Faerie was not how I remembered.
I observed the planet from the Excalibur’s command deck. What had once been a glowing orb of light and color now throbbed all shades of red.
“Shit went down while we were away, huh?” Sota remarked, drawing Kellee’s side-eye.
Lightning split the churning clouds. Numerous storms swelled and sloshed like waves, and as we watched, heaving masses of what I assumed was the Hunt’s magic heaved off the planet’s surface, disturbing Faerie’s atmosphere. Shit had definitely gone down. My guess was the Hunt hadn’t been too pleased to learn its primary targets had abandoned it. Had we been gone any longer, it likely would have breached Faeries atmosphere altogether.
“And the dark fae are down there?”
“They will be,” Eledan replied to my left. “The arena your ill-fated harem met me at to hand you over is also a dormant lifewell. They’ll come through there.”
That was the place Eledan had made me believe the earth had tried to swallow me whole. Bastard.
“When?”
“When you go there and call them to you.”
Great. I had to get down there, amid a maelstrom and be the Nightshade, right under the Hunt’s nose. “Sota, I’ll need you by my side to hide me from the Hunt as long as possible.”
“I got your back.”
Kellee glared down at Faerie like he could screw it up in his fist and toss it away. “I should be there. The wraiths may recognize me.”
I nodded and asked Eledan, “What do we do once we have our army on Faerie?”
“Channel the polestar,” he replied grimly. “The presence of the dark fae will distract the Hunt enough to give me time to prepare the book.”
Sirius had left to retrieve the thimble from Talen moments ago. He returned now, with it in his pocket, its presence like a beacon in my mind. Eledan plucked the acorn from his pocket and handed it to Sirius—the only fae we all trusted to have both pieces in his possession. I sensed each piece like they were living, breathing beacons demanding I steal them and crush them. Eledan shot me a raised eyebrow, feeling the same ominous push and pull.
“The Wild Ones and the sidhe will be waiting for our return,” Sirius said, keeping his distance as I’d instructed. I didn’t trust Eledan not to grab the polestar power for himself while we were wrangling countless fae.
“Of course they will,” I grumbled.
Talen wasn’t here. I could have ordered him to come, but there was nothing here he didn’t already know, and after forcing him to command the Excalibur, I didn’t feel like ordering any of them to do anything they didn’t want to.
“Can you get a message to Sonya?” I asked Sirius. He nodded. The last I’d seen of my saru friend, she’d been in Sirius’s sanctuary with other saru Sirius had been trying to wean off their innate desire to serve. My gut told me she and the saru would help if they could. “Tell her to be ready.”
“And the plan?” Kellee’s sardonic, liquid drawl rolled over us.
“We get the Hunt as close to the book as we can…” I deferred to Eledan, who continued to gaze at Faerie, blue eyes pinched and mouth set in a hard, slanted line.
“We will have an army of dark fae and vakaru wraiths—wraiths you can control, Marshal, now that you’re brimming with my brother’s blood. We will have all willing saru at our potential command, the Messenger-Nightshade, an evolved wardrone, a guardian, and myself. The sidhe lords are few and have never liked the taste of battle. They will buckle first. As for the Wild Ones… it’s time I dealt with them.”
“How?” Kellee pushed, too familiar with Eledan to let him slither out of answering.
“With empty promises,” he replied without missing a beat.
“What promises?”
“They want Kesh’s power…” Eledan circled a hand in the air. “It’s not a concern.”
Kellee’s eyes narrowed. “The hell it’s not—”
“Kellee,” I tried to appease.
He glanced my way, pupils rimmed in red. “The last time we went into battle, Aeon and Sirius took you, just as Eledan took you from me in the past. I won’t stand here and let you tell me to trust him when we all know he’s a manipulative shit. Eledan, you will explain how this ends right now, or this ship isn’t moving.”
Eledan calmly regarded Kellee like the live wire he was. “You do not control this ship, vakaru.”
“And do you think Talen will take my word or yours, Dreamweaver?”
