Chapter One

 

 

 

 

Dylan

 

“Your Grace, they’re waiting for you.”

I jerked from my reverie and looked up at the servant. He was young, no more than a couple decades old, from what I could see. The poor fool was so unjaded and whole, so unlike the eldritch souls clinging to this room and to my mind.

Running my hands through my long obsidian hair, I exhaled painfully slowly before waving the servant away.

A few moments later, another voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Your Grace?”

“I said I’ll be right there,” I snapped, but stopped as I realized it was no longer the servant from before but the twins’ nursemaid, Lorn. “I’m sorry… are the twins okay?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I apologize for the interruption, but I just wanted to know if you still want them to attend the ceremony. Jade and Lana are sleeping now. Do you want me to wake them? Their schedules are still erratic and Jade just got to sleep.”

“No, thank you, Lorn. If they wake, you can bring them. If not, let them sleep. No sense in bothering them to attend.”

She appeared relieved and bowed before excusing herself. She was an excellent nursemaid, but her presence always brought a tinge of resentment to my mind. I knew she could see it. Shade should have been the one taking care of our children, not a hired faery nursemaid. The world was fractured.

No. My world was fractured.

What frightened me more than anything was that Shade had forgotten all about us, our plight, the destruction she’d left in her wake. The mess was apparent in everyone’s faces, yet no one spoke a word about the new Ancient, fearing her wrath were she to abruptly show up. No one dared speak against her even though the absolute catastrophe of her transformation had cost us almost everything.

For some, it had been everything. Like Soap.

For me, it might as well have been everything.

The past several months since Shade’s abrupt departure had lasted an eternity, and now it was time for the ceremony of mourning to send tribute to the new Ancient of Faerie and basically bid goodbye to the former ruler of the Scorching Scren Palace. It felt like a wake, rightfully so. It would also include our mourning for the figure lying in the glass case before me, slumbering away in a deathlike state.

Soap.

As I stood and hovered above his resting figure, my throat tightened. Silently screaming, I placed my hands on the reinforced glass keeping him separated and protected from this treacherous world. I hated to think he could be aware while trapped in his corpse-like state. It would be a dreadful torture. Could he be trying to call for help, willing his arms to move so he could scratch against the surface of his prison? How had Kilara’s curse lasted past her death, damning him for all of time? I was afraid to believe we could never wake him. He may have stolen part of Shade’s attention when she was mine, but he was still a brother in more than one sense of the word.

Damn her. Shade had made a choice. She could have stayed with us forever, but instead she had left with Arthas to become the Summer Ancient then deposited our offspring on the palace steps without a word when they were born. How could she have been so selfish? What madness had driven her from my embrace when there’d been nothing but my entire heart to give her? I couldn’t fathom it. I dared not try.

I had to believe there was something left inside of her that fought to resurface, to return to me. To us. She had to, even though we were not of the same life anymore. The thought of what her letter had told me still broke my heart, over and over.

 

I bestow the care of the twins to you, Dylan. May their life be long and prosperous. Please tell them I love them, no matter what.

 

She’d left without a word, a visit, or anything. Nothing to acknowledge this heart she’d shredded without a thought. I’d been left to pick up the pieces of so many shattered fragments. But with Soap’s endless slumber and my never-ending broken heart, I knew there had to be more. This wasn’t the end of it all, was it? It couldn’t be. There was more for the three of us. This abandonment had to have a strong reason behind it, and I swore I would find out what it was, even if it killed me.

“Your heart calls me.”

I turned, my chest squeezing as my eyes took in an unbelievable sight.

“Shade.”

“Do not fret. I hear your pain. Your suffering.”

“If you hear it, why does it not cease?” I stepped toward her, but she snapped her hand up, stopping me mid-step.

“Do not come any closer.”

“Why not?”

Her cold, dead eyes never wavered from me, and it was that frigid stare that had me hesitating. Was my Shade still in there? Where had the magic of Faerie tucked her away? Could I reach into the shell of her body and pull her out? I hoped so. With all my heart and soul, I hoped so.

“You think I do not care. You think this faery doesn’t possess the heart of the girl she once was.”

“Tell me she still does. Shade, come back to me. We can make it work. You do not have to rule at the side of Arthas. He’s toxic. Evil. You can return here and be where you belong. Your children need you. I need you.”

Her dark eyes hovered over the glass box containing Soap’s body.

“And him?”

“He needs you too. Can’t you see? We’re destroyed without you. I can’t fix him without your help.”

“I swore I’d find a way to wake him. I intend to keep that promise.”

“Then return and keep it. Don’t leave.”

I took another step forward but froze, and not by my own doing. She’d placed her hand back in the air, sending a whisper of cold arctic wind my way. I shuddered, the magic penetrating through my glamour and past the heat of the blue fire and electricity crackling along the surface of my true skin. It was like a shard of ice piercing my heart, hardened, frozen, and fatal.

“Shade, don’t.”

“I cannot stay. But I will check on the children often. I’m sorry. I never meant any harm.” Her eyes slid down to my left hand, where the metal of my wedding band had melted and fused into my flesh. Long ringlets of metal ran up my arms in bloodlike drips, the memory of the broken oath burning into me like the moment the ring had turned molten. That was the moment she had turned from us and become the Summer Ancient of Faerie, one of the most powerful beings to ever exist. She’d taken over for Kilara, a corrupt and fatally ill ancestor who could no longer serve the land as she had sworn to do. Her downfall had swept Shade from my arms. Her last words had frozen Soap in his deathlike state.

“You may not have meant any harm, but we are destroyed and lie in pieces. You’re the only one who can save us. You’re the only one.”

Her cold stare didn’t waver, and she was gone a moment later, blinking out of existence as though she had never been there. My heart went along with her.