28
SENESCHAL
SAERIS
MY EARS WERE ringing.
The air was full of dust.
I opened my mouth wide, working it side to side, unsure of why it was hurting so badly. My throat was raw. Fuck, the back of my head was hurting, too. Why was I on the ground? And where—
The quicksilver was awake.
Holy fucking gods.
I jumped up, my back screaming, hip thrumming with pain. Broken chunks of stone cut into my bare feet, but I hobbled forward, reaching for my power, unthinking. I had to get it closed. Worry sang through me—a plucked string, vibrating in my chest. How long had it been open? It felt like only moments. I had been in the pool, and then I’d hit the wall.
I— Oh, gods. Something was coming through. The quicksilver reacted quickly when I called it now, quietly, but I was asking it to do something that it could not do. The gate couldn’t close while someone was traveling through it. No one had ever told me that. I just knew it now.
I had to wait.
The crown of a dark head of hair appeared first.
Black waves.
Pale skin.
My panic began to subside.
But then . . .
I knew the face.
I had seen it only once before, but it had stayed with me. The male had barely spoken to me, but I recalled his words all too well. “Do you not bow before a king, creature?”
I couldn’t remember his name. He had sat next to Belikon up on the dais, outraged that I had not shown the proper deference to his master. What had Belikon called him? Orith? Arriash?
The male was tall and rail thin, his nose crooked, his chin square and jutting. With his skin crinkled like old, thin paper and lank black strands of hair falling into his face, he didn’t project a sense of health. In fact, he looked pretty damned unwell.
“Ah. Saeris Fane.” He clicked blackened teeth together. “Thank you for so graciously leaving the door open for us. We’ve been waiting for an invitation into Ammontraíeth for a very long time. You may remember me. My name is Orious. I am seneschal to the king.”
A thick chain hung around his neck, a golden orb dangling from it. The male clutched it tightly, his bony fingers clamped around it as if worried someone would try to steal it from him.
“What the hell is a seneschal?” I asked.
The male, Orious, shuttled the orb along his chain thoughtfully. “I am an advisor. My remit is broad. I attend to matters on behalf of the king that are . . . beneath him.”
The implication was clear: Whatever had brought this anemic-looking fucker through the quicksilver today wasn’t important enough to bring Belikon here himself. I wasn’t important enough. I nodded to myself. “Ahhh, right.
Where I come from, we call those bootlickers.”
“Watch your tongue, girl. You’ll wish you’d made a friend of me soon
enough.”
“I prefer my friends a little less creepy. You’re not welcome here, Orious,” I said. “Go back the way you came.”
The male tittered softly, sweeping a greasy lock of hair behind one ear as he stepped out of the pool and onto the cracked marble floor. “I don’t think that’s on the agenda, I’m afraid. You see, my friends and I have always wanted to travel.” His voice took on a tight, sinister edge. “And my master bid me come treat with you.”
He sprang from the edge of the pool, arms spread wide, like some kind of pouncing would-be predator. Behind him, rising from the quicksilver, came two more figures, then three more: Fae guards dressed in green velvet, with arrows nocked in their bows. Their eyes were sharp, pupils dilated wide, leaving no room for their irises.
“This is Blood Court land. Belikon has no sovereignty here. I reign over this —”
“Stop.” Orious gave a bored flick of his wrist. “Don’t bore me with such ridiculousness. You’re naught but an inexperienced little girl, trapped in a prison of her own making. You don’t want to be here. The high bloods don’t want you here. It would benefit you to listen and take heed when I speak. My liege has sent me here with an offer for you.”
He spoke with confidence but didn’t come any closer. The guards behind him stood in a line, their arrows pointed at my head.
“I’m not interested in offers from Belikon De Barra.”
King Belikon,” Orious barked, “has graciously sent me here with terms.
Personally, it makes no difference to me if you hear them. It’s no skin off my nose. But you may regret not listening to the generous offer he bid me present
to you very soon.”
