The man’s lips quirked. “How charming. And what are you doing in my kingdom, Orion?”
Orion’s brow furrowed. Confusion cloaked his mind, his already hazy memory shrouded by a curtain of fog. He came up empty, his lungs aching as though deprived of air. He fumbled for his next words, and even then they felt stilted on his tongue. “I . . . I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“I must say,” the man murmured, “you were quite fortunate to have ended up here with me . . . instead of in the hands of some other nasty beastie.” He stroked a finger sensually from Orion’s jaw up to his cheek. “You can thank my shadows for that.”
Orion shuddered, unable to tear himself away from those dark eyes. “Don’t,” he breathed. “Don’t touch me.” The man paused and withdrew his hand, something like perplexity flickering behind his expression.
A sense of conflict bubbled up within Orion. What right did he have to deny anything from a being of such beauty? He fought against himself. He wanted to quip, to break the tension, but he could summon neither the words nor the courage. In the end, all he said was, “Sorry.”
“What for?” The man tilted his head, and the butterflies’ wings crowning his brow fluttered. “Demanding respect is nothing to apologize for. Would you like to get up?”
Orion considered and then shook his head slowly. His legs might as well have turned to jelly.
“If you’re certain.” The man peered at him. “What lovely eyes you have . . .” Quicker than a heartbeat, those black eyes flashed the blue of glaciers, but quicker still they returned to normal. A trick of the light? “Like the northern seas of the Mortal Realm.”
“Wait.” Mortal Realm? Growing dread filled Orion’s gut. “Where—where am I?”
The man’s smile widened into a wolfish grin. “Why, you don’t know?” He spread his arms wide, and when Orion turned to look, the air around them seemed to melt, shimmering like a mirage to reveal an obsidian city leagues below, with vicious spires for towers and arches of steel suspended midair, extending into oblivion farther than the eye could see. Rivers of scarlet and one of glowing envy-green cut across the land. Rising in the distance, Orion spotted a cluster of mountains pocked with waterfalls cascading gold.
From over the horizon, a swarm of birds approached. No, Orion thought to himself. With a start, he realized they weren’t birds at all, but butterflies—thousands and thousands of black butterflies, rising over the city in a tidal wave of dark-tipped wings to block out the strange constellations above.
A gentle breeze weaved into Orion’s hair, gentle and soothing. “You’re in the depths of the Immortal Realm, little mortal,” said the beautiful man.
Orion lost all words, all the air in his lungs. “Are . . . are you a god?” he asked hoarsely, still breathless.
The man leaned down. “I am no mere god, Orion Galashiels,” he said with a soft, wicked smile. “I am King Eoin, Ruler of Darkness, and this is my home.”
Orion’s eyes widened and King Eoin lowered his voice to a velvet whisper.
“Welcome to the heart of the Shadow Kingdom.”
Chapter One
The sun glared off Lux’s gleaming ebony coat, almost blinding, but the wind stole the afternoon’s warmth and kicked up the leaves strewn beneath the maple trees lining the avenue.
Asterin Faelenhart welcomed the wind’s chill even as it nipped at her exposed neck and collarbone, every inch of her bare skin prickling. The hem of her skirt ruffled as they trotted, but the skirt itself didn’t so much as stir. Half a dozen maids had helped her into the largest and most elaborate gown she had ever worn. A hundred folds of cream-of-gold taffeta supported by countless layers of crinoline spilled over Lux’s haunches and teased the ground with her stallion’s every proud stride. Sheer lace ran up her arms, and tiny ivory roses adorned the off-shoulder neckline. A fur-trimmed cloak billowed from her shoulders and she wore soft, supple leather gloves, but both accessories were more for style than protection from the cold.
Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered with such formal attire—but this was her first official public appearance as Queen of Axaria, after all, and nothing could have made that more clear than the diamond tiara nesting atop her head, each icicle-like spire reflecting the sunlight in a thousand dazzling kaleidoscopic bursts.
“Make way for her Royal Majesty Asterin Faelenhart of Axaria and the Queen Mother!” Captain Eadric Covington called from his massive steed, Grey. The mighty pair led their party, while the other eight Elites surrounded them in diamond formation. Each member of Asterin’s personal royal guard sat tall in their saddles, intimidating all who beheld them with the steel sheathed at their sides and their signature crimson-and-black cloaks snapping behind them in the wind.
Asterin waved to the onlookers crowding the avenue’s pale-stoned sidewalks, as did the rider beside her—none other than Elyssa Calistavyn-Faelenhart. Her mother.
Her real mother.
For ten years, a different woman had masqueraded as Asterin’s mother and the Queen of Axaria—Priscilla Montcroix. Using dark magic, Priscilla had cursed Elyssa from all memory and locked her deep beneath the palace in an enchanted dungeon that no one had known existed. But after exposing Priscilla’s crimes and defeating her on Fairfest Eve, Asterin had discovered the dungeon with a little help from an ancient wolf god and reunited with the mother that she almost never realized she’d lost.
Now, Elyssa tucked her silken black braid over her shoulder and shot Asterin a sparkling grin. She rested one gentle hand on her steed’s neck—a bay thoroughbred named Argo with a white star emblazoned across his forehead. “Something on your mind, my love?”
Giggling children squirmed out of their parents’ grasps to frolic up and down the avenue’s cobblestones. People cheered out Asterin’s name in jubilance as they paraded past, calling her all-wielder and the Immortals’ Champion. By now, tales of her omnifinity and victory against Priscilla had spread far and wide across the world, and Axarians knew such tales best of all.
“It’s just . . . I still can’t believe it,” Asterin confessed, her fingers tightening on Lux’s reins. “That you’re here, beside me.” If it hadn’t been for Lord Conrye, the God of Ice and protector of her bloodline, the House of the Wolf, her mother would have been left to waste away in the darkness forever, destined to be forgotten.
Elyssa reached over to squeeze her hand in comfort, the corners of her eyes crinkling. The dungeon, while bewitched to provide ample survival necessities to its inhabitants, did nothing to halt aging—but her mother had fared far better than imaginable, and within a few weeks of sunshine and many, many hours spent catching up together, she looked as radiant as Asterin ever remembered.