21. Delphine
Hope is a strange thing.
It eludes us for so long, and yet somehow, the moment we find it again, it’s returned too soon.
I felt hope bloom inside me as I wrapped Deimos in my power, cemented him in this realm, trapped him so he could not escape me, not until he’d heard my own proposition. Deimos looked up at me with the same fear that Mordrigal looked at Armene and Caldamir, the collar and sword offering two variations of his own impending death.
Little did they know that we had no intention of killing them, not if we didn’t have to. We didn’t want Deimos and Mordrigal dead.
We just wanted them to make a deal.
Sending one or both of them to the Afterworld would do us no good, after all.
For Deimos, it would simply be sending him home to lick his wounds. Sending Mordrigal would only empower Deimos, give him the chance to try to corrupt the high king of Avarath further before sending him back—or using any power he brought with him to escape on his own.
No.
We had other plans for them.
Plans that would finally seal the fate of Avarath for good, restoring balance between the three thrones meant to split the power of the faerie realms. Because sure, we could find the heir that Icarus spoke of and put her on Mordrigal’s throne. But Deimos? Deimos was irreplaceable. Deimos had no heir. He had no successor. It was only him and it had only ever been him. I didn’t know what would happen if we lost the high king of the Afterworld, and I didn’t want to find out.
Not unless we absolutely had to.
But that hope in me had blossomed too early, because no sooner had that feeling swelled inside me then it made me falter, made me lose concentration for just a moment, and that was my undoing. That was all of our undoing.
I’d forgotten, in my moment of excitement, of triumph, to send Nyx back with the rest of Deimos’ army. Or, perhaps I hadn’t forgotten. Perhaps I’d subconsciously done it on purpose, still unable to wrap the former Prince of the Woodland Court in the shadows that would damn him not to the Afterworld this time, but a different kind of servitude. A different kind of bondage.
That was where I’d left us vulnerable. It wasn’t just that I’d left one fae tainted by his shadows—and an arguably very powerful one—for Deimos still to draw on, but that fae was all too capable on his own. Especially when he was no longer under his own control.
Nyx stepped forward, a friendly face we all forgot too soon was friendly no more. Before any of us had time to register what he was doing, he’d reached Caldamir’s side, taken hold of the bracelet still dangling on his wrist, the key I gave him to undo his own still glinting in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t until that moment, as the key slipped into his fingers, that I realized what Nyx was about to do. I whirled on him at the last second, releasing my hold on Deimos to wrap it around Nyx instead, to pull him away from Caldamir before Nyx could free him of the bracelet. But as I turned, as I wrapped Nyx in my shadows, I accidentally wrapped my brother with him, too.
In the heat of the moment, in my own distraction, Sol had slipped from my side to step between me and the Woodland Prince. The same prince that had kidnapped him and had him killed. I realized too late that it was not one body, but two, that I sent to the next realm with the very last of my magic.
In a flash, they were gone.
But I was too late.
In that single instant, that single mistake cost us everything…because there, in the footprints that Nyx and my brother Sol had left behind, was a small gleaming silver bracelet.
Mordrigal tilted back his head and let out a mighty roar as glamour flooded the courtyard.
In an instant, everything changed. In an instant, everything we’d worked for fell apart.
I was not the only one to use my glamour as a distraction. In the moment when I used the last of mine to drag Nyx and Sol to Luxia, Deimos used his—his own last little spark he’d pulled from Nyx—to drag himself back out of my reach and to the Afterworld. Mordrigal’s roar transformed into a command, and in an instant, Caldamir turned on us.
Mordrigal did not stay to witness the streets and halls of the Sand Court turn into a battlefield. No sooner had his command stopped ringing in our ears then he made his next move. Caldamir pulled his sword from the high king of Avarath, and at his next command took Mordrigal’s hand. The moment their skin touched, a great rumbling began—not from an army this time, but from somewhere deep within the earth.
