“Does anyone else not see the problem with this?” Eris demands, as we gather at the Hallow in Valerian.
Cold wind bites through my cloak. Whatever magic wards the city doesn’t quite cover the Hallow. Snow dusts its marble floors, covering the ancient bronze symbols that help channel its power. The Valerian Hallow lies directly along the ley line that runs to the Unseelie Hallow we want to arrive at.
“Come,” Finn declares, “it will be a glorious death. They’ll sing of us in the ballads as the Unseelie drink their wine from our skulls.”
“See,” she points out. “Even he agrees with me.”
Thiago remains quiet by my side.
He’s been quiet ever since he announced our plans to venture into the Unseelie territories. Eris, Finn, and Thalia have filled the void with their incessant chatter, but beneath their brightness I can hear the faintest undercurrent of nerves.
I can’t forget he left Baylor behind “just in case.”
If we all fall, then someone needs to hold the Kingdom of Evernight together. Someone needs to hold my mother at bay and speak for the Alliance. Whilst Baylor’s Unseelie born, he’s the only one my mother might fear enough to restrain her worst impulses.
“This is madness,” Eris says.
“What would you suggest?” Thiago demands, locking gazes with her. “The Morai are the only step we haven’t explored in the past.”
As much as Eris rubs me the wrong way, I don’t doubt her loyalty to Thiago. Her lips firm. “There’s a reason for that.”
“What reason?” I ask.
They all look at me.
The danger of journeying into the Unseelie realms doesn’t need to be explained, but until this moment, the Morai were the target, not the danger.
“The Morai were here when the Old Ones first walked the realms,” Eris admits grudgingly. “They can’t access the power of the ley lines, but even the Old Ones stepped cautiously around them. Each visitor is granted one visit—and only one—to access their visions, in exchange for a gift of blood.”
To offer a creature your blood, hair, or nails is tantamount to offering them a means to control you, if they’re strong enough.
“They need the blood for the visions,” Thiago says, correctly interpreting my expression.
“I don’t find that remotely creepy,” I mutter, especially considering I’m the one who’s been chosen to visit the Morai.
Thiago’s used his opportunity already and said he can’t go near them. Apparently, he didn’t like what he saw, and neither did they. If they catch even a single hint he’s in the area, there may be a confrontation.
“Is she joking?” Eris asks. “She had best be joking. They make the hair on the back of my neck rise, and I’m not afraid of anything.”
“She’s joking,” Thalia says, fist clenching and unclenching around the staff she wields. Though there’s a smile on her face, I can tell she’s nervous.
“You’ll be safe,” Thiago assures me as we take our places within the Hallow. “The Morai have their own rules. They cannot harm a traveler who comes seeking answers—”
“Not until they’ve given those answers,” Eris mutters. “Getting in isn’t the problem. Getting out is.”
“Which is where you come in,” he says pointedly.
Eris glances at the sky, as if she’s praying directly to Maia. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I promise I won’t do it again.”
“It’s because you’re so powerful and dangerous,” Finn tells her. “Even the Morai quiver when they hear Eris of Silvernaught is in their woods.”
Eris cuts him a look that clearly says, Die.
Finn winks at her. “I’ll hold your hand if you get scared of the dark.”
Which is the other glorious piece of this puzzle. Apparently, the Morai live in an underground cavern system.
I swallow as Thiago powers the glyphs that activate the Hallow.
I can do this. After everything he’s done for me, the least I can do is try.
“There are bats,” Eris mutters. “I hate bats.”
I clench my eyes shut. She had to mention it.
“You’ll be fine,” Thalia assures me, squeezing my hand quickly. “Thiago isn’t about to lose you to the Morai. They’ll have the answers you need to break the curse. I know it. Think of how delighted your mother will be when you defeat her.”
Bats. I give her a look.
“Trust me,” Thiago says, and then heat and power shoot through the bronze glyphs, straight into the sky, and the world vanishes in a whip crack of sensation.
We arrive at the Hallow at Scarshaven, deep in Unseelie territory. The abrupt shift from endless evening skies to late afternoon is jarring, and the hiss as everyone simultaneously draws their sword sounds ridiculously loud in the air.
The Hallow stands in the middle of a swamp, and mist clings to the air.
Everything is a rich, verdant green, and the irritating crick-crick of an insect chirrups through the mist. Enormous trees jut out of the water, moss clinging to their branches. The island we’re standing on features three stone bridges leading to either land or other islands. There’s no way to tell which is which, though one of the bridges has long since crumbled into fragments.