Eledan’s grin morphed into the type he knew baited Kellee. I shoved him, resisting the urge to turn that shove into a punch. “Stop. There’s no time for this.”
He looked at where I’d touched his arm and then back up to me, his expression teetering on the edge of rage.
I dropped a hand to my whip. “You can tear strips off each other when this is over.” If any of us survive. To Kellee, I said, “Eledan made a deal with the Wild Ones for my life.”
“He did what?”
“The deal stopped them from harming me.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“At this stage, it really doesn’t matter—”
“Why, because you think you’ll die down there?” He came at me with raw vakaru burning in his eyes. “It matters. You matter. You’re surviving this. We’re all surviving this—”
“Unlikely.” Eledan snorted.
Kellee lunged. I blocked him, locking my stare on the vakaru desperately struggling against Kellee’s control. The beast in him glared through me, until Kellee blinked and eased back beside Sota and far from Eledan, composing himself.
“Kellee…” I spoke softly. “I need you under control.”
“Oh, I am… You’d know if I wasn’t.” He flicked his hands out, banishing his claws before they could fully appear. “You’d all best know this: I don’t give a shit about Faerie. I will do whatever it takes to keep Kesh safe, and if that means the whole damn system collapses, so be it.” His stare found Eledan and burned. “If you betray us, I’ll turn the wraiths on you, and don’t think I won’t.”
“Understood, vakaru,” Eledan replied, startlingly reasonable for once.
A few moments passed and the tension dissipated.
“We’re really doing this?” Sota asked.
Events had led us right here, either by fate or by Eledan. Halow’s fall, Arcon’s rise, the Game of Lies, Hapters’s dark fae, and Valand’s dead… Whatever the source, there was no escaping what would come next.
I took Sota’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze. A smile warmed his eyes. “We’re doing this,” I told him. “Together.”
Talen entered the command deck. His gray and silver scout leathers reminded me of the same outfit he’d worn when we’d first met. Their severe cut made his outline lean and sharp. His hair, braided close to his scalp, rested in tight plaits over one shoulder.
“Are we ready?” he asked, formal and distant.
I nodded. “Take the Excalibur down to the surface.”
It seemed the entire sky was stormy, but where I’d expected devastating thunderclaps, a thick silence and stillness hung over the arena. Faerie was holding Her breath.
If there was ever a time to help me, Faerie, that time is now.
Eledan walked ahead to the center of the old, abandoned arena. Ancient organic arches reached over our heads but had broken and crumbled before meeting in the middle. Nothing seemed special about the space, but if Eledan said there was a lifewell here, I trusted him with that information, if little else.
He climbed a curved set of moss-covered stairs to an overgrown platform and gestured beside him. “Stand here.” When Sota tried to follow me, Eledan added, “Not you. Just Kesh.”
He reluctantly hung back. Kellee stood nearby, claws out and senses alert. Sirius lingered behind, flames licking at his hair and clothes like sprites. Talen had stayed with the ship, soothing it and keeping it under control should we need a quick getaway. I missed his guiding hand. He would know whether Eledan was full of karushit.
“Trust me, Kesh, or don’t, but make a decision. Time is not on our side.”
I stepped onto the spot he’d indicated, expecting something to happen.
“Now what?”
He stepped back and spread his hands, looking at the ground. “Now to add a little of Mab’s gift.”
I waited and huffed. Here we were, standing beneath the Hunt’s churning darkness with little to no plan, waiting on the Dreamweaver to get his act together. What if this was all for nothing? But he’d gotten us this far, even if I did despise his means.
The surrounding vines slithered apart, revealing the polished black stone beneath and the shining fae letters, like those I’d seen on Hapters, etched into the surface.
Time, our prison.
Dark, our sentence.
Light, our freedom.
The depth of that meaning clicked inside, shifting a core part of me and awakening the alien power near my heart that I attributed to the polestar. Eledan glowed with intertwining rope-like green light, feeding his magic—Mab’s magic—into the platform. This had been the plan all along. Mab was always going to bring the dark fae back, right here, but she’d needed the polestar to do it. The map, the lifewells, the prisons—it all led to this place. Thousands of years of unrest, thousands of years of Faerie’s decay, was about to end—if we trusted Eledan.
