The grand hall we entered gave a new meaning to extravagance. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of crystals hovering in midair refracted the light, throwing winged, human-like silhouettes along the walls. Broad, proud pillars trimmed with gold and emeralds held an immense domed ceiling aloft. I smelled something sweet, like honey, like nectar, like something I’d never tasted before but wanted desperately to, before the scent was quickly carried away on a phantom breeze.
Zephyr had already crossed the hall to a high-backed throne at the other end.
“I never knew the Fae had anything like this…” Mia said, gaping at the glittering walls. “This is amazing!”
Colson was prodding one of the crystal statues flanking either side of the entrance doors. Every time he touched it, the crystal would reform into a different figure. “Weird,” he muttered.
“I think this used to be the old Court of Night,” Asher said. “My dad told me this was where they went to get help from Segur, Queen of the Unseelie Fae, when they were fighting Maladias for New York.”
“Did she help them?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. He didn’t say too much about it. She died soon after.”
Something clicked for me. Hadn’t General Zell said something about Zephyr’s mother being killed? And my mother having something to do with it? I think I’d finally seen the connection.
I walked over to Zephyr. He was walking around the entirety of the throne, but never actually sitting on it.
“Your mother was Segur,” I said. “Queen of the Unseelie Fae.”
Zephyr gave me a smile, though unlike the ones before, this seemed sad. “She was. And by Fae law, that makes me an Unseelie Fae. Does that anger you?”
I knew the Unseelie Fae were considered the more dangerous of the two Fae. Not that either of them wouldn’t be considered dangerous, but as far as trusting them went, you were always better off with the Seelie.
“That depends,” I said. “Sounds like she did some bad stuff. Are you the same as her?”
Zephyr regarded me coolly. “She created discord where none was necessary. Did you know it was your mother and father, along with headmaster Lucien, who put an end to her reign?”
I felt my hand involuntarily drift toward Valkyrie’s hilt. It had just occurred to me, but perhaps Zephyr had lured me, all of us, out here solely to seek revenge. Maybe he wasn’t as peace-loving as he claimed.
“I have no quarrel with you,” Zephyr said, not missing my movement.
“My mother killed Segur,” I said.
“She did what she thought was right for the good of all,” Zephyr said.
Gee, why did that sound so familiar?
“So you don’t want to get revenge?” I said.
Zephyr continued walking around the throne until he stopped in front of it. He began to lower himself into it, then seemed to reconsider and perched himself on one of the arms instead.
“I never wanted to become King of the Fae,” he said. “I would much rather be free to explore this realm. I find mortals and their inventions…fascinating. I could spend a lifetime and many more beyond simply uncovering the mysteries of what you’ve created. Alas…” He rested his head elegantly in his hand. “My destiny is to be another. I was called, as blood of my mother’s blood, to atone for what she did. To unite what she helped tear apart.”
He waved his hand. I felt a tremor cross my skin. The air split as he easily conjured a portal beside his throne. Suddenly I was looking through a window to another place, a place I could immediately tell wasn’t one where mortals dared go. The details were fuzzy around the edges, but I could make out enough to see it had a twilight glow; a sense of otherworldliness, of almost wrongness, leaked from the fringes.
“Perhaps now she resides in the Twilight Realm,” Zephyr said. “That is where she breathed her last. I hope, if she is in fact there, she can look upon me and see what I’m doing to make things right.”
It took me a moment to pull my eyes away from the portal. “I’m happy you’re doing this,” I said. “Making things right, I mean.”
“It is for the best,” Zephyr said firmly.
“Maybe when you’re king you can make a holiday where you can take a break for a week. Go explore all the places you want.”
“Hm…” Zephyr seemed to seriously consider this and I immediately shut my mouth. There were many things I should do, but give ruling advice to an impressionable Fae king wasn’t one of them.
“Perhaps I shall,” Zephyr said.
“And I’m sorry you aren’t getting exactly what you wanted.”
“Not all of us get to choose our destiny. And none of us get to choose who our parents are or what they’ve done. But I am okay living with the consequences of mine.”
I rolled my next questions around in my head before blurting it out, “Did you hate your mother?”
