Chapter One #2
The stranger sat straight and regal, cold, white hands curled gently on the armrests of the ornate silver throne.
She was dressed in an old-fashioned gown; a high collar of white lace, the fine material clinging to her skin with the same damp that flattened inky hair around a delicate face.
Black streaks painted her cheeks, streaming down from her eyes as if she’d been sobbing—though she looked perfectly calm and content at present.
She was strikingly beautiful, despite her dishevelled state.
Imperious and otherworldly; marble-white skin and clever black eyes with a thick frame of lashes.
The pulsing glow of the pendant around her neck lit her features in eerie blue light.
She smiled.
“I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.”
A moment passed as Silas stared up at her, unmoving, and those clever eyes flashed as they slid from his face to somewhere behind him.
“Oh dear,” she said, in that same sweet, even tone. “He does not speak?”
“Silas,” someone croaked. Edward.
Silas glanced over his shoulder at a man he no longer knew. The look Edward sent him was not remorseful, but nor was it victorious, or boasting. It was pleading. Frightened.
Bile burned in Silas’s throat.
“What have you done, Edward?”
Edward only stared, brow crumpled and eyes gleaming with fear.
Silas turned back to the throne, gesturing at the young woman. “Who is she?”
Behind him, a sharp intake of breath—several breaths—told Silas he would not like the answer. But the woman smiled.
“I am the Saviour of Eisalaan, Your Grace.”
She rose to her feet.
“I am the Mother’s favoured daughter. You know exactly who I am; I am the Last Sorceress.”
Silas blanched; exhaustion and tension had truly dulled his mind if he could make no sense of the words. This woman was—
Impossible.
But it wasn’t, was it? Just last night, he’d had a 600-year-old Merrow King sitting in his parlour. Kai Cumhaill should not have been alive, should not have survived his centuries of imprisonment, but he had. And so, it appeared, had his long-lost love.
The legendary, Goddess-blessed Princess Avette Beira.
Avette smiled at his silence, but for all her beauty, there was no warmth in the curve of her lips. She took a gliding step forward, descending the dais partway.
Silas willed himself not to stagger back at her approach.
“I—how?”
“Magic, of course.” Her smile brightened. “Well, magic and a helpful dash of cowardice.”
Unbidden, Silas found his head turning, his eyes seeking Edward’s. The Sorceress laughed, a sound as bright and hollow as the pealing of a bell.
“Interesting. I see you know your Commander rather well. He is, indeed, the coward of whom I speak.”
Edward made a low, garbled sound of pleading. Avette cocked her head, alight with elegant curiosity.
“What was that, Commander? Do you wish to regale your friend with the story of your betrayal?”
Silas could not bring himself to turn around again, but from the hardening of Avette’s soft smile, he could only guess that Edward refused.
“Cowardice indeed,” she said quietly. Then, her eyes finding Silas’s, she brightened once more. “But fear not, Your Grace, for I am here to lead and enlighten.”
She turned in a fluid motion, aged lace twirling around her stark, bare feet as she ascended the dais and took the throne once more.
A blunt bite of steel to the spine sent Silas stumbling closer to the throne, and then again, shoving him forward until he stood at the last step, head craned up to face the Sorceress.
“I suppose it began, as so many of your stories must,” she mused, “with me. My magic; my spell. And as I now know, my country and bloodline thrived. Some centuries later, your beloved Selma was crowned. A powerful queen, I understand, and wise. Loved by many; too many perhaps.”
She laughed that pretty, empty laugh, and Silas clenched his teeth so hard his jaw creaked in his own ears.
“Lovers drawn in and cast aside, until finally, one of them snapped. I do understand, Commander,” she called softly over Silas’s shoulder.
Then she turned back to Silas with a sympathetic smile.
“Love makes us question who we are, does it not? But love is like magic in that way; we cannot let it overtake us. I have learned that, in more ways than one, and I think we can agree I have paid dearly for it. But our friend here, he let both love and magic overtake him, time and time again. He faced the loss of his queen, his great love, not once, but thrice. The first time, he called upon my power, my pendant, to bind your queen’s failing heart to my spell.
“The second time, he sought to break the spell—to force her heart into his hands. The third time, he could no longer control the magic that had been greater than him all along. He drowned in it. The Winter began to unravel, as did the thread of life your queen had clung to for so long beyond her time. And so, finally, after decades with my lost treasure in his possession, the Commander saw fit to release me from my own spell. Not out of compassion for my plight, you understand, but to beg a favour of me. To wield the power he could not contain, to save his queen and kingdom.”
