The song that once rang from an enchanted seashell—upon the clear unwavering voice of a nightingale girl—resonated throughout Neverdark, tugging at Prince Vesper’s spirit. When he woke, he shouted in elation and pressed his fingers to his lips. His rescuer’s kiss remained fresh upon them, just as her words echoed in his mind: I’m fighting for you. She’d said more than that, but that was all he could recall.
The instant his eyes pried open, he sought the one who had saved him—his princess . . . his betrothed. At first, all he could see was a trail of flowers and vines along the shrine’s floor; then his sister and Cyprian rushed into the entrance alongside a lady wearing nightsky over an orchid gown. She dropped a bouquet of wildflowers at her feet, drew off her hood beneath the latticework’s shade, and revealed flawless moonlit skin, long silver hair, and soft purple eyes.
Vesper’s breath caught and his pulse jumped. It was her: the embodiment of his youthful dreams, the exquisite princess he’d envisioned marrying and taking to his bed—as a man. Yet there was a wilder side to him now, and it remembered shorn, blackberry hair, scarred flesh, and lashes as long and sleek as the crystalized cobwebs that draped across the dais . . . a savage loveliness forged of wilderness and pain. That girl spoke with a different voice, within his head—no music, only words. Her voice grated like sandpaper when scolding his impulsiveness or contradicting his feral instincts with human wisdom, yet at the same turn it soothed like silk when his fury became too much to bear alone.
Both entities—songstress and thief—intertwined in his fuzzy memories. In hopes to reconcile the two, he took the princess’s hand then molded her fingertips around his jaw.
“My darling Vesper.” Her intimate, lyrical greeting should have brought him to his feet in triumph, yet he stayed flat on his back. There was no discounting the desire and astonishment on her face, but her eyes were wrong; they didn’t sparkle with that fractious intellect he’d always seen looking back at him in the ravine. Only one way to be sure . . .
He pulled her down, clutched the silken hair at her nape, and pressed his mouth to hers, drinking of her until her knees gave and she swooned. She saved herself from falling by taking a seat beside him, breathless and beaming.
However lovely a princess she was, she didn’t belong beside him. Those weren’t the lips of the one who had given all of herself—her moonlight, her fierceness, her hope. And the fingertips stroking his cheek weren’t the same as those that had snuffed out the fire meant to devour his soul.
Vesper sat up and looked pointedly at all those gathered around—his sister, his first knight, gardeners and guards alike. “She’s not the one who saved me.” A harsh sentiment that he couldn’t contain.
“What?” The princess scrambled to her feet, appearing more horrified than wounded. “You must know that’s not true! I’m your betrothed! All of the missives we’ve shared, the beautiful roses you’ve sent. The prophecy promised us a happy future. My song indeed saved you.”
Her rebuttal, spoken in that birdsong voice, felt as rehearsed and cautious as all the letters he’d read at her hand. She lacked the fire . . . that stringent honesty and raw emotions that had broken through the most guarded corners of his mind while he ran alongside an orphan in an enchanted forest.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Vesper assured himself as he sat up to catch the length of hair hanging across the princess’s shoulder.
She touched his hand, her features rearranging themselves to an expression of relief. “Yes, you can feel me. I’m real . . . I’m not a dream. I’m here.”
He winced. “The illusion of tangible things.” He lifted the strands of silver and let them fall in a lustrous cascade. “A braid of hair, a vial of tears, a snippet of song. And words on a page. But ink blurs and paper frays. Vials break. Hair thins and brittles. Songs fade once the final note rings. The only thing that lasts is trust and understanding, speaking without words spoken.” Holding her gaze, he felt nothing between them other than physical attraction. He attempted to tap into her mind with silent thoughts; but she didn’t answer, for she couldn’t hear. “Your songbird voice is to be just that. A song without words. No more, no less.”
“I’ve learned to speak over the years. All for you. Don’t you see?”
“Oh, I see. But eyes can lie. The heart doesn’t.”
Their spectators gasped. The princess gawked in stunned disbelief as clear tears streamed her face.
Vesper caught one on his fingertip and held it to a strand of light. “Clear tears . . . that’s wrong as well.”
Baffled and bemused, he nudged his betrothed aside so he could walk out of the shrine. He ignored the audience’s murmurs and the princess’s sobs. He didn’t turn back to comfort her. That brutality—once housed within a winged demon-steed—occupied him again, and only one girl had ever managed to gentle it.
Madame Dyadia arrived at the arboretum’s iron doorway just as he was stepping out of the balmy warmth and into the frigid, blustering wind. He said nothing to her, simply led the way. A small procession followed, growing to a confused and murmuring crowd. By the time they reached the door, his queenly mother was already there, crying inky tears of happiness upon her son’s miraculous reclamation of health.