Zephyr tilted his head up, thinking. “What a strange question! I never knew her, so the most I have to hate would be what others tell me she was like, and what her actions have forced me to do. Perhaps I hated her at one time. But I find it difficult to hate one I never understood.”
The words hit so close to home that I almost wondered if Zephyr’s intrusive mind magic hadn’t managed to slip into my head and ferret out the very thing I was struggling with.
“Zephyr—”
There was a splash above my head. A thin stream of water fell between us, quickly evaporating into mist the moment it hit the floor. Zephyr sighed and slid to his feet.
“That would be the watchers’ warning. It seems someone else is here.” He gave another long sigh. “I am sure my ever-vigilant general has found me at last. Though I am surprised he did not check here first.”
But I wasn’t thinking about the general. I was thinking about the other, far more dangerous person we had to worry about outside the safety of the Academy. My stomach clenched as I spun, looking at every potential entrance of the hall. I was an idiot. I should have hurried the prince along. We were so exposed here there was no way we’d be able to cover every angle.
“Guys!” I yelled.
The others looked over. Asher saw my panicked expression. “Hurry!” he said to Mia and Colson.
But it was too late. Already I felt the buildup of magic pressing around the confines of the hall. Already I felt the hair on my arms standing on end.
I started running toward the others, desperate to reach them before—
The far end of the hall exploded.
I was thrown back, smashing against the marble floor before I wedged my feet beneath me and skidded to a stop. I didn’t wait to regain my senses but immediately started running to cover Zephyr as dust and smoke billowed into the room. After a beat I could finally see that Asher had escaped the worst of the blast and joined me. I spotted Mia and Colson. Colson had thrown up a shield charm with one arm, his other arm around Mia.
I grabbed Zephyr. “Is there another way out of here?”
He looked confused, like he couldn’t understand why I was so frantic, even after half his hall had been blown up.
“Zephyr!” I yelled.
At last he nodded to the second-floor balcony. “Up the stairs.”
There was another explosion, this time from somewhere deeper. His expression hardened. He’d finally realized we were in actual danger.
“Mia! Colson!” I said. I pointed to the second floor. Both of them started running and we followed, me practically dragging Zephyr behind us. Maybe he really was as strong as he said he was; maybe he’d never been in true danger. I wasn’t sure, but the guy lagged behind like he didn’t have a bone of self-preservation in his body.
The smoke was unnaturally thick now. As we neared what I hoped were the stairs to the second floor I cast a hand out to clear the air. The smoke thinned and my limbs immediately froze. I nearly toppled over before summoning more magic to free myself. Hex it all. Petrification magic. Which meant…
Kasia stood blocking my way, flanked by Greubal and at least a dozen society acolytes.
“Kill them,” Kasia said. “The prince is mine.”
Spells barely missed me as I dove to the side. I was blinded by a brief, shining light as the prince conjured a shield covered in runic symbols, allowing me to roll to relative safety and draw Valkyrie. The acolytes had already spread out to attack the others. We had no backup, and it looked as though the main entrance we’d come in was blocked. The only way we were getting out of this was fighting our way through.
I leapt towards Kasia, but she swept her hand up, brushing me aside like I was nothing more than a gnat. I felt the force of her blow like a double punch to the gut; first her normal, powerful magic, then something else, something far stronger: the god she’d stolen from Nolan.
I slammed against one of the pillars, teeth rattling in my skull. When I opened my eyes, Kasia was calmly walking toward Zephyr. Her outline teemed with darkness, tendrils of it oozing off her. I took a precious moment to shake off her attack. She was so strong now. And I knew, if I didn’t use the Dark Prince, I would be next to useless.
I forced myself to my feet as spells continued to flash across the room. I angled Valkyrie at Kasia’s back.
“Prince Zephyr, it’s an honor.” Kasia gave a mocking bow. “It’s been a while since I’ve spoken with the Fae. How foolish of you to leave yourself so exposed.”
“I think you’ll find I am not so helpless as you believe,” Zephyr said. Faster than I could see, he launched a spell at Kasia. I expected her to knock it aside as she had me, but instead she leapt up, impossibly high, hovering in midair before driving her fist into the ground, forcing Zephyr to jump out of the way to avoid the aftershock of the blast.
