The sand continues to fall, and so do the cuts. A line across my collarbone. Another down my leg. My body screams in protest, but I refuse to stop. I pour everything I have into the mirror, weaving its threads with my mind, pulling it back from its fractured state.
My mind reels with everything I’m not ready to lose. The life I’ve barely begun to live. It cannot end here, not in this place, far from the people and places that I love. Not before my child has a chance to feel the soft earth of the Grove beneath their feet or the icy rain of Baev’kalath on their skin.
A fierce rage rises, feeding on my fear, burning away the edges of my panic. Anethesis did not warn me that these tests weren’t just trials of skill but trials of survival, paid for with my blood, maybe even my life.
Damn the Fae and their twisted games. Damn their lies wrapped in pretty words.
I am not a pawn to be played with.
I clench my fists, feeling the slick warmth of my blood on my skin, and let the fire within me roar to life. If this is the cost of their test, then I will pay it, but on my terms, not theirs. They will not break me.
As the final grains of sand slip through the hourglass, the mirror snaps into place, whole and gleaming, its surface flawless once more. Relief washes over me, but only for a moment.
A searing pain slashes across my throat, and the world tilts. My hands fly to my neck. Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, and the last thing I see before everything fades is my reflection in the mirror, my face going pale beneath a crimson mask, blood seeping between my fingers as they clutch my throat.
Then, nothing.
Chapter 8
Daed
Before her.The rain and lightning welcome me back to Baev’kalath as the ocean hurls itself relentlessly against the ship’s hull. The moment we dock, I launch myself off the deck, soaring through the storm-laden air toward the fortress. My boots strike the stone hard just as a crack of thunder tears through the sky, the force reverberating in my chest.
The Blades lining the walls bow their heads, their faces hidden beneath dripping hoods, as I march past. My focus is fixed on the throne room doors, looming ahead like the maw of some great beast.
When I throw them open, the grand hall is bathed in flashes of blue and violet from the lightning illuminating the stained glass window behind the thrones. King Kaelus and Queen Lanneth sit side by side on their cold, carved thrones. The king’s gaze is, as always, fixated on his queen, as though her very presence bends his will.
Even the echo of my boots on the stone doesn’t stir him. It isn’t until I reach the foot of the dais, soaked and breathless, that his bright gray eyes flicker toward me.
“Father,” I say, urgency sharpening my voice, as I push my rain-soaked hair from my eyes.
My father is ageless. He carries the kind of stillness that only comes after watching centuries crawl by. There’s a distinction to him, etched deep. Every feature of his is sharp, noble. Not rough like stone, but fine marble, all smooth edges and elegance that only seems to grow harder with time. And just like marble, there’s no warmth to him. Only cold. Heavy and perfect beneath flawless skin.
I see pieces of myself in him. The way our ebony hair curls at the ends when it’s wet. The exact line of our ears, pointed, proud, Fae-blooded. But that’s where the likeness ends.
I’m not as splendid as he is. Not as clean-cut or untouchable. My edges are rougher. My shine dulled by ghosts I can’t shake.
Whatever fineness I had, if I ever had it, has been chipped away by grief, by rage, by everything I’ve had to survive.
And neither of us has warmth.
Only she ever had warmth.
My mother. Queen Veloria.
Her portraits are all I have to remember her now, but they too are starting to fade.
This place can’t stand anything pure. It sniffs it out like a sick dog and drags it into the dark.
Even memories rot here. Even love fades.
Sometimes I see her. My mother.
In that thin moment between sleep and waking, when I float just outside myself. Numb, weightless, and my demon’s claws haven’t quite sunk in. She’s beautiful. Even in childbirth, body shaking with pain, she glows with a light the world doesn’t deserve. She’s screaming, and under her cries, I hear mine, sharp and new. A Fae prince born into a world that will break him.
But I hear something else too.
Another cry. Almost the same as mine.
