Traveling in the Winter realm was no less dangerous than traveling elsewhere in the Nevermore. Creatures ready and willing to rip us to shreds were at every turn, and rogue hunters bent on collecting the bounty on my head imposed by King Etienne tracked our every move. Zanthiel, of course, easily warded off most of our opponents, but the attacks were relentless the closer we got to the Shadow Court.
I sliced at a beast as it leapt at me, jaws wide and ready to bite. It fell to the ground with a howl.
“In here.” He pointed to a deep cavern. “There is a trod that will greatly diminish our travels.”
Too late for that.
“It should deliver us to the doorway of your father’s realm.” His horse reared as he slowed it to change directions.
A shard of ice flew past my ear and the searing cold ripped at my head. I screamed and fell to the ground at the mouth of the cavern.
Zanthiel dismounted, moved to my side, and dragged me to my feet. “Lorelei. Are you all right? Can you stand? We’re almost there.”
Moist streams of my own blood dripped down my cheek. The sticky iron scent filled my nostrils, making me woozy. In a dizzy haze I pitched forward, but he caught me and steadied me on my feet. The surge of awakening power had made the effect less intense, but clearly it wasn't gone completely.
Still, I was conscious and could keep moving, and that was something new for me. I liked it, not being a slave to my weaknesses. It was like taking command of my body, in a way I’d never been able to before. Zanthiel narrowed his grim silver gaze, and I gave a final nod of reassurance before striding past him into the cavern. By the time we’d managed to summon light, the gash on my forehead had healed and I was the closest I’d ever come to finding my real father.
The path led us to a center hub, with paths leading from it like spokes of a wheel.
“Now where do we go?” I whispered, my breath lingering like a cloud in the air. Each route looked identical to next.
“Nowhere.” He reached into his pack and withdrew a dark hooded cloak. “Put this on,” he instructed, then tossed it to me. I frowned, but did what he said. He tugged the hood up over my head, taking the time to tuck my hair inside.
“Are you going to tell me what’s with the disguise?”
“Without one, we will not be permitted to enter. The serpent’s eye will get us into the castle, but you will need to pretend to be a servant in order to bypass the king’s guards. The Shadow Court is not governed as the others are. There is no fair play and no second chances. You will have one chance at reaching your father. I will stand watch, but the rest will be up to you.”
Are things ever easy in this realm?
A disembodied voice echoed from the shadows of the cave. “You may go no further, unless you state your business immediately.”
Zanthiel spoke up, uttering words I didn’t understand. Then he held up the glittering ruby snake’s eye.
The hub began to spin wildly out of control. I grabbed on to his arm to keep from falling over. When the spinning finally stopped and the churning in my stomach stopped, I looked around.
We weren’t in the dusty cavern anymore. We were somewhere far more regal, surrounded by smoke and mirrors, frosted glass and webs of shadows. And there, in the midst of it all, was my father.
Daylight dissolved into darkness... the darkness of eternal night. The Shadow Court was the deadliest of the Faery realms. Shadow fey seldom killed their prey. What they did was far worse. Sometimes they drained their life essence, sucking it into their own to give them heightened pleasures. Other times they played with them mercilessly. They toyed with their lives, their hearts and minds, until they were empty and broken. Incapable of repair. Enslaved and shattered, they were left to perish in a psychiatric ward in the mortal world, or taken to live a never-ending nightmare of perverse servitude. Although the Shadow King had the power to do all of that and more, I was certain that would not be our fate. This man had given me life. He was my father. And yet, that did nothing to dislodge the pit of fear churning in my stomach.
He sat at the head of a long stone table, a plumed pen in hand, writing on a parchment scroll. He was so focused, he didn’t see me enter. A line of guards flanked him on both sides, clad in full body armor and armed with weapons I’d never seen before. To get to him, I’d have to get past them. Somehow I didn’t think shouting, “Hi Dad” was going to cut it. I’d seen how parents treated their children in this world. They were far too quick to kill first and ask questions never.
My breath caught for a moment and I paused to recover my bearings. It was surreal, seeing the man I'd dreamed of seeing again for so many years. Now here he was, a few feet from where I stood. Living. Breathing. He looked exactly the same as I remembered. Tall. Striking. Strong nose and jaw and sharp cheekbones. With dark hair and eyes like mine. I sucked in a nervous breath.
Remembering why I'd come and that I was supposed to be a servant, I entered and strode toward a cart laden with food. None of them paid any attention to me, which was good. A massive boar turned slowly on a spit over glowing embers. The table held an assortment of breads and at least six different kinds of stout poured freely from metal casks. The fey spent more time eating than doing anything else.
I picked up a quartz tray and set a jug of faerie mead and an empty silver stein next on it. My hands shook as I glanced over at my father a few feet away, and the fortress of deadly Shadow fey protecting him. The more I considered it, the crazier Zanthiel’s plan was. How was this supposed to go down exactly? I’d serve him a beverage and then what… say by the way, I’m your daughter?
Sigh.
I lifted the tray, turned and immediately crashed into the stone table. Everything spilled to the ground, the jug shattering into pieces and beer ran off the table into a puddle on the floor. The guards turned in unison, a solid wall of black blades pointed in my direction.
Crap.
For the first time since I'd entered his chambers, my father, King Oberon, looked up from his writing. “Approach me,” he said, motioning with his fingers.
I stepped toward him, not sure what else to do.