“What could I possibly need from him?”
“Sanasroth is a barren wasteland. This court you have declared your own is comprised of genteel high bloods who like to throw parties and sip blood out of
jeweled chalices. But watch how quickly their manners fail them when their food supply is cut off, Your Highness. See how fast they devolve into the monsters the second the blood runs out. Are you prepared to deal with the aftermath of that scenario? Hm?”
Had Belikon kept Malcolm’s court fed under his reign? Fisher hadn’t said anything about that before. Neither had Renfis. It didn’t seem likely, but the cruel light in this male’s eyes said otherwise. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now,” he said, “but a strange canker spreads across the South Lands. Black rot swallows the vegetation. It affects the wildlife here in the most shocking way.
Deer, wolves, bears. It infects them quickly. Death is unavoidable, it seems. It’s too late for these lands . . . but my master would provide shelter and protection from the spread of this vile disease. He offers safe harbor at the Winter Palace for you, in exchange for a small number of concessions on your end.”
“Let me guess. He has a vacancy for an Alchemist and thinks I’d make a fine addition to his court?” The words, my tone: Everything about what I’d just said left a sour taste in my mouth.
Orious smirked, his lips thinning. “Fine. Yes, a fine addition indeed. Your services would be a small part of the payment required to ensure your safety.
And you would be the jewel in his crown, so to speak. You would be showered with fine clothes. Fine food. Fine wines—”
“What else?” I demanded, cutting him off. “What else does he seek in exchange for a safety he cannot provide?”
Behind the intruder, a bowstring creaked, and one of the Winter Palace guards swallowed thickly. In his loose black robes, Orious smiled. “My king wishes his beloved daughter returned to him. He misses her dearly. It wounds his heart to know she is unwell and far from his loving care.”
“And?”
“Kingfisher. In shackles. A public execu—”
I drew Solace. The air hummed with crackling power as I unleashed her naked steel. The stranger stopped talking, tapping his index finger impatiently
against his thumb pad.
“There are other things, of course. Smaller, inconsequential acts, each of them a show of good faith. In light of your recent transition, you are now half Fae, and would be required to swear an oath before the Firinn Stone—”
“I will not be a tool for that bastard to use whenever he sees fit,” I seethed. It was laughable—the fact that he had come here with such an outrageous list of demands. Had Belikon really thought I would agree to any of this? “I will not be swearing any oaths. And no one will be harming a single fucking hair on my mate’s head. My friends and I—”
“Your friends? Oh, yes, that’s right.” The bastard laughed, stepping closer.
“Your friends. Let’s see, shall we? Renfis of the Orrithian? An oath-sworn general in King Belikon’s army. Lorreth of the Broken Spire? Also an oath- sworn soldier in my master’s army. Your darling mate . . .” The smirk twisted his features, turning him into something evil. “Oath sworn,” he whispered. “My master will have them all. They are his to do with as he wishes. But you . . .” He extended a long, crooked finger toward me. “Reject my master’s generous offer,
and you will die here in this room.”
Oath sworn.
The fucking Firinn Stone. Lorreth had told me all about it once—how they knelt before it when they came of age and pledged to be bound by their word on pain of death for the rest of their lives. For honor’s sake. This bastard was right: Every single member of the Fae who fought and defended the banks of the Darn at Irrín had pledged to serve the Winter Palace—to serve Belikon—my friends
and my mate included.
We were so fucked.
But an oath was like a bargain. There were loopholes. Language to be manipulated. There had to be a way out of the pledge of fealty they had made.
For now, I raised Solace, feeling the air grow heavy around the blade as I held it aloft.
“The king also requires the return of that sword,” Orious added. “Your
obsidian palace is full of rats, Saeris. They whisper in the dark. They tell tales of how the new queen of the Blood Court cannot wield her weapon. Of how Saeris Fane cannot contain her power. Runes unsealed and—”
I twisted the sword and showed the fucker the flat of the blade.