Everyone within the obsidian castle was in a tizzy—from servants and royal family members to the military personnel and guests who’d been honored enough to receive invitations to the wedding and coronation. Noblemen and commoners alike congregated in the great hall where a luncheon feast awaited, the tables laden with roasted wild boar, fish pies, pears in red wine, plums stewed in rosewater, sturgeon coated with powdered ginger, and jellies and creams flavored with dried fig and fennel seeds. They drank spiced mead and hot cider while discussing the fairy tale taking place before their very eyes.
Rumor had spread quickly from chamber to chamber and turret to turret, reaching as far as to the dungeon. A handful of groundsmen had witnessed the miracle within the arboretum. Before the prince even opened his eyes, they had already raced to the castle to give details: the Eldorian princess, while picking wildflowers for her sleeping prince, had been moved to sing—and her song healed Vesper in the shrine just a few feet away, for they heard his victorious cry. Not only had she cured him of his sun-poisoning, but her voice, so pure and captivating, had triggered an explosion of glowing flowers and vines to grow, a surge of life so powerful it paraded through the shrine then plowed down Nerverdark’s outer door to reach into the wintry terrain outside. Even now it could be seen: a luminous pathway of creeping myrtles, clematis, bellflowers, and wisteria. The multicolored petals and ivy led through the Grim and into the badlands, melting all the ice and drifts of snow within a two-league radius of its wake. Everywhere it touched, thorns had surrendered to blossoms that shimmered like dewdrops in the moonlight.
In the colonized province, villagers left their houses and tromped through ankle-deep puddles barefoot, for the first time in centuries able to walk outside without their furs and boots. They gathered lukewarm water by the bucketful for cooking and bathing. The sun still shied from their world, the skies were yet divided, and night still reigned. But the snow and ice were gone—at least for the moment.
Regent Griselda and her girls didn’t share in the celebration. Instead, they holed up within their dark and opulent turret chamber to commiserate over the disastrous turn Lustacia’s triumph had taken.
This was the last place Griselda wished to be. The glossy obsidian walls and floors reminded her too much of Nerezeth’s pitch-black sky, and the white lilies in the long-stemmed vases added to the illusion—like a sprinkling of fragrant stars. Many of the Eldorian attendees found the decor exotic and charming. She, however, shuddered, haunted by the vermin that scuttled freely along the corridors and halls of this castle. The pests hadn’t even courtesy enough to hide beneath furnishings or in corners.
When Lustacia and her girls first arrived in their chambers, a rash of milky-white mice scampered everywhere: upon the beds, beneath the blankets, covering the wardrobe, tables, and floors. Griselda, along with her three daughters, had clung to one another, convulsing in disgust, as Sir Bartley helped Queen Nova’s chambermaids remove every one, carrying them from the room on satin pillows. That was the way here. Creatures, which in her world would be crushed beneath a heel, pounded with a book, or snapped within a miniature guillotine, were treated as royal subjects.
Foolish. Griselda rolled the word along her tongue while sitting upon a gray-cushioned chair. She peeled the hennin from her head and the gloves from her hands. “Foolish namby-pamby.” She flung the aspersion at her youngest daughter.
Lustacia lay on one of the three canopied beds, sniffling and dabbing her face with the handkerchief Sir Bartley had offered while escorting them to their room. She hadn’t yet been able to return it, as Bartley had left on an errand for Griselda.
The regent wondered how long it might take him to search. She still couldn’t say what had inspired her premonition . . . that there was something in that empty shrine that needed to be found. Something that would give her the upper hand once more. It was almost as if her conscience had driven the suspicion, yet her absence of such a hindrance negated that theory. Perhaps, in all her dealings with potions and spell-chants, some magic had at last rubbed off on her.
Absently, she patted her head where her antlers hid beneath piles of plaited hair.
“How could you have been so careless?” She prodded her snuffling daughter to get her mind off the mutation. “Your magical birdsong voice woke the prince out of his trance. It somehow even brought life to this colorless icy expanse. Yet you manage to ruin it all by weeping in front of him. The worst thing you could’ve done! Until we can find an elixir or potion that will conjure tears of fire to leave scorched skin in their wake, you’ve no business ever weeping. Did you forget his royal family was given a vial of Lyra’s sooty tears by Kiran himself?”
Wrathalyne and Avaricette, seated on the bed beside their sister, smoothed her pale, shimmery hair. Their elaborate trappings tangled with Lustacia’s wedding gown—a prismatic pool of organza, lace, glittering beads, and velvety ruffles that whispered and rustled with each minute movement.
“Mums, you’re being heartless.” Wrathalyne twirled a silver lock around her fingertip, then dropped it alongside the other strands splayed upon Lustacia’s pillow. “She just got wilted! Have some compassiveness.”