He studied me closely, as he rose. Then, in a flash, he grabbed my free arm.
I dropped the tray, panicked.
He shoved me against the wall, pressing his forearm to my throat. His dark eyes narrowed. "You are not a servant in my court. Who are you? Why are you here?” he demanded.
He shifted his weight forward, and I choked as my airways constricted. I had no way of escaping. Well, there was one way, but seeing my father's eyes so close, after years of trying to recall how they looked, made it a little hard to concentrate on using magic to break free.
“Who sent you? Was it Mab? Etienne? Never mind,” he railed. “Instead, you may tell me—how would you like me to end your life? Fire? Ice? A cloud of toxic poison, perhaps?”
I tried to shake my head, but I was frozen in place. Shock. Between that and not being able to breathe, I was immobile.
“I could just wring your wretched little neck, whelp, then send your lifeless remains back to whoever sent you.”
“No. Wait,” I whispered, but the words barely reached his ears. This was my father. A man who apparently wasn't afraid to kill someone with his bare hands.
He pulled back just far enough to tug the hood from my head. My hair spilled out from the careless bun I'd tied it in. Oberon froze, his eyes wide with horror. His arm lowered as if in slow motion and he staggered back a step. And then another.
"Ilyandra? Is that really you?" A deep frown furrowed his brows and he squinted, not fully believing his eyes.
I nodded, though it was still difficult to move. "It's Lorelei, actually," I said in a strained voice. "But yes, it's really me. Your daughter."
The room dissolved in black smoke. I coughed as the cold seeped into my lungs. Feeling around blindly in the haze, I eventually stopped when music filled the void.
Mist blew in through an open window and sprayed over my face. The smoke dissipated and I looked around as my mind and limbs came back to life. I felt shaky and nauseous… and completely freaked out. I had no idea where I was, but it wasn’t where I’d been. I was alone in the middle of a vast empty room, nothing but floor-to-ceiling smoked glass windows lining every wall.
I frowned in bewilderment. I’d nearly been choked to death. By my father. The fact that he didn’t realize who I was didn’t console me. I had no idea how long I’d been wherever this was, but Zanthiel would be looking for me by now. And where had Oberon disappeared to?
A piano melody played again, the music wafting from a closed door. I made my way to where it stood across from me. I wandered down a long corridor, my warped and distorted reflection haunting me at every glance.
Everything in my father’s castle looked like it had been etched from smoked glass. A house of mirrors. Unlike the Winter Court, there were no traces of decay or spilled blood or dead flora. It was pristine. Every inch of the room I’d been in and the hall I traveled were immaculately spotless. I followed the melody to the end of the hall.
At the end was a room filled with light. I entered to discover it wasn’t a hall, but a theater. Surrounding the stage flanked by black velvet curtains were rows and rows of stadium seating.
A performance hall? In the Shadow Court? Music had been in my mother’s blood, and in mine. It never occurred to me my father might also have been drawn to it.
Abandoned instruments of every variety lay on carved wooden chairs in the orchestra pit. That’s when I noticed my father, sitting at a grand piano made entirely of smoked glass.
I approached him slowly, as his fingers idly tapped various keys and chords.
“Do you play?” I asked him.
“Do we ever stop?” he said, not looking up from the keys. “Perhaps you care to tell me why the child I forbade to ever enter this world has not once but twice gone against my wishes.”
My spine straightened. “I had no way of knowing those were your wishes.”
“Didn’t you? I must have a word with the dark faerie.” He hit a few more chords, and the music floated high up over us into the rafters. The onyx chandeliers vibrated in harmony with the notes and then responded with a counter melody of their own.
“Tell me then,” he said slowly. “Why have you come?”
I cleared my throat. This wasn’t exactly the reunion I’d imagined. In every fantasy scenario I’d ever had about my father, not one started with him trying to strangle me, followed by a lecture on breaking his unknown rule forbidding me to ever return to Faery.
“I came for your help,” I said, walking steadily down the aisle. Massive gargoyles carved from dark granite perched at the end of every isle. It was only after I noticed their beady eyes following me did I realize they were alive. The seats were covered in black velvet and tufted with large diamonds that twinkled in the dim candlelight. I stopped when I reached the piano.
Oberon struck a high note and held it. Instead of growing softer, the note grew louder and louder until I clapped my hands over my ears as a glass mirror shattered and fell to the ground. Then he released it.
“For help… help,” he repeated the word, rolling it around his mind as he said it. “Could it be that you are telling me lies?”
I blinked. “Pardon?”
He rose abruptly and with the sweep of his hand, a full orchestra piped to life. Haunting dark music was played by phantom musicians with invisible instruments.
Chills rippled up and down my arms, and I shivered at the beauty and terror of it.
“Come,” he said, motioning for me to follow.
I walked behind him, afraid of getting too close or being too far behind as he led us out of the hall and into an adjoining room. It was small and round. The fey preferred curves to angles, it seemed. But for all of the magic and mystery of the great music hall, this room held only the memory of death. It was void of life and air. Dark and dank, I could feel the essence of lost souls wailing for their bodies.
It was then that my father turned to face me. “I believe, daughter of mine, that your visit to my kingdom has nothing to do with you requiring my aid.”
A door swung open and two Shadow faeries with charred tattered wings and red eyes shoved Zanthiel into the room and closed the door. My father regarded me with cold, impassive eyes. “I believe you are trying to usurp my throne. What you are requiring, in fact, is my crown.”