The Jester: A Dark Fantasy Romance (The Fae Court Book 1)

Chapter 1

Islide the gilded mask onto my face and fasten it behind my ears. Tonight, I will go unnoticed. I won’t be the girl who did the unspeakable thing. I won’t be stared at. Men will not shy away from my touch.

I will dance, and flirt, and laugh, and no one will be afraid of me because they will not know who I am. My costume – and its magic – will make sure of that.

There is a tap on the door, prompting me to quickly pull the mask off and slip it back into the trunk at the foot of my bed.

“Please enter,” I reply, picking up a book and positioning myself by the window as though this is where I intend to stay for the remainder of the evening.

Rawk enters with a stride that sharply slaps the wooden boards. “Alana.” He folds his arms. His wings are out, deep purple, still as the ocean before a storm.

Mine twitch with unease; they have a habit of betraying my emotions and, unlike the rest of my body, I have still not learned to tame them.

I put down the book and close the gap between us.

Rawk is older than me by one hundred years. He is one of the older fae in the village, and is anticipating being named an elder when he reaches his next half-century. He is not old enough to carry the amount of ego that swells in his overly large biceps. But he is old enough to be trusted to contain me this evening.

He quirks an eyebrow, clearly expecting me to speak. When I don’t, he clicks his fingers and I hold out my forearms.

“Where are your gloves?” he asks, his jaw ticking with irritation.

I motion to the dresser where my purple elbow-length gloves are draped neatly over the mirror. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

With a hesitant but swift movement, Rawk swipes the gloves from the mirror and holds them in front of me. “Put them on,” he says roughly.

I do as he asks, slipping into their familiar embrace with a sigh.

Rawk nods, then takes a set of silver cuffs from his waistband and secures them on my wrists. On top of the gloves.

“The cuffs are just for tonight, Alana. You understand why,” he says, his gaze catching on mine. He smiles. But it was not sympathy that prompted his remark. It was the hope that I would read it as sympathy and finally agree to fuck him.

And that is the great irony of my situation; although they are scared of me, every male in my village wants to be the one to tame me. The one to control my magic. The one who fucks Alana the Untouchable and escapes unharmed. With his mind intact.

I would not allow Rawk between my legs if he was the last fae in the kingdom. And if I did, I would certainly not leave him intact.

“Just for tonight,” I reply sweetly.

He stands for a moment, his wings still unnervingly still. Then he looks me up and down, makes a tutting sound in the back of his throat, and pulls the door roughly shut on his way out.

“May the moon be in your favour,” I call after him – as is custom on the night of the Forest Moon centennial.

Clearly, Rawk does not see me as worthy of receiving custom.

I move to the window then, tilting my head from side to side, I let down the gates that keep my mind from feeling those around me. It took me too long to master this skill. Far too long. Other empaths can do it from the day they are born, but not me.

My mother used to say I struggled because I was so much stronger than those who’d come before me. My father believed the opposite.

My kin – the other Leafborne fae of the forest – sided with my father. They hated me long before I gave them reason to.

Allowing the sounds, and movements, and emotions of the forest to swell inside my skull, I press my forehead to the glass and search for Rawk. He is no longer close by. My cabin, on the outskirts of the village, is surrounded by silence.

I can feel the others in the distance – their excitement, the hedonistic murmur of their hearts as they put on their costumes and drink their wine. But they are muted. Far enough away that I am confident I am alone.

I look down at my wrists. The cuffs are designed to prevent me from changing as the others will. For tonight, the night of the Forest Moon, is the night my people become one with the world around them.

On this one night – just one – every century, the Leafborne fae of the outermost forests are able to change form and be true kin with the creatures of the land.

At the last Forest Moon festival, Kayan, Rosalie, and I spent the evening as owls. We flew high into the treetops and watched everything that was happening down below. We watched the deer rutting and tried to figure out who they were, and whether they’d be horrified or delighted when they shifted back and realised who they’d just fucked. We hunted, we soared, and then we returned to the fire at sunrise and gathered with the others for the breaking dawn ceremony.

It was the best night of my life.

And the day after became the worst.

I run my fingers over the silver cuffs. They are tight, but not linked, so I can still move freely. I let a deep breath swell in the crevices between my ribs, then exhale slowly and retrieve my mask from its hiding place.

Swiftly, I slide it back on, then tug my purple gloves free from beneath the cuffs and replace them with the gold ones from the bottom of my trunk. I sigh as I look at the gold fabric. At first, the deep-purple gloves my mother gave me meant freedom. Freedom from absorbing others’ emotions at the slightest brush of the hand.

But in the one hundred years since the last Forest Moon, they have become nothing more than symbols of my failings. Failure to control. Failure to free myself.

I move to the wardrobe, reach inside, and loosen the hidden panel at the back. Then I take out my dress. The dress I’ve spent the last century building just for tonight.

Retracting my wings, I remove my emerald-green gown, allow it to pool at my feet, then step out of it and slip on my costume. It feels like feathers of silk against my skin. I release my wings once more, and flex them gently into a satisfying stretch.

