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Immediately, the fabric of reality parted and the black rip began to form. Even before it expanded fully to an oval, Liath was dragging me through it.
I gasped as I went from a sunlit glade to a dark courtyard swathed in shadows. It looked very like the courtyard we had just left, except the trees around it were barren of leaves and a cold wind blew through their branches.
Behind me, the golden oval which led to the Summer Court was already closing. I looked over my shoulder and watched it shrink to a line and then disappear altogether.
I turned back to Liath, not sure what to say.
“You…you didn’t have to do that,” I finally got out.
“Yes, I fucking did,” he growled.
Then he surprised me by sinking to one knee in front of me and taking both my hands in his.
“Alira,” he said, using my true name for the first time. “I know how often he—they—have hurt and tormented you. I vow to you now—they’ll never touch you again! Not while I draw breath.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending. Was he talking about my cousins—about Asfaloth and Calista? And if so, how did he know of their long animosity against me and the many times they had wounded and tormented me? There was so much I didn’t understand.
“I…all right,” I said at last, feeling breathless.
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.” Liath rose abruptly to tower over me once more. “Come—I’ll show you to our rooms.”
6
I followed him through the palace, still in a daze. I did manage to notice that the grounds of the Winter Palace—and indeed, the Palace itself—looked almost identical to the Summer Palace. The only difference appeared to be that all the plants were bare of leaves and the temperature was much, much colder. I shivered in my thin underslip, putting my arms around myself to try and keep warm.
Liath must have noticed because he halted his long stride for a moment and unhooked his cloak.
“Here.” He put the heavy black cloak around my shoulders, fastening it under my chin with the delicate silver leaf clasp. This left him completely bare from the waist up and I couldn’t help watching the play of muscles on his broad back as I followed him through the silent, seemingly empty palace.
Where was everyone, I wondered? Where were the High Fae and the servants who looked after them? The couriers and cooks and pageboys and maids and all the other staff necessary to keep an enormous palace running?
“Where are all your people?” I asked at last, plucking up the courage to speak after he had led me through a dozen richly furnished but empty rooms.
Liath turned his head to glance at me, the dim light gleaming on his curving horns and in his bronze eyes.
“They’ve been told to keep out of the way—at least for tonight,” he growled. “I thought you’d be frightened enough without confronting a bunch of Unseelie Fae. Believe it or not, I’m not the strangest of the lot.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So everyone was hiding from us? Somehow that seemed even more ominous than if the Palace was empty. I imagined many glowing, curious eyes peering at us from the shadows and a shiver ran through me. I gathered the heavy black cloak closer around my body, wrapping myself in it fully. It had the scent of Liath’s skin—warm and masculine with a note of some wild, dark spice I could not name. It felt dangerous but it drew me nonetheless.
I liked the scent, though I told myself I didn’t. I tried not to notice how good it smelled as I huddled in the garment my new husband had given me to wear.
The way he took led us through the Throne Room—which looked exactly like my father’s throne room back in the Summer Court…except for the throne.
“Oh…” I whispered, halting before the broad dais to stare.
The Shining Throne in the Summer Court is, as I have said, more of a broad couch—big enough for two. The throne I saw on the dais in the Winter Court was clearly built for just one.
It was a tall, narrow chair made entirely of some black metal. There was a fist-sized ruby embedded in its top and it had a blood-red cushion. There were carvings in red too—only they didn’t look like normal carvings. It was more like someone had carved ridges in the throne and all of them were filled with rivulets of blood.
I wondered how the craftsmen who had made it had managed that effect. It almost looked like the blood was moving—flowing sluggishly through the etchings on the throne as though it was a living creature and these were its veins, located on the outside of its body for some bizarre reason.
“Ah—the Shadow Throne,” Liath rumbled, coming to a halt beside me. “Does it call to you, little bird?”