Eledan licked his lips, rolled up his sleeves, setting the green light writhing, and brought his forearms up between us. Dark vine-like warfae marks slithered across his skin—moving. They were the key, and we stood on the final door.
I knew what to do.
I tossed my coat off, loosened my shirt, and rolled up my sleeves, exposing my marks to Faerie’s air and Eledan’s life magic. His green threads lassoed around me, coiling up my exposed arms and slipping beneath my shirt, exposing the marks. Where they touched, trickling buzzing energy fizzled my skin like a low electric current.
I let it happen. Before now, I would have pushed Eledan’s magic away, pushed anything Faerie back, but I was part of Faerie. We were all Faerie’s children, and only now did I feel as though I belonged.
I locked stares with Eledan. The marks on my arms and neck plucked free and intertwined with those reaching from Eledan’s skin. His eyes shone with liquid green life magic, and maybe mine did too. I felt the Nightshade wings unfurl, their translucent weight a steady push against my shoulders.
Oberon had made me his tek-whisperer. Faerie had made me part of her polestar. The dark fae had made me their Nightshade. The people of Halow made me their Messenger. All for this moment.
If Eledan had only told me sooner… but would I have been ready to hear my destiny before now? Discovery is worthless without the journey.
The sound of his tek-heart beat inside my mind, keeping pace with the throbbing power beating through my veins. He was the key. I was the lock. I hated him, had dreamed about killing him a thousand different ways, but I understood him too. This had always been our future.
The platform trembled. Light blasted over us and up, surging free. For a moment, I couldn’t see or breathe. Eledan’s magic—Mab’s magic—became my entire world, and then the darkness flowed closer. I knew them all, each and every single dark fae. Their darkness reached for mine, and I pulled, opening their way home.
There was no concept of time or anything outside their arrival, just the thundering, roaring surge of unseelie beings flowing in and pouring forth. By Faerie, it felt so right, like setting a million souls free.
More and more they pushed through, and the sense of rightness swelled, lifting the light from my veins. Dark and light. Embrace both and you will prevail. Ailish, despite her treachery, had spoken the truth.
The light, the dark, the power, ended.
Senses numbed, I heard Sota calling my name, but he sounded so far away that it couldn’t be real. Why couldn’t I feel anything?
Kellee’s face filled my vision. His eyes blazed and sharp teeth glinted. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or afraid.
“…. here!” He pulled. His claws dug into my upper arms. “The Hunt… Kesh.”
He pulled again, and the sharp jabs of pain plucked away the numbness, making me whole again. Kellee dragged me stumbling down the steps. A roaring had grown out of nothing, but it wasn’t in my head. All around, moving shadows painted the trees and flowers. The sky churned with dark fae and a thick, blackening cloud with two enormous moon-like eyes.
“Wait…” I pulled an arm free and tried to turn.
Eledan was still on the platform, on his knees. He had his hands locked in his hair, his face screwed up in agony. He fell forward, tears streaking his face.
“Wait, Kellee. Eledan needs help—”
But Kellee pulled, ignoring my pleas.
Sota fired into the sky.
His shots struck the suffocating blackness and punched inside, brightly glowing before the Hunt snuffed it out.
“Wait!”
Kellee pulled. Ahead, the Excalibur’s huge bulk waited, his doors open.
I mentally reached for the dark fae, hooking in and yanking those nearby under my control. “Protect Eledan!”
The dark fae took flight like a cloud of a million bats. They swarmed in and rose up in a great wall, blocking the Hunt.
It wouldn’t be enough to hold it back.
“The book…” I whirled on Kellee and tore my arm free of his grip. “Bring the book now!”
His wide eyes were the last thing I saw before I dashed back toward the platform.
“Kesh, no!”
Shadows surged alongside me. Kellee’s wraiths. He’d sent them to my side.
