Shadow Cursed: A Noblesse Oblige Duet Book Two Read online

In fact, I know I don’t.

  I step over the corpse to Vlari, taking her chin in my hand. She feels soft and warm and real.

  I have questions. I have many things to say. None of them seem important right this second, though. I bring my lips to hers and taste her for the very first time.

  Except it doesn't feel like a first kiss at all. It feels natural. As though we've done this every day since the beginning of time. As if kissing her is as simple as breathing. As if it’s the natural order of things.

  I can't get enough. I need it more than air and water. I can't let go. So, I don't. I lift her in one arm, and she wraps her legs around my torso, climbing me like a vine. I feel my wounds burn as though someone poured salt on them. She's healing me. Part of me wants to stop her, to tell her to save her energy. But save it for what?

  She's here. She's awake.

  The implications are terrifying. It means Whitecroft is no longer protected under her shield. It means the army of thousands of humans can fall upon us now. It means we may all die before the night is through.

  I care for none of these things. I don’t care there are guards. If this bothers them, they can go.

  We tumble to the floor, next to the corpse that doesn't even exist in my universe right now. I wince and she chuckles around my lips. All that matters is her, on me, with me. Wearing far too many clothes.

  She thought something along the same line, because she closes her little hands on my lapels and tears my coat apart, exposing my torso. Buttons roll in various corners. Her hands glide on my skin, setting it ablaze. My hips lift to grind against her.

  "Ahem."

  I think I could literally murder whoever's disturbing us. At least, I might have, if it had been anyone other than Ciera.

  The high queen grins from the door, one eyebrow raised.

  Under the Stars

  Drusk

  Vlari groans against my chest. "Mother."

  "Daughter," Ciera echoes, smirking. “You came back to us.”

  The queen looks close to tears. I pray that she spares me the hugs, at least.

  I gesture for the wide-eyed guards to take their leave, in order to give them a moment of privacy.

  “I did. And now we’re without protection.”

  I can’t believe she dares sound put out about the fact that she returned to us. To me.

  There never was a day as joyous as this, as far as I’m concerned.

  “You’re not returning to eversleep.” I think I growl. Actually, I know I do. “Not for all the shields and weapons wielded by the gods themselves.”

  We’ll manage without her sacrificing herself.

  To my relief, she nods in agreement. I exhale, my shoulders sagging when the tension leaves my muscles. She’s not leaving us. I can bear everything else.

  “I had enough energy to create the shield and maintain it after sucking it from the immortals and Violet. I wouldn’t risk it now.” Vlari seems to be under the impression she needs to explain why she isn’t returning right back to her comatose state. I don’t think her mother or I would let her if she tried. “But Whitecroft is compromised.”

  She looks to the high queen, who nods in agreement. “Your father and I were visiting each court hall when we saw the dome shatter. Nero remained behind to reassure the people. I rushed here. I thought…”

  She doesn’t spell it out. I’m grateful. What she thought almost came to pass, and I’m not ready to dwell on it.

  Vlari almost died. My Vlari.

  I don’t want to remember the way my heart and soul threatened to break. I’m willing to ignore the memory of the physical pain, and the deeper wound inflicted on my mind.

  I caress her arm, and to my wonder, she doesn’t push me away, doesn’t say a word against my touch, accepting it.

  “We have to act to avoid mass panic, and to protect this place as well as we can now.” Vlari gets to her feet, dusting off her light blue gown.

  Part of me wants to tell her how little I care for the folk's opinion. I almost lost her. I need her all to myself, if only for another moment. I wish I were that selfish, but I can also imagine the hysteria. A real threat looms in the distance without our barrier.

  I reluctantly rise too.

  “Could the air folk forge a golden dome? So we have an illusion of our shield. I’m sure the enemy spies will have seen it collapse, but if it comes right back, they may believe it just flickered on and off. They may hesitate to attack. It'll buy us some time."

  Ciera nods without questioning the suggestion. Nor should she—we need to act immediately, if only with a temporary solution, and this idea is as good as any other.

  “I’ll give the command. You need to show the folk you're alive and well. Seeing you safe will rekindle hope. Then, join us in the war room. With Rystan, naturally.” The queen grins wickedly. "You children can play later."

