Chapter Seven #2
“I’d like to think so.” We move under the stone arch of the inner wall and toward the back entrance of the coronation hall. Bright lights and sounds spill toward us.
“Good.” She nods. “Good.”
“Do you have a partner?” I ask, knowing she doesn’t have a child.
“No, I’m waiting.”
“For them to find you?” I smile.
My supervisor pulls up her sleeves to reveal her tattooed forearms.
“No, for another century of work to pay off,” she says. “I just keep telling myself it’ll be worth it. To eliminate their debt before it can ever touch their skin.”
“Whose debt?”
“Any child of mine.”
We near the threshold, and the plane of magic washes over us, undulating in hundreds of directions with High Fae geniuses pulsing and wrestling for control.
My stomach twists. Faeries peel off from the group, staggering back outside.
Some grab their heads; others drop to their knees and heave. Briar and I grip each other and enter.
The throne room shimmers with a kaleidoscopic cacophony of High Fae, lanky and large, sage-skinned and magenta or coiled-haired, dressed in gowns and tunics of silk, gossamer, and satin.
Some tug white fur around their shoulders.
Though the fashion styles are wide-ranging from all over Amyria, the one thing the High Fae have in common is their skin remaining untouched by debt.
How much wealth and power amalgamates in this room alone?
Yet faeries must deny ourselves children to provide for our families.
Two colonnades run along the space lengthwise, propping up a soaring ceiling, painted with a pastoral scene.
Craning my neck, I take in the mural of an enormous tree on the far side of the room, its branches spreading out like thousands of arms, its leaves brilliant gold.
The thick trunk descends to a raised dais, where hundreds of roots are woven together, forming an immense but simple seat. The throne.
Floating in the air above the crowd is a sea of candles and crystals refracting the light. Briar and I lean against a shadowed column in the back of the room, my skin still hot with nausea, and she rubs her temple to help her genius adjust.
“You’ll get used to it,” a faerie says nearby, his gaze trained on the floating candles and crystals. “Been here for a few hours. They know how to taper their geniuses. They just don’t want to.”
“As with anything else,” I mumble.
“We should get to our spot,” Briar says. As I kick off the column to join her, the other faerie doesn’t follow.
“Where are you stationed?” I ask him.
“Right here.” The faerie keeps his head tilted back against the column, attention above. “About three thousand candles light the space. Only about thirty of us control them.”
Briar gapes as I search the space and spot faeries and halflings tucked in shadows and alcoves, some sweating, others swaying. The faerie before us looks haggard, sweat pouring down his temples.
“Aren’t they enchanted?” my supervisor asks. “How else do they float?”
“It’s the prestige of a crafted flame. Burn too quickly, and it’ll rain wax. Burn too low and it’ll be too dark.”
I marvel at the concentration and aptitude, like the control of a dancer on the most minuscule level. “Do you need water?” I ask.
“No.”
“Do you want to be by the open windows? Get some fresh air?” Briar wonders.
His brown eyes slide to us. “In Remiti, we do not make windows so large, and the High Fae especially do not purchase this much glass.”
“Isn’t it quite hot there?” I reply. “Why not?”
He squints. “Windows can be shattered.”
A candle smacks the floor by our feet, hot wax splattering against the tile, startling me.
The faerie stares at the candles once more. “I must focus.”
Another comes to clean up the mess as Briar tugs me away. We run along the right-side wall, long tapestries draped between the expansive windows, depicting scenes of the Three Planes.
The first tapestry depicts the High Fae with their pale, translucent wings—their truest, most original form—in the celestial plane.
The next tapestry shows the earthly plane full of fire and overgrown plants and naked, beastly humans who crawl through mud.
The last tapestry centers one descending High Fae, Lucan the Wanderer, wingless but carrying an orb of celestial energy to plant and grow into Lucan’s Tree, which spawned the plane of magic.
Briar and I join the servants in the shadows, carrying trays of water and food and sparkling wine, or cloths to mop up mess.
I pick up crumpled napkins, discarded feathers and fans from the growing number of High Fae who traipse around the room.
Snatches of tongues and tones I’ve never heard before brush over my ears, and my eyes take in styles of shoes I never could’ve imagined—tall heels that could take out an eye, loafers that curl upward at the tip.
Sometimes I forget how isolated the faeries of the palace of Versara are, even if we live in the heart of our country.
“The columns are square. So austere!” one fae hisses.
“You know the old saying, yes?” another answers. “There are no curves in Versara but for its females.”
An eruption of laughter.
“What do you think Prince Maxian’s testament will be?”
“I heard his father split the earth itself—”
“From the first kissing king? Perhaps it’ll simply be a love bite!”
“Maybe he hasn’t married yet because he wants to marry us all.”
More laughter.
The harp melody changes and a blare of trumpets echoes from a balcony above the space.
Illusion halflings play the start of the procession, and the crowd parts for the arrivals of the head, heir, advisor, and heart of each House.
I join the rest of the faeries behind the fae, craning my neck for a glimpse.
I spot Kassandra in her dove-gray silk gown, silver hair braided with pearls and tiny pink flowers.
Her cream gloves reach up to her elbows.
She lifts her chin and places a petite hand in the large palm of the lord next to her.
Lord Dominik.
The heir is dressed in a black tunic trimmed with silver thread, and his sharp features could almost be considered handsome.
Still, his vicious dark eyes cut across the room.
Kassandra beams up at her brother, cheeks bright with rouge I applied.
My stomach lurches. The sky-blue advisor—Lord Tomas—enters behind them, a sage-skinned spouse on his arm.
“Let’s go,” Briar says.
We follow a parallel path on the outskirts of the crowd, and I snag a tray of sparkling wine.