Seren, Armene, and Nereus stumbled back, Armene’s voice calling for everyone to fall back as it was drowned out by the sound of the ground splitting open. Rock from deep within the foundations of the realm spat out of the earth, cracking the courtyard from side to side, shaking loose the stone and sand of Armene’s court. Pillars fell in great billows of smoke, walls collapsed and crumbled into dust. The earth reached up and took hold of its king, dragging him and Caldamir under before swallowing them again.
For one long moment, I stood beside Seren, Armene, and Nereus in an empty, ruined courtyard, the silence of the Sand Court only amplified by the battle that had waged through it only moments before.
Seren bent over, hands on his knees, his very essence drained from him. Armene swore loudly, the sound echoing across the abandoned space. I stood shocked into my own silence as the emptiness pressed in on me with an overwhelming weight.
If I hadn’t seen what just happened with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. I had seen it, and still, I struggled. Had we really gotten so close, only to fail after the moment had passed? Had Mordrigal and Deimos been that close to being trapped within my grasp, war so nearly averted, only for me to lose them at the last second?
I’d seen it. I knew it. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it.
If only the silence had lasted. No sooner had Mordrigal disappeared than that silence was filled with a new kind of noise—the grating of steel as Caldamir’s Mountain Court turned on the rest of us, too.
It was all I could do to shout above the rasping noise of the other four courts drawing their weapons, too.
“No! No death. No bloodshed. Retreat.”
Armene stepped forward and called out too, his eyes flashing nearly as bright as the golden crown atop his newly crowned head.
His words echoed mine, commands of his own drawing glances from his advisors, from his generals. But it was not him who they looked to.
It was Nereus.
I knew, the moment that the armies stilled, that he’d betrayed us yet again.
“The high king is right. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves. Pick up your arms if you must, but not against one another. We must recognize the true enemy here.”
Heads turned once more, back towards me, Armene, and Seren. We might have the right of blood on our side, but not one eye that turned towards us seemed to recognize that any longer.
Not, anyway, with any fondness.
Not with any loyalty.
Nereus knew this too, saw it too. The reality of it echoed in his voice as he continued, his words resonating with the gathered courts as a truth far greater than the lie of his betrayal.
“We know what it is to go to war with Mordrigal, the high king of our realm. Perhaps if the Starlight Court had stood beside us in the last war, then we wouldn’t be standing here now, facing war a second time. But here we are. Have we not seen the power of the high king of Avarath? Have we not seen how fate wills us to fall at his feet? Why would we now, after proof once again is shown before our very eyes, stand against him? And at the mercy of a fae who so newly took her own crown that she knows nothing of what it truly is to rule us?”
“Nereus …”
I stood close enough to hear the warning in Armene’s voice when he turned to the regent of the Sea Court.
But it was not enough.
Nereus glanced at Armene with nearly the same contempt he held for me.
“Go ahead, let Tethys try and save you again,” he hissed. “But I see no sea here, no place where the god he serves now can reach us. By the time my brother tries to interfere with fate again, it will be too late.”
He was right, of course. About all of it.
Just as quickly as the battle had been won, the war was lost. Because we didn’t lose a single fae we had not planned to, not to death, and yet still, somehow, we’d lost every single one.
It didn’t matter that I’d stolen the courts of Deimos and Mordrigal. It didn’t matter that I’d exposed the two high kings’ weaknesses. It didn’t matter how close we’d come to putting both kings in a position where they had no choice but to strike the kind of deal that could have guaranteed Avarath and all the realms the peace and balance they so desired.
We’d lost, and that was all that mattered.
Nereus was right.
Maybe if I was a more seasoned king. Maybe if I was Caldamir or Armene or Seren or some fae who’d already earned the trust and respect of their court for any reason other than the blood that gave me my title, maybe then they would stand by my side, still, while I worked out a way to move forward.
But they didn’t trust me. They didn’t know me. They didn’t even know what I’d done.