In front of the dressing table, I assess my reflection.

For now, I still look like me. Fiery auburn hair hanging in waves over my shoulders. A slender silhouette. Pale skin.

Against my hair, the mask glistens, emphasising my porcelain complexion but hiding the splash of freckles across my nose. It is intricately carved, and makes my sea-green eyes dazzle when they catch the dimming evening light. It was my mother’s, but now it is mine. And the weight of the enchantments that are laced into its fibres rest heavily on my brow.

I adjust the mask, then smooth my hands over my dress, skimming my sides and my hips.

This dress – oh, this dress! The hours I have spent weaving incantations into the silk threads, poring over books from my mother’s library, searching for magics that have long been forgotten by the Leafborne who walk the forests today.

All so I can go to the centennial and walk amongst my kin without being seen.

In this dress, my magic will keep them from seeing me as I am. They will see an illusion – whoever they want to see. Someone who makes them feel safe and at ease. Someone who makes them smile. If they speak to me, they will hear the voice of that person. If they dance with me, they will feel the body of that person. And as soon as I leave their sight, they will forget it ever happened.

I have tested it once.

On Rosalie.

Although she speaks to me more than the others, it had been a long time since we were alone and it was both wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time.

But it worked.

She didn’t see me; she saw her cousin. We talked about the weather, and the new herd of white horses that had moved into the valley beyond the falls. Then she told me she’d see me at dinner that evening, and walked away.

Dragging my thoughts away from my friend, I apply some red colouring to my lips, then brush my hair one final time.

My mother would love this dress.

Its whisper-thin silk will shift from the deepest midnight blue to a deep, hypnotic purple, depending on how the moonlight kisses the fabric. The hem has been enchanted to flutter gently, as if caught in a perpetual, soft breeze. And around my waist, I wear a belt of woven silver vines that accentuates my waist and my hips.

Everything about this dress has been designed to dazzle those who see it. In this dress, I will walk among the other fae of my village completely free of judgement because they will not see me.

The mask and the enchantments will hide me from them. From those who remember what I did.

As the memory snags on the deepest crevices of my mind, my stomach constricts and my excitement darkens.

What if there isn’t enough magic to enchant again and again and again for an entire evening? What if I am exposed, and exiled for my betrayal?

For a fraction of a moment, I consider taking off the dress and the mask and staying here.

But I know I will not.

I cannot.

I cannot remain on the outskirts of my own life for much longer without losing my mind.

I waituntil the sun dips beyond the umbrella of the forest’s canopy before leaving my cabin. Barefoot, I nestle my toes into the dark green moss that carpets the floor. I stand for a moment, allowing beads of evening dew to cool my soles.

I adjust my mask, my dress, my gloves.

Then I walk towards the noise of the celebration.

As I weave through the most dense part of the forest, twilight clings to the trees, the last fading rays of dusk filtering through the canopy in slanted beams. When I reach the stream, violet butterflies spiral upwards at my feet, their delicate wings casting flickering shadows across the twisted roots and rocks by the river’s edge.

With each stride, excitement sparks brighter within me, fizzing hotter and stronger than the apprehension that grips my chest.

Closer to the clearing, the trees begin to thin. Towering oaks and firs creak softly in the gentle breeze. Gnarled and covered in velvet green moss, they watch my passage and sigh at me.

“Everything will be okay,” I whisper. More to myself than to them.

Pausing, I trail my fingers along the bark of my favourite tree, feeling the thrum of life pulsing in its core. Unlike the cold, unfeeling stone of the kingdom’s cities, everything here is alive.

I visited Luminael – our capital – only once, and vowed never to go there again. Perhaps that is why I didn’t flee when I should have – why I stayed and allowed myself to become a shadow in my own life.

Finally, the clearing comes into view. I inhale deeply, letting the air feed my lungs. For a long moment, I soak up the swirling tendrils of revelry and joy that float in the air. I let the excitement and the anticipation wash over me.

I’m about to slam the gates back down and spend the evening revelling in only my own thoughts, when something stops me.

On this night when everyone is happy, and when no one will look at me and feel fear, why not fill myself with joy and light instead of darkness?

So, leaving my gates down, I emerge into the clearing.

It has been an entire century since the last Forest Moon, and the things that happened after have since erased any positive memories from my mind.

But now, they come flooding back.

Familiarity and hedonistic exhilaration flood my senses.

A bonfire blazes in the centre of the clearing, flames licking up towards the starry sky as fae dancers whirl around the fire in a mesmerising blur of colour and movement. Sparks of magic crackle through the air, taking shape as birds and butterflies and ethereal shapes with no solid form.

Tonight, everyone is masked and everyone wears an elaborate costume.

I wait for heads to turn, but no one notices my arrival. Relief washes over me, the weight of one hundred years finally slipping from my shoulders. My wings unfurl, tingling with the promise of unbridled freedom. Finally, I am not a monster.

For this one night, I am not a monster.

I am not myself.

I am free.

But then I see him.