Chapter 3
VALANCE
As we broke out of the trees of Rosestar Forest, six royal guards gleaming in gold rushed me.
A thousand cries of “Your Highness” followed, and they swiftly took my prisoner from my arms. The unseelie man weighed about as much as a roll of parchment.
Nothing but bones and stretched skin. If the wind were high, this fae would drift away.
A sweet decay on his breath as he’d panted his panic.
Oh, this was just the beginning.
I let the guards do their jobs, watching them scurrying up a hill of emerald grass toward the city gates—tall and golden and emblazoned with pink roses.
The golden walls of Summer City were impenetrable.
No unseelie had ever penetrated them in the centuries-long war.
The family standard, House Rosestar, fluttered in the gentle breeze at various points of the palace city walls—a pink rose upon a golden background.
That same sigil seemed to glow on Maeve’s armor as sunlight bathed her beside me.
The standard of the seelie court, an orange sun on a background of green, flew too.
Always flying, always reminding our enemies of our power.
I looked up at the sloping city crowing Rosestar Hill toward the vast jewel at the very top within it. Summer Palace. My home, a monolith of golden turrets and spires, more flags flying.
The guards had already carried Boyd off beyond the city walls, through its gates to the palace where he’d receive the best help. Being a royal guard offered him better medical care. Especially being my personal guard.
I rested a hand on Maeve’s shoulder, picking up on her fears. “He’ll be fine.”
Her smile was as full of worry as much as mine probably was. “He’s strong, Your Highness.”
I wanted to believe in Boyd as I always did. He was a resilient fae, one of the best. If he were anything less, he wouldn’t be part of my personal guard. I only had the best at my side.
Weakness overcame me. My hand dropped from Maeve’s shoulder. “I can’t lose him.” I released a shuddery breath. “We can’t lose him.”
It was her turn to place a hand on me. “I’m sending silent prayers to him as we speak, Your Highness.”
“That’s lovely.”
She smiled again and glanced at the trees behind us. “When do you want to return to the human?”
“Let’s give him a little longer. I want to enjoy the sun for a while.” I headed away from the road leading into the city, the gates still open for me, to a patch of green a few feet away.
The gatekeepers and gathering of guards looked confused.
“Give me a moment,” I called to them.
I lay back in the lush grass, folding my hands behind my head. “You can join me, Maeve.”
She stretched out beside me for some moments of sunny warmth, despite the creeping worry for our friend. I wasn’t heading home yet. I still had a human to deal with. My task, not the task of anyone else.
A pixie flew overhead, a ball of sparkling green, heading for a pixie grove within the forest, no doubt.
Its gentle buzz opened my eyes, leaving me squinting against the glare of the sun as I watched it pass over.
Two eagles flew across the cloudless sky moments later, at a much higher altitude, heading toward the forest too.
I sighed. Not wanting to move, wishing Boyd could be here. Maybe after dealing with the human, the three of us would swim together in the palace pools, drink plum wine, call others to join us, and play.
The good days. The best days. Like this day should be.
We can still have these days.
Can we?
I tried to change my thinking to soothe my mind. Internally, I thanked the trees, the moss, as my magic finally receded for the day. Thank the gods I had the blood of a sorcerer. It’d got me out of many a tangle and also spiced up my sex life in my kinky moments.
A whip of thorns and two palace guards surfaced from my memory. Oh, what a delicious night that had been. A little painful yet enlightening.
“An impressive display as always, Your Highness,” Maeve said. She seemed to be on my wavelength yet again, wanting a break from thinking of Boyd. “Your sorcery skills never fail to impress me.”
I turned my head to face her, shielding my eyes with a hand. “You’re trying to layer the praise thick, I see.”
She laughed lightly. “I do try, Valance.”
Aside from my father, only she and Boyd were permitted to address me so informally.
“Thank you for saying it.” I took her by the hand and squeezed it.
Curse shadow magic! That fae had wielded some skill to pull off his trickery. If Boyd suffered, he’d suffer a hundred times more.
There were two dominant branches of magic in Faerie—seed and shadow. Yes, there were smaller branches used by other fae races, like elves and their poisons and human healing potions. None, however, were as powerful as those main branches.