I charged Kasia, but once again the sheer power of her magic knocked me aside, and I ended up next to Zephyr’s still-open portal. Blood pounded in my ears. Through the smoky haze, I could see the unmoving bodies of a few acolytes. Asher battled with Greubal up on the second floor. Mia was pulling down the swirling crystals by the dozens and casting them at the acolytes trying to close in on her and Colson.
I pulled magic to my core, concentrating it there as I aimed at Kasia. “Tentro!”
My immobilization spell managed to hold onto her long enough for Zephyr to strike, his spell-sharpened hand slicing a shallow cut across Kasia’s cheek before she broke my hold and whirled out of the way. Before she could attack me, I cast a protective barrier and followed it up with a spell that built a wall of rocks between us, allowing Zephyr time to gather himself for another attack. I knew I was only stalling. I knew I couldn’t do any real damage to her. Her power was growing by the second. Any spell I cast would be nothing but a brush of wind against an iron wall.
Unless…Unless…
The Dark Prince’s power rose up within me, begging me to use it, crooning in my ear that it wouldn’t be a problem, that I could control it. All I had to do was let him free. All I had to do was direct him at Kasia and I could stop her for good.
I screwed my feet into the ground, centering myself both physically and mentally. If I was going to do this, I’d only get one shot. If I failed and did let the Prince out, there was no chance he was going back.
“Give me your power,” I said to the Dark Prince. “Give me your strength.”
I felt rejuvenated, power the likes of which I’d never felt before filling me to the tips of my fingers, practically bursting from my skin. The air crackled as his magic spilled forth.
“At last,” the Dark Prince said.
I screamed as his power grew. He easily battered down the frail mental wall in my mind, overrunning any sort of defenses I might have had. Still, with the last bit of awareness I possessed, I focused him on Kasia.
“Kill her,” I said in a voice that wasn’t my own. “Make sure she dies—”
Pain blossomed in my chest, like a thousand knives cutting through my skin, through my bone, straight into my heart. My magic was snuffed out in an instant. I gasped, unable to breathe.
I looked down at Kasia’s arm, completely covered in black magic, reaching inside me, grabbing the Dark Prince.
“Not this time, Skylar,” Kasia hissed.
She pulled.
I was severed in two.
I’d never asked Nolan what it was like to lose his god, but nothing he might have told me could have prepared me for the pain. It was agony greater than any I’d ever felt, worse than losing a limb, worse, I was sure, than dying. A part of my very essence, my very sense of self, was torn away as Kasia ripped the Dark Prince from me.
I collapsed. I couldn’t form coherent thought. I might have died just then, crossed over to that other place for only a moment, before snapping back into the pain-wracked husk that was my body. I could faintly hear Asher screaming.
I opened my eyes—I wasn’t dead, not yet, though I felt as though I should be—to see Kasia standing over me. In her hand she clutched the teeming black mass that was the Dark Prince. The god that had lived inside me since I was a child. There were tears on her face as she looked down on me.
“Die. Please die and leave me in peace.”
I tried to say something, but I couldn’t form the words. Behind Kasia, Zephyr summoned beams of light like spears and aimed them at Kasia’s back. I tried to yell out for him to stop. She had three gods now. She was unstoppable. There was no way she could be beaten.
Zephyr cast his spell.
The Dark Prince pulsed when Kasia raised her other hand. Zephyr’s beams of light disintegrated as a single blade of darkness sliced through them and pierced the center of his chest. For a moment his expression was frozen in one of beautiful shock. Then he collapsed, dead.
The Dark Prince pulsed again, and when it did I felt the excruciating ache in my own chest. A part of me was missing. A part of me would never be whole again.
Yet I still had to fight.
As I tried to push myself up I heard a snapping sound behind me. The portal Zephyr had summoned was collapsing now that the one who’d created it was dead. It wavered and stretched, ready to vanish.
“Kasia…”
I tried to bring up Valkyrie to swing at her. She looked back at me, then to the portal. I saw what she meant to do a moment too late, and even still I was powerless to stop it. “No—”
With a flick of her hand she sent me flying back through the portal. I felt the crush of the otherworldly realm settle on me. I watched, through the small eyelet of the shrinking portal, my friends as the hall continued to tremble under the force of Kasia’s new power; I saw General Zell and the Fae guard burst in.
I saw all of this before the portal blinked shut, and my world went black.