Coincidentally, the movement also showed him the back of my hand. Which was still covered in a mass of runes, yes . . . but now, at the center of my shield, a single, bold, circular rune bisected with an arrow-like shape glowed brilliant blue.
The smug smile died on Orious’s lips. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“Yeah. Fuck.”
I’d planned to reforge Solace into something more manageable, but I hadn’t yet had the time. That no longer mattered. I didn’t need a forge anymore.
Would never need one again. A door had unlocked within me. Behind it, a vast knowledge waited there for me. It belonged to me, as I now belonged to the quicksilver. I only had to think now, and the fabric of reality shifted.
Placing both hands around Solace’s hilt, I imagined the sword becoming two. When I drew my hands apart, I knew that the god sword would be reformed, brand new, brilliant and shining. And so it was.
The short swords were beautiful. Old Fae ran along the edges of both honed blades, engraved in winding script. I still couldn’t read the language. A message from the gods, maybe. I would decipher them later . . . if I lived through the next twenty minutes.
“Come now, child. An affiliation with the Winter Palace could be beneficial to you.” Orious’s eyes were twice the size they’d been moments ago. “My king is benevolent.”
“Tell me something, Orious. Did you swear an oath before the Firinn Stone?”
The truth flickered the seneschal’s eyes before the lie could reach his lips.
“Naturally,” he said. “You can trust me to honor my word.”
I just laughed.
The earnest look on his face faltered. “All right, then. Have it your way. Kill her.”
The soldiers streamed past Orious toward me, bows raised. They loosed their arrows, but an Alchemist couldn’t only manipulate quicksilver. I was an element worker. All metals were at my command. The pointed iron came for me, and I pushed with my mind, gently, as if nudging a leaf floating on top of flowing water. The arrows weren’t even halfway across the room before they changed direction, all five snapping upward and embedding into the ceiling.
Their shafts juddered from their impact, their fletching quivering.
The soldiers hesitated. They looked up at the ceiling, and then back down at me. All at once, they reached for new arrows.
“I wouldn’t bother,” I told them. “The next ones will be coming back at you.”
“For the love of the gods, use your knives!” Orious snarled. “Hold on to them tight.”
The archers discarded their bows, drawing steel from scabbards. Their knives were made from alloys, I sensed. There was a strangeness to them. I could close my will around them, but only just. They barely moved when I tried to shove them with my mind.
“The Winter Palace remembers,” Orious said, shaking his head. “That’s right. Your kind were dangerous. No power that vast should have ever been gifted to one group of people. My king discovered how to limit your magic a long time ago. Our traditions have lasted far longer than your kind did. Every soldier in the king’s army is equipped with a null blade on the day they complete their training. Good luck fending off five of those, Alchemist.”
Null blade. The term was unknown to me. Fisher hadn’t ever used that term. Nor had Renfis or Lorreth.
As Belikon’s men approached, each armed with a dagger, that sense of strangeness hit me again. Unnatural. Their weapons bore simple handles, their blades straight and unembellished. They were unremarkable in every way. And yet . . .
I saw them in a new manner. A second sight that seemed to overlap reality.
The air shivered and distorted around the blades, as if it were being pulled into them. The closer the guards came, the more my skin crawled.
The short swords blazed in my hands, humming with energy. Solace’s magic had returned to it back in Gillethrye. It had flared to life when Malcolm had attacked me, but it had lain dormant ever since. I hadn’t called on it. There had been no need. And in truth, I’d been too scared to try. The quicksilver had granted Avisiéth magic because it had judged Lorreth’s blood and found him worthy. I wasn’t the girl I had been back in the maze. I was different now.
Changed. The idea that Solace would recoil from the person I was now had been enough to keep me from trying. But as I drew the newly formed short swords, Solace’s magic surged down the lengths of metal, buzzing up my arms like lightning.
Not Solace’s power, halved to accommodate the new split weapons. This was twice the power, and it was electrifying.
