The moment Northern Star passes through the gates, the illusion shatters.
My breath is no longer caught in my chest, but trapped there, my hand rising to claw at my throat as panic floods my veins. The brightness of the sun’s reflection on the idyllic houses blurs until all I can see is the star-burst brightness of air deprivation, my skin crawling as it stretches over my bones too tightly, and the next gasp is audible to all those around me no matter their bloodlines.
There’s no visible change, but my magic isscreamingwithin me, begging me to escape this vile aberration I have no words for. My heart thumps loudly in my ears, and another wave of panic washes over me. I’m defenseless against its ferocity. My hand drops from my throat to claw at my chest, my fingers scrabbling against the fabric there. When one of my fingers catches on a silver pin, the end slashes the tip, and blood runs from the small gash but it’s the pinprick of pain that breaks through the panic of my mind.
The cold arrogance of the regent's guards as we walk through the eerie streets is abhorrent, preening in their saddles as the city watches them pass with hollow stares. They sneak glances in my direction as though they can’t see the panic consuming me, too intent on gloating about the beauty surrounding us while the rest of the kingdom slowly decays. The Southern Lands decays because it has life. This hasnothing. I feel lightheaded in my seat, panic fluttering in my chest once more. Stars burst before my eyes, and my fingers flex on the reins as I try to feel the leather and center myself, but I'm numb.
When I feel his presence pressing against the wall in my mind, I turn to Soren, the careful act we’ve put on around the regent’s guards forgotten, only to find him stoic in his saddle. He doesn't react, not to the abhorrent scene around us or the panic that spills through to him the moment I ease the wall down for him. His only action is the careful grip he has on his reins as he uses Nightspark to corral Northern Star, ensuring she’ll ride on without faltering at my breakdown and I’m humbled by his ability to hide his horror, clear through our connection though he holds it back from me.
I let out a shaking breath, too rattled to be frustrated at myself for showing such weakness around the battalion escorting us, and when I ease the wall down, Soren’s voice floods my mind.Take a deep breath, the feeling will pass.
Impossible, there’s no growing accustomed to this. Who has cast this evil, Soren?
He still doesn’t react, but my hands steady from a shake to a fine tremble with carefully measured breaths as he continues,All the evil in this kingdom leads back to the regent and Kharl Balzog. No doubt my uncle has wrought this.
He retreats, but I keep the connection open, drawing strength from his calm presence where mine has been thrown beyond its limits. Panic continues to ebb and flow within me as we ride deeper into the confines of the walled city, pressure building until I’m sure I’ll be crushed by it. Every tree my eyes land upon is an assault, sunlight catching on leaves that dance in the wind, but they're hollow, empty, they’renothing.
When we reach a marketplace, the fae folk all stop and bow to the passing procession, grotesque smiles stretching their lips as their eyes stay unblinking on the cobblestones at their feet. They're living but dead— their hearts beat in their chests, but they’re empty; no life, no magic, no spirit, nothing. I’ve never heard a whisper of a curse that could do this, the magic unfathomable to me, and my mind sharpens as I focus on that instead of the trembling of my hands.
When he sees I’ve regained some wits, Gage murmurs to me in the goblin tongue, his voice hoarse, “No wonder they all follow the false king. You’d have to be as deranged as a Betrayer to endure this, and they've all lost their minds.”
The cadence of the goblin tongue hides the scorn and derision there from those unaccustomed to the language, but I hear it, and the thread of his own panic. He holds on to his sanity as tenuously as I do.
Soren casts me a look, and when I translate for him through our mind connection his reply fills me with dread.The castle is the same, but the high fae who live here have forgotten their magic. It’s never felt this… bleak to me before.
I’m almost jealous of how easy it seems to be for my Fates-blessed mate to hold his composure while I’m thrown into chaos, scrambling for sanity. My magic hums in protest in my chest, and I let it out to flood my limbs and steel me once more. Northern Star huffs, just as spooked as I am but trained to follow Nightspark regardless, thankfully, or the consequences to my panic would surely be greater.
We endure hours of this torture, the roads seemingly endless before finally there’s a break in the row of houses and the rushing sound in my ears proves to be more than just my pulse. A rock wall appears as if from nowhere with a large waterfall cashing into a lake at the base, the tumultuous cadence drowning out the last sounds of the horses' hooves against the cobblestones as we veer from the road onto the earthen path around the lake. The waterfall flows steadily into the lake on the far side, but the edge we ride toward is like glass, a thousand shades of jade and turquoise dancing across the expanse as the sun shines on it.
The trees growing along the water’s edge are lush and green, fae flowers sitting stark white against their brindled trunks, and my stomach swoops at the anomaly of them growing there. No matter the grievous patterns the patches of those sacred flowers bloomed within the Ravenswyrd forest, they comforted me with their presence. No fae flower should grow where magic has been violated like this, the gentle sway of their stalks like an omen.