She drew in a long breath and sighed.
“Alas, I was too late to save my dear cousin. A tragedy. A great loss, I am certain.” She gave a gentle wave of her hand, brushing the “great loss” away. “But the kingdom, on the other hand—I have always been the saviour of this kingdom, have I not? Eisalaan is my legacy. And my birthright.”
Silence hung off the edge of her final words, broken only by the quiet clicking of courtiers’ teeth, their shivering breaths, and faint whimpers.
“Birthright,” Silas echoed. He realised too late that he was shaking his head, caught himself only by the glint of steel in Avette’s dark eyes.
“Such a shock may take time to process, for us all. But together, we shall find a way to come to terms with it.” She sighed and shook her head. “All of this change has overwhelmed you, I’m sure. However, I trust you’ll remember, Your Grace, to bow to your queen the next time we meet.”
“I’ll bow to my queen when she takes the throne.”
Foolish, with so many blades in this room and the tense air ringing the hall. But Silas could not stop the words boiling up, rolling over his tongue in a heated hiss, and even as the hush of steel sounded behind him, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
The Sorceress did not smile as she spoke this time.
“Where is your daughter, Your Grace?”
She made a vague gesture, and there was a short scuffle behind him. Edward stumbled into Silas’s periphery, either tripped or shoved.
“Adeline,” he provided, a desperate pant.
Mareda sobbed softly on the floor behind them.
“Where is Adeline?” said the Sorceress, the name tumbling strangely from her lips, tight and over-pronounced.
“Why do you want to know?”
The Sorceress laughed airily.
“Well, I’m told wherever I find Adeline, I’ll find my betrothed.”
“Your—” Silas’s heart gave an odd shiver in lieu of a beat. “Your betrothed?”
She did not bother to answer; just tilted her head in that soft, demanding way of hers and waited.
King Cumhaill; she had to mean the Merrow King.
The very same king who’d fled Eisalaan just hours ago, who had sworn to take Adeline to Dhalias, to protect her.
Would that protection hold true if he learned who now held the throne?
Silas shook his head, too vigorously.
“I don’t know.”
The Sorceress sighed and pressed her fingers to her brow, massaging the smooth space between them as though warding off a frown.
“It has been a long night, Your Grace, and a tedious morning. So I’m sure you will hear me when I say this is the last time I am willing to extend my benignity.
Your daughter is not in this palace, and she must be found.
She puts the future of our kingdom at risk in her determination to draw our royal consort off course.
I wish to locate them both immediately, to ensure their safety. The safety of us all.”
“I fail to see how Adeline’s freedom threatens our safety.”
Avette’s lips thinned to a taut line, and she glanced away with an irate little wave of her hand. That sharp pressure resumed at his back; not pushing this time, just announcing its presence. Oddly, the threat to his spine only emboldened him.
“Ah, I see. It’s your safety she threatens,” he said softly.
Silas gasped as the steel bit harder at his skin through the fabric of his cloak and shirt, but he went on, allowing the slightest cadence of laughter to lace his words.
“The safety of your claim. One heir waits before you, pressed onto bent knees, but the other—”
Silas yelled out, buckled at the sudden prod and the searing pain in his back. He nearly fell forward with the force of the blade, but Avette raised a hand. Her eyes were dark and hard as coal, the delicate set of her jaw rigid with tightly wound rage, and yet she simply said:
“Let him speak.”
Silas glanced up, panting through gritted teeth as the pain subsided slightly, the steel still grazing his back. The blade’s owner huffed but pressed no further.
“Speak then, Your Grace,” said a hoarse voice in his ear.
Doran, he noted absently. She’s quite thoroughly won Doran’s loyalty.
“Iseult is gone, and no threat to your claim,” said Silas.
He gestured behind him, to where Edward had been allowed to stumble back to his daughter, and now had her half-bundled in his arms where they both knelt on the marble floor.
“Mareda has clearly been forced to bow. But Adeline had perhaps the strongest claim of all, because Selma would have chosen her. We all know it, and even having been revived mere hours ago and surrounded by those who wanted my daughter gone, somehow you know it too. Don’t you? ”
When she didn’t answer, he smiled and went on.
“Selma chose her. Eisalaan chose her.” Silas managed a light chuckle. “And the Merrow King chose her, too.”