Chapter 3
LYRAE
One week ago
Nothing to worry about, Raz, my friend.
No need to bother Anaria with trivial matters.
Just the usual Shadowlands bullshit, traced back to this Prince of Nothing. I’ve got everything taken handled and soon enough, we’ll never have to worry about him again.
I cringed, remembering those arrogant assurances, barely a week ago when Raziel had raised his valid concerns. But I’d been so sure there was no real threat.
How very wrong I’d been.
My armor rattled as I paced back and forth, wearing a path in the stone floor of the War Room, wishing I could take back my earlier words. At least the atmosphere in here wasn’t panicked.
Yet.
No, panic would come later when everyone connected Torin’s apocalyptic vision with the news I’d received an hour ago and realized we had a real problem on our hands.
News I was still processing.
“Seriously? Torin’s first vision in a hundred years and this is what she sees?” I muttered to no one in particular, not that any of the seven people packed in the room were paying me any attention.
Raziel, Tristan and Zorander—three of the queen’s mates—had their heads together, deep in conversation, while Anaria sat by the fire, holding Torin’s hand while Zephryn glowered at the cloud-filled sky like he could stop the coming storm.
Out of us all, the High Seer was the most composed, speaking quietly to the queen, reassuring her, no doubt, that often her visions did not come to fruition, or whatever story Torin was currently spinning to keep a lid on this fucked up situation.
But I remembered when one of Torin’s visions would change the course of the entire war, or cause one of the Shadow King’s enemies to lose their head on the executioner’s block.
Usually because I was the executioner.
There was good reason for Torin being the High Seer, the chosen diviner of the Fae King. Her visions influenced every major event of the past three hundred years, and no matter how much I told myself this vision could turn out to be nothing…
That hard kernel of fear in my stomach kept growing bigger.
The door slammed open, Tavion and Cosimo rushing in after keeping us waiting for hours. “It’s about fucking time.” Raziel snapped impatiently. “Tell them everything, Torin. And you’d best start at the very beginning.”
“I’ve had a vision. My first in over a hundred years.”
This time though, Torin couldn’t quite keep her voice from shaking.
“The images came out of nowhere, and I have no idea why now, but…” she touched two fingers to her forehead, almost like an act of prayer, “at first, all I saw was blood, so much blood, then the number three, over and over again before the vision cleared.”
Cosimo knelt beside her, and Torin’s pale, white eyes focused on him like she could actually see, like her uncanny gift of divination hadn’t cost her the sight of the world around her.
“A wave of darkness swept over the realm, and behind it, the remnants of the forests became nothing but endless swathes of gnarled trees, dried up rivers, and…” She swallowed. “Everyone was dead, or dying, or…”
“What?”
“Bleeding.” Torin’s opaque gaze caught on mine. “There was so much blood. And the more the people bled, the darker that wave became, the faster it moved, until nothing could stop it.”
“I’ve never heard of magic being tied to blood.
” Anaria glanced between us. “Fae magic isn’t usually linked to blood; that sounds more like some kind of witch magic.
” Her gaze slid to Raziel, a furrow between her brows.
“Revenants and Soul Reapers and giant disgusting centipedes I’ve seen, but a dark wave of power that swallows everything up?
” She shook her head. “That’s nothing I know about. ”
“Your magic was like that,” Raz reminded her softly. “But your magic didn’t devour, it created.”
“But this isn’t Fae magic.” I muttered bitterly. “We’re talking about Shadowlands magic.”
“Lyrae’s right.” Torin dipped her head. “According to my vision, this threat issued out of the Shadowlands, and there is no telling what sort of magic has been festering down there all these years. We know nothing about that part of our world.”
“Back in my day,” Zephryn murmured, “there were rumors of an ancient Shadowlands family, aristocrats, whose magic was linked to blood, but I don’t remember more than that.”
I’d heard the same sort of rumors, but I’d kept them to myself, in the hopes they amounted to nothing. How wrong I’d been.
“I have something to add to Torin’s vision. Something of a more…concrete proof there is a viable threat.”
“Lyrae,” Torin hissed, shaking her head.
But the time for keeping secrets was over. Even though Anaria was the most powerful Fae queen in existence, even though she’d defeated armies of Soul Reapers and Old Gods and two corrupt, powerful kings, we’d all been hiding something from her.
“She deserves to know.” I argued quietly. “And after your vision, after this morning’s…developments, we can’t ignore the truth.”