Avaricette groaned, her shoulders slumping. “So close, Wrath. You almost managed an astute observation. It’s forgiveness. Or compassion. Choose one or the other. And wilted is what a flower does when it’s out in the sun too long. Jilted is what the prince did . . . kissed her senseless then left her flushed and titillated with nary a by-your-leave. Will you ever read your lexicon, you dullard?”
“Oh, shush your mouth!” Wrathalyne retorted. “Every time you open it, your rotten teeth turn the air green with stink. Are you sure an ogre didn’t crawl in there and die?’
“Would you both just stop your prattling!” Lustacia sat up and tossed the hanky in the air like a white flag of surrender. “None of you . . .” She placed a hand over her lips to contain a sob. “Can even imagine what I’m feeling.”
Griselda stood and straightened her ornate gown of red and gold. The bejeweled train dragged the dark floor, making tiny clacking sounds as she strode toward the cheval mirror in the adjoining antechamber. Leaving the door ajar, she watched her girls in the reflection—each so wrapped within their own obliquities they hadn’t yet noticed she’d left. She didn’t mind such indifference with the older two, expected it, in fact. She’d spent all that time in isolation teaching Lustacia the social graces, while leaving her other two daughters to their own childish, awkward ways. It was unlikely either would ever capture a man’s attention at this point. But that hardly mattered. Everything was riding on her youngest. It was time Lustacia took her role seriously, time she understood what was at stake.
Griselda began to unravel the black braids piled high upon her head, watching the girls behind her own reflection.
Wrathalyne leapt up, glaring at Lustacia. “Of course we can imagine your feelings, Princess Prim. We saw His Highness when he led that crowd in from the shrine. Those eyes, that skin . . . those lips . . . those muscles. You were mad to let him go. If I’d had that hard, royal body pressed to mine, I’d have clung on like a carbuncle to a longship!”
“A carbuncle?” Avaricette snarled. “It’s barnacle, you nit!” Standing on the bed, she pummeled her sister in the face with a pillow.
“How dare you!” Wrathalyne’s yelp was muffled by the padding crushed into her mouth. Growling, she plowed into her sister. They fell atop the mattress in a riotous melee of knobby elbows, spiky fingernails, and auburn curls.
“Ugh!” Lustacia rolled off the other side, tugging at her gown’s train to free it from their wrestling limbs. Lips pursed, she pulled the bag containing her half-light goblins out from under her bed and opened the flap. Five shadowy forms siphoned into midair and hovered around her. She gestured to her sisters, whose antics had wrinkled the satiny bedspread. “I should like my linens refreshed, if you would please.”
Spinning with glee, the formless silhouettes flapped the four corners of the bedspread, pulled each one up and around, then wrapped the struggling, whimpering girls within it before dragging it with a thud to the floor. Lustacia simpered at her sisters’ resulting grumbles.
“Lustacia,” Griselda called to her youngest, having tied a cream-colored scarf around her head. “We’re not done speaking.”
Her daughter’s moonlit complexion—flushed almost purple from crying—caught a flicker of orange light from the fireplace as she crossed the threshold to escape her sisters and their goblin tormentors.
“Shut the door,” Griselda said, tucking the ends of the scarf beneath her chin. “We need to be alone.”
Lustacia leaned against the closed door and sighed.
Griselda aimed a scolding finger her direction. “I’ve had enough of your self-pity. Get cleaned up, find that prince, and marry him.”
Lustacia gawked for all of a minute before her spirited tongue broke loose. “Certainly! Because it’s that simple to make someone love you. Or perhaps you mean to cook up a love potion I can slosh into his wine. The very one you used on Father, perhaps?”
Griselda’s hands fisted. The insult was subtle and well-timed. She wished she’d never told her youngest that she’d used such a potion to entrap her husband years earlier. She’d never shared the fact with her other two girls . . . not that she felt guilt. It was rather more inadequacy. It wasn’t something she liked to think about . . . that the only way she’d ever been able to win a man’s loyalty was through threats, payment, or elixirs.
“Well, did you bring a potion to help?”
“I actually intended to,” Griselda answered. “But the prince’s impending death put a crimp in things. I had only time to gather up our Eldorian colors for the ceremonies.”
“Ribbons and sigils hardly have magic in them, Mother! Make up a batch of something now, before I have to face the prince again . . .”
Griselda stifled the urge to correct her daughter. The Eldorian colors had more power than anyone could imagine. But better Lustacia didn’t have such knowledge. It would only add to her angst. “I haven’t ingredients or the book with me.”
Lustacia threw her hands up in frustration. “Why wouldn’t you bring them? Did you not consider we might need a magical boost if something went awry?”