The sheer breadth of the rock wall is magnificent, the peak obscured by the clouds it plunges through easily, and it’s only when the guards step onto the ledge cut into the base of the rock wall that I realize the path we’re on. Bile creeps up my throat as the water laps at the horses' legs and my heart falls into an unsteady rhythm as the first of the guards pass underneath the waterfall.
When the path narrows, we’re forced to ride single file across the perilous ledge. Soren directs Nightspark to take the lead while Gage falls into line behind me without either of them uttering a word, our horses never faltering to wade through the water. The ends of my robes dip into the lake and grow heavy as Northern Star pushes forward and ducks behind the curtain of water at the last moment as the path hooks sharply around into a tunnel roughly carved into the stone.
Blinking against the plunge into darkness, my chest tightens at the mass of high fae wedged into the confined space, but the guards push forward regardless. The torches hanging sporadically from the walls burn without smoke, the flames blue at the center but shifting to a bright silver at the flickering edges that barely illuminate the tunnel. There’s magic here, a whisper running through my blood as my own power calls out to it, but the dampening effects of the cursed state of Yris still churns in my gut, even when the cramped tunnel opens suddenly into a large cavern.
After the ride through the roughly carved space, finding an exquisitely carved marble arch with heavily armed high fae standing guard is jarring. Larger torches are lit over the two pillars of marble connected with a silver-marled arch, intricate carvings of runes and an inscription in the old language proudly declaring this fae door a creation of the Celestial bloodline. Sapphires set into the stone, the design a record of constellations in the winter sky, some the size of my fist, and they cast ribbons of blue light reflected from the torches burning above. The same crest proudly displayed on Soren’s cloak is etched into each of the pillars and sealed with silver, no mistaking that the First Fae are responsible for this breathtaking feat of power.
The murmurs of the guards behind us are little more than gravel in my ears but, as Nightspark steps closer to Northern Star, Soren’s shoulders straighten in a subtle shift unmistakableto any capable soldier. Gage’s do the same, one hand lying casually on the pommel of his sword while the other strokes his horse’s neck soothingly. When we’re pushed forward once again, he uses his knees to steer the piebald mare.
“No point holding off forever, cousin. Your uncle has already heard of your wanton violence and is most anxious to have this entire mess dealt with,” Ayron states with a curled lip.
His gaze carefully traces over me again, seeming to search for a weak point, somewhere to carve me open and bleed me out, but I stare back at him with cold fury. The carefully blank mask I usually favor is out of my reach, and Soren’s face is more thunderous than ever as Nightspark takes a single step forward, the crack of his iron-shod hoof against the cavern’s stone ringing in my ears painfully. Ayron doesn’t falter at the threat, confident his bloodline or position within the regent’s ranks will keep him alive.
Is he really your cousin? The only other royals who claim such close ties with you are those in your household. Or is this some sort of high-fae taunt I’ve never heard of?
Even staring the male down, Soren answers.He’s my mother’s cousin and the reason Aura has survived countless infractions against Airlie and I. Thanks to the Unseelie Court laws of succession, this is the male heir to Aura’s seat on the court.
More reason to loathe the male. The soldiers standing guard at the fae door all bow to Ayron as he rides ahead and disappears through the arch, the sapphires flashing brightly but no sound to be heard. The rest of his battalion move in a clear formation of ranks, and the soldiers behind us push us forward until we're forced to step through as well.
This fae door goes only into the castle, no need to push the magic to a certain destination,Soren says finally, glancing at me.
I nod back and, without another word, Soren steps up to the fae door and clicks to Nightspark under his tongue. The horse snaps at the one of guards as they pass, and the male flinches back. My gaze never lowers as Northern Star steps up, far more subdued than her usual demeanor, and we step through the fae door. Despite the drastic difference in structure, the magic works the same as the others; pressing, sucking, swirling pressure that tests every inch of my sanity before finally, the world sharpens before my eyes with a jarring clarity while my head spins dangerously.
It takes me a few rattling gasps to acclimate to being this far above the clouds. The air is thinner, freezing my lungs with every breath, and I hear Gage taking the same gulping breaths behind me. Both of us are children of the forests, his goblin blood demanding his feet stay firmly planted on stable ground and not up here on the cliffs so high they seem to laugh at the Fates even as they reach out to them. The mist lying on the stone before us is a taunt, a stark declaration that the clouds envelop this mystic castle that defies reason.
Soren is eerily quiet, and as Northern Star comes to a stop at his side, I glance over only to find him staring at the castle walls before us. His expression is completely shut down, his mind blank through the connection, a void as gut-wrenching as the city now below us had been.
