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I watched as a mountain peak appeared in the clouds below, then vanished again, and my heart sped up.
My father’s court was not inside of the Black Mountain. It was above it.
I turned slowly around the room. I could have sworn Tuva’s hooting had woken me. But the owl was nowhere to be seen.
There was a slight sound from across the room, and a door pushed open.
A maidservant stood there, clad in a long, white robe. She was very pale, with white, almost translucent hair. She would not meet my eyes, simply stood with her eyes downcast. Her arms hung by her sides. Her limbs were slender and elongated in a way I found both fascinating and disturbing. I had never seen such features in a fae.
When she spoke, her voice was cold. “My God summons you. You must come now.”
I took a curious step towards her. “God? You mean my father?”
“The God.” The maidservant sounded displeased. “The Divine One beckons you to his glorious presence.”
I laughed at her. “He is no god. And there is nothing glorious about his presence, I assure you.”
She lifted her head to look at me, and I saw the cold dislike there.
So much for having anything in common with these strange people.
“He’s a monster,” I said quietly. “And if you belong to his court then you must already know this.”
“Follow me,” was all she said.
I went with her. Not because I enjoyed following commands. But because my most pressing goal was to find Draven. He must be in this floating palace somewhere. Or worse, already with my father.
I followed the young woman down empty white corridors until we reached a set of silver doors.
Four guards flanked the entrance, decked in pristine white uniforms. Each held a spear made of silver, ornately decorated with gemstones. The spears looked more ceremonial than practical. I supposed my father didn’t particularly require protection.
The maidservant who had led me now pushed open the doors to the throne room. They swung open with a soft creak and she stepped back to let me pass, then pulled them closed behind me.
Passing over the threshold, I took in the scene before me.
A towering throne of obsidian rose atop a raised dais of gleaming white marble.
Upon the throne, rising to his feet as I entered, was a figure who immediately commanded my full attention.
My father.
He looked nothing like how I had imagined.
This man, this being, bore only a vague resemblance to the man in my dreams and his portraits.
He was alien. Inhuman. Un-fae.
Pale with a hairless head, his skin stretched taut over a rigid and angular face. Like the maidservant, his limbs were unnaturally elongated and his fingers long and sinewy with muscle, like the hands one might imagine in a nightmare clambering out of a grave.
Once, perhaps he had possessed a semblance of beauty with the same sharp features and high cheekbones I had seen mirrored in my brothers and sisters. But now, the sight of these protruding bones only served to accentuate the terror he inspired. My instincts screamed at me to flee as he rose before me, towering over us all like a specter of death.
The god of thunder he might have been, but everything about him reeked of rot and decay.
And he was not alone.
Sitting on the dais was a woman. She was smaller but similarly formed. In contrast to my father, she still possessed vestiges of her former youth and beauty. Pale gold scales wound down her left cheek and stretched down her slender neck, disappearing below the low-cut neckline of the silver clinging gown she wore.
She looked at me with viper’s eyes of a radiant turquoise and smiled as she caressed Draven’s cheek as he leaned against her, seated between her legs with his head nearly in her lap.