Something moves in the water.
Bubbles slowly wend their way toward the island we’re standing on.
Finn frowns. “Is that—"
“Move,” Thiago says, shoving me in the back.
According to Kyrian’s sources, Scarshaven is almost abandoned and our best bet to arrive deep in the heart of Unseelie without being noticed. No member of the Seelie courts has been this way in centuries, however, so we have to hope Kyrian’s intelligence is correct.
It’s also directly in the territory of Blaedwyn, one of the fiercest Unseelie queens.
They say her heart turned to stone the moment she used the Sword of Mourning to drive the Erlking into the Underworld, and it’s been that way ever since. Though she was once Seelie, she was driven from the south and cast out of the alliance. She’s no friend of ours.
“Which way?” I whisper.
Thiago strides across the bridge to my left, the one that leads directly into the mist. Shadows beckon there, so of course this is the path we must take.
The journey out of the swamp takes over an hour, and silence masks our footsteps. Anything could be hiding in the mist, and our chances of succeeding rely purely upon stealth. An army couldn’t take this place, but perhaps a small party of five can slip through it unnoticed.
The black ash trees give way to birches and maples, and the ground soon becomes drier.
It’s… beautiful in a wild, feral kind of way.
Waterfalls drip from far distant cliffs, and thickets of thorns climb their way around stone ruins. There are low-lying walls running through the underbrush, as though the forest slowly reclaimed an ancient town that once lay here. Demi-fey skitter through the thickets, hissing at us and whispering to each other as they watch.
If this is Unseelie, then I’m beginning to wonder if the stories were all lies.
They say that when the Old Ones walked the land, they brought darkness into the hearts of the fae they met. They cast curses to twist fae into creatures that became ugly and evil, creatures that would do their bidding, and from these creatures sprang the Unseelie.
The very nature of the beasts changed the lands, as the fae are all connected to the earth, and the queens’ magic most of all.
Magic blackened the skies, the forests became hungry, and the earth violent.
But this is… not what I expected.
“It’s so beautiful here. I thought we’d be walking into a barren, scorched land full of monsters,” I whisper.
“When you want to start a war,” Thiago says softly, at my side, “then you need to unite your people behind a cause. And what is a more powerful tool than fear? Fear of the other. Fear of the unknown. You call them monsters and creatures and Unseelie, and your people will flock to your banners. You show them the bloody carcasses they leave behind, and your people will raise their weapons and vow to eradicate them. You change all the stories until the only ones that are spoken speak of the monstrousness of the enemy.”
He helps me over a rotting log. “But there were other stories, once. The Unseelie were bound to the land more than we ever were. They worshipped nature and they worshipped the Old Ones. Their powers were fiercer and more elemental. They turn away none, no matter how ugly or curse-twisted or violent. They worshipped strength. They were the howl in the night, and the chill on the back of your neck, but they were also the shadows dancing around a bonfire, and the ones who picked up those babies left in the forest to die so they could nurse them as their own.”
I glance at him sharply. “They raise those children?”
There’s always a mother who fears the prophecy spoken over their child at birth. Or misshapen, ugly curse-twisted creatures born to a fae woman. Changelings, they call them, left in their cribs by the Unseelie, but I sometimes wonder if they’re the price of our magic.
It’s always bothered me to hear of those babies left in the forest for nature to grant them justice.
“They raise them all,” he says. “Perhaps not as you or I would raise them, but they take each and every one. Old Mother Hibbert prowls the night, listening for the cries of abandoned babies, and she sends her sprites to spirit them away.”
Old Mother Hibbert is one of the creatures we fear. I grew up listening wide-eyed to stories of how she’d steal me away if I wasn’t tucked in my bed come sundown.
I never knew she took the children we cast aside.
It’s troubling. Because my mother lets her minstrels sing songs of Old Mother Hibbert—and others—in her court, and I’ve seen the horror and fear in my people’s eyes when they listen.
“We must guard our hearts against the treachery of the Unseelie,” she always said. “They’re monsters, Iskvien, and they must be subdued before they come to take what is ours.”
Does she truly believe her words, or was she merely warping the truth to keep my eyes firmly shuttered?
It makes me wonder about the great wars.
They came to enslave us.
They came to take what was ours.
They served the Horned One, who’d grown in stature among his people and commanded two of the queens.
