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The Summer king must’ve sold them on the idea that impairment of their strength and faculties equals freedom. I must meet this male, for I must face this formidable enemy. Brilliant tactic.
Notturnos are the faes’ natural predators, raised from the dead during the time when fae magic threatened to collapse our entire world.
It was also during the time that fae lived in nothing more than clay huts or in the trees, or even in holes underground. These fae now called Summer fae had gills and lived in the oceans with the sirens. Before they walked, many of the Summer fae swam with the merfolk. This is why they have close ties to the ocean creatures. In a way, they’re cousins.
Noise coming from the entrance on my left gets my attention.
The fae crowds waiting at the entrance beg admittance from a pair of massive lycan males who redirect more than half the hopefuls upstairs, where the Summer king holds parties for folks who have no business seeking the thrill of a bite. Or sex. Or whatever my people offer down here.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“A small issue in the dungeon.”
“You are the male responsible for the prisoners and the nightly entertainment?”
“You ask too many questions.” He snaps his head toward me again.
I detect anger in his voice. Finally. An emotion other than careless surrender.
It makes me wonder if these notturnos are all spelled.
Could it be? What kind of fairy magic would it take to spell every notturno, every fae, every siren, merfolk, lycan, and probably other species I haven’t even seen yet into utter submission?
Avoca’s power, possibly, but even the most powerfulvocawould go insane having to control this many magical creatures night after night.
They’re not spelled. This is their life. Wasting away in the cheerful dungeons of the Summer Court. The Unseelie king brought me here so that I could witness the demise of my people.
The living subdued the undead. Without the magic of the undead present in the world, the notturnos have lost their strength and their way. We were once guards. Soldiers. Fierce warlords. Not these pathetic fae servants divided into seven vampire houses.
“Can you walk under the sun?” I ask, unafraid of his anger.
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “Naturally. Only the elderly weaklings can’t.”
“The elderly are weaklings because they cannot walk in the sun?”
He gets distracted again by a group of fae females wearing tiny dresses. They pass by the lycan security guards, and one of them throws up her hands, “We’re in! Let’s party!” She swipes a bottle from a fairy’s tray and chugs, leaving her throat exposed. In a room full of harmless notturnos, no wonder she’s carelessly exposing her jugular.
Even the fae used to exercise more care with their throats.
The vampire beside me smiles before sipping from his flute. “Pretty much,” he says.
“I take it most elderly don’t live in the Summer Court?”
“If they do, you’ll find them in the dungeons or scavenging what’s left of the fae in the Fallen Court.”
“And the Winter Court?”
He frowns. “You just wake up or something?”
I nod, happy that we’re finally having a conversation without me having to scramble his brains with compulsion. While I got some memories from the vampire who had awoken me, his seclusion meant he lacked information about the world. Besides, the moment he came here, he got into a fight with the male who held power over the vampires down here, which tells me his temper got in the way of business. He was supposed to seek an alliance, not start a war with another house.
“The Winter prince has practically ruled the Winter Court for almost a century. He funded four of the vampire houses and gave the heads of them land to plow and farm and govern.”
My fierce people are farmers plowing unfertile frozen lands now. Any more of such information tonight, and I might cry. “And what of the other three houses he didn’t fund?”
“Two fled here, to the Summer Court. One is in the Fallen Court.”
“You’re telling me that our kind are now at the mercy of fae kings?”