The first male came for me. He was light on his feet. Limber. He swung at me with his dagger, and I blocked upward, easily deflecting the blow. The shock of his weapon, clashing with my short sword, rocked me, though—a wave of nausea that made me suck in a sharp breath.
Unpleasant.
Very fucking unpleasant. But not enough to distract me from the task at hand. He was already twisting, finding new footing, coming at me from a different approach. Two more of the males came, lunging for me, their metal gleaming. With a monumental force of will, I shoved the first male’s dagger away with my mind, managing only to avert it at the last second. The male stumbled forward, balance lost as his weapon suddenly jerked to the side—and I met his friends in a flurry of steel and gritted teeth.
The forms Lorreth had drilled with me flowed, making sense at last, second nature . . . but they weren’t enough. A fourth male joined in the fight, the fifth hot on his heels.
The sounds of scraping metal thundered in the air.
Fire lashed around the top of my right arm. One of them landed a hit on me, their blade slashing through my shirt. Heat spilled down my arm, the copper- bright smell of blood exploding in the back of my nose.
Footwork, Saeris. Footwork. Concentrate. Lorreth’s voice was stern in the back of my mind.
I had been training only with him, though. One male. I was trying to fend off five now.
I could almost hear him laughing as I spun and dropped low, striking up and sinking my right short sword into one of the male’s chests. Come on, Fane. You’re selling both of us short. You don’t think I’m worth five of these fuckers?
The guard gasped. I yanked my weapon back without assessing the damage and immediately blocked up, parrying another null blade.
A thud to my left.
I slashed at another of the male’s ankle tendons.
Spun away.
Blocked.
Mentally shoved another blade away with everything I had.
Blocked.
Blocked.
Retreated.
One of them—the one I’d stabbed in the chest—was on the floor, dead.
Only four of them now.
Ha! Only four of them.
I danced back on the balls of my feet—that’s what this was now, a dance— letting them come for me. They prowled forward, eyes blank, faces emotionless.
Don’t panic. You’ve got this. Preempt them. You know where they’re going to be, Saeris.
“Last chance,” Orious called. “There’s still time to change your mind. The king won’t extend another opportunity.”
My canines felt long in my mouth. I was bleeding from my leg somewhere; I
could smell it. Setting my jaw, I ran the edges of the short swords together, and burning blue-white sparks leaped from the metal. “I gave you my answer,” I snarled. “Let’s get this over with.”
The guards didn’t wait for Orious’s command. They charged.
Sharpened steel rained down on me.
I gulped down air, forcing myself to breathe. One at a time, faster than fast, I rebuffed the males, pushing their weapons away with my mind as best I could, or else meeting them with my own.
One of them broke through my guard. Fire tore up my side, pain igniting fury in me as I went after the bastard who had cut me. I scythed my right god sword at him, the weapon trailing blue-white light behind it, and slit the male’s throat wide open. Blood spurted from the clean slash I left behind, and down
the male went.
Three left now.
My breath sawed out of me. I’d never moved this fast in my entire fucking life.
One of them kicked, aiming to blow my knee out, but I darted closer to him, hooking my elbow and smashing it into his face. He staggered back—
—and the other two were in my face.
“Fuck!”
I ducked and spun through them, scissoring my swords, spinning them in my hands. One found its mark, biting through the guard on the right’s arm. The other guard lunged sideways. I followed him, blocking his downward blow,
driving upward into his gut—
“Saeris!”
My heart stilled.
I didn’t dare look for him.
I could feel him, though.
Suddenly, the tomb was wreathed in bands of glittering black sand.
Kingfisher.
Kingfisher.
Kingfisher.
His name had replaced my heartbeat.
A black rope lashed around the closest male’s throat, and suddenly his head was no longer attached to his body. Blood sprayed everywhere as his body lifted into the air and was hurled away as if it weighed nothing.
And there he was.