Dominik and Kassandra reach the dais, and he turns, kissing her knuckles.
When the heir straightens, his eyes find me.
Swallowing, I keep my face plain and neutral like Briar’s.
I must fail because he smirks, then mouths two words: Little faerie.
I recoil.
Dominik strides up onto the dais to the far left of the throne. Part of the new king’s Upper Court, the heir represents the Head of Illusion for tonight.
Kassandra glides toward us next to the dais, lips pressed together. “We’re going to need more wine than just a tray.”
I nod. “I will make sure you’re well supplied tonight. Anything you need.”
She frowns. “I miss when you were a combative day servant. Not this dribbling Night Crest.”
I clench my jaw. I was never a combative day servant. I just didn’t go out of my way to—
“There you are.” Kassandra smirks. “I can taste your vexation, remember?”
Maybe it’s the loud throng of bodies or the high expectations for tonight, but it’s as if my mistress goads me into playing with her once more.
“Something to wash it down, then?” I hand her a glass. Her eyes spark with mirth as she wraps gloved fingers around the stem.
“I quite like the bitterness.” She pauses, tilts her head.
“What is it, my lady?” Briar asks.
“Brace yourself,” she says. “Death is here.”
Just then, the plane of magic stops.
It is like running downhill, legs pumping faster and faster and faster—until I run straight into a stone wall. Briar staggers and I reach forward, legs wobbling. We’re not the only ones.
A clang of metal and shattering glass as several faeries fall to the ground. We would be reprimanded any other time, but even the High Fae wave fans, sway, cough. On the dais, Dominik and Eli remain standing, arms clasped behind their backs, undisturbed. Kassandra rolls her eyes, exhaling.
“Go,” she waves. “Lean against that pillar over there before you embarrass me.”
“Mistress,” Briar breathes. “I’m so sorry—”
“It is Death,” she says. “Few can stomach the halfling.”
The tray tips to one side in my grasp, the glasses sliding. An invisible hand levels it.
I gape at Kassandra, but she turns away in dismissal.
Briar and I stagger into the shadows, reaching for a pillar. I place the tray on the ground, then flop down next to it, panting. The plane stills further, a muffled, cold thing, like a stone slab sliding over a sarcophagus.
Cool crystal presses against my arm. I glance down as Briar offers sparkling wine. I grin, lowering my voice. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’ll dull your senses. Might be easier if we can’t sense the plane at all.” An endearing half smile melts years off her face.
We clink and sip. The wine fizzes on my tongue, crisp and light. Sharp like biting into an apple, but with a soft aftertaste. As I drain the glass, I realize she was right—my hold on the plane slips away, and so does the disorientation.
The music strikes up again, warbling this time, trumpets wavering. A ripple goes through the crowd as High Fae step back. Leaning against the column, I haul myself to my feet. Briar comes up next, swaying.
A masked figure stalks through the hall, towering a head above most other fae. A black cloak whips and snaps behind him, its hood pulled over his face.
The only member of the House of Death not banished to the borderlands.
The king’s executioner.
He takes his place on the far right of the dais, leaving an empty space next to the throne.
My heart stutters. I’m not sure what I suspected under that hood—a skull?
A monster? But not a male whose face is wrapped in black cloth save for a slit of olive skin and amber eyes that survey the room.
From this view, I spot an enormous sword slung low on one hip.
Briar hiccups next to me. Those amber eyes slice to us. My blood chills under my skin and Briar gives a clumsy curtsy, grabbing the tray from me.
“Look busy,” she urges, face red.
“You took my tray!”
“It was mine first.”
That gaze slides to the rest of the room until finally, something shifts.
A deep vibration arises from the earth. My eyes flick to the windows, but the night is clear and starry beyond. The candles wobble, some extinguishing. The chandeliers clink and the tiles beneath me tremble until I feel a reverberating energy deep in my bones, skin tingling.
Everyone drops to their knees, High Fae included.
This is Reign magic. Royal power.
Footsteps. I keep my head down, staring at the ground before me. My teeth chatter with the energy.
The footsteps grow closer. Two sets.
Sneaking a glance, I watch the king’s advisor, Hector Vandorne, step up the dais, red robe billowing behind him, gray hair pinned back behind large ears.
Of mixed noble heritage, he comes from the House of Reign and the House of Healing.
Reign may be the oldest and most powerful House, but it’s also the smallest. To have a fae with pure Reign blood is an anomaly. It is said there is only one left.
My body shakes as Crown Prince Maxian Vandorne, son of the Sun King, passes right in front of me.
The entire room quakes as the prince climbs the steps and turns, facing the crowd.
Impossibly tall and broad-shouldered, the Reign fae has tan skin, honey-brown hair, and a set of piercing violet eyes unlike any color I have ever seen before.
They catch the candlelight, glimmering with gold. He wears a robe of the same shade.
I suppose there are worse males. And worse-looking, Kassandra had said. Perhaps she views him like a sibling the way he does her. Or perhaps it is the dirt in me, the faerie, that feels stunned by his terrifying radiance. Whatever the case, Kassandra was misleading.
Prince Maxian Vandorne—Maxian the Mountain—is utterly, brilliantly beautiful.
The ground stops quaking. The plane’s energy dies down to a hum.
No one lets out a breath.
“You may rise,” he thunders, yet his voice is rich and deep and somehow gentle.
The denizens stand, preening under his attention. Perhaps it’s not that Prince Maxian fucks anyone, as Dominik said. Perhaps it’s that everyone wants to fuck him.
My mistress turns to me. “Get more sparkling wine. In the time it takes for Hector to give his speech, even the children will have gray hair.”
Nodding, I back away as Hector steps forward, and the coronation begins.