The night wends on, the bonfires dying down as the Unseelie and Seelie courts treat. Promises are made. Whether they’ll be kept is another matter.
And there is one last business to attend to.
“Your Highness,” the Prince of Evernight says, standing and offering me a hand. “It is after midnight.”
The entire gathering falls silent.
I cannot help feeling Angharad’s eyes upon me, and a shiver runs down my spine.
This is it. This is the moment.
I push myself to my feet, ignoring his hand. I will walk on my own two feet, an Asturian princess to the last inch.
“This is Thalia,” he says, gesturing to the tall brunette at his side. “My cousin. She will tend to you on the journey back to Evernight.”
The woman smiles at me, but I have no interest in making friends.
I slice the blade across my palm, staring him directly in the eyes. “Blood to blood, I bind my promise to you. Three months, I will serve as hostage in your court.”
The prince slices his own palm. He clasps hands with me, our blood mingling. A shock jolts through me as the power in his blood mingles with something in mine.
“Three months you will be mine.” His eyes lift over my shoulder. “And then I shall return you to your mother’s court.”
Adaia smirks. “So be it.”
I can’t help feeling as though something else has been promised between the two of them, for neither of them lowers their gaze until Thalia takes me by the hand and leads me into the mass of the Prince of Evernight’s people.
I don’t look back.
There’s nothing there for me.
All I can do is look ahead.
Three months.
I just have to survive the next three months.
5
“He won’t bite, you know?” Thalia says cheerfully.
I glance at the prince’s back as we ride toward the Hallow. I’ve been given a horse, and though the prince offered to help me mount, I took the reins myself and refused his courtesy.
It earned me a faint smile, as if he knows we’re playing a game.
“Unless she asks for it,” says the other woman at my side.
Her smile’s not kind. There are too many teeth in it, and the innuendo raises my hackles. Tall and muscular, she wears her hair tugged back in harsh black braids, and her attire could be a mirror of my sister, Andraste’s.
Somewhere out there, a tanner is missing half of his finest leather.
“Eris,” Thalia chides, giving the taller woman a pointed look.
Eris. Sweet Maia. My eyes widen. This is one of the prince’s generals and his most dangerous weapon. They say she walked onto the battlefield of Nevernight hundreds of years ago and singlehandedly defeated one of the Unseelie armies. She destroyed them with her magic, and when she walked back into camp, she was covered in their blood. Behind her, the field stood quiet and nothing moved.
Surprisingly, the Destroyer of Nevernight shuts her mouth when the prince’s cousin speaks, even though she could crush Thalia like a glowwyrm.
“Back on your leash,” I say through a smile.
The Hallow looms ahead of us, thirteen standing stones erected on the top of the hill.
The prince lets his horse drop back to my side, and both Thalia and Eris fall back in some unspoken agreement.
Subtlety at its finest.
“Save your breath,” I cut in. “You’re charming, but it doesn’t make me trust you an inch. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
He glances at me. “What would make you trust me?”
“Set me free. Return me to my mother’s court unharmed. Release me from this mockery of a treaty.”
“I will.” When my gaze jerks to his, he smiles a little. “In three months’ time.”
“I hate you.”
“You don’t know me.” There’s something sharp in his voice.
“I don’t intend to know you. Why are you doing this?” The question has been irritating me all day. “You said I have nothing to fear from you. That you wouldn’t touch me unless I willed it. Then what do you get out this entire arrangement?”
“Besides picturing the look on your mother’s face every time she thinks of me?”
“As much as I think you’d enjoy that, I highly doubt you’d have put your kingdom on the line just to spite her.”
“You don’t know me that well.”
I glance at him. It’s true. What I’ve heard has been less than flattering, which is typical, considering it came from my mother’s court. The Prince of Evernight is both demon and nightmare, his name spoken in hushed whispers, just in case their words traveled to him on the wind. They called him the Usurper or the Prince of Darkness.
There have always been seven Seelie kingdoms ruled by queens. When Maia breathed life into the world, she left her seven daughters behind to rule each territory. Each successive queen went through the blood rites that tied her to her kingdom and gave her access to the powerful magic of the land.
The war changed everything.
Two of the kingdoms fell: Mistmere and Taranis. Of the five remaining kingdoms, two were left without their queens—or any of the matrilineal lines.
And so the prince rose. A man who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, serving the previous Queen of Evernight as her warlord before she’d died. He’d won his kingdom through blood and ruin, striking down the queen’s sons and claiming her throne for himself.
And he’d destroyed any who sought to rise against him.
“No,” I say softly. “You’re right. I don’t know you well enough to guess.”
“Do you want to?”
Know your enemy, my mother’s memory whispers in my ear. “Why not? You can start with what you intend to do with me.”
“You’re right. There’s more to this arrangement than I’ve admitted, but the truth shall remain between your mother and me for the moment. It does have the satisfactory side advantage of keeping a knife at your mother’s throat for three months. She won’t start a war when I have you at my side.”
You might be overestimating her fondness for me. “So, I’m to reside in your lands for the duration of the time? Rotting in a prison cell? Or free to roam?”
Or am I to serve in your bed as your concubine? Because if that’s the case, then my mother’s not the one you’ll have to watch.
“Are you sure that’s what you’re really asking?” He glances at me.
“It had better be.”
“You will be given your own chambers, and you’ll be free to roam the castle at will,” he replied. “I don’t intend you any harm. I wish you would believe that.”
In my mother’s kingdom, wishes are worth nothing more than the breath they’re exhaled upon.
“Perhaps I find it difficult to believe, considering what happened to your wife.”
He hesitates as he moves to dismount. Just a moment of wariness dashing across his expression before he collects himself. “My wife?” The words are cold and hard. “What have you heard of my wife?”
“Only that you lost her,” I tell him, “many years ago, and you swore bloody vengeance upon my people for her loss. You blame my mother, so you can understand my reticence.”