1
Aenor
From a window in the fortress, I gazed down at the streets of Acre. Dusk stained the sky blood red. I was nearly out of time here at the Court of the Sea Fae.
Salem was coming for me. He’d told me himself in the messages he’d been sending.
On the horizon, a few clouds were rolling in, sliding over the ruddy sky. Tonight, I’d been left to stew in my own worries. The other knights had left to fight an impending vampire threat, and silence hung over the ancient castle.
But despite the quiet, my pulse was racing. My time here was nearly up, and tension coiled my body. If I looked out to the right, I had a view of the seawall, and the churning sea crashing against it. If I were a powerful sorcerer like the Merrow, I could bring down the sea on Salem…
A flicker of movement caught my eye, and my pulse kicked up a notch. I stared at the raven fluttering toward my window. Another message from Salem. I already knew what the paper it carried would say.
Even so, as the raven opened its beak and dropped the scrap onto the windowsill, my heart skipped a beat.
I picked it up and unfurled it, my mouth going dry. It simply read: I’m coming for you soon—signed by Salem in an elegant, looping script.
This was the second note Salem had sent me. A message straight from hell. Long fingers of dread crept over my heart like afternoon shadows.
Salem didn’t tell me when he was coming, or what he wanted with me. He just wanted the fear to grow in my chest like a seed, the roots of panic to twine around my ribs. He was, to his credit, doing a decent job of freaking me out.
I gripped the windowsill, staring out at Acre. Looking for him.
Fine. Come and get me, you monster. Because I’m going to find a way to kill you for good.
With my jaw set tight, I shoved Salem’s note into my pocket, scanning the streets below. Would he send henchmen for me, or would he come on his own? Maybe I wouldn’t see a single sign before he rolled in. I’d just hear the dreadful sound of his rhythmic, booming magic, and it would all be over.
Damn. If he wanted to screw with my head, he was doing a fine job. I pulled a packet of gum out of my skirt pocket and popped a piece in my mouth. Wintergreen usually calmed my nerves.
I took a deep breath, focusing on the mint and the sea breeze. Right now, the silence in the castle hung heavy.
I hummed to myself—“Suspicious Minds.” Elvis would keep me sane. I needed noise. Music. Distractions. I leaned down on the windowsill, gazing out at the ancient city, and sang to myself.
As I stared at the city streets, I was startled to see a lick of fiery magic piercing the twilight.
Salem? He was the fiery type.
Flames seemed to follow him wherever he went, and he smelled of smoke. And then there were his eyes… His eyes looked like a twilight sky over a burning city. So what was this moving flame in the city?
My muscles tensed, and I strained my eyes to get a better look. On the raised street that curved along the oceanside, a magical creature stalked. Ghostly flames snaked from his body. Just like I’d seen with Salem.
But apart from that, the creature didn’t look a thing like my worst enemy. While Salem was beautiful and elegant, this thing had a gnarled body and loping gait. Like an animal. A demon, maybe? I had to get a closer look.
It took me a few minutes to realize he was following someone—a woman wearing headphones. She didn’t seem to notice the monster behind her. As he walked, the trees lining the street seemed to decay, leaves browning and withering to black. The scent of smoke tinged the air, his fingertips blazing.
Hells. Was this one of Salem’s henchmen?
But he didn’t seem like he was coming for me. Instead, he seemed intent on the woman ahead of him, closing the gap between them. I waited for one of the humans by the seawall to warn her. Oddly, none of them seemed to notice.
I glanced at the horizon, where storm clouds had gathered in the darkening sky. Thunder rumbled. In the next few moments, heavy rain started to fall.
When I glanced back at the fiery creature, I saw that rain had doused some of the flames over his fingertips. Curls of dark smoke coiled into the air from his body. But within moments, the flames were back, his fingertips burning like flesh candles.
“Hey!” I cupped my hands to shout at the woman. “There’s a demon behind you! Demon!”
My voice floated helplessly away on the sea breeze. It was lost in the sound of the crashing waves and the traffic.
Gods damn it.
My jaw tightened. I supposed the demon wasn’t going to kill itself, was it?
I didn’t particularly want to leave the fortress walls, but I wasn’t going to stand here doing nothing while a woman burned to death. I snatched a cloak off the bed—moss green—and draped it over my shoulders.
Then I grabbed a sword and a sheath, slinging them around my waist. It had been a long time since I’d used a sword, but I’d been trained once.
Now armed, I rushed through the hall, hoping I could get to the woman before anything terrible happened.
And if I was very good at my task, maybe I could even get the creature to tell me what he was.
On the lowest level, it took a few minutes for the fortress’s heavy gate to open, then I rushed out into the courtyard. With the storm overhead, shadows absorbed the walls around me.
The sound of a woman’s screaming told me I needed to run faster, and I broke into a sprint, rushing through the castle’s outer gate. Rain dampened my cloak, wetting my cheeks.
But—bizarrely—as I ran, the air started to heat. Around me, it was growing warmer, drier. Now, it was almost like the rain was evaporating in the air around me.
If it was raining, why did it feel dry as a bone out here?
Suddenly, the rainstorm had turned into desert air, the heat scratching my throat. When I rounded the corner toward the seawall, I caught sight of the woman. My pulse raced out of control.
Something had scalded her skin. Red magic beamed around her, warming the air. My throat was parched, rough as sand. So dry…
Heat blazed beneath my feet, like I was standing on the surface of the sun. For a second, I just stared, trying to figure out what I was seeing.
Then the creature swiped for the woman. When his flaming fingertips struck her sweatshirt, her clothes ignited.
Okay. Time to act.
I ran toward the woman and pulled off my cloak, wrapping it around her to douse the flames.
I whirled to find the demon staring at me, and I unsheathed my sword. Within seconds, the tip of my blade was at his throat. He stared at me like he wasn’t scared. Like he’d already seen something worse than death.
My stomach tightened. This thing was drying, burning the air. Turning everything to dust, sucking up the very rain around us.
And this close, I could see he wasn’t a demon. He was a bestial fae, old as the rocks. Muscles gnarled his body like an old oak. When he smiled at me, he exposed a row of rotten teeth, and his eyes flickered with pale flames. He had the earthy, mossy scent of a fae, and the delicately pointed ears, too.
What was he? He was nothing I’d ever seen before. Old and warped.
Heat radiated from his body, singeing the air and parching my mouth. I tried to swallow, but it felt like glass in my throat.
I pressed the blade closer, ready to take off his head.
But first, I wanted some answers. “Did Salem send you?”