“Use your acumen, child. If our room were to be searched, it would cast suspicion to find a grimoire within my keeping. It’s safely tucked within my chamber in Eldoria.”
“Then how do you propose I win his heart, considering you yourself have never had success in such endeavors?”
Griselda allowed her grimace to fully emerge this time. “I may not have had success in love, but I have transcended in lust. Lean on that. Use your assets.”
“What, these?” Lustacia spread out her long, graceful arms. The slender lines of her glittery blush-pink gown showcased a small waist and hips juxtaposed against the tight curve of a youthful belly and the rise of voluptuous breasts—all the more enticing where they swelled above the beaded, lowcut neckline.
“Those exactly.”
Lustacia crossed her arms over her chest, her sleeve hems fanning like lacy wings from her wrists. “I want love, Mother. His love. I want him to admire me for the sacrifices I’ve made. To know that I’ve spent five years of my life molding myself into the image of the girl who would make him happy, and to be grateful for it.”
Griselda clucked her tongue. “You will never have that. For by telling him, you would lose him.”
“And thus the chasm between us,” Lustacia whimpered. “When I sang him awake and enraptured his people, I thought I had it . . . I did. I cured him, so he would be forever grateful and ravish me with poetry and passionate embraces. And when those dark eyes opened . . . oh, I could’ve fallen into them forever. I know I didn’t imagine that spark of desire.” She pressed a hand to her quivering chin. “But when he kissed me, something . . . changed. He looked me up and down like I was a stranger.” She shook her head, her silvery locks shimmering in the firelight. “After all the responses I turned out for every missive he wrote . . . answering them just as a princess would. Yet he tells me I’m not the one who saved him, and leaves. Just like that! Humiliating me in front of his subjects and mine. And you, my doting mother—” Lustacia caught herself and rephrased. “My doting aunt, can’t even offer consolation. It’s always ‘Get back up, dust off. Never show any emotions.’”
“Never show your hand,” Griselda corrected, looking in the mirror and smoothing the scarf around the offensive protrusions above her temples.
“Quite literally, in your case.” Lustacia glared accusingly at her mother’s fingers—the silvery blue even more prominent against the creamy head-covering.
Griselda’s dark eyebrows rose, wondering how long it would take her daughter to notice the lumps in the fabric . . . to question them.
Lustacia stepped up to share the mirror, intent only on herself. “Am I ugly, then?”
Griselda barked a laugh. “You look like one of them. Ghastly, nondescript. A vanilla cookie sprinkled with sparkly blue sugar. But gloom-dwellers are what he believes is beautiful. This had nothing to do with your appearance. You yourself said you felt an attraction, that his eyes held a spark of interest. Perhaps you simply need to work on delivering more convincing kisses.”
Embarrassment deepened Lustacia’s bluish complexion. Along with the tears and inordinately long lashes, a proper Lyra-blush—complete with veins darkening beneath her skin’s translucent surface—was another thing they’d never quite managed.
“Wrath was right,” Lustacia said. “You truly are heartless.”
Griselda loosened the knot beneath her chin. “If only I were. If only I’d given away my heart instead of my conscience. Then I wouldn’t be so fearful for all of our lives.”
Lustacia’s attention perked. “What do you mean, our lives? No one’s even questioned my tears, other than the prince. Everyone else is focused on him, concerned for his addled mind. They’re convinced he hasn’t fully awakened from his death sleep. There’s nothing . . . other than your dirty hands . . . that can cast aspersions on us. Is there?” She asked the final question with a catch in her throat, for Griselda chose that moment to whip off her scarf and unveil the prongs that were now the size of a baby’s hand.
Lustacia gasped and gagged, unable to look away from the warped reflection.
“The discomfort you’ve been experiencing while wearing your hennin,” Griselda began, her thumb tracing the antlers as she herself struggled not to gag. “That is just the beginning.”
Lustacia cupped her mouth to muffle a queasy cough. Clear streams raced down her cheeks. “How long?”
“Days or weeks . . . it’s hard to be sure.”
Lustacia’s legs went out from under her; she sobbed.
“Get up,” Griselda growled, resisting an unexpected compulsion to stroke her daughter’s hair and comfort her as she did when she was a child. It would only feed Lustacia’s weakness, and a queen had to be strong. “The only one who knows of my condition is dead. The prince hasn’t said he won’t marry you. We are not defeated. After all you’ve endured for this moment, you would give up so easily? Do you love him or no?”
“Yes. I—I do. But . . .”