My mate’s hair was wild. His eyes locked onto mine, simmering with rage.
Say something, he said into my mind.
“I’m okay,” I panted.
Do you need me?
I dodged a blow from the male on the right—I’d broken his nose with that elbow—and pivoted, kicking out at the other male hard. The sole of my boot slammed into his rib cage. Staggering sideways, he righted himself and came again, but I was ready.
My short swords blazed light, power singing like lightning through my
veins.
No. I was firm. I’ve got this.
“Don’t! Don’t you dare!” Orious was screaming somewhere.
The tomb walls blurred as I moved, ducking, lunging, spinning on the balls of my feet.
Another shout echoed around the small space—a yell of anger—but I stayed focused on what was in front of me. My power was building, flowing, rising inside me. My runes didn’t burn this time. They pulsed hard, my magic begging to be set free.
Without thinking, I slammed my short swords together, and suddenly they were one again, Solace humming with energy in my left hand. I thrust my right hand up, out in front of me, and— “Holy fuck!” Carrion’s shout bounced around the tomb.
He was there, on the other side of the tomb. His face was bathed in blue as a giant icon formed in the air in front of me, projecting from my hand. It was my shield! The interlocking runes were an exact copy of the sigil on the back of my
hand. Most of the icons’ lines were dull, apart from one rune: a circle bisecting a cross with a line cutting through it at the top. It blazed with magic, hovering there . . . waiting.
I spread my fingers and twisted my hand, noting how the veins at my wrist were strangely silvered beneath my skin, and the quicksilver rune turned in the air like a key turning into a lock. It snapped into place, and a wall of energy detonated out from it, hurling the two remaining guards across the tomb.
They hit the ceiling, their necks snapping instantly. A second later, they dropped to the floor again, lifeless.
Deafening silence blanketed the tomb. I held my breath, frozen in place, eyes wide. I didn’t dare move. Energy crackled from the shield, tiny filaments snapping from it as it held its position six feet off the floor.
I finally let out a shaky breath that fogged in the air, and clenched my hand closed. And just like that, the glowing shield blinked out of existence, as if it had never been there at all.
“Well, fuck me,” Carrion said. “Looks like a lot’s changed here in the past few
days.”
Look at me, Osha.
Fisher was at the base of the pool. He stood over Orious’s prone figure, his shadows pinning Belikon’s seneschal to the ground. You’re okay, he said softly, the words shared with me alone. You’re safe. Shake it off.
I was still in a defensive stance. Every muscle in my body was rigid, ready for another attack. “You’re here? You’re really here?” Gods, my voice sounded so small. Slowly, Fisher nodded, and the tension rushed from my body. He was real. He was here. Everything was okay.
I’m going to get you out of here in two minutes, he told me. But I need you to be here a little longer first. Is that okay? Can you do that?
I nodded.
Good girl. Come here, then. Stand with me.
I went to him.
Orious had no magic of his own. I felt the hungry void in him, pulsing with
jealousy. Fisher’s shadows cinched tighter, closing around the male’s throat, chest, hips, ankles, wrists. He squirmed fruitlessly, hissing up at us. “You’ll die . . . for what you’ve . . . just done,” he wheezed.
“Really?” I was too hot. I felt strange. “’Cause you said I was about to die just now, and . . .” I swallowed breathlessly. “That didn’t seem to go the way you thought it would.”
“Stupid bitch! You have no idea—” He gurgled, his airway shutting off.
Fisher dropped down, crouching next to the male. “Torture isn’t in my nature normally.” Oh so calm. Oh so dangerous. Gods alive, he was going to kill him. “But for you, Orious? For what you’ve done here today? I think I’ll make
the exception.”
“Fisher, no.”
My mate looked up at me, his dark hair wavy and wild. The quicksilver in his eye was rioting. His expression was blank, but I knew him now: He was going out of his mind with anger and worry. The bridge of his nose was red.
