Chapter Seven
VOID AND SOLAR MAGIC WERE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from the elemental magics.
The former were two of the primordial materials that the Celestials had used to weave together their world and everything in it eons ago.
Which was why fae who potently wielded either could teleport between pockets of darkness or light, like Malachizrien and Rishaud had done while battling.
Recalling the precise degree to which Malachizrien, the man she’d allowed to teleport her away to his court after striking their bargain, had matched Rishaud in savagery, terrifying speed, strength, and near-suffocating power, left a lingering chill clinging to Kadeesha as she gazed at the Apollyon palace that she was about to march into—and not as a conqueror.
With the soaring Cascadians at its back, a chain that covered a smaller distance than the Yunnas but rivaled it in height, Kadeesha got the impression she wasn’t about to pass into a mere castle but a fortress … or a prison.
Either way, it might be a place I never emerge from, she thought with dread.
Yes, she and Malachizrien had made a bargain, he’d fulfilled his oath of healing Samira, and she’d made the choice to come here.
But now that she’d arrived in Zahare, the Apollyon Court’s seat of power, the decision she’d made in order to save Samira was fully setting in, as was the certainty that Malachizrien had no intention of allowing her to leave the city alive.
He’d said he aimed to murder every remaining southern monarch and decimate their royal lines, which included herself among the lot.
You’ll get a fight to the death, then, she promised the northern king.
She couldn’t initiate that fight now. He’d proven to be too skilled and experienced a warrior, with a brute strength that outmatched hers, to go at him head-on.
A stealthier approach would be required—one where she bided her time and learned more about the northern king, his court, and, most important, his weaknesses.
She was pretty sure he must have some, though she’d yet to see what they were besides his massive ego.
Plus, she was wise enough to see the value in allowing Malachizrien the chance to wipe Rishaud from existence and take care of that second problem for her.
But she would leave these lands with her life intact, return home, and rebuild the Aether Court—the cornerstone of her kingdom’s strength and prosperity.
She silently vowed it to herself as she stood in enemy territory beside the Apollyon king and his retinue, who radiated nearly the same menacing energy as their liege.
“Why not simply teleport inside the palace?” she then asked Malachizrien.
She suspected it had something to do with security, so this was her first foray into gleaning any sort of important information.
At present, their party stood among verdant grasslands that were a considerable distance away from the expansive palace bearing myriad domed towers and turrets.
The sprawling structure gleamed with silver and the shiny, polished black of the onyx deposits found only on the Apollyon side of the Yunna Mountains.
“Because the entire place—and a large swath of the immediate land around it—is warded against the use of such transport by individuals to whom I haven’t specifically keyed the wards to allow passage.
With you in tow, this is as close as we can get …
” He answered her with an arrogant lilt to his voice that told her he knew exactly why she’d asked and didn’t care at all that she now knew.
“And the wards cover similar travel via runes.” He smirked.
She’d learned two things, then. First: the pertinent details about teleporting here.
Second: before she departed Malachizrien’s territory, perhaps right before one of her aether bombs incinerated his heart, she was going to wipe that smirk off his face.
KADEESHA HAD ASSUMED many things about the dreadful Apollyon Court and its liege, but she’d never imagined the king’s throne room would be covered in delicate flowers.
Dozens of them. Moonglories, a flower that only grew among the highest peaks of the Yunnas, snaked the length of the ceiling and walls.
The night-black blooms were twined together with ivy vines, creating an alluring contrast between dark and light hues.
If she weren’t inside the enemy’s court, she might even appreciate the choice of decor.
She might even muse out loud that she was considering stealing the aesthetics.
But she and Malachizrien were not friends.
They weren’t even true allies, or one kingdom’s royal politicking with another.
No, she was standing in this room under coercion and as a pawn that the Apollyon bastard sought to wield.
Setting the baffling contrast between the dainty flowers and the savage male in front of her aside, she narrowed her eyes at the northern king.
He’d left her standing at the foot of the dais that he now sat atop, sprawled across a massive throne that glittered like it was carved out of polished onyx.
Its legs were fashioned to give the impression of sturdy tree limbs with spikes jutting out along the length of them, and its back spread wider than Malachizrien’s broad shoulders, with a pair of swords shooting out of it on either side.
On each side of Malachizrien sat another throne.
They were onyx, too, and just as enormous, but without the crossed swords behind them.
An arresting woman in a cerulean gown, whom Kadeesha had already sized up to be as deadly as she was alluring, occupied the throne on Malachizrien’s left.
The one on his right was claimed by a male who was only a hairsbreadth shorter than him but with a narrower build.
The male’s slighter stature didn’t make him any less imposing, though.
A warning sang through her mind, a whip reminding her that the three people she stood before were the fearsome king of the Apollyon Court himself and what remained of his royal bloodline.
Kadeesha immediately pegged the young man to Malachizrien’s right to be his cousin Trystin.
He was the grand duke and heir to the Apollyon Court until its king had children.
But that wasn’t why was he was infamous.
No, Trystin bore his own horror stories of the carnage he could wreak with rune work.
The disguises Malachizrien and his Cadre had worn were proof enough of that.
Then there was the matter of the regal woman to Malachizrien’s left, who could be no other than his aunt, Nychelle, the former queen regent and now queen mother, who rumors said presented a poised and prim front but could be more vicious than her nephew’s reputation if pushed.
If Kadeesha were a different individual, she might’ve trembled before the three royals. But she was dangerous too, and an heir to a throne in her own right, so they’d do well to remember it. And if they forgot it, or underestimated her, that’d be to their detriment—and her advantage.
Kadeesha smirked up at the royals, making it clear what she thought about who they were and the court they helmed.
“Are we going to stand around and simply stare at each other all day, or are one of you going to finally tell me why I’ve been dragged before all three of you? Am I supposed to cower?” she snapped.
Nychelle’s eyes narrowed as she leaned forward.
“You are standing in this throne room of your own volition, whole, and you’re unchained, dear.
Believe me, if I wanted your fear, neither of those things would be true.
” Despite Kadeesha’s earlier statement, ice skittered down her neck at Nychelle’s cool tone.
Malachizrien’s gaze raked her and he replied to Kadeesha’s smirk with a smug look of his own, as if he detected her sudden internal alarm. “Cower? Nah. But I’ll take you on your knees, Hyperion princess.”
Malachizrien’s piercing brown stare didn’t stray from her when he imparted this, his timbre drenched with all the authority of a king, and in a cadence that was purely wicked.
Another internal shiver rolled over her; this one had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the way his clear innuendo dredged up memories of Oleander House.
But she quickly doused such a reaction. Because while this man might clearly want to bed her again—badly, from the heat she saw in his eyes—he also didn’t bother to disguise the undiluted hatred he had for her kind when he spat that title at her.
She could practically see the rage toward southern faefolk wafting off him.
For a second, her head swam at its intensity.
Oh, the prick had really disguised it well back at Oleander House.
Either that or, more likely, he was the same as most other males and compartmentalized things extremely well when ass was on the table.
Kadeesha scowled, that feeling only tempered by imagining hurling an aether bomb into Malachizrien’s sickeningly pretty face.
She raised her chin. “I am of the Aether Kingdom and so I am an Aether archprincess, if you insist on using a formal title.”
Malachizrien sneered. “Aether territory is of the Hyperion Kingdom. It is one of the vassal dominions, is it not? So that distinction amounts to semantics.” A merciless grin cut across the harshly beautiful planes of his face.
“And more importantly, you are the betrothed of the Hyperion king, which links you intimately and irrevocably to the Hyperion Court.”