All they knew was that I’d failed them. All they knew was that I stood powerless before them, and because of me, the high king of Avarath had control over his true army once again. Because of me, if they fought in this war, they’d be forced to fight against their friends and brothers.
Again.
How much easier to stand against a stranger, against a once-king that had lost his crown, and against the newly crowned prince that had allowed the battle that lost Avarath one of its courts.
“We were prepared to stand beside you if you proved yourself, let us make that clear, high king,” Nereus continued. “But you’ve proven yourself incapable of standing up against the true high kings of faerie. You wouldn’t even meet them in proper battle.”
A grumbling worked its way through the crowd too quickly. It spread far beyond the outer reaches of the courtyard, into the crowds that spilled out into the halls and streets of Armene’s court. All of faerie was here to witness my failure, and because of it, all of faerie stood by and did nothing to stop what unfolded in its wake.
Nereus’ accusation was not new to them. It was echoed in their stares, in the way their eyes cut over to me with doubt and even hate.
It seemed that while Armene was whispering to the courts, Nereus had been too.
This was no last second betrayal. This was planned. Nereus had simply bided his own time, waited until I looked weak and he could step in with his own plan.
“What are you playing at, Nereus?” I asked. I strode across the sand to meet him, each step closer making him pale a bit in the face, his feet shifting on the sand in a way that made my own ego stir. “I thought Avarath already fought one war to keep Mordrigal at bay, to keep him from taking the kind of power he so clearly wants over not only this realm, but all the rest.”
Nereus stood still before me, but I could see the way his hands shook, even as he made a show of not moving before the gathered armies.
“Better the high king we know than the one we don’t.”
I wished his words didn’t ring true. Wished they didn’t stir the armies of Avarath to action. Wished they didn’t make Armene’s advisors shift their own footing so that they stood behind Nereus instead of their own blood prince.
But wishing was one thing.
The truth was another.
“Be gone from faerie, high king. We desire no further bloodshed.”
I saw in the faces around me that Nereus did not stand alone. Armene’s advisors weren’t the only ones shifting sides. All around us, the faces of the crowd began to darken as they looked at us—what was left of us. Where once four princes had stood, only one remained. One former king. One high king they refused to recognize.
“How dare you stand against the one high king who chose to represent your wishes, to protect you, to fight for you?” Armene’s voice rang out again, and with it, the sand beneath us stirred. He stepped forward, brows furrowing into a glare that was only further echoed by the angered shift of the sand. “And against me, here, in my own court?”
His eyes flickered to the advisors now standing behind Nereus, their alliances so clearly and quickly shifted. They’d made no effort to hide their distaste in their new prince’s choices when it came to the coronation, but their disloyalty surprised me, still.
“A new age of Avarath is upon us,” Nereus replied. “We’ve fought one war against Mordrigal. We’ve seen the fruit it bears. We won’t fight another.”
“And we won’t stand by and let our thrones be taken by a usurper wearing his brother’s crown.”
No sooner had the angry words fallen from Armene’s lips than his sword was once again unsheathed. Sand sprung up from the earth, the last of his glamour surging through him with such an intense power that it was a wonder it didn’t blacken the tips of his fingers the way Icarus’ own had done to him.
“Tethys might be far from here, but I’ll proudly stand and fight in his stead. He would be ashamed of you, to know how quickly you threw away the trust you were so freely granted after your last betrayal. How long did you last since you were forgiven? Less than a day?”
Something twitched in Nereus’ features before he answered. “I must do what is right for Avarath. Surely, at least, you can understand that.”
“How would you know what is right for this realm? How long have you sat on your brother’s throne?” Armene asked, bitterness breathing between every word.
“Have you even had the pleasure of sitting on your own?”
Nereus’ answer was all it took to spark a new war—or would have, if not for the first time, outside forces intervened.
I was beginning to think that while fate might not be on our side, as I’d hoped, some other force was.
