The Crowned Queen (The Eldergreen #3)

Prologue

He was being followed.

Kai turned another corner at random, wandering down the deserted street.

Curfew had long come and gone, the thin moonlight barely enough to illuminate the cracked cobblestones.

No aetherlamps here—the fae weren’t important enough to spare the magic for something as mundane as lighting some narrow side street.

He’d first noticed his tail two nights ago—a flicker of movement, a shadow that vanished whenever he turned toward it—but whoever it was, they’d never gotten close enough for him to tell them he didn’t mean any harm, that he was there to help.

Hopefully, this would be the night that changed. Otherwise, he’d be forced to go back to his ordinary life and try to think of another way to track down the resistance.

Ordinary life—the thought was almost enough to make Kai laugh out loud. Three weeks ago, he hadn’t had a care in the world. He had a prestigious research posting, a comfortable apartment in Kingswalk, and a standing invitation to Garrick Shaw’s table.

And of course, he’d had Jaxon. His best friend since they were old enough to toddle behind their fathers as they built a new world—a world where their sons would stand at the top instead of the bottom.

Looking back, Kai wasn’t quite sure when he’d stopped believing in that world.

Maybe it had started during his training as a runesmith, when he’d observed and performed his first inscriptions on screaming, sobbing fae.

Or maybe it had been the day he’d walked into Jaxon’s office at the Aetherium to find one of his fae students righting her skirts, her face streaked with tears.

Jaxon had laughed, like it was all some sort of joke. Want a turn? he’d asked, grinning with the satisfaction of a cat that had trapped a poor mouse in its claws.

Kai couldn’t even remember what he had said.

He’d probably laughed and awkwardly changed the subject, desperate to go straight back to pretending he didn’t see what kind of a person his father’s world was shaping him into.

But he’d stopped being able to deny the truth on that cart in Eluneth, Araya’s accusing silver eyes flashing from his face to the stolen child in his arms.

Are you really going to do it? she’d demanded. Are you really going to put a ly’ithra rune on a baby?

He’d known these things happened, of course. All his father’s research showed that inscribing the ly’ithra rune young was best—less chance of anything falling through the cracks that way—but to actually be presented with the evidence of what that meant for the fae...

Kai wasn’t sure he’d gotten a proper night’s sleep since.

He turned another corner, stumbling to a halt. The alley ended in a crumbling wall, its base buried in refuse. Another dead end. Another wasted night—

“You’ve run out of road, Kai Sterling.”

Kai jumped, only the cold kiss of a blade against the side of his throat keeping him from whipping around.

“Funny,” he said, his voice higher than it should have been. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Three nights,” a female voice murmured, her warm breath stirring the air by his ear. “Wandering the streets, asking questions you shouldn’t be.” The blade dug into his skin a little harder. “We don’t like the sons of Arcanum officials sniffing around, Sterling.”

So she knew who he was. It wasn’t exactly a surprise—after all, he’d been making himself conspicuous on purpose. But his plan had been a lot more palatable in theory than it was now that he had a knife to his throat.

“I’m not here for the Arcanum,” he said carefully. “I want to help the resistance.”

“There is no resistance,” she said.

“There is,” Kai insisted. “You help fae escape the New Dominion. Get them across the Shadowed Sea to Eluneth—to the free fae. I just need to find my friend—”

The knife dug into his skin, choking the rest of the words in his throat.

For a long moment she said nothing, pressing the knife so hard against his neck that Kai wondered if she was going to open his throat right here and save herself the trouble of figuring out what to do with him.

That would be something his father would struggle to explain.

How did the son of the magister that created the ly’ithra rune end up bleeding out in a Farhallow gutter—

“Turn around,” she said. “Slowly.”

Kai held his hands out and turned, breathing a sigh of relief as the knife dropped away from his throat. He couldn’t see anything of the fae female who had stopped him, her slight form buried in a dark cloak far too heavy for the spring night.

“I just need to talk to someone who can get a message to the fae working with Prince Loren,” he said. “I know he’s here somewhere. I want to help him.”

“No one has seen Prince Loren since the Ascendancy.” The stranger cocked her head, peering out at him from the shadow of her hood. “You expect me to believe you have?”

