalked up to stand before him.
“You knew. That’s why you betrayed me.”
For a second, as he looked up at me, that slight milky color crossed before his eyes.
“I don’t just see across realms, Seren,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Or have you forgotten?”
The hall had fallen silent. All eyes were on us, frozen where they stood, their feet and hands no longer reaching out to stop us.
“What have you seen, Tarrack?”
Tarrack closed his eyes for a long second, as if replaying a vision across the back of his eyelids. When they opened again, they were wide and bright. Too wide. Too bright. His pupils were tiny, as if he’d been staring into a bright light, and not into the darks of his eyelids.
Still, his words sunk in deep.
“Listen to the girl, and she may yet win us this war.”