  I've always assumed Ciera Bane, daughter of Morgana Lilwreath, child of the blood of Nyx, would have a thing or two to say against my sniffing around her daughter.

  I've always assumed Vlari wouldn't ever be interested in the son of pucks.

  Yet here we are, in the palace that serves as the royal court of Tenebris, and the high queen is telling me I can play with her daughter—just as soon as she’s done planning a war. With me. I am welcome in the war room, along with princes and generals.

  Everything I thought I knew is wrong now. Our kingdom irrevocably changed the moment Queen Morgana and her antediluvian ways drew their last breath.

  Vlari returns to the corpse next to the fireplace, and bends down to retrieve the dead fae’s dagger.

  She inspects it for a moment. "Human made, I think. Iron." She grimaces in distaste.

  “How could he get in here?” the queen asks. “Before the shield went down.”

  Vlari purses her lips. “He may have been here all along, waiting for orders to act. But his clothes are wet. It’s possible he swam deep under my shield, in the river. My power never quite reached the Sea Lands. I don’t think an irrelevant assassin with nameless blades would have known to do that by himself, however. You’ve been speaking about reaching the Sea Lands in council?” The queen nods. “Did you mention you hoped to be able to see merfolks because my shields should be weaker around water?”

  Ciera swears, realizing Vlari may be right.

  “There may have been more than one traitor under the dome,” Vlari muses.

  Unlike her mother, she doesn’t sound upset or shaken by the notion. As if she thought so all along.

  She turns away from us to stare at her reflection in the mirror on top of the mantel. Vlari twirls one of the short strands the assassin trimmed around her fingers. "I never was allowed to cut my hair, did you know?"

  I’m guessing she’s asking me—her mother would have known that. “I hadn’t. Why?”

  She shrugs, feigning indifference, when I feel something entirely different boiling underneath. “One of the many ways the queen liked to make me understand my life wasn't mine, I suppose.”

  She gathers all of her hair in one twist at the back of her head, and slices the sharp dagger through it, cutting feet of silver and purple off.

  I watch the tips of her squared locks darken, as if dipped in purple ink. Then she turns back to me, beaming. “Much better, don't you think?”

  And it is.

  She's always been the most beautiful thing in the world to me, but the long locks had given her an air of cold elegance, like that of a proper princess. A stench of court pageantry that had never suited her.

  The woman in front of me looks playful, mischievous. Free. In her long pale dress, splashed with her would-be murderer's blood—or mine—she's also fierce.

  I could tell her she was always the most glorious thing in Tenebris. Instead, I tease her. “Is it? I had a thing for long hair.”

  I'm not capable of holding a serious conversation about what she means to me. Not with her. If I ever do, she'll run screaming the other way, when she understands the depth of
my obsession. Or she'll play with my heart and tear me to pieces, as is the way of the folk.

  Love is the sharpest of weapons, and each of its wounds can be fatal. I need to earn hers before I reveal mine.

  The queen takes her leave of us after embracing her daughter, tight and for a long moment. She places her palm on my heart, in a gesture that feels old and somewhat warm—a greeting long out of use, yet timeless. I understand it as well as words. It communicates thanks and acceptance, and something along the lines of a goodbye. Perhaps a little too formal, considering the fact that we’ll see her in mere minutes.

  We walk side by side through the halls. The guards must have spread the news, because none of the knights and soldiers we pass are surprised. The pairs posted at the first turn rap the hilts of their blades against their shields, hitting in sync with the beating of their hearts. And the next pair, either side of the hall, do the same, till the sound of steel crashing like a drumbeat makes the windows tremble.

  As we near the entrance, my gaze wanders past the buildings, past the lines of trees, to the horizon. I see the night, dark and full of secrets. I see the stars. The dome of light that has been a constant for the last decade is no more. I never realized how much I hated it, how I missed the night.

  A crowd has gathered at the entrance of the hall, their expressions full of fear and uncertainty.

  They accost me first. “Drusk! The walls—”

  “It’s gone!”

  “Is the princess—”

  I suppose I dwarf Vlari. I smile, and look down at the woman next to me, inviting them to do the same.

  A collective gasp cuts through their chatters, and then there’s nothing but silence. They’re shocked to the core.