“I swear I have.” Kai willed her to believe him. “He’s been a prisoner for over twenty years. He escaped, but Jaxon Shaw took his mate. He’s convinced Prince Loren will come after her.”

The stranger laughed, the sound filling the alley like the ring of tinkling bells.

To Kai’s shock, she pushed back her hood, revealing a face that was all angles from a lifetime of malnutrition.

Her pale gold hair was pulled back from her face in a braided crown that revealed the clipped tips of her ears.

He hadn’t expected her to be so young—it was hard to tell with fae sometimes, but she couldn’t have been older than him.

“Jaxon Shaw—your best friend and the son of High Magister Garrick Shaw?” She arched a delicate eyebrow, her fae-blue eyes gleaming in the dark. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors, Kai Sterling.”

“I know how it sounds.” Kai let his hands drop, his shoulders slumping. “But I promise, I’m telling the truth. I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just want to help him get his mate back.”

Her lip curled, but the knife in her hand flashed in the moonlight, vanishing into the folds of her cloak.

“Human promises aren’t worth the shit on the bottom of my shoe,” she said. “But fortunately for you, I’m not the one that has to decide what to do with you. Let’s go, Kai Sterling.”

She made him lead, her clipped instructions directing him through the maze of streets until Kai was thoroughly lost.

“Here,” she said finally, nudging him toward a derelict building that looked just like every other falling-down house they’d passed.

“Here?” Kai repeated, eyeing the structure skeptically.

“We don’t all have big fancy houses in Kingswalk.” She shoved his shoulder hard enough that he stumbled forward a step. “Let’s go.”

“All right!” Kai rubbed his shoulder, casting a glare back at her. “It just doesn’t look like much.”

It didn’t even have a real door. Just a loose plank leaning against a poorly boarded up hole in the wall. Kai shoved it aside, twisting his body to slide through the narrow opening.

The front room was exactly what he expected from the exterior—rotting floorboards, a collapsed section of ceiling, the damp smell of salt and rot.

“If you’re just going to murder me the alley would have been fine, you know,” Kai said. “You didn’t have to lure me into some abandoned building.”

Her lips twitched. “Just keep going.”

She nudged him toward a curtain hanging across the far end of the room, its fabric so faded it had ceased to have a color. He ducked through it into a narrow hall, startling at the faint tingle of magic skating across his skin, raising the hair on his arms.

Kai craned his neck, peering up at the ceiling.

Runes—dozens of them, carved directly into the walls.

They ran the full length of the hall in both directions, interlocking in a pattern far more complex than he would ever have expected to see here. The Arcanum didn’t leave fae with enough magic to power even a fraction of something like this—

“Well,” his guide said dryly. “At least we know you aren’t an inquisitor.”

Kai tore his eyes away from the ceiling, belatedly realizing she’d pushed open another door. “Oh.”

Rickety wooden racks stood around the perimeter, filled with everything from lengths of nail-studded wood with leather-wrapped handles to blades that had started life as kitchen knives—anything that could be turned into a weapon, had been.

And there were fae. Dozens of them—paired off across the makeshift training hall with their cobbled-together weapons or clustered in small groups—every one of them staring at him like he was some sort of bug that had crawled up through the floorboards.

“Are you serious, Caela?” A fae female near the back spoke up. “The Arcanum will execute us all if he reports this.”

“I won’t!” Kai hastened to assure her. He glanced around at the others. “That’s not—”

His guide—Caela—dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Maerin wants to see him,” she said. More softly, she added, “He did promise, Raelle.”

A few of the others laughed, a nervous titter rippling through the room. But Raelle’s scowl only deepened.

“Take him straight to Maerin,” she warned. “No extra stops.”

Caela gave him a gentler shove than before, propelling him across the floor. The fae parted around him. The sound of combat training picked back up as he passed, driving home the thing Kai hadn’t quite admitted to himself before now.

If Maerin—whoever she was—didn’t agree to accept his help, these fae would kill him.

Caela rapped twice on a heavy wooden door at the back of the space, not waiting for whoever was inside to answer before she shoved it open.

“Kai Sterling,” she said, pulling him in behind her. “As requested.”

“Kai Sterling.”