“A yes is enough. We’ve no time to waste. All we must do is see that the prince weds and beds you as scheduled. You saw his letters, how passionate he is about those stags who guard his boarders. He will behead us both should he ever learn of our crime. And once we’re dead, he’ll turn your sisters out into the wilds to die by brambles or rime scorpions. But if you’re his queen, carrying his child, you can keep us all safe. We’ll request a visit to the Rigamort during our stay here, before he returns with you to Eldoria for his introduction as your king. You’ll say we wish to learn everything about his realm. Then we can blame these . . . things . . . on some sort of magical contagion before he ever sees the evidence.”
“You truly think he’ll go through with the nuptials? He wouldn’t even speak to me earlier.” Lustacia’s skin had grown so pale her veins could almost be seen. In that moment, she looked more like a gloom-dweller than ever before.
“Neither kingdom will give him a choice. You are the only princess of Eldoria. I’ve assured there’s no one surviving to take that title, or your crown. No other can stand with the prince to unite our skies and kingdoms. Everyone wants this marriage. Queen Nova herself is trying to talk sense into him at this moment. He will marry you. He dishonored you in their shrine, which I’m to understand is the holiest place in this heaven-forsaken realm. We have that to bargain with.”
“And the blood oath,” Lustacia mumbled, rubbing her head in search of the knots that would one day burgeon to prongs. She stayed on the floor, beaded pink organza swirling around her like a whorl of petals, and her beautiful features rearranged themselves to something akin to resolve. Though she looked like a dew-kissed rose, Griselda could see the inception of thorns.
There was her queen.
Griselda rewarded her by stroking her head. “Precisely. We can force his hand, involve our military if we must. But that would be a last resort. You have your wiles. Hide beneath the stairwell that leads to his turret . . . when everyone leaves his room, visit him alone. Remind him he must marry you to save his suffering people. He’s too honorable to ignore that fact. And even more, he’s a man, and all men can be seduced. You’ve had years of watching me shape that particular weakness to my advantage.” She coiled her hair around her antlers once more. “Master it for yourself, and we will live to see you reign over two kingdoms yet.”
In his plush chamber—within the tower adjacent to his betrothed’s—Vesper slouched on the edge of his bed. He tapped the skin between his brows with the glowing whorls of a creeping myrtle he’d picked on his way to the castle. He had more company than he liked, and none were whom he wanted them to be.
“My spiritual wards have predicted a night tide.” Madame Dyadia spoke from her place beside the dormer window looking out upon the courtyard far below. Her chameleon complexion and enchanted vestments, lit with the orange flicker of a lantern, blended into the gray stones framing the circular pane. Earlier, Vesper had questioned Thana’s whereabouts. Dyadia claimed her third eye was keeping watch over Eldoria—to be a lodestar of sorts—for when the moon made a showing there.
As no one knew exactly how the magic was to work—if Nerezeth and Eldoria would physically stand side by side once more, or if they would simply share the sun and moon at different times in their respective realms—he agreed the portending crow was well positioned.
“When?” Vesper asked of her weather prediction.
“Soon. Upon the surface of the waters taken from the mystic cavern, I saw snowflakes returning. By the beginning of our cessation course, they’ll multiply on icy winds to smother the flowers and vines. The thorns will be reborn and our living rainbow will withdraw back into the cold, dead ground. It is better we perform the ceremonies now as planned . . . ride the faith and hope the princess has invoked in our people. Perhaps, upon your vows, this consolidated wonder between our two kingdoms will unite us and merge the skies at last.”
“Something’s wrong with the prophecy,” Vesper said for the twentieth time. He inhaled the myrtle’s mint-and-honey notes, then laid it upon the tray balanced on his pillow alongside the remains of the meal Queen Nova had insisted he eat. The fish pie and creamed figs may as well have been tasteless, but he’d managed to swallow enough to mollify her.
“You’re making no sense.” His lady mother eased down beside him, the jeweled crickets abandoning her skirts as the fabric crushed against the edges of his mattress. They hopped beneath the safety of his bed. “How can you refute that it was the princess’s song that saved you?”
“Her song woke me,” he corrected. “But it didn’t save me.”
“There are eyewitnesses. Your own sister saw it. And how can you have second thoughts of your bond with Lady Lyra, after the way you kissed her in the shrine?”
“She has romantic feelings for you, brother,” Selena said, standing beside the desk where Cyprian sat. Her hand rested at the back of the knight’s neck beneath the plaited lengths of his silvery hair. “All your worry has been for naught.”
Cyprian watched Vesper studiously and added, “Selena is right. There was sincere affection in the princess’s trembling hands, in her tears.”
“Tears the color of water, not ink. They look nothing like the jewels upon her hairpin,” Vesper insisted.
