14. Nyx
The palaceof the Eastern Court was too cold.
Too lifeless.
It was more than the fact that I was so far away from my own court. This place was different even from Caldamir’s Mountain Court. Though they were both made of stone, his was carved from the mountain, while here the walls and floors that made up the palace were hewn from far off stone. There was an air here of detachment, of otherness—much like the fae that walked these halls.
Just like me, they were not from this place, not truly, their very existence here as foreign as my own.
I didn’t need to be able to feel the glamour to feel that.
Footsteps echoed like alarm bells, even the quietest enough to warn me whenever another fae approached. My own fell without a sound, allowing me to move through the halls without being seen. It was a strange feeling, sneaking around like this. I’d never been one to hide my presence. I didn’t exude confidence like Caldamir, or power like Seren. I didn’t even carry the wicked charm of Tethys or the quiet honor of Armene. I didn’t have a presence that preceded me, a feeling that swept through any court or desert or even my own forests before I stepped into the light. I was the light. I was a fresh breeze or the brush of a newly unfurled branch in spring. You didn’t know I was there until I was before you, but once I was there, I knew I had an effect on fae and humans alike.
Not that it mattered now, not now that I was spoiled.
The ghost of my severed hand flexed at my side, a constant reminder of what had once been.
But I didn’t need that effect now. I needed only the silence.
For where I was going, I needed it more than ever.
I had no map of the palace, but I didn’t need one. There was only one way to find the place that I was headed—and that was down.
The Woodland Court had never had a need for dungeons. But in this place, with its strange feeling and its strange fae, I understood why they did.
Whatever Icarus had set into motion here in Luxia, it was well underway. There was an air of urgency to the way the fae traveled through these halls and outside in the courtyards, soldiers and common folk alike. Words were made in whispers, glances cast over shoulders before lips moved. No one was to be trusted. Least of all me, if I was caught. Icarus might claim we were his guests, but I had no doubt we’d just as easily become his prisoners if I was caught.
Especially once I found what I was looking for.
I didn’t have my magic, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have the rest of my senses. I was a hunter, a tracker, a fae born and bred to find the smallest of creatures in the maze of the thickest forests. I could find a door that was supposed to be hidden. I could find a stairway that wasn’t meant to be found.
And I did.
The stairs were unlike the cold, unfeeling marble that made up the rest of the palace. They may have been cut from that same distant marble, but they carried none of the light that was cast in red and white. They were dark, damp, slippery with salty moisture that had risen from some place far below, where the sea met the pebbled shore. They spiraled down beneath me, each step cold and wet beneath my feet. I kept one shoulder to the wall, my hands itching to reach out and catch me if I lost my footing. There was no railing to stop me stumbling down over the dark edge of these steps, from falling into the pit at the center of the spiral.
With each step, the air grew colder, the scent of that salt stronger. More rotten. Like water that had sat too long beneath the beating sun, yet still refused to dry up. Each step carried me deeper into the bowels of this palace, each step the scent of rot, carrying with it the images of those trapped far down below, left to die as the scent of death overwhelmed them.
But it wasn’t death I was seeking.
Even if I’d already committed to my own.
The stairs spiraled so far down that the cold and damp grew great enough to make me shiver. I was a creature of the forest, a creature used to dappled light and shadows no greater than the ones the trees could provide. This sort of cold and damp were unnatural to me, the rot and stench of this place nearly as unbearable as the rot I’d once found in my own kingdom. But it was that image—the one of blackened, shriveled trees, that drove me forward despite the unrest in my soul. I’d never let that happen to my court again. I’d never let that happen to the girl that I loved. I’d seen the way Icarus shriveled, too. I hated to think that if Delphine was driven to use that same kind of magic, to drain herself so completely of the glamour, that she’d shrivel in the same way. So, if there was something I could do to stop that, something I could do—like my brothers did now—to ensure we won this war before it began, then I had to do it, too.
