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Chapter One
The water beckoned, wild and dark, undulating in the crisp moonlight. Thana kept close to my side as we traveled the winding path to the shore. There the envoy waited, ready with a ship meant to carry me away from this lonely place. It heaved on the back of the midnight tide, a polished black beast with silver sails.
The queen is dead.
I was told the Night Court is grief-stricken and in shock at the abrupt end of Enya. But those were emotions I couldn’t bring myself to feel for the female who bore me. I knew her face only from the tapestry hung in the temple on the hill, but I had never heard her voice, felt her touch—had neverknownher.Spirited away to the Isle of Mist as an infant, I’d seen nothing outside this place. Thana, my handmaiden, and the seven females who tend to the isle were the only family—the only other Fae—I had ever known.
Thana folded my arm into hers as we neared the males gathered beside a smaller vessel nestled between the pebbles at the edge of the water. “Chin up, Liana,” Thana whispered, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze, “Never let them think you’re weak or they’ll eat you up and spit you out. You are their queen, now you must act the part.”
I nodded my understanding, attempted to make my eyes harder, my jawline stronger.
“Your Majesty.” The male closest to us stepped forward, bending at the middle in a small bow, “I am Captain of the Queen’s Guard. It is my honor to ferry you home.” His face was half concealed in shadow, but I could see his tired eyes, thick unibrow, and a face that was unshaven and rounded. The captain’s voice was brusque, and he wreaked of cloves and seafoam.
So, this is a male… How disappointing.
The other four remained still behind their master, hooded and cloaked.
“Your name?” I asked him.
“Ronan, Your Majesty. My sword is yours as it was your mother’s.”
I stepped past his outstretched hand, stifling the urge to snicker at him, “A lot of good that did her,captain.Shall we?”
I didn’t wait for his reply, stepping past the cloaked sentries and into the small boat, Thana on my heels. I said a farewell to the others this morning, with a promise I would return when I could, with gifts for each of them. They wouldn’t be joining me at court. The island has been their home for nearly a millennium, they now belong to it, and it to them.
But Thana,myThana, had only been on the isle since I arrived as a babe, entrusted to watch over me these past twenty-three years. She was the only one able to leave and return, departing at the beginning of each moon cycle to gather supplies, and returning in days with a bounty of grain, cloth, and other necessities. I expected to wait at least a century before I could get off the damned rock, but fate, it seemed had other plans.
I only just began my immortal life one year past. Thana didn’t begin her immortal life until she was twenty-eight. The others on the island all at varying ages from twenty to thirty-three. It was like waking up. As though I’d been underwater all that time and had only then been able to breech the surface—to truly breathe. And it was cold, like a fist of ice curling its talons around my heart, shooting frigid water through my veins. In the days following, everything became clearer. My senses sharpened, and my reflexes were faster. Even my skin and hair grew softer.
But the people knew. The denizens of the Night Court would balk at my age. I would be the youngest queen to take power since the reign of Morgana two thousand years ago. They still sang songs about her greatness. Perhaps one day, they would have songs to remember me. If I survived long enough.
They told us Enya was assassinated. It was the only explanation. They found her in her chambers, fingers curled inwards, eyes bloodshot, her skin a pallid blue. Poison, they said. But how it got past her food tasters is a mystery. From the symptoms, they suspect it was verbane berries.
Idaredsomeone to try the same poison on me. Verbane berries grew wild all over the Isle of Mist and I’d been eating them since I was a child. They almost killed me a few times before the seven sisters realized why I was constantly taking ill and warned me away from them. But I hadn’t died from them, and I liked the taste, so I ate one a day until my stomach didn’t turn anymore, and then a few a day after that. Eventually, I could eat as many as a handful without too painful of side-effects.
The small boat bobbed and rocked on the water as the four hooded males paddled us out. I watched as the Isle of Mist became smaller, the only sign of life a flickering light where the temple stood at the crest of the tallest hill. I wouldn’t miss it. It was a cage, the kind meant to keep you safe, not hold you prisoner, but some days—most days,it felt more like the latter.
Movement in the water caught my eye.
A flicker of glowing blue darted under the boat, another chasing it through the inky blackness of the depths. I leaned over the side, watching the wraiths below. Devious creatures, bound to no one, they served only themselves. I’d never seen one before and thought they lived closer to the shore, in tidal pools and underwater caves.They shouldn’t be this far out to sea.
“Don’t get too close to the edge, Your Majesty,” the sentry sitting next to me said, peeking up from under his hood. A set of eyes glinted in the moonlight, steel blue, and piercing, in a face that seemed chiseled from stone. I was so busy admiring him, I didn’t have time to react when a tendril of cold, wet tentacle wrapped around my wrist.
The last thing I heard was Thana’s shout as my body flew from the boat, crashing into the sea. My lungs constricted, the cold of the water seeping into my bones. I yanked at the tentacle around my wrist, but it was no use. The wraith pulled me down into the dark until the pressure was enough to squeeze the air from my lungs.
This wouldnotbe my end. I remembered the dagger at my thigh and tried to yank it free of its leather holster. The water became alive with shimmering blue and silver. They surrounded me. Their sharp-angled ethereal faces snarled and hissed, their glowing white eyes fixed on me.
Come with us…Their raspy song-like voices sang inside my mind.Come…
A tentacle whipped out to snatch the dagger from my fingertips, but that same tentacle was then severed, the wraith emitting a hair-raising shriek. A dark shape came into view, brandishing a longsword. He grabbed me, slicing the head from the wraith who held me, her glowing blue light flickering, and then fading. The wraiths scattered further into the deep as we rose, his arm around my waist, hauling me toward the rippling surface.
We broke through, me sputtering and coughing at the warm night air rushing to fill my emptied lungs. Strong arms pulled me back into the boat where Thana wrapped her thin cloak around me, “You stupid, stupid girl. What were you thinking?” she shrieked as the male who saved me hauled himself back into the boat.
“That is no way to speak to your queen!” the captain shouted, and I turned to find him seated and dry, his sword still in its scabbard.Then who…
“Silence,” I commanded him, earning myself a pained scowl. It was the male still standing who drew my attention.
The male unclasped his cloak, letting it fall into a wet heap around him. His voice was husky as he said, “Are you alright, Your Majesty?”
