1
THIAGO
In the beginning there was Darkness.
It curls inside me, hungry and devouring. It takes little nibbles of my soul, day by day, even as I fight against it. I’ve chained it deep within me, binding it with magic and wards, tattooing them into my very skin to keep it locked away, but I can feel it straining against the edges of those wards.
It’s all I’ve ever known.
I stare into the mirror in my tent, trying to see if there’s a little bit more of it showing in my eyes. They’re black right now as I strip the glamor from my skin, revealing the creature inside. Black wings spread wide, glossy with feathers. Dark claws are sharpened to points on my fingertips. My eyes are black. Pure black. And even though the shadow daemons I’ve consumed writhe across my skin, my wards flare gold like a net draped over me.
Safely locked away.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t feel them gnawing at me. It doesn’t mean I can’t feel my own roaring hunger threatening to consume me.
The Darkness feeds on anything. Anger. Pain. Torment. Fury.
And right now, I am all of those things.
“No, you’re not,” I whisper to my reflection as I dry my hands and wrists with the towel and toss it on the vanity. “You’re more than a monster.”
I am Thiago of Evernight, ruling prince of a kingdom that hates me, spawn of a creature so vile I can’t even name it, and a bastard usurper who hides behind his illusions.
Keeping the Darkness contained within me is a daily battle, and I’d like to say the pressure of the current situation—a friend currently held hostage by my enemy—is the reason I can’t quite look myself in the eyes right now, but there’s another truth beckoning.
My father is thinking of me.
I can feel him somewhere far to the north of me, in Unseelie, where the wild fae live.
For the first time the hunger relents. It wants to be whole. It wants to consume him.
But destroying my father means confronting him, and for the first time the creature within me knows fear.
“Thiago?”
Not alone.
I vanish the wings, the claws, the blackness in my eyes. It’s as simple as taking a step sideways, into the ever-present glamor I first conjured when I was a boy. Sometimes it feels like this is the real me, the one who smiles at the world with his handsome face. The one who can meld into any Seelie court without having his parentage questioned. The eyes that meet mine in the mirror are green now.
The handsome prince is back, the monster contained.
A pity I can feel him still, laughing under his breath as I turn to face the intruder.
Him, he whispers mockingly in my head. Are we still trying to pretend I’m not you?
The only way to deal with it is to ignore it.
“Eris?”
There are few people who are allowed into my inner sanctum like this, and Eris of Silvernaught is one of them. Tall, broad of shoulder and hip, her dark skin lit with the gilded light of the candle, she knows a thing or two about the monster within.
There’s a look in her eyes that tells me she saw my eyes. “Thiago—”
“I’m fine.” There’s no point dwelling on it. I’ve spent years controlling myself. I will chain it down deep inside me again. I reach for a shirt and haul it over my head. “Are the others ready for me?”
“As ready as they’re going to be.” She growls under her breath as she reaches out to yank my shirt into place. “You’re losing weight. You need to eat more.” A sharp nail digs into my ribs in order to make her point. “And you need to tell me when your wards are on the verge of breaking.”
“I will. I’m not that close.”
“Close enough,” she replies. “I need to know, Thiago.”
Because she’s my failsafe.
If my wards break and the daemon inside me is unleashed, then Eris is the one who will kill me. I made her promise such a thing years ago, when I first rescued her from an unforgiving alliance of queens.
A shudder runs through me. That promise is the only thing that gives me any peace at night, but sometimes I’m not even sure if she can kill me.
It’s so fucking hungry right now.
I force myself to imagine a set of dark eyes, framed by thick lashes. Maybe brown. Maybe blue—as dark as the color of midnight. The rest of the face is slower to form—it’s been nearly five centuries since Maia granted me an image of this face, and while I’ve been carrying it for this long, hoarding it within my heart like a dragon guarding his treasure, the edges are starting to blur.
She’s beautiful.
Large, serious eyes that absolutely light up the second she sees me and smiles. It’s the smile that does the damage. It reaches down deep and clenches its fist around my heart. Her face is heart-shaped, with a faint cleft in the middle of her chin, and hair like black silk cascades over her bare shoulders.
The goddess Maia doesn’t often grant favors for those who pray to her, but this one night, when I was at my lowest, kneeling in her temples with my knees wet with my blood, she gave me a shred of hope.
She showed me the face of the woman I’ll marry.
The woman I will love.
It’s enough to force the jagged remnants of my father’s shadow from my heart.
He can’t defeat me here, with the image of my future wife reaching out a hand to me as if to lead me into some future adventure. Not even the Darkness can overwhelm me right now.
She’s my hope. My shield. The only fucking thing that keeps my chains of control in place.
“I’m fine,” I repeat again.
“You’re such a stubborn bastard.” Eris tosses my cloak at me. “The others are waiting. Thalia’s little birds have come in.”
“There’s news of Finn?”
“There’s news.” She stalks toward the flap of canvas that partitions this room off from the main tent. “Whether it’s good or not is a question only Thalia can answer.”
It has to be good. I won’t accept any other outcome.
Pushing through the canvas flaps, I find the main room of the tent filled with my people.
They’re all here.
My generals, my spymistress, my friends.
There’s just one chair empty, and it belongs to Finn.
The twins, Baylor and Lysander, look like matching monoliths carved out of stone, but despite that, it’s easy to tell them apart.
Half of Baylor’s silvery-blond hair is drawn back into a leather thong, and hangs down his back in messy tangles. His armor is scarred green leather, braids of it overlapping the enormous breadth of his chest. But it’s the scowl that identifies him. Baylor’s never met a smile he wouldn’t drag into a back alley and stab to death.
Lysander, on the other hand, is all wickedness and flashy grace. Clad in a black velvet doublet that sets off his hair, his cheeks are smooth-shaven as well as one side of his head. The rest of his hair hangs in a silken fall over the right side of his face. It makes his cheekbones look sharper and sensual, and rings glitter on his fingers. It’s a little fancier than his usual attire, but Lysander likes to party and the queensmoot—a centuries-old meeting between the heads of the Seelie Alliance—is renowned for three days of drinking, dancing and fucking.