By the time I’d climbed back onto the platform, the dark fae’s screams rivaled those of the Hunt, and the shadows became solid figures, each one creating a wall around the platform. “Eledan…”
He panted, hunched over on his knees. His eyes were squeezed closed, like he didn’t want to see or couldn’t. He clutched his chest—over his heart. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. The life magic was his magic. It shouldn’t hurt him.
“Eledan?”
The air tasted like death.
The platform shook.
We would die here if I couldn’t get him up and moving.
“Eledan, please…” When I touched his shoulder, his whole body trembled.
“It is… the worst of me.” He spat the words, eyes still closed and head locked in his hands. “I did not… mean for this… to happen.”
“I know…” I dug my fingers into his shoulder, holding him firm so he knew he wasn’t alone. “I know you didn’t want this.”
“I just… I wanted Faerie… to see… me.”
“She does.”
His mouth twisted. “Not… like this.” He opened his eyes, and they shone with unshed tears. “Not like this, Kesh. I am truly sorry, for everything.”
“Eledan, please. We must move.”
He shook his head. “I was so very wrong. I believed revenge was all I wanted… To make them see me, as you wanted them to see you. But my true desires are much simpler. I didn’t want their love, in the end. I just wanted… yours.”
The plea in his eyes almost broke me open, but now was not the time for this. “Eledan, I…” I can’t love you. But I could lie? The words almost came, but something stopped me. No more lies, not even to appease his madness.
“I know.” He looked down. “I can… make it right.” He tore his hand from his chest and nestled there, locked in his fingers, lay his caged tek-heart. The pain on his face faded. He looked at his heart like he didn’t recognize it as his. Then his fingers parted, and the metal cage fell to the platform with a tinny rattle. The heart inside beat in a stuttered, irregular rhythm, each thud potentially its last. But he was immortal… wasn’t he? Removing his heart hadn’t killed him before.
“I made it right…” he whispered. “A death for a life.” Color bleached from his lips. His eyes dulled from blue to gray. He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw him as he had been before: a fae desperate to be seen, to be loved; a fae so alone in the world that he’d created monsters to force Faerie to see him.
Eledan was dying.
I pulled him into my arms, pulled him so close there was nothing between us but his tremors and mine. He melted against me. His soft, shallow breaths fluttered against my cheek.
“You can make worlds…” he whispered, “and break worlds. Kesh, live and make the worlds better than I ever could.” The words left his lips, and when I expected to feel his breath on my cheek again, it didn’t come. His tremors faded. His weight lessened, and the solid crush of his body against mine dissolved into lifting, shifting clouds of glittering dust. The dust fell through my fingers and wisped away like smoke… like a dream I couldn’t hold on to and would never get back.
Live.
I wanted to tell him more and make him feel that whatever he’d done, it was all right, that together we’d make it right. But the cold, dead heart trapped in its metal tek-cage told me he was not coming back. Not this time.
I clutched it in my grip and squeezed—crushed it so hard that the tek split open, and inside, the hardened dead thing that had once been Eledan’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces. Jagged pieces of tek stuck in my palm. Blood welled, but among the broken bits hid a small, glowing stone no bigger than its acorn cousin: one-quarter of the polestar. I stared at the fragment and watched, numb, as the cuts on my hand sealed and the bleeding stopped.
I’d healed.
Live.
I remembered. Below Arcon, when I’d felt more alive than ever, when he’d brought me back… I’d felt different. I still felt different.
How do you live knowing you die a little more every day?
His melancholy.
The real reason for our return to Arcon.
All life required a cost.
Eledan had traded his for mine.
I closed a fist around the piece of polestar and stood. Above, the sky was a swirl of dark fae and tangible, lashing darkness. The Hunt hadn’t won. Eledan had removed himself from its grasp. The dark fae were home. Faerie was once again complete. I had the book and the polestar.
It was time to end this.
Wispy, watery tendrils appeared a few feet ahead. They grew and knotted together, forming a translucent body. I realized too late what I was seeing.
Ailish rushed in. The iron collar clicked into place around my neck.