“Her enchanted hairpin,” Cyprian added. “Some might argue the tears were altered when they became jewels—that the color’s no longer a true comparison. Either way, we don’t have the pin in our keep. It’s in that thieving boy’s hand—”
“He’s not a boy. He’s a girl . . . my girl.” Vesper gritted his teeth upon watching everyone’s reaction—his loved ones’ faces fraught with concern or cynicism, most likely both. Queen Nova anxiously plucked at the satiny black quilt upon his bed while keeping watch on Dyadia’s distorted movements at the window.
Selena cleared her throat. “Well, I for one am grateful to see your obstinance returned, Vesper. It’s good to have you hale and hearty enough to set our queenly mother’s teeth on edge once more. At last I’m the favorite again.”
Cyprian lifted his gaze to Selena’s and a corner of his mouth quirked up.
The habit of smoothing things over with a dose of wit was something Vesper and his sibling had always shared, and he found himself wanting to smile, though it was more from seeing his sister and best friend so comfortable in their new romance than anything else.
He stretched out his long legs beneath the traveling trousers he’d donned in place of his ceremonial garb, relishing the pure red blood that coursed through him. His sister was right about his health. He felt surprisingly robust for someone who’d been flirting with death for years. His body no longer had the limitations of petrified musculature or metallic flesh. The sun’s flame no longer lapped within, threatening to overtake. His limp was gone, he looked and felt like himself again—the dark prince with his lord father’s bone structure, features, and stamina.
Physically, he lacked for nothing. Emotionally, he lacked patience. He was at a loss for how to explain his reservations when the only savior anyone had seen was the princess preparing for a wedding in her guest chambers at this very moment.
How could he marry a stranger when all he could think of was the little foundling who was the truest friend and partner he’d ever known?
Yet that damned prophecy said he must . . .
“Your kiss sealed the betrothal, my son. You have to realize this.”
Vesper growled. “As I told Regent Griselda when she intercepted us upon my entrance to the castle, I kissed her niece to prove to myself it wasn’t she who broke my curse. And just as I told the regent then, I’m telling you now: I won’t apologize for seeking answers before I sign my life and my kingdom away.”
His lady mother’s hand gripped his. “We have an oath already signed—in my own blood and the princess’s father’s. You are not only condemning our people to die by this illness inflicted by artificial light, but you are condemning us to a war we cannot win.”
Cyprian stood. “Majesty, please heed our queen. You’ve seen for yourself the military escort Eldoria brought. With so many of our own fallen to illness, they outnumber us fifty to one. The last thing we should be doing is challenging their sour-tempered regent over a five-year contract.”
Unless you have proof that the prophecy is flawed, such that could sway both kingdoms, Selena said privately within Vesper’s head so no one else would overhear. He turned a grateful glance her direction, and she tipped her head—her smile soft and encouraging. At least she was trying to understand . . . to see his side.
Vesper retrieved the luminous flower from his pillow. “Lady Mother, do you remember when we last spoke of my shadow-bride? I made her a cape, worried she couldn’t embrace this world, thorns and all. I feared she would be too tender.” He flipped his mother’s hand in her lap to place the creeping myrtle upon her palm, then curled her fingers atop it. “You said if the prophecy is to be taken at its word, my betrothed should be capable of handling everything . . . the terrain, the creatures, the night tides, as well as me. That we should be evenly matched already, today.” Vesper squeezed her hand to a fist. “I’m telling you, I’ve found that match. And she’s not the princess.”
Queen Nova broke loose and opened her fingers to reveal the crushed flower, its light faded from its petals. “Before her song’s intervention, you were a statue.” Her voice cracked. “Moments away from your heart turning to stone. This would’ve been your ending.” She let the flower’s remains fall to the floor in demonstration. “Drained of life and lost to us.” Her chin quivered. “Eldoria’s princess may seem tender skinned and mild mannered, but she cured you. I’m beholden to her now. Indebted to her always. I will make any compromise necessary to accept her as your bride. As should you.”
“This doesn’t feel like making a compromise, it feels like making allowances. The two are very different things.” Vesper rose and strode to the dormer window next to Madame Dyadia, looming over the sorceress. “She’s out there. Somehow, she made it here into Nerezeth.”
“If there is another who’s followed you from the day realm and seeks to infringe upon your foretold and sworn marriage,” Madame Dyadia broke in, “she will be accused of treason. She will suffer imprisonment or worse. All present witnessed Eldoria’s princess sing you alive. This other girl was nowhere to be seen.”
Vesper rubbed the nape of his neck, wary of the logic. During their life together in the forest, each time Stain brought flowers to bloom, it drained her . . . hurt her. After all she’d done today, she might be half-dead. At the very least, defenseless. A wild rage thundered in his heart to think of someone harming her. He’d have to find her first.
“Cyprian, round up our best trackers and saddle Lanthe. But be discreet.”