The leader of the fae resistance sat behind a heavy desk, its scarred surface scattered with hand-drawn maps and notes scrawled in a tight, economical hand. She shoved them aside, abandoning whatever she’d been working on to focus on a more pressing issue.

Mainly, him.

“Guilty as charged.” Kai spread his hands, grinning weakly. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

“So I gathered by the way you wandered around my district asking questions you shouldn’t.” The silver-haired female arched an eyebrow, the movement pulling at the pale scar that ran the length of her face. “Sit.”

Kai sank into the chair across from her.

“I need to reach Prince Loren,” he said. “He’s either already back in Aetheris or he’s on his way.”

Caela snorted, but Maerin’s expression didn’t flicker. “I believe he goes by King Loren now,” she said.

“Wait—he’s telling the truth?” Caela straightened, stepping away from the wall. “The lost prince is alive?”

“It’s of no consequence to us.” Maerin picked up a quill from her desk, turning it between her fingers.

“How is it of no consequence?” Caela demanded. “Don’t the fae monarchs have ancient, powerful magic? If he could—”

“If he wanted to, he would have.” Maerin’s flat tone cut through her protest, silencing the younger female.

“In his defense,” Kai said, “he was a prisoner. He’s only been free for a few months.” Kai cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably as both females looked at him. “I want to help him rescue his mate from Jaxon Shaw.”

Maerin’s gaze sharpened. “And why would you help the fae king steal your best friend’s prize away?” she asked. “I hear Commander Shaw covets the girl.”

“Well—” Kai stumbled over his words. “She doesn’t want to be…coveted.”

“And what difference does that make to you?” Maerin tapped the quill against her desk.

“Human mages rape us every day. Force us to bear their children—then rip those same children from our arms.” The point of the quill snapped off, spattering one of the maps on her desk with ink.

“What makes her so special, Kai Sterling?”

“She’s my friend,” Kai said lamely.

“Some friend,” Caela muttered.

Kai’s face heated. “You’re right,” he admitted.

“About all of it. I told myself that I didn’t know what was really happening, that I wasn’t in a position to challenge the Arcanum.

I thought not using amplifiers made me better than the rest of them—but I was wrong.

” He exhaled slowly. “I can’t undo the harm I’ve done with my silence.

But I can offer inside knowledge of the Shaw estate.

I have access that none of your people can get on your own. ”

“I don’t care about any of that.” Maerin waved a hand, cutting him off. “If you want us to help you, I need something from you first. Something real.”

“Like what?” Kai asked.

Maerin leaned forward, resting her scarred forearms on the edge of the desk. “I have ten fighters that need their ly’ithra runes removed. Is that something you can do?”

“I mean, I could—” Kai stammered, thrown by the sudden change of subject. “But what good would that do? They’ll just be arrested when they report for collection.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Maerin said.

Kai frowned, his brow furrowing. Registered fae had to present themselves every week—unless they had a waiver or were independently bonded.

Any fae that failed to allow their excess magic to be harvested would be noted and recorded, eventually hunted down and punished.

And if they did present for collection with their ly’ithra rune removed—well, Kai could only imagine the chaos. It was completely foolish, unless—

Unless that was the plan.

“Are you…” Kai trailed off, hardly daring to speak the words aloud. “You can’t attack a collection. Are you insane? The Arcanum will slaughter your fighters—”

“But we’ll take some of them with us.” Maerin sat back in her chair, studying him. “I’m not insane, Kai Sterling. I’m angry. Now, are you going to help us? Or is your newfound moral compass all talk, no action?”

Kai dropped his gaze, staring down at the papers scattered across the desk. Some of them looked like official Arcanum documents—schedules, routes, guard assignments—the sort of thing someone like Maerin should never have been able to get her hands on.

“If I don’t do it,” he said slowly, “you’ll kill me.”

Maerin just smiled.

Kai let out a long breath, suddenly very aware of the sounds filtering through the closed door.

Thuds and muffled voices, makeshift weapons clashing together.

Every fae here was risking execution or worse by training with these weapons.

If they were willing to fight the Arcanum without their magic—armed with only kitchen knives and clubs—surely he could be brave enough to stand up beside them.

Kai swallowed hard, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. “Well obviously,” he said with a bravado he didn’t feel, “I’m in.”