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I slip from Rev’s room while he’s distracted over his book. If he reacts to the door opening and closing, I’m gone before it happens.
His door clicks softly behind me, and I take in a long breath. Before I can even breathe it out, the door across the hall flings wide, and Reahgan leaps at me. His arms wrap around my body, pinning me down. I cry out and thrash wildly, trying to escape his grasp, but he tosses me through his bedroom door and to the ground.
I roll to a crouch, and he approaches casually, shutting his door behind him. His lips curl into a cruel smile. He holds out his hand and a bright light shines from his palm. It sears my vision, burning.
My muscles clench in pain, but I can’t move. Can’t cry out. I can move my eyes and my lungs are able to perform a tightly restricted breath but nothing more.
The light from his palm burns my eyes, burns my skin. Searing. His control roars through my whole body.
“I knew there was a spy here,” Reahgan says, walking casually around my frozen form. “Though I will say, I’m surprised to see a young girl. From the Shadow Court no less!” He chuckles. “And here I was ready for a challenge.” He shakes his head.
I struggle against his control but I can’t move.
“I thought you’d be my father’s assassin, here to kill my little brother.” He shakes his head. “But my father would never slip so low as to hire a teenaged lesser-court fae.”
There’s a knock on the door and I gasp—well, I try to. My movements, even in my lungs, are too restricted for it. Already, my vision is spotted from hyperventilating on pressured lungs.
“Everything okay, Reahgan? I heard something.”
“All good, little brother.” His voice is so calm, his stance so casual. He hadn’t opened the door, but if he had, I’m certain his act would pass any test. He could fool anyone that nothing extraordinary has happened. “All good,” he says again, looking me in the eye, cruelty and cunning clear as day. He does seem to care for his brother, in some way. But that’s where his virtues end.
He’s caught me in his trap, no different than the Night Bringer. I can see his sickening joy over it.
He has a victim to play with, and he’s eager for it.
My stomach twists and turns. My heart crumbles into pieces.
I failed. I failed. Whatever Reahgan does with me will be only a preamble to what happens once I’m publicly exposed.
Tears run down my frozen cheeks.
Rev heads back to his room, the soft click of his door barely audible. Reahgan shines another ball of light toward the door, creating a secondary wall of white light. A barrier. For sound, I assume.
Reahgan tsks at me, no sympathy in his stare. “Now, now, no tears. Not from a miscreant intruder. No, you did this to yourself.”
He narrows his eyes at me, but my vision is growing more and more blurred. I’m going to pass out. I can’t breathe.
Reahgan snaps his fingers, and the pressure on my chest releases. “Speak, monstrous child. I want to hear your story before we get to business.”
I suck in ragged breaths. “What?” I barely get out between breaths. “Business?”
He chuckles, a sound that reminds me so much of the Night Bringer.
“We’re going to have a little fun together before I turn you in. You’re a trespasser, you know? An intruder from an enemy court here to assassinate me.” He lifts his hands in a mock shrug. “I can do whatever I’d like, as slowly as I’d like.” His words are slow and pointed, he reads my expression after each phrase. “Because no one knows you’re here. And no one will care what your body looks like when I’m done.”
The fear that rakes through my body is painful. I’m trembling. No, no, no. I think. I can’t. I...
“You’re not going to tell me your story?” He pouts. “Well, then I suppose I’ll just have to guess. Let’s see here.” He prances around me like I’m a prized cow. He pokes my leg, then my side. He runs his fingers up my thigh and I squirm, unable to get free of his magical grip on me.
Sobs rack over my body.
“You’re a pretty thing. From the Shadow Court, clearly. In a lovely dress. You’ve been here since the ball, have you? All the other guests have been gone for a full day; the palace cleared. You’ve used your shadows to stay hidden. Why? Because you have nowhere else to go? A homeless stowaway?” He paces, enjoying his guessing game. “I found you in my brother’s room, which implies you were going to attempt to seduce him. Did you think you could make a prince fall in love with you?” He tilts his head. “A way out of your poverty-filled life in that pathetic court of yours?”
He stops and places two fingers beneath my chin. “You were following me first. Did you learn about my recently found mate and then took a second choice in my brother? He’d be used to that. Behind me in all things.” He winks.
He stands. “Well, here is something for you. A little boon for a child who won’t live more than a day longer.” He smiles, like he’s giving me a gift. He leans forward, so close I can feel his breath on my face. “The fae across the hall is no prince,” he whispers, amusement spilling into his voice. He gently brushes the hair from my forehead. “He’s my brother, of course. But he is not the King’s son. The scandal! I know.”
My heart is pounding in my chest. He is no heir of mine.
It was literal. Rev isn’t the King’s son. He’s not his heir. Rev isn’t my mark.
Did the Night Bringer know this? Did he trick me? Or did he make a mistake?
The magic in my chest begins to vibrate in rage. It’s angry for me. It’s found a new target.
Kill him, it tells me.
My body is shaking so hard now. I can’t move! I scream internally. I can’t do anything. He’s going to hurt me, do whatever sick things he wants with me, and I can’t do anything to stop it.
Use me. My magic begins coiling inside my body, building. We will kill him. We will destroy him. He is not more powerful than us together.
My heart is pounding now, not in panic but in excitement. I look my captor in the eye. He doesn’t know he just freed me. He doesn’t know that his secret just placed a big target on his back. His words will not only make it easy for me to end his life—he’ll make me relish it.
I pour everything I’ve felt over the last few days into this one moment. For me, right now, Reahgan of the Luminescent Court is the Night Bringer.
I blink my mind back to focus. Reahgan is standing over me, examining me like a specimen in a science experiment.
“What are you thinking, little monster?”
“I’m thinking that I’m going to enjoy killing you,” I tell him, my voice low and sinister. It scares even me.
The magic in my chest rumbles in laughter. It agrees.
Claim me. Take me. Use me.
Become me.
The magic builds, spiraling into a spring—a trap ready to release.
“I’d like to see you try, pathetic weakling. No Shadow Fae could rival me.”
I unleash the magic inside. It explodes into a roaring wave of acidic black power. It pours over Reahgan, and he falls to the ground, writhing and screaming. His control over my body shatters, the wall of light around the room dissipates with it.
I pull out the dagger from around my thigh. An obsidian blade. I leap onto the High Prince. The future of the realm.
I’ll be a villain when I do this. They never will, but the people should thank me for saving them from this vile fae.
I shove the blade into his heart, and his scream fills the palace. My mind spins. I am inside that cave, deep, thick darkness everywhere. And it is that evil monster trembling beneath me.
Joy as black as my soul fills me. Reahgan’s body goes limp beneath me, but I stand there, pressing the dagger into this chest until the painted thorns on my wrist fall to the floor in a pile of ash. They leave deep crevices where they dug into my skin.
Power rushes through my body, soaring through every molecule. The Night Bringer’s gift, his power, becomes one with my very being.
Mine, I say to it, but there are no longer any whispers. It’s part of me now.
Or perhaps, I am part of it.
When the guards rush into the room, they find me still on top of their prince, laughing. Hysterical laughter. Because I beat him.
No, not Reahgan. I beat the Night Bringer in his own game.
I won.
I won.