The knight’s reflection stirred in the windowpane as he propped his hand at the baldric where a borrowed sword stood in place of his late father’s, the other one having been destroyed by Vesper while in the form of the Pegasus. A fact Cyprian had yet to learn. The first knight’s pale hair formed a white blur in the glass as he glanced from Selena to the queen.
“Did you serve me out of pity, then?” Vesper baited without turning. “Now that I’m free of the golden plague, am I no longer your king? Must I add anointing a new first knight to this day’s list of encroaching ceremonies?”
Cyprian knelt until his nose almost touched the obsidian floor. “I beg your forgiveness, Majesty. My loyalty and respect are yours to my last breath. I will see it done.”
Vesper nodded and Cyprian left the room, closing the door behind him. The lantern’s popping flame accentuated the muffled breathing and suppressed criticisms from the three who still remained. Vesper intensified his study of the window, beyond the abandoned courtyard where the land surrendered to vines and flowers—a tender light source competing with the moonlit puddles. A handful of royal scouts had ventured out earlier, following the trail of creeping plants to the edge of the Grim. They hypothesized, by its trajectory, that it led to the Rigamort. It may have even managed to melt a tunnel through the avalanched snow plugging the entrance. Due to the unpredictable behavior and delicate state of the brumal stags, the scouts felt ill-equipped to investigate in depth without their king’s accompaniment. They returned with nothing more than that scant report.
A flurry of white flakes careened against the black sky, blotting out the stars—Dyadia’s prediction of a blizzard proving true. Vesper cursed the timing. They would have to hurry before everything was swallowed up again. He scrubbed his whiskered face, grateful to feel the human features, the soft, giving flesh and bristled scruff, yet at the same time missing his wings and four legs . . . missing the ability to cover large areas in the blink of an eye.
“We’ll ride to the Rigamort. Surely there will be a clue, if nothing else.” He spun on his heel to make for the door, but the queen stood behind him.
Eyes lifted to meet his gaze, she hemmed him between her and the window. “We? You plan to gallivant about the badlands when you should be preparing for the ceremonies? Send your trackers out, fine. But your duty is here, comforting Lady Lyra and smoothing the regent’s ruffled feathers. It is time you learn your place as king.”
His eyebrows lowered. “It is time you learn my place as king.” There was a hardened edge to the rebuke—a gruffness that brooked no argument. “I covet and respect your advice, but from this day forward, it will be delivered as such: advice. Whether in public or alone. You are not my commander, nor even my right hand. You’ll always be my lady mother, but you will address me as a man to be honored, not a boy to be coddled.”
Her face paled, draining the bluish softness to white. The plaits of her silvery hair, woven into her glistening crown, reflected the firelight as she placed a hand on his chest. “The coronation and wedding ceremonies, they’re to take place within the hour. Please reconsider.”
Her humble plea might have softened him at one time, but not now that he’d found himself again. “If I leave while the snow’s still melted, I can make the trip there and back in half the time. Five . . . six hours, at most. Many of the cadaver brambles have been exposed and found dead by our scouts, much like the thorns, so there’s another hurdle lifted.” He placed his hand over hers. “This must be done before the night tide.”
“What will the people think?” pressed the queen. “Or the regent and the princess? How will it look, you leaving in search of another girl?”
“No one is to be told why I’m making the trek. If questioned, you will answer only this: I am the reigning heir of Nerezeth who just awoke from a death sleep. If I wish to postpone the ceremonies for a few hours to gather my thoughts and assess how our altered terrain is affecting my people, none should—” He stopped and shook his head. “None will question me.”
“Heed your words, Your Highness,” Dyadia pleaded, her black-and-white stripes becoming fully visible. Vesper focused on her third eye’s empty socket. “The quietus thrall may have left you hazy—inclined to delusions. If that is the case, you’re endangering this hard-won peace upon nothing more than a dream.”
“I did not dream her touch upon my skin, nor her voice in my head,” Vesper answered. “No more than I dreamed for these past five years that my prideful and implacable half ran and flew beside her in the Ashen Ravine.” He aimed an accusatory frown to the sorceress. “But you let me believe it was a dream. You withheld important details. Convinced me Eldoria’s princess was my missing piece. When all along, I had to complete myself. It took a girl saving me again and again, putting herself at risk each time, a girl who loved me unconditionally—to lead me to that truth. And now, I intend to find her and thank her properly.”
Dyadia maintained an unreadable expression but exchanged glances with the queen.
“What are you saying?” Queen Nova asked of her son, her fingers curling under his, wrinkling the open lapel of his shirt. “That you’re in love with a simple urchin?”
Yes. Vesper kept the answer to himself. There was no question how he felt about Stain when they ran together in the ravine, and it was the only explanation for the emotions careening through his body and mind in this moment. But he didn’t have the luxury of romance or love . . . not with the prophecy hanging over him and two kingdoms.
