Chapter 2
Cillian
‘A toast,’ Vincenzo Riali declares, standing up with a glass of Cristal in his hand, pointedly ignoring the empty seat between myself and Alec Carruth.
‘To my beautiful daughter, Vittoria, and my future son-in-law, Cillian. May the Rialis and the Hunters thrive once more under your combined leadership. Although, let’s hope that happens later rather than sooner. ’
We’re in an elegantly decorated private dining room in The Angel’s Share, one of Vincenzo’s Michelin-starred restaurants, and no expense has been spared.
Alongside the Rialis and my family, Vincenzo has taken it upon himself to invite the six other Kennards who, like Vincenzo and myself, are the heads of the ruling Kinfolk families.
We are all who remain of the original twelve that formed The Unseelie Court, thanks to the Blight.
Two Unseelie Kin disappeared in the first wave of the Blight which also destroyed the whole Seelie Court, and a further two have since disappeared, all of their homes, businesses and seats at The Unseelie Court choked by the creeping, fungal Blight.
Although the fact that this happened directly after them challenging Vincenzo has not gone unnoticed.
Soon, the number will become seven once the Hunter and Riali Kin are brought together with my marriage.
I glance at the others around the table.
Alec Carruth, whose Kin work predominantly with stone, has come alone.
Beside him – representing smiths of all kinds – his rival, Thomas MacGowan, sits with his silent wife.
At the far end, I’ve already heard Robert McLoughlin trying to persuade Duncan Webster to invest in his latest start-up, but no one here is foolish enough to trust anything that a representative of Lugh suggests – they’ve all been caught out by the trickster once too often in the past. The final two Kin, the Kelsos and the Macphersons, refuse to even speak to McLoughlin and Vincenzo has wisely placed them all as far away from each other as possible.
With the exception of myself and my fiancée, everyone around the table stands and raises their glasses to us, their expressions falsely congratulatory – I hate Court politics but it’s a game that must be played if I’m to restore the Court to its former glory.
I paste on a smile and glance down at my phone, wondering where the fuck my sister has got to.
Surely, she isn’t planning to not turn up tonight of all nights?
This is a historic union, not to mention it being the next step in my campaign to replace Vincenzo as King of The Unseelie Court as soon as I possibly can.
Unfortunately, the only option is to do this with his daughter, Vittoria, as my queen. A dark price I will have to pay.
‘Will this marriage mean that another root of the Tree of Life is killed by Blight?’ Carruth asks.
‘Both bloodlines will survive,’ Vincenzo insists, refusing to face the underlying issue, as usual.
Thomas MacGowan shrugs. ‘So much is gone already. Only our eight twisted roots remain. The tree itself is long dead. I doubt anything we do will help.’
‘We shouldn’t be simply accepting this. We should be fighting it, trying to restore our world to what it was,’ I say.
But Vincenzo laughs. ‘You will learn what battles to fight, Cillian. Once you are king, you too will see that the Underworld is dying. But we have done well in the human world. That is where our future lies. Why fight it?’
‘Surely the Craobh na Beatha is worth saving?’ I argue. ‘Our power lies within it. As the years pass our powers fade, our people fade. Fewer are born, more die. And the Blight destroys more and more of the Underworld itself.’
The Kelsos shrug and look away, taking long draughts from their glasses, and I can’t decide if they have ceased caring or if it’s guilt about their own inaction. They’re the largest of the families, but also the most secretive, living their lives in the shadows of the Underworld.
But not even they know why the Blight happened and how it started.
There are few alive today who witnessed it, but a hundred years ago something poisoned the Craobh na Beatha – the Tree of Life that grew in Glasgow’s Necropolis – the city of the dead, east of the city centre which is the most important site that links the Underworld of the Kinfolk and the human world.
As well as linking the two worlds, the Tree also housed both The Seelie and The Unseelie Court chambers.
Now only The Unseelie Court remains, housed in the partially withered roots of the great tree.
And where the tree itself should be, there’s simply nothing.
I’m surprised when Murdo Macpherson speaks. ‘I was out in the far reaches of the forest yesterday. The Blight has choked up several streams to the north and large areas of woodland are dying. I can understand why Cernunnos’s Kin are worried.’