They wanted to destroy us all.
Is any of it true?
“You fought for the Seelie Alliance during the wars, but you don’t consider the Unseelie to be monsters. I don’t understand.”
“Of course, they’re monsters,” he replies, with a bitter twist to his smile. “But are they the monsters we consider them to be? What are monsters, Vi?”
I don’t have an answer to that.
“What drove them south?” he continues.
“The Horned One,” I mutter, though now I’m not sure.
“Aye. He conquered most of the north and turned his gaze south. Do you know what he called us? The bright and shining ones who sought to steal the Unseelie’s lands and magic. And maybe he was right. The Seelie had begun to eye the rich, fertile lands across the mountains. Long before my time, there were clashes. The northern half of Mistmere and Evernight were once Unseelie. When the Horned One turned his hordes south, they came to reclaim what had been stolen from them.”
“You sound as though you almost feel sorry for them.”
Thiago slips through the forest on a wraith’s feet, barely even disturbing the leaves. “I don’t know what to think, Vi. There were atrocities committed on both sides. And which side is right? Which side is wrong? It depends what you believe. It depends what you’re heard and seen with your own eyes. As I said, stories change, depending on the one speaking them. Wars are woven with lies. They’re fought with weapons and swords, but they’re started with words. I know what words can do to a person, or even a people.”
I think of everything my mother has said of the Prince of Evernight.
Monster. Bastard. Usurper.
Unseelie, she’s even whispered, when in her darkest mood.
And before I was given to him, I called him those names too. I feared him and hated him, and I had no reason to do so, beyond that which I was taught from the cradle.
“My mother said you overthrew your queen and then killed her sons. She said you came from nowhere to serve your queen as her warlord, and then you betrayed her.”
Thiago’s shoulders stiffen. “Is that a question?”
“Yes.”
I need to know.
Because I don’t think I can see the truth for lies anymore.
This wicked prince can be both cruel and kind. And I married him. I loved him. I don’t know what I feel right now, but there’s hints of those feelings still left inside me. If I’m to make sense of everything I feel, then I need to know the truth.
“I was Araya’s warlord,” he replies, eyes focusing on the forest as if he can’t look at me right now. “I was never her lover, no matter what the stories say.”
“She granted you favors beyond those she gifted others.”
His lips twist bitterly. “Yes. But I think I’ll keep the reason why to myself, if you don’t mind.”
“And if I do?”
He grants me a firm look. “Then I’ll tell you. One day. The day you cast your mother’s lies aside and choose me in the gathering.”
The next rites are only a month away, but I can feel them looming like an executioner’s block.
“I’ll hold you to that bargain,” I warn.
He smiles, but there’s no warmth in it. “And I’ll pay the price freely.”
If I cast off the curse and remember him.
“Tell me of Araya’s sons then,” I continue. “They say you overthrew them in single combat.”
“You’re full of questions today.”
“You’re the one who speaks of wars and lies. All I know are lies. Perhaps I want to know the truth. Your truth.”
Tension lingers in his shoulders as he strides ahead of me. “Araya had two trueborn sons, Emyr and Arawn. Emyr was cruel, but he was generally expected to be named his mother’s heir. He was big, and strong, and virile. He spent hours practicing his sword work and rode at my side, countermanding every order I made. He thought himself a warrior, but he wanted to be a conqueror. I hated him with every ounce of my being. Arawn was his opposite. Smart, agile, a lean whip of a man who spent most of his time on politics or in books.
“A month before she was murdered, Araya called her sons together and announced that Arawn would be her heir instead. I was there. As her warlord, I needed to know who to back. And I think she wanted me to be the shield between Emyr and Arawn, for any fight between them would end with Arawn’s death. He was never a fighter.”
“So Emyr killed her.”
“No.” The words are soft. Full of malice. “Emyr was never smart enough to plot her murder. The queen was no fool. If Emyr had done it, he would have driven a sword straight through her chest, taken the crown from her head, and then sat upon her throne, bloody sword and all.”
“Arawn, then?”