“Don’t ever call her an urchin,” he answered, struggling to keep his frustration and anxiety in check. “And she’s anything but simple.”
“You have an obligation to fulfill,” the queen refuted. “Not to some girl who happened to befriend you in your temporary vessel when you were trapped in the Ashen Ravine. You are fated to marry Eldoria’s princess.”
His lady mother’s acknowledgment of the magical split held no surprise for him. She was there in the cavern, watching his exiled half take form, which made it sting all the more that neither she nor the sorceress had ever told him.
“Temporary vessel? Ashen Ravine?” Selena furrowed her eyebrows. “What are you all talking about?”
Queen Nova shushed her daughter. “Vesper, please, think of our people. They are the reason we chose to omit certain . . . details.”
“I am thinking of our people. As if I’ve been able to think of anything else over the past five years! My blood can no longer aid them, so I must bring the sun back. I understand that, and will do what it takes. Even if it means marrying someone I don’t love. I’m simply trying to ensure that the one who truly cured me is safe.”
Selena stepped into their circle, still wearing her bewildered expression. She looped an arm through Vesper’s in a show of support. “I want to know what details you’ve been keeping from Vesper. From all of us.”
Queen Nova dipped her head, feigning interest in a row of pearly crickets still clinging to her hem.
Vesper snarled. Part of him understood; he was indignant the day his lord father slipped away . . . indignant and unbending. He had done something irreversible and shortsighted. “I realize you and Dyadia were desperate to save me all those years ago. However, to sway who I loved, what I believed—all for a foretelling? No wonder my faith in this prophecy wavers more with each passing hour.”
“Can you forgive us, my son?” Queen Nova asked, having the decency to look ashamed.
Vesper grimaced. “What choice do I have? You’re my lady mother, and I love you.” He shifted his gaze to Dyadia. “And I need your conjuring and portents.” A splash of acid churned in his stomach. “But oh, to be that stallion again, to crash every piece of furniture in this room; to gallop down flights of stairs, and leave everyone who dares stand in my way in a wake of flame and fury, without a thought as to consequences.” He ground his teeth, seeing the shame on Queen Nova’s face creep across Dyadia’s own. “You both expect me to behave as a gentleman king, after having tasted the power and freedom held within the heart of a beast.” He felt Selena’s eyes on him. Her fingers trembled where they held his bicep. “I fear that’s impossible, because I rather liked being the beast. But, there’s hope for you yet, should I find her. She has a way of reasoning with me, defusing my rage with honesty . . . a talent you both seem to lack.”
A sudden, yipping howl rang out—familiar, yet completely foreign to his kingdom. Vesper glimpsed through the window. Beneath the haze of moonlight and beyond the castle wall, a splotch of red fur settled on its haunches and looked upward. Vesper leaned closer, forehead pressed against the cold glass. As if it had been waiting for him to look down, the svelte creature yipped again, hopped up on four legs, and shook out a long, fluffy tail. Leaving prints on the whitening ground, it sauntered toward the badlands along the flower path.
Vesper’s heartbeat thumped wildly against his sternum. The ancient scrolls had told of winter wolves chasing out all the smaller wild dogs before the earth closed. Although this might appear to be an ordinary fox, it was a miracle, for wherever there was Luce, Stain would be close at hand.
“Clever fox,” Vesper mumbled, thumping the glass with his finger. “I take back every bad thing I ever thought about you. Almost.”
“Who are you talking to?” Queen Nova and Dyadia moved in to see.
Selena bobbed to the other side, peering around his shoulder. She gasped. “What . . . is that a—? No such creature has graced Nerezeth for centuries!”
Vesper left the room without another word, leaving his lady mother and Dyadia still staring out the window.
Selena followed him down the corridor, rushing to keep up with his pace. “I want to know what happened. What’s all this talk of horses and flying in the ravine?”
“When I get back, I’ll tell you everything.”
“Tell me on the ride over. I’m going with you. Should I bring Nysa to help track?”
He draped his arm around her shoulders. “Leave her in the kennels. We have a fox for that.” He glanced down at her, already in her traveling tunic and trousers. She’d been dressed for a fight while keeping vigil over him at the shrine. He had a poignant thought then, of his little foundling girl in torn rags and bare feet who had never had the chance to wear anything pretty. “Let’s stop by your wardrobe first. I believe she’s close enough to your size.”
Selena looked up into his face, curiosity tugging at her silvery eyebrows. “What’s her name, brother . . . this girl you seek? And what is she to you?”
“They call her Stain. She’s my true heart’s mate. I’ve no idea how to proceed . . . no idea how I’m to bind my life to another, when I already belong to her—body, mind, and soul.”