There were grains of sand buried into the seams of his leathers. He smelled of mint and pine as he always did, but also of the desert, and of the reckoning heat, and of a place I never thought for one moment I could ever miss.
He was so fucking beautiful, it destroyed me. I cupped his cheek with my hand, his stubble rough against my palm.
“We need to send him back,” I whispered. “Belikon needs to know what I’m now capable of. That he will never bend us to his will. All of this and more.”
Fisher didn’t blink. “Does he need his fingers to impart that message?”
I laughed shakily, rubbing my thumb along his jawline. “Send him back. We aren’t like them.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but then his shoulders sagged.
Reluctantly, he got to his feet. “You are the only thing that keeps my moral compass pointing north, Little Osha,” he rumbled.
His fingers brushed mine, the tip of his index finger hooking around my own, as he walked around Orious’s pinned body. “You should be grateful. I
wouldn’t have shown such strength of character,” he said to the seneschal. “But Saeris—”
“She is weak!” Orious’s eyes rolled to find me. He would have spat, I think, but Fisher’s shadows still had him by the throat. “You are all weak,” he wheezed.
“That is why you won’t win this fight. You will crawl on your hands and knees, begging for mercy before my king, and I shall watch and revel in the indignity you suffer before you die.”
I could prevent Fisher from severing the bastard’s fingers, but I couldn’t stem his anger in the shadow of this proclamation. He grabbed Orious by the front of his loose-fitting robe and yanked him up, spinning him around and throwing him back down again so that he landed on his front. “You are the only one who’ll be crawling, worm. Drag yourself. On your stomach. Go on. Go back to Belikon and tell him what happened here. And tell him what will happen if he dares try to come here again uninvited, won’t you.”
“You might as well . . . kill me. I won’t—”
“There are tens of thousands of vampires on the other side of the door to this tomb. I wouldn’t even have to ask nicely to convince one of them to drain you. Do you want to be a feeder, Orious? A mindless, ravening monster, incapable of thought or self-control?” A slow, cruel smile spread across Fisher’s face. “You already know a fair bit about that, though, don’t you? You don’t have two brain cells of your own to rub together. Regardless, you have two choices, and one of them is a lot less painful than the other. You crawl, or I toss you into a pit of hungry leeches.”
“Fine! Fine.” Orious’s eyes flickered with hate as, grumbling, he got to his knees. He crawled up the steps to the pool, his shoulders hunched up around his ears. There was something rodent-like about him. The way he moved across the cold stone made me think of a rat. Casting a look over his shoulder at me, he said, “Remember what I said, child. Oath bou—”
Fisher lifted his foot and booted the seneschal in the ass, shoving him forward. Orious let out a yelp and tumbled face-first into the quicksilver.
“Close it quickly, before any more unwelcome visitors decide to come through,” he said under his breath. The quicksilver moved differently when I reached out with my magic and closed it now. It solidified from the center outward, easily, smooth as you like. It didn’t whisper a single curse word as it stilled. Fisher watched the molten metal return to its solid state with one eyebrow arched, clearly amused by what he was seeing.
The moment the gate was closed, I threw myself at him. “Don’t leave without me again.” I spoke into his hair, inhaling him in as I clung to him. He folded me into his arms, locking me against his chest and pressing a kiss against my temple as he did so.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Rabid mountain trolls couldn’t drag me away from you now.”
“Ahem. Hello? Could you . . . just, uh, save this part for . . .”
I waited. Any second now, Fisher was going to round on Carrion and threaten to skin him or something. But the threat never came. My mate didn’t even grumble as he loosened his hold on me and turned to face him.
“Come on, then,” he said. “Show her what we did.”
Carrion’s hair seemed redder than it had been when he’d left somehow.
There were angry welts all over his neck, and a couple on his cheeks, too. It was impossible to miss the unconscious body he was carrying over his shoulder.
“Hey, Saeris.” He shot me a roguish wink. “I think this belongs to you.”