“And what truth is that?” Anaria sounded like she was grinding glass between her teeth, but I held her narrowed stare. “Spit it out, Lyra. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“It seems the Shadowlands are more than a desiccated wasteland, my queen.”
“That’s becoming abundantly clear,” Anaria waved her hand in the air.
“And it’s just us, so please dispense with the queen bullshit.
You, of all people, know I don’t appreciate secrets, commander.
Tell me what you know.” She lifted her head, reminding me of the steel hiding beneath that delicate exterior. “Everything you know.”
“Three years ago, the Shadowlands were not affected by the rebirth of the Fae magic.” I watched a shadow of fear creep over Anaria’s face.
“We’ve been keeping a close eye on the borders, monitoring the ward, sending patrols down periodically to make sure nothing changed… then two years ago…there was a…shift.”
The breath I took was neither calming nor steady.
“There has been a steady flow of whispers coming out of the Shadowlands. Talk of an army of unbeatable Fae soldiers, of some Dark Prince character, of foul magic growing stronger. At first, we discounted the rumors as superstition, then there were a handful of incidents along the border. Disappearances, one tavern burned, a pasture of dead cows.” I met my queen’s withering stare. “Bled to death, as it turned out.”
“Interesting facts,” Anaria snapped tartly. “Yet I knew none of this.”
“If I informed you of every tavern that burned or barroom scuffle, we’d spend our lives in meetings,” I tossed back, since she was so godsdamned insistent on not being treated like a queen.
“But after the cow incident about two weeks ago…I sent in a scouting party. Six of my best Dreadwatch soldiers, highly trained, led by a tracker I trusted. They were all battle hardened, heavily armed, and went in there expecting trouble.”
“And…?” Anaria prompted, and I swallowed past the knot still lodged in my throat.
“I received their heads back this morning. Dropped at the front gates in a burlap bag. No one—not even the guards on duty—saw who left it, which meant they used magic to get past our own wards.”
Everyone in the room was staring at me now, their expression pitying, except for Anaria, who looked like she might want my head, too.
“The heads of every guard were in there. All six of them. They’d only been dead for a day at most, so they must have gotten past the wards, and inside, but other than that…I can only assume they went up against this prince character and lost.”
“On the same day Torin has her vision,” a pale Anaria pointed out, and I nodded.
“Truthfully, we know little of the Shadowlands.” I clasped my hands behind my back. “Their borders are guarded by powerful magic, their shores by cliffs two hundred feet high. The Fae there have always been secretive, and there has never been a named ruler, except for now.”
“Bastard actually calls himself the Prince of Darkness.” Zephryn rumbled, Anaria’s head swiveling in his direction and my mouth dried up as the reality of our situation hit me like an avalanche.
This was really happening.
Torin’s visions were never wrong, which meant we could be on the verge of another long, bloody war. This prince could be a viable threat, and if blood magic was involved, then gods help us all.
“I thought you were joking. He really calls himself that?” Anaria asked sharply. “And why the fuck am I just now finding out about this?”
“Because you’ve been busy rebuilding a kingdom, and up until now, the Shadowlands is nothing but a pimple on the arse of the world.” I soothed, sliding into the chair beside Anaria.
“You trusted me to guard our borders, and I have been keeping an eye on this situation for months now. Outside of spreading rumors and stirring up trouble along his borders, this prince is probably a nobody with delusions of grandeur. And princes can be killed. I say we go in and eliminate the threat. Simple as that.”
“What did you have in mind?” Raz asked sharply. “Someone infiltrates the Shadowlands and assassinates the prince himself?”
“It’s worked before.” I shrugged, facing a now-silent room. All of us remembered how we’d overthrown the Shadow King and brought an entire realm to its knees. Yes, we’d nearly failed.
Yet here we all were, alive to tell the tale.
“Let me take a battalion of my men and eradicate this prince before he has a chance to fortify his position in the south. I say, given Torin’s vision, we don’t waste any time.”
I wanted blood, bad enough to taste it. My soldiers had gone in with much the same confidence, and their heads had been left outside the Citadelle’s front gates.
They deserved to be avenged, and I meant to make justice swift and sure.
“There was something else about my vision. I could not see clearly, but I kept coming back to the number three.” Torin sighed, rubbing the deep circles beneath her eyes. “I will try again tonight, see if I can recall anything else, but the number three…that has to be a clue.”
“I’m leaving now for a flyover.” Zephryn shoved to his feet, peeling off his jacket. “Tristan, you’re coming with me; we’ll return by nightfall with a report. There’s no sense in getting worked up until we know for sure there’s a viable threat.”