‘Humans have polluted that area with a smelting factory,’ Vincenzo points out. ‘What can we hope to do to prevent the destruction the humans wreak?’
But I blame Vincenzo, if not for the Blight itself, then certainly for his failing to stop its spread.
I know he has shares in that smelting plant and considers his profits more important than the Underworld.
It wasn’t until four years ago that I began to research exactly how Vincenzo was profiting from the Blight.
Matt warned me then, and I’ve watched Vincenzo carefully ever since.
He simply brushes off all reports of the Blight’s destruction and refuses to act.
And it’s spreading from the trees and the land to the Kinfolk themselves – while he grows rich.
Only last week, two foresters were found, their bodies twisted in agony, riddled with sores that oozed a black, tar-like substance.
But he refuses to allow any investigation, quietly disposing of the corpses and fencing off the land now destroyed by the creeping black mould.
Given that he’s not even willing to break with tradition enough for his daughter to inherit in her own right, his inaction should come as no surprise, and it’s time I ensure his reign comes to an end, soon.
The future of the Underworld might depend on it.
I meet my fiancée’s gaze – it’s been two weeks since we announced our engagement.
For four years I’ve tried to find another way, but on the night of my sister’s graduation party, I realised there was none and proposed.
Or, my decision was made when I set eyes on Niamh Whyte again.
I’ve avoided my sister’s best friend as much as possible over the years.
The woman is a temptation I can’t afford to give into.
Until I marry Vittoria, Niamh will always be there, tempting me to relinquish my quest to become king.
I’ve worked too hard, waited too patiently, to give it all up for a human but seeing Niamh at that party, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist her for much longer.
With Vittoria’s eyes on me, I push my phone into my pocket and turn to face her.
She glances pointedly at my pocket and rolls her eyes.
I lean forward, my hand snaking around the back of her neck and draw her towards me to kiss her.
Her blood-red lips are ice cold as our tongues tangle, fighting for control.
I refuse to allow her to win even this small battle, just as she will never let me win if she can help it.
She pulls back, pressing a red-tipped finger to my lips and smiles seductively.
‘Later,’ she whispers, running the finger down over my lips and chin before pulling it away with a flourish, smirking at the others around the table like the dark queen she aspires to be.
Conversation flows as freely as the champagne, but for the most part, I allow my mind to wander.
I deal with the other Kennards when I have to, but as my job is to administer the Court’s justice, I’ve found it easier to keep my distance.
I can’t avoid the Rialis, though. They own a wide range of hospitality-related businesses around the city.
The seat they occupy at The Unseelie Court is that of the great sea god Llyr, and with the sea as their element, it was only natural that they gravitated towards providing the humans with its fruits.
Sustenance, and the promise of pleasure, have always been the simplest ways to entice humans, which offers endless ways for us to control them.
It may just be coincidence, but as the Riali empire has expanded, the Blight has spread.
My phone vibrates with a text from Rose’s bodyguard, Sean. I open it despite Vittoria’s frown. It’s a photo and it’s not just of Rose. She’s on a dancefloor, with Niamh, and it takes me a moment to tear my gaze away from the young woman who has tormented me for the past four years.
Niamh attracts me in a way I’m not sure I fully understand.
She’s wholesome and good – the opposite of the women I’m usually drawn to – but at the same time, something about her calls to the darkest parts of me.
Whenever I’m in the same room as her, the hunter within me rises to the surface, hyper-aware of her, watching her, stalking her like prey – even if it’s only with my gaze.
More than once I’ve had to leave her presence to stop me killing every other man in the room and claiming her as mine.
But that’s a desire I can’t afford to indulge, not least because if she saw me killing anyone, she would go to the authorities faster than my sister moves between men.
She’s human and knows nothing of my world.
Plus, she has an overdeveloped sense of justice that has motivated her since the moment we met.
She’s determined to fight for fairness, a concept at odds with the ever-changing vagaries of The Unseelie Court, where justice is determined by Vincenzo’s latest whim or the strange unpredictable power that lies within the Court chamber itself.