“I was the one who found her, slain on her throne room floor. Someone had cut her throat from behind. And Araya was the most dangerous woman I’ve ever met.” He falls silent for a moment, as if he’s picturing it again. “To get near her, her killer had to be someone she knew. Someone she would never suspect nor defend herself against. Someone smart, who could lay the blame at another’s feet. Someone who had something to gain.” Thiago glances toward me. “I can never prove it, but Arawn was the next one through the throne room doors with an entire complement of guards. They found me there, kneeling by her side with her blood wetting my fingers. Emyr came through the other door, just as the guards fanned out.” His lips quirk. “I don’t know who was more surprised. Emyr challenged me. Of course, he challenged me. All those years we’d sparred together, and he still couldn’t see his death looming. I cut him down within minutes and fought my way free of the castle.
“Arawn declared me her murderer and set about hunting me down, but he forgot one crucial fact… I was Araya’s warlord. Most of the army belonged to me, and I had Eris and Baylor by my side. The other two warbands split and sided with Arawn. It meant we had to fight our own, but I was younger then. Furious and lost in grief. I knew he’d done it. The smarmy little prick always did like to prove how clever he was. But I didn’t want to ride against our friends and allies. When we arranged ourselves on the field, I offered a chance of single combat so no blood would be spilled. Arawn refused to meet me on the battlefield himself, but he sent his finest warrior, and I cut them down.”
His voice softens. “If there’s one thing an army respects, it’s sacrifice. I had wagered everything I had on that duel. I could have ridden through those that stood against me—I had the numbers—but I chose to spare them instead. And when Gawad fell, by the terms of the duel, I was a free man. But Arawn ordered his generals to take my head. It was the second mistake he made. Trial by combat is unassailable. And he’d gone back on his word. So they brought me his head, instead.”
And he became the usurper. The bastard. The murderer.
His armies worshipped him, and those in his court counted him as both prince and friend, but the people in Ceres…. I couldn’t forget the pain in his voice when he spoke of their disdain for him.
And for what? A lie. A petty, scheming prince’s aborted attempt to take a throne.
Thiago’s never overthrown that mantle. He probably never will.
It’s true.
Words have a power even a blade can’t match.
Finn slips through the forest, appearing out of nowhere. “Keep your voices down,” he breathes. “We’re nearly there.”
“Nothing ahead?” Thiago asks.
Finn shakes his head. “Nothing but bones littering the forest floors and hanging in warning from the trees. Even the squirrels avoid this area, and judging from the spiderwebs, they have good cause.”
Spiderwebs. I give Thiago a long, hard look, which he ignores. There was no mention of spiderwebs.
“And Blaedwyn?” he asks.
“I can see her castle through the trees, but there’s no sign of her guards.” Finn scrubs at his mouth. “Her banner is hanging from the tallest tower.”
Which means she’s home.
Another complication.
Thiago turns to me. “Are you ready?”
The sooner I get in, get the answers I need, and get out, the sooner we can slip unnoticed from these cursed lands.
“Let’s get this done,” I tell him.
We move out, and Finn leads us directly to a chasm in the side of the mountain ahead. He’s right. Bones hang from charms in the trees, swinging in the wind. Someone’s drilled hollows in them, so as the wind catches them, they give an eerie whistle.
But it’s the spiderwebs that cling to every rock and tree that cause me the main concern.
“What size does a spider have to be to create a web like that?” I hiss as Finn slices through one that bars the way ahead.
“I really, really don’t want to know,” Thalia mutters.
“You’re not the one who’s going to have to find out,” says Eris, looking as grim as I’ve ever seen her.
I eye the sheen of sweat on her forehead. Is Eris—the almighty Destroyer—actually nervous?
“Here we are,” Thiago says as Finn hacks through the last of the webs.
I stare into the cave ahead. Moss hangs over the opening, and spider silk glistens in the late afternoon sunlight. It’s dark and gaping, like the hollow mouth further north that allegedly leads directly into the Underworld.
“Look at me.” Thiago’s hands cup my chin, and he turns my face to his. “I can’t go in there with you, Vi. Not even to save your life. I’ve already been once, and the Morai vowed a second visit would be my undoing. They cannot lie. What they see is bound to come true.” He hesitates. “You don’t have to do this.”
If this is the only way to gain answers, then yes, I do.
This curse isn’t merely a wedge between us, it’s an obliteration of who I am. I want those memories back. I want to be able to look my mother in the eye and ask her why. And I want my magic.
Swallowing hard, I lock down every little scrap of fear that shivers through me and rest my hand on the hilt of my sword. “Spiders? Ha. You know what spiders are afraid of?”
His brows draw together.
“Fire,” I tell him, clicking my fingers and sending a spark into the air. “If I’m not back before nightfall, then give my mother my regards.”