The end of the stairs led me to a long, rough corridor. At last, the walls were no longer made of that perfect, flawless marble. They were cut from the rock itself, the stone of the land so far beneath the edge of the sea that I could feel the pressure of the water bearing down on my head from the other side. I walked in darkness for a while, guided only by the growing sound of something in the distance, the clank of iron on stone, and then, as I grew closer, the soft kind of moans that come long after the energy to despair had died.
I loathed the deep darkness until I saw what was in the light.
Flickering torches broke that blackness, and with that dancing light came the sight of the Eastern Court’s dark side. They were not kind to the prisoners they kept.
The cells of their dungeon were a far cry from the polished white perfection of their halls. The mere memory of the sterile emptiness of the rooms we’d been given to work in were dirtied the moment the sight of the cells came into my vision. I’d never seen anything like it.
The scent of rot was sharper, sharp enough now to distinguish the mix of bodily fluids that mingled with death. The moans grew louder, muffled only by the sound of chains grinding across the dirty stone floors. I felt the grit beneath my own soft boots, the silt and sand itching at my heels through the worn leather. The air was still and stagnant, so thick with grime that each breath felt as if it carried grit into my lungs. This was a place that had once been long abandoned, the prisoners now clinging to the outer corners of the cells, newly broken.
Their clothes were not turned yet to rags, their skin not turned yellow from scurvy or sallow from hunger. In their eyes, when they saw me, they still held hope—as sure a sign as any that they’d not long been captives of these cells. Knowing that did little to quell the way my stomach turned at the sight of them.
They might not have been here long, but in that short time they’d disintegrated into creatures barely bordering on fae. Filth clung to them like a thick film, their nails broken and embedded with black dirt from where they’d clawed at their chains and at the ground in search of scraps. Empty water bowls, set out as if for dogs and not for our own kind, remained bone dry where they’d been forgotten at the entrance to the cells. The first fae that spotted me said nothing, only watched me in angry silence once their eyes saw no sign of food or water. This was not the first time a fae had wandered in here, not the first time they’d been disappointed. Not the first time they’d lost hope.
It gave me the freedom to move between the cells without being clawed at, but it didn’t stop my stomach from turning sick. Who could walk amongst these fae and not feel pity? What crimes could they have truly committed to deserve such treatment? Even Deimos, high king of the Afterworld, didn’t torture his souls so. This was against every principle of faerie.
I might have expected this from the humans, but never the fae—even if those fae were of another realm. It didn’t matter how long the fae had been here, in Luxia, how far removed they were from the same glamour that flowed through my veins.
Each step carried with it the weight of eyes, even though the fae they belonged to said nothing. Some were filled with fear, others desperation. In none of them I saw hope. I’d been a prisoner myself once, locked in a cell far more forgiving than these, magic at my disposal to create a small corner of my own court within it. I’d found a spring of hope there, a way to remind myself of who I was, of what I was, but the fae I found here had none of that.
None, at least, until I saw her.
There was something different about her, something I’d only recognized once before, in Delphine.
That was when I knew it, when I knew who she was, what she was, even before her own eyes lifted to meet mine.
I didn’t need to know her name to know who she was.
I didn’t need to feel the glamour, to sense how it had to ebb and flow around her like a web that wound directly to her. It wasn’t the color of her hair, so bright it rivaled that early morning red of the sun, or the bright turquoise color of her eyes, so piercing, that tugged at the recognition in my soul.
It was the look in her eyes, the indeterminable spirit of her soul. This was a fae that was bred for fire, for a fight, and she alone stood amongst the mere shadows of fae around her.
I approached her cell, all the while her eyes never leaving mine. She was chained to the wall, not by the ankle as the other fae, but by her neck. A collar encircled her there, one I was all too familiar with. I’d seen it before, on Seren.
So, she was bound in more ways than one. Not just bound in body, but by her glamour, her soul, too—like me.
More eyes turned towards us as they saw this fae’s attention shift to me and stay there. More chains clanked as weary eyes grew curious in the dark, the whites of them bloodshot and tired, but growing sharper with every passing second.
