7. Delphine
Three days.We’d stolen time.
Now we just had to steal a war.
We were met with guards at the top of the cliffs, soldiers dressed in gleaming white armor of that caliber only a fae could make. I knew—we all knew—exactly where we found ourselves in that moment.
The kingdom where the fae ruled over humans.
The kingdom Nyx had warned us about.
It was a different kind of envoy from the one that had greeted us at Tethys’ doorstep.
They brought arms, but didn’t wield them. Their faces were grave, stony, but unsurprised. Five powerful fae had just risen from their sea, and not one of them was phased. At their head was a fae with fiery red hair, his eyes a turquoise blue so bright that they looked like gemstones embedded in the marble of his skin. They’d been expecting us.
Nereus’ words rang in my mind a second time. How quickly had word spread through the realms of Deimos about his deal? How much quicker, still, would word spread of our departure?
Would Deimos still offer his deal once he knew what we had done? Would he march on our courts in our absence?
Worse, still, would our own fae stand beside us if they thought that we had abandoned them? We might have left Avarath for one day, but it might not be the same place it once was when we returned to it.
That was the gamble we had taken. That was the price we paid for time.
There was always a price to be paid.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nyx’s footsteps falter at the sight of the guard that awaited. The path wound up before us, leading towards the gleaming soldiers. Behind us, the sea darkened with every moment, the echo of its waves deepening as they rolled across the craggy surface of the cliffs. The pebbled path shifted beneath my feet as I turned to see him squinting up at the commander, a confused look on his face.
“So much for the dark fae,” he muttered. “I imagined him looking different than that.”
Both Armene and Caldamir turned to him, eyes narrowing.
“Dark fae?” Caldamir asked.
Nyx’s gaze flickered back to us, and something like a blush of embarrassment rose in his cheeks.
“I didn’t mention him before?”
Our silence, especially the gritted teeth that caused that all-too-familiar muscle in Caldamir’s jaw to bulge, was all the answer he needed.
That blush deepened as he stuttered out, “Icarus, the dark fae who rules these lands,” he said. “He came up often.”
“How so?”
It was Tethys this time.
His question surprised me. I turned to see him, looking for any sign that he knew the answer already. I found none.
I wondered how much he knew of why we were here, how much he acted on instinct, pulling at a thread like the one I felt tugging on my soul now. It had grown stronger, tightened with every step we’d taken from the moment Deimos appeared in that throne room. Maybe I’d felt it before, from the moment I became fully fae and ascended to the role of high king, even before I knew it. Or maybe it had only awakened in me once I knew what I was. Either way, it was there, now, winding and tightening more and more, refusing to be ignored. I liked to think it meant I followed fate, though where fate took us, I didn’t know. If I knew, perhaps I would have fought it. But a fight with fate was not one I’d take on willingly, not when fighting alongside it already felt impossible.
“Nothing more than rumors,” Nyx said. “Too conflicting to remember any in particular. There was only one consistent thing among them.”
“And that was?” Caldamir prodded, when the Woodland Fae began to take on his distant, starry-eyed look again.
“He’s a fae to be reckoned with,” he said. “A fae to fear.”
Any doubt in Nyx’s words, in the warning passed on through a line of broken rumors, was dispelled the moment we were led to the council chambers, where one fae sat at the head of the table. His back was to the eastern sea we’d risen out of not long before, the chair on which he sat more like a throne, a symbol of his place at the table. We didn’t have to ask if this was the dark fae that Nyx had described, didn’t have to ask if he measured up to the tales the Woodland Fae had heard.
I felt his power. It was nothing like Tethys’, nothing like the power I’d felt on Seren when he was high king. His power was more like that of Deimos, but instead of oily slinking shadows, the power I felt from him was twisted.
Something about it wasn’t right.
But it was powerful still, and perhaps that was what made the sense of danger in me rise up more than ever.
Caldamir stepped up instinctively, bowing his head before addressing the fae who’d yet to speak. He watched us, studied us from a position too carefully casual. His chin rested on his hand, head slightly bowed, as he watched us through hooded eyes. His legs splayed out beneath the table, wrapped in the dark robes that pooled at his feet. Horns curled up from his head, tucked in a nest of dark curls that tumbled over his shoulders. More impressive, still, were the massive wings tucked behind his back, black and shining, so dark they looked to be made of night themselves.
The dark fae.
He’d earned his title.
Still, even as we came to stand before him, his white-clad guards at our back, he said nothing. Only watched. Only waited. He was measuring us up, still.
Though Tethys was the one who brought us here, though I was the one who possessed the power of the high king, it was Caldamir who stepped forward.
Not, however, without looking at me once, first, and waiting for my nod.
Something in me hardened at the gesture, not from bitterness, but from the respect the Mountain Prince showed me in that moment. It made Seren pause, too.
He’d instinctually moved to make the address himself. For a moment, I saw indecision cross his face for the first time. A stab of something like pain echoed through me. How it had to feel to lose his title, the place he’d rightfully earned. High king was my right by blood, but still, I’d taken it from him. I ached to know how this might change him. Change us. I felt it changing me, now. Even if I’d wanted to fight it, I wouldn’t be able to. It was a title I couldn’t give up. Couldn’t earn back. It simply was.
And that changed a person. That changed a fae.
“You’re the fae that rules this kingdom?” Caldamir asked as he straightened back up. I noticed that his hand never strayed towards his sword, though I knew he felt the same twisted power that I did. He had to. Even if he didn’t feel it, he could see it for himself.
“I’m Icarus,” the fae said. “And yes, soon I will be.”
His answer was bold.
Even if the twisted nature of this fae’s magic couldn’t be felt by all, it could certainly be seen by all who beheld him. His horns, his wings, the very pallor of this skin—something about him was as sick as it was darkly beautiful. He was unlike any fae I’d ever seen. A creature closer to a fiend than he was fae.
“You will be?”
Seren, it seemed, had finally found himself again.
I saw the way Icarus’ attention shifted to him, saw the recognition in the slight change of his posture as he sized him up and found him worthy. The sight of it warmed something in me, made pride rise inside the hollow, writhing chaos of my chest. We were all princes and kings here, and though this fae before us held a power I could barely comprehend, he was not yet ruler. He was not in possession of what we had.
He had power, but so did we, and it was weighted heavily on our side.
“So, who rules these lands then, really, if not you?”
Icarus sat back slightly, his elbow remaining bent on the table as he tilted back his head and drew in a breath. He spoke slowly, unhurriedly, as if he had all the time in the world.
We, however, did not.
I was sure he knew it, too. This was part of his game. We were playing it, but only he knew the rules.
“A queen sits on the throne,” he said, “but not for long.”
“And yet you command her men?”
Icarus’ eyes shifted to the white-clad armor at our backs.
“The fae of this court know where to put their trust. I may not hold the title of a king, but I certainly possess the power of one.”
If any other fae had spoken it, any lesser creature than the one before us, it would have been an insult. But Seren only tilted his head back slightly, his nostrils flaring as even he didn’t dare deny it.
Icarus’ gaze shifted then, to me.
“I’ve been waiting to meet you, Judge,” he said, for the first time leaning forward, for the first time a spark of anything other than apathy in his eyes. “I’ve been wanting to make a deal with you.”