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After Bree slid on some shoes, she joined Ethne outside the door. They strode down the corridor, and Bree’s eyes were caught on the bulbous moon that hung low in the sky. It wasn’t quite as large as it had been during the Silver Moon Ball but it was still breathtaking in its splendor. The whole world was lit up in silvers and blues, and bright orange fireflies danced through thesky.
“Underworld is much different than where you come from, is it not?” Ethne asked, her hands laced behind her back as she matched her stride toBree’s.
“You have no idea,” Bree said. “The human realm has its own kind of beauty, but it’s not like this. Perpetual night isn’t a thing, for one. We have a sun and a big blue sky. Long summers. Days that seem endless. Of course, we have night, too, but it’s not like this either. Everything here seems to....glow.”
“You do not sound as though you hate it,” Ethnesaid.
Bree tensed at her words and frowned down at the red carpet that passed beneath her feet. “I do hate it. Sometimes. At least parts ofit.”
“Would that part you hate just happen to be the Prince who has tasked you with being his champion?” Ethne asked, a curious tone to hervoice.
“I’m not sure I hate him anymore, even though I probably should,” Bree said. “After everything he’s done tome...”
“I think the Prince is not as bad as you believe him to be,” Ethne said with a kind smile. “He wants you to hate him because he wants you to be safe. Showing you no mercy and only the darkest parts of his nature means that no one else will find it necessary to step in and do their worst. If he shows any softness to you, you can be sure that members of this Court would take advantage ofthat.”
Bree didn’t think she liked what Ethne was trying to say to her, partly because she knew there was no way in hell she wasright.
“The Prince shows no softness toward me because there’s no softness in his heart. I did something horrible to him. Something that he can neither forgive or forget. And he’s been making me pay for it ever since.” Bree stopped herself before saying too much. The Prince had told her that he hadn’t shared what she’d done with anyone, save for Rafe. Because that would be a black mark against herlife.
“Whatever you have done, he may never forget. But the Prince is not one to hold grudges for long. The fact he allows you to live as you do, in those beautiful quarters with a view of the moon...well, it suggests that he does not hold you incontempt.”
“He’s only letting me stay there because Lord Dagen ordered it tohappen.”
“Hmm,” Ethne merely said as she slowed to stop before a wall full of portraits that Bree had never seen. The Prince had never taken her this way on her daily walks, choosing instead to pace the same route every single morning without fail. The only other times Bree had left her room were to go to the Academy, which was down in the dungeons, or to the Great Hall in the Keep, which was in the opposite direction of where they nowstood.
“What’s this?” Bree asked, gazing at the long row of portraits. There were many of them, each showing a different collection of fae. In each and every one, a lone male stood in the center of a cluster of females, large blood-red wings spanning across the entire portrait. Bree had never seen anything like it. Rafe’s wings had caught her off guard, and so had Taveon’s, but these were somethingelse.
These were...demonic.
She could practically smell the iron tang of blood oozing from the thick feathers. Breeshuddered.
“Unnerving, are they not?” Ethneasked.
“Unnerving or creepy as fuck. Take your pick,” Bree muttered, still scanning the wall. There were at least a dozen male fae in these portraits. Each one of them was different, but they all wore the same exact pair of wings. Only the women were different. Most had wings like Rafe’s—dark and ebony and full ofshadows.
“This is the Kavanaugh line,” Ethne said. “Each of their males has been King at one time or another. They were each cruel and terrifying leaders, relying on fear and intimidation to get their subjects to obey their every whim. There isMidas.”
Bree followed the direction of Ethne’s finger, and she stiffened instinctively. There he was. The cruel King who Norah had killed, in order to protect Otherworld from his terror. Just like the others, he had those blood-red wings. A woman stood beside him. Taveon’s mother, nodoubt.
And there, in the corner, was a young Prince. His silver wings were nowhere insight.
“You see.” Ethne nodded at the portrait. “Taveon is not like the others. He understands what the symbol of the red wings mean. This is the only family in the realm who has it, and it’s a signal of chaos, terror, and fear. He refuses to spread his wings. He alwayshas.”
Bree frowned, cutting her eyes toward Ethne. “So...Taveon. He has redwings?”
“Of course he does,” Ethne said. “It is a hereditary gene, passed on from father to son. His mother had black wings, as most Dark Fae do. But as his father’s were red, so will hisbe.”
Bree did her best to keep her expression as blank as possible. She stared hard at the portrait before her, trying her best to read the expression in young Taveon’s eyes. He had silver wings. She’d seen them with her own eyes. His father had red wings. And the trait was passed down, like the color of eyes and hair. Bree would have to be an idiot not to see what this meant, combined with the fact Rafe had said the Prince hid his wings from the rest of theCourt.
No oneknew.
No one butRafe.
And nowBree.
The Prince was not his father’s son. He was a bastard. His claim to the throne was not what everyone thought it tobe.
Bree sucked in a sharp breath. This was the information she’d been searching for. This was what Lord Dagen needed in order to prevent Taveon’s rule. All she had to do was tell him the truth about what she’d seen that very first day in Underworld: Taveon’s wings were silver, notred.