Moon, the Catsuga that had followed me dutifully between three realms now, reappeared in a flurry of fur and sharpened claws. I’d not seen the creature since we last came from the courtroom in Alderia, his silver white fur disappearing into the desert as we’d traced our own way back to Armene’s court. He’d remained missing ever since, his wandering feet never taking him back to me until now.
And not just to curl up at my feet, playing the part of the doting pet. He was here to protect us. To save us—primarily, to save Armene from the temper he’d never unleashed as he was preparing to now.
Not that I could blame him. Wars had been started, fought, and lost over far less than the challenge Nereus issued now.
His words were enough to make not only Armene draw his sword, but for every fae that had gathered here from the courts of Avarath to do the same. Not in our defense, not in aid of their prince, but against him.
Bows knocked, lances tilted, daggers glinted in the sun.
The only court that had not yet turned on us was that of the Starlight Fae. Yet they did not move to stand at our side, either. They watched and waited, their eyes trained on me and Seren for our next command, to remain neutral in this fight as they had in the last war, or to turn on those same fae now that we’d set out to protect.
It was not Nereus’ blade that lunged for Armene in the moments that followed, it was one belonging to another fae whose betrayal stung far more personally.
Tallulah, Caldamir’s faithful friend and guard, stepped forward from the gathered armies and lifted her own blade above her head. A mist had not exactly clouded her eyes, but the look in them was foreign. She was not her own. Like her prince, she was under Mordrigal’s command, now.
I knew it, but it didn’t stop the sight of her lunging towards the fae I loved, Armene, from stinging any less.
Especially when I knew if their blades touched, only one of them would step away from the fight alive in this realm, still.
“No!” I shouted, my mind reeling as their blades glinted in the rising sun. This was wrong. All of it.
We shouldn’t have lost the battle to begin with. We hadn’t, really. We’d stolen every one of Mordrigal and Deimos’ own courts, sent them to a realm where neither king could touch them without instigating a second war—without any army to fight them. Not yet, anyway. It wouldn’t be long before Mordrigal recovered, but Deimos?
Deimos was powerless, now, but he would only remain so as long as we kept the depths of the Afterworld void of new souls to feed his glamour.
I was too late, however. I had no ounce of shadows left in me, no starlight to bind their hands, to stop them, to keep them in place or send them to another.
But Moon was not.
The creature lunged forward with a speed that could only be fueled by some kind of fiendish glamour of his own. He was all snarl and flash and fury, his body tumbling between the two of them like a boulder of thick fur and muscle, forcing both of them to stumble back.
Seren caught hold of both of us as chaos erupted, his hands drawing us near as his eyes flashed as bright as any metal weapon now did in the sun.
“We leave, now. Back to Elysia, where we’ll find refuge until we’ve decided what to do next.”
I couldn’t argue with him. I didn’t have it in me, not when the image of the faces all around me refused the leave the centerfold of my mind.
Because as much as Armene wanted to fight it, as much as I wanted to fight it, the minds of those fae now around us were made up. They’d chosen sides—and the one they’d chosen now was not ours.
“Elysians, retreat!”
My command elicited a sudden explosion of glamour. Seren’s sister, Itris, and the rest of the Seekers stepped forward, hands outstretched as they, together, drew enough power to carry the court back to their own realm—much as Seren had once done to save me from the princes on Mordrigal’s tombstone-turned-altar. I felt the tug of that glamour on me, caught hold of Seren and Armene as it wrapped around us, and prepared to step through that boundary between realms to a place where, at least we would find shelter. I’d yet to return to the realm since I’d left it, and though I’d spent only a few months there, I felt a familiar ache at the thought of returning. Whatever the circumstances were that sent us back, Elysia was home, and we were headed back to it. There was a comfort in that.
I watched as in seconds starlight formed around us, enveloped us, and pulled us in.
But it did not take us to Elysia, as we’d intended. It did not take us alongside the rest of our court.
The glamour took us, instead, to The Endless.