Seed sorcerers were always Sidhe—my fae race.
The magic worked by taking the base of an element—earth, wind, fire, water—and the sorcerer going from there to create or cast spells, manipulating the element to however they desired.
In order for the magic to work, that element had to be around in some capacity.
The more of it, the stronger the magic. And it wasn’t limitless.
With all things, there was a price of an energy drain. Nothing in life ever came for free.
Shadow magic was deceitful, a tool of darkness used by the Fomorian fae race.
Much like seed magic, it functioned by drawing upon a base first. Not only shadows, but dark will, too.
Its well ran deep, down to the darkest pits of hate a creature could descend to.
There was once a time when there were great sorcerers of shadow magic, dominating the lands of Autumn and Winter, a terrible threat to the seelie court and the whole of Faerie.
Unseelie rule had come within inches of being a reality.
The two courts had always been at war—only once aligned in the defeat of the Tuatha fae in ancient times.
Seelie the court of light, unseelie the court of darkness.
The four dominant fae races pledged allegiance to a court, with lesser fae creatures and humans following.
All Fomorians were under the unseelie court, the Gentry divided.
Elves, usually acting as guards and soldiers, were all aligned with the Sidhe under the seelie court—the correct path.
The seelie held the Faerie Throne through my royal-blooded family and, therefore, controlled the lands.
Even in those dark days of unseelie aggression.
The tables turned against the unseelie bastards when seed magic grew and changed beyond the four elements, reaching out to the powers of light.
Those seelie skilled in light manipulation could wield light of all kinds—physical and of goodness as shadow magic was of wickedness.
The light and heat of fire had been a great weapon, but not enough to stave off the tide of darkness. Yet true light was something else.
My father, King Oberon, was a light sorcerer.
A rare commodity. Any Sidhe fae born with the skills of light were kept in Summer Palace, heavily guarded.
Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit the skill of my father or my older brother and sister.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t feel lesser for it, despite the disappointment of some.
I simply had a great power in a different discipline.
And it wasn’t as if one could learn magic.
You were born with the magical abilities you were given—the type of magic filling your blood never changed.
I may not have the skills to blast at darkness with light, but I could certainly use the earth and its bounty to make it hurt in other ways.
The image of Boyd’s afflictions replayed in my head, balls of ice sitting in my chest the more I focused on what’d happened to him.
He was in the right hands now, but that didn’t help.
Only hearing the sound of his voice, seeing his green eyes back in his face once again, would untie the horrible knot in my guts.
My anger flared, driving me to jump to my feet.
Maeve leaped up in an instant to join me. “Your Highness?”
“I’m ready to return to the human,” I said and walked toward the trees.
She kept pace with me as we broke through the dense wall of forest once again.
The human was still in position, ants crawling across his face. Other forest bugs, too, clambering across this recent addition to the forest floor. And the largest tarantula I’d seen for a while was almost upon the bastard.
A wonderful sight.
“Well, I think you’ve had long enough,” I announced myself and crouched beside him. “Hello, again.”
Danu, there were so many ants on him.
“You must have a pleasant taste about you,” I said.
His eyes watered as tiny legs and antenna caressed his lashes.
Those azure orbs kept flicking between me and the spider.
So close now. Red stripes meant a severe venom in its bite.
Not enough to kill something as big as him, but the pain would be terrific.
A bout of the squits and vomiting would follow as the toxin worked through the system. Nasty business.
“Maybe just a bite,” I addressed the arachnid.
The human paled, imploring me with his eyes.
“Are you begging me?” I asked. “After what you’ve done, you try to reach for my mercy?” I licked my lips. “Perhaps I should sit back and watch these things work over your body. How long do you think it would take them to eat you alive?”
He didn’t like that.
I chuckled lightly, enjoying his terror.
“You dislike the eight-legged ones the most? It’s rather obvious.
Interesting, too.” I picked up an ant between thumb and finger.
It struggled and wriggled. “I like to know these things, you see. Knowledge is an awesome power. Beyond all magic, beyond all armies. With knowledge, you can achieve so much.” I crushed the ant, its minuscule innards spurting across my skin.
“Though it depends on my mood. Sometimes, I enjoy the simple things.”