I kept my own gaze locked firmly with hers as I reached the edge of her cell, the only one with no other fae in it. I grasped two of the metal bars between my hands and leaned in until my face pressed against the cold metal—something I instantly regretted the moment I felt the grime rub into my skin. I took a better look at the fae before me. She was dressed in fine clothes, now stained and darkened with the damp. Her hair was wild, but her skin was not smudged with the same dirt as the others. She’d either not been a prisoner here terribly long, or she’d not fallen prey to their same despair.
“You’re the one they told us about.”
She looked me up and down too, but said nothing, so I continued. My whispered words grew more desperate by the second. I could feel time slipping away moment by moment, knew there was so little of it left that there was no room for error.
“You’re the heir,” I whispered. “The one whose words can control fae.”
She said nothing, again.
“The heir of Mordrigal.”
At that, something in her eyes sparked.
“Mordrigal?”
There was a new comprehension in her eyes. She took a half step forward, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw other fae starting to lean in closer, too.
“You know him, then?” I asked. “The high king of Avarath?”
She nodded, ever so slightly. “I’ve heard him mentioned in nursery rhymes. Seen the name written down in our ancient texts.”
“Yes, well, he’s not so very ancient history. He’s back, and unless we stop him, he’ll soon be here.”
That spark in her eye darkened a bit. It was all the prompting I needed to continue, my words spilling out faster, more urgently, one after the next.
“He’s gathering an army. He’s coming for Avarath first, but Luxia, once he learns of you, will be next.”
“You say I’m his heir?”
Her question made me pause, just for a moment.
But then something came over the girl’s face. Her lips pulled back, and she bared her teeth at me.
“I have no love for the fae king that drove my people here,” she hissed. “Blood means little to me. Blood has only ever betrayed me.”
All around us, that silence had resumed, the cells fallen into such a state of stillness that it was as if not one of them breathed.
“So, we’ve established who I am, then,” she said, after a moment. “But you? Who are you, fae?”
The clear lack of impression her tone implied cut me to my core. Was I really so unremarkable now, so damaged that I no longer carried even the smallest demand of recognition? It took all my strength to put aside my pride as I leaned in again, not so close as to feel the grit on the bars, but so I could lower my voice a little more.
“I’m your savior.”
For a second, she said nothing.
A silence fell over the dungeon for a moment, lingering between the dripping of far-off water. She watched me for a second longer, reading me, before her lips parted—but before she could speak, the silence was broken by another sound.
One of the fae in the cell behind me began to chuckle. Then another. Then laughter began to break out, growing and growing until the mirthless sound was nearly deafening. The fae’s cackles grew to a peak, the anger and disgust so palpable in the sound of it that it made something inside me want to shrink back. But I held fast, my hands gripping the metal bars tighter than ever, my gaze refusing to leave that of the fae’s before me. She, in turn, did the same. Only when the laughter died, did she step forward, her head nodding slightly.
“And how are you going to do that, then?” she asked. “How are you going to save me?”
She broke my gaze for a moment, only to take a slow look around the room, at the fae still leaning in, their lips flecked with spittle from their laughter.
“How are you going to save us?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But I will. You have my word. But in exchange, I’m going to need you to promise me one thing. I’m going to need you to make a deal.”
One of the fae in one of the furthest cells stepped forward as far as he was able. He was tall, golden-haired, with eyes to match. He reminded me of Caldamir in a way, something about the way he carried himself.
“Don’t listen to him,” his voice called out. “This isn’t the way. Aurra, don’t do this.”
She looked at him for a moment, and for a moment, I saw her waver. But whatever trust she held in this fae, it wasn’t enough. I saw her weigh his words, and I saw her find them wanting.
She turned back to me.
“I have enough enemies already vying for my throne. We fled that king for a reason. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure my throne is mine, and mine alone.”
She ducked her head, slightly. “Whatever it takes.”