  I half expect more terror, a thousand questions, perhaps even accusations that would have me reaching for a sword. Vlari’s presence here with us means the loss of her protection. But the folk erupt in a victory cry so loud all of Tenebris must have heard it—even the usurper all the way in the east.

  They chant her name, bow, and beg to touch her.

  Vlari has gone cold, unmoving. What some would mistake as indifference, I interpret as confusion. I remember she’s not been raised for this. Never has she had any cause to believe she’d be important in Tenebris. Let alone be the savior to these thousands of folk. She has no clue how to endure adulation.

  I extend my hand, inviting her to take it. She’s quick to do so, crushing it in a tight grasp, as though I’m offering her a lifeline. When she does, I tug her closer, and bend down to lift her up, seating her on my shoulder. A chuckle escapes her throat as I stand up, lifting her so the growing crowd can see her.

  I start to make my way through the folk so she can greet them, let them see their hope. Unprompted, she reaches out, touching the extended hands of her people.

  Her mother wears the crown, but there was no denying who was queen for me, even before this. Now, it’s clear the people feel the same way.

  By the time we’ve reached the closest of the seven halls—the hall of Storm, the court headed by the Frosts—musicians are in place in front of it.

  They start playing with strings and flutes, an unrefined, never-rehearsed cacophony that embodies the beauty and the wildness of the fae, all over the drumming of the soldiers’ shields and swords. It’s chaos. It’s sensual. It’s unseelie, to the last string.

  Vlari leaps off my shoulder, and rushes to the empty circle in front of the musicians, twirling around, her bare feet slapping the stone floor with the beat of the drums.

  I’m not one for dancing. I’ve never been fond of the practice—though I was quick to offer dancing with her ten years ago, when presented with the opportunity. Now, I don’t have a choice. I have to join her. She’s the queen of the court’s heart, and she’s leading a true faerie dance. The kind mortals cannot be pulled away from once it starts. The kind that stays in our hearts and minds.

  We all rush to follow, numb to the cold, unable to resist the pull of the age-old magic. Esea and her sister Sylph embrace the princess and mirror her steps. There’s tears and laughter and pure joy, untouched by the fear of tomorrow.

  We’re celebrating life itself, though we’re shieldless, vulnerable, and will die by morning if the invaders are clever enough to send all of their armies right at us.

  Vlari’s arms hook around my shoulders when I join her. Among all those gathered here, she chooses me. I wrap my hands around her waist and dance as though nothing else in the world matters. Never mind the humans. I know I’ll never be able to stop. She’ll have to pull me out of it.

  Vlari is the one who stops first, her eyes lifting to the sky.

  I follow the direction of her gaze and notice that a mockery of the hateful dome is back. It looks exactly right, though all its power has faded from it.

  It may fool human eyes. It may even fool a fae or two, so long as they don’t have much magic.

  I doubt it’ll fool the usurper, if she comes anywhere close.

  Or the immortals beyond our borders.

  The danger is real. The danger is close. We’ve ignored it too long already.

  Wordlessly, we turn back to Whitecroft Hall.

  We have a war council to attend.

  A Circle of Crowns

  Drusk

  Vlari doesn’t pause to ask for directions, her purposeful steps leading us through the maze of corridors.

  “I suppose you’ve spied on some council sessions?”

  She’s entirely unapologetic. “One or two, when I could.”

  I want to ask what it was like for her—being asleep and yet sometimes conscious of what went on around her. I don’t imagine it was pleasant. She must have felt helpless.

  We reach what used to be the headmaster’s office when Whitecroft was our school. Professor Veret used to like his study filled with books, every window shut by blinds as he read by candlelight. The smell of beeswax is gone, as are the leather-bound volumes. Like every other chamber in the white stone edifice, it has been transformed. Now, a thick, dark red rug covers the stone floor, and a heavy table made of one tree stump dominates the center of the space. Someone painted a map of Tenebris in the middle.

  My mind travels back to that fateful day in Hardrock when Vlari had looked at a map not dissimilar to this one, and asked her grandfather questions about ley lines. Now I know she was starting to devise her plan—her intent to draw on the power of each court to sustain our impenetrable wards—all the way back then. Her intent to sacrifice herself.

  At any point between Hardