“They’ll wait.” Her eyes glitter peculiarly, somewhat like a cat focusing on its prey.
“You expect an attack?” Lammastide is the one night of the year when all five surviving kingdoms of the Seelie Alliance come together to bring in the new year. Drinking, dancing, bloodshed, and assassinations are all to be expected.
Because allied we may be, but it’s only against a common enemy. If my mother could destroy the other kings and queens of the alliance, she wouldn’t hesitate. I think, in some part of her mind, she sees herself sitting on a single throne that rules over the entire southern half of the continent.
“Sit,” she says.
The only option is to obey.
“No attack,” she says, slinking behind me as I take a seat at the vanity. “Or nothing beyond the usual. The Prince of Evernight will be there, after all. He craves my downfall.”
Someone’s projecting.
“I thought the Unseelie delegation would be the greater danger?”
Five hundred years ago we defeated them in the Wars of Light and Shadow, but the peace has always been tenuous. This recent treaty between Seelie and Unseelie courts is a relatively new development, and if I were my mother’s daughter, I wouldn’t trust it.
The three witch queens of the Unseelie court are bloodthirsty, vicious, and powerful. If my mother has delusions of grandeur, then they’re nothing compared to the Unseelie, who want to cast us all into chains.
The queen lifts the heavy strands of my hair from my shoulders and runs her jeweled claws through it. “Angharad is still bleeding from that last skirmish, and some say she doesn’t have the full support of her sister queens any more. She’s trying to fight a war on two fronts, so she won’t have the courage to cause trouble for us. She wouldn’t dare. Focus on the real danger, Iskvien. Those at your back. Those with a knife to your throat.” Her claws caress my collarbone. “Those who were never meant to rule the earth beneath their feet.”
She’s speaking of the two Seelie princes who forced their way onto the thrones of their own kingdoms. The Seelie kingdoms have always been matrilineal—queens are tied to the lands, and the earth beneath them flourishes from the bond. Any kings that sought to elevate themselves were slowly and mercilessly destroyed. My mother considers Prince Thiago and Prince Kyrian’s claims to be unnatural, and she’s been working on ruining them ever since they proclaimed themselves.
They’re also a threat, for both rule with a ruthless fist.
“No,” she whispers, stroking my hair. “Focus on the threat, Iskvien. Don’t ever take your eyes off it.”
Prince Kyrian never attends the Lammastide rites in person, I’ve heard. Mother once mocked him for the loss of the woman he loved, and he swore an oath that if he ever set eyes upon her again, he’d have her head. To uphold the peace, he sends an envoy to the rites in his stead.
So she’s talking of Evernight.
Always Evernight.
My thoughts stray to the forest and the bane. The creature who knew me.
And the Prince of Evernight, who rules the dark kingdom.
“What should I expect?” I’ve never met the prince. These are the first Lammastide rites my mother’s allowed me to attend. “Will he avoid us?”
“Unfortunately, not.” The scrape of one of those claws almost draws blood as she focuses down upon me. “And he’s the reason I’m here.”
Here it is. I still, like prey catching scent of a dangerous predator as she moves to the side, considering the array of scents and powders on my vanity.
“What does he have to do with me?”
“You’re not coming home with us tonight, Iskvien,” my mother says, lifting the stopper of my perfume vial and sniffing delicately at the scent within. Her nose wrinkles.
I blink.
“What?”
“The Prince of Evernight agreed to a truce over the territories of Mistmere after that unfortunate clash near the border, but it has come at a price.”
I can feel the edges of the world sucking at me. “What price?”
“There are to be hostages, to prove our good faith. His cousin is to be exchanged tonight, for you.”
The jaws of the trap spring shut. This is what she’s been angling for. I shouldn’t have trusted her sweet smile, her gentle touch. I’d expected punishment over my lapse the other day, but all along she’s been waiting to spring this trap.
“You bartered me away?” She’s the one who’s spent hours lecturing me about how dangerous he is. “Like a fucking trinket?”
The queen’s eyes narrow. “Watch your tone, daughter.”
Rage fills me, but it’s tempered with the quicksilver flash of fear. All these years I’ve been wary of her temper, but this is…. How do I…?
“It’s only for three months,” she continues, as if I’ve accepted it.
The prince could do anything to me in the space of three months. “Is this punishment?” The words erupt from my mouth. “For failing to kill that bane? It was just a hesitation, Mother. Andraste stole the kill. It won’t happen again.”
“What hesitation?”
The look on her face freezes my tongue.
Andraste didn’t tell her?
The queen’s face tightens imperceptibly, and her hands come to rest upon my shoulders. The tip of each of her fingers is covered in a silver claw, the points pressing into my collarbone. Thin chains connect them to the gauntlets around her wrist. It’s nothing more than a focus for her powers—not that many know that—but the effect is also eerily threatening.
She doesn’t say a word.
She doesn’t have to.
“Andraste was faster than I,” I say swiftly, to cover my misstep. “I thought she’d told you.”
“The bane is of little consequence.”
I square my shoulders. “Why worry about a ferocious beast when you’re throwing me to the wolves?”
“You are not to be harmed.”
“Of course not. Am I to be his whore instead?”
She arches a brow at my tone. “You are to be his political hostage, Iskvien. Make whatever bargains you need to, to keep yourself safe. But remember…, his cousin will be in my hands.”
And any harm that befalls me will be returned in kind.
“Forgive me, Mother, if such a concept brings me little peace. They say the prince betrayed his queen and murdered her sons. I daresay he’ll not hesitate to consider his cousin to be an acceptable loss if he can strike a blow upon you.”
“You disappoint me, daughter. I offer you an opportunity, and you throw it in my face.”
This is another one of her challenges. Prove yourself, she’s telling me. Show me you have the strength and wit to survive.
“What opportunity?”
“There is a way you could serve your queen while you are there,” my mother murmurs, unsheathing the dagger at her belt and placing it on the vanity in front of me.
Star-forged steel. My gaze locks on it. No trueborn fae can wield the iron that lies on this world, but this knife was forged from the heart of a fallen comet, and its iron came from beyond the stars.
As long as I don’t touch the blade itself, I can wield it.
For a second, I see his blood splashed across the marble tiles of his palace, the knife planted between his shoulder blades. An end to the monstrous lord of the Evernight court, and freedom for those Asturians who’ve been imprisoned in the war camps. No more fighting. No more endless wars. No more scheming and politicking.