The growing crowd of immortals made Cole’s upper lip curl as he watched them group before the dais in their finest clothing. There was such an array of ball gowns, fine attire, and the tunics of the dark fae that his eye twitched.
The din of voices nearly drown out the music's melodic strains from the minstrels his father hired. Laughter floated on the air, and glasses clinked as the immortals congratulated each other on a well-won war.
A war that most of these self-congratulatory fuckers hadn’t fought.
Cole didn’t want to think about the amount of carisle his father spent on this affair. He knew his role here, but he hadn’t helped in planning it. However, there were numerous whispers about the dark fae king having bottomless coffers, so the money probably hadn’t mattered to his father.
And after the war, those coffers probably tripled as the winners stripped all the losers' lands and money. Thinking about it made his head hurt.
He’d never expected to long for the human world, but as the noise of the party increased, he would have given anything to be anywhere else.
After two years of waging countless bloody battles in a war he hadn’t agreed with, being around so many immortals made his skin itch. He kept expecting a witch or warlock to lob a ball of magic into the crowd or a pack of lycan to turn on the others. Instead, they laughed and drank as if all the death and destruction never occurred.
How short their memories are.
But then, they were immortals, so a couple years of bloody war was less than a blink of an eye in their lifespans. And most of those gathered here hadn’t stepped foot on any of the battlefields.
They stayed in their realms, in their towers, or by the Lord of the Shadow Realms and plotted the destruction of others. They did not actually fight, so to them, this was all good fun.
To Cole, it was a powder keg waiting to blow.
However, before the war, he spent most of his six hundred and seventy-two years in the lap of luxury too. Because of fights and disputes, he’d killed his fair share of immortals during that time, but those deaths were nothing compared to the hundreds he handed out in the war.
Sometimes at night, he would find himself standing on those battlefields again. He was once more using his fae sword to carve his way through countless enemies as blood dripped from his clothes and hair.
The amount of blood coating him added a good ten pounds to his frame, but it didn’t hinder him. As he worked to destroy, the screams of the dying reverberated in his head as the injured pleaded for mercy.
Sometimes he would bolt awake, but other times it felt like he was clawing through quicksand as he struggled to pull himself free of the cloying horror of his memories. He often woke in a cold sweat and unsure of where he was, and it sometimes took a few minutes to recall the war was over.
While fighting the war, the death and destruction hadn’t bothered him. Since its end, it haunted him.
But the war was over; their side had won. That was all that mattered to the rest of the Shadow Realms. Or at least it was all that mattered to those who hadn’t fought in the war.
It’s over. Yet a part of him remained on the battlefields, and he suspected it always would.
“We’ve packed our palace with immortals who would gladly tear out each other’s throats,” Brokk muttered as he arrived to stand beside him.
“But these are our allies and friends, little brother,” Cole replied.
“The dark fae have no friends.”
Cole couldn’t have said it any better himself.
“Father says it’s time to take our place on the dais,” Brokk said.
Cole barely managed to keep from sneering at sitting on that dais in front of all these gawkers. However, this ball was to show they were ecstatic about the war's outcome, and he would do his part to keep up the charade.
Brokk adjusted the thin, princely crown on his head. The light reflected off the silver fae metal that had forged the crown. In the center was the black, oplyx stone of the dark fae realm. Located only in the clintick caves, workers only harvested a few of the rare stones from those deep bowels.
Looking at Brokk’s crown reminded Cole he had a slightly larger crown perched on his head. He didn’t touch it because, if he did, he’d tear it off and throw it away. He was not in the mood for this shit.
Cole slipped from the shadows beside the dais and strode across it. Brokk walked beside him as they put themselves on full display of everyone in the grand ballroom. The candles’ flames danced in their golden sconces and cast shadows across the black walls.
The dark fae do have one friend… the shadows.
They thrived in the shadows.
For a few seconds, the room's noise remained at the same level, but as more and more guests spotted them, the noise declined until silence descended. Not even when the hush gave way to a raucous wave of applause that shook the chandeliers overhead did Cole look at them.
He gritted his teeth against the impulse to leap from the dais and punch them all. Beside him, he sensed Brokk’s growing irritation.
“How long do you think this will last?” Brokk murmured as they approached two of the three thrones set in the middle of the dais.
“Days,” Cole replied.
Brokk’s shoulders hunched up as he muttered, “I’d rather be back in the war.”
“So would I.”
Never had Cole wished to return to those battlefields, but at least he knew what to expect there. He had no idea what to expect from the immortals crammed into this room.
His father rose from the massive throne set in the center of the three. A smile lit his handsome face as he spread his arms. Increased applause followed, but apprehension flashed in his father’s eyes as he looked from him to Brokk and back again.
Cole smiled, but he was aware that while he and Brokk were making a good show of seeming perfectly fine to the room, they didn’t fool their father. Though they tried to hide it from him, the king of the dark fae knew his sons hadn’t returned from the war the same.
But then, the king wasn’t the same either. He couldn’t be after losing five of his sons.
Cole didn’t miss the increased sorrow in his father’s black eyes or that he sometimes locked himself away for hours during the day. He hadn’t done that since the years immediately following the death of Cole’s mother.
With the door to his private solar shut and locked, the king sat in solitude while he grieved his losses. Cole would like to do something to ease his father’s sadness, but he had no idea how to help him when some days he felt like he was drowning too.
Their side won the war, but they’d lost so much, and they’d failed to accomplish what they set out to do.
Still, Cole’s smile became more genuine as his eyes held his father’s. Unlike Brokk and Cole, the king was pure dark fae, and because of that, he possessed the black hair, eyes, and lithe build of all purebred, dark fae.
Cole saw little of himself in his father’s narrow face, hawkish nose, onyx eyes, and lean frame. His father also stood a good three inches shorter than Cole’s six-seven height.
However, there were similarities in their thick eyebrows, full lips, and steel wills. Like himself, his father’s ciphers ran from the tips of his fingers, up his arms, and across his shoulders.
When not wearing a shirt, it was possible to see the ciphers covering his shoulder blades as they traveled down his back before stopping at his waist. However, he had even more ciphers that he kept completely hidden from view.
The dark fae kept many of their ciphers hidden from others, but these visible ciphers were impossible for them to hide. Some things refused to be caged, and their visible ciphers were some of them.
The ground beneath Cole’s feet quaked as the immortal guests stomped their feet and clapped their hands. His father rested a hand on Cole’s shoulder before turning to Brokk.
“My sons, the heroes!” his father declared.
Cole hadn’t considered it possible, but the cacophony in the great hall increased. Bracing himself, he turned to face the immortal creatures.
They blurred together until he stared out at nothing more than a sea of faceless bodies scattered across a blood-strewn field.
Cole shoved the image aside and turned to sit on the throne to the right of his father. His throne was noticeably smaller than his father’s, and it lacked the black skulls perched above his father’s shoulders.
Feeling as if his bones might break, Cole gripped the curved, black ends of his throne until his knuckles turned white. Brokk walked stiffly in front of him and settled onto the chair to his father’s left.
At six hundred years old, Brokk was the middle of the king’s sons. Because of that, he’d never sat so close to his father’s side before, but now that they were the only two sons the king had left in the Gloaming, Brokk’s chair had been moved to sit next to their father’s.
Cole refused to think about what had become of his two remaining brothers. Like the rest of the losing rebels, they were stripped of everything and were now ruthlessly hunted.
No matter how many realms they ran through, it was only a matter of time before they caught Orin and Alvaro. Cole dreaded that day.
At one time, he and his brothers were as thick as thieves, and he’d always known where they were. Now, he knew five were dead and two were on the run.
If they didn’t somehow figure out a way to take down the Lord, the next time he saw Varo and Orin, they would most likely be dead or on their way to execution.
Despite having chosen different sides in the war, Cole was glad they’d survived, especially Alvaro. As half-dark and half-light fae, Varo had always been more sensitive than the rest of his brothers. He’d survived the war, but Cole knew Varo wouldn’t handle the aftermath of it well.
If he was having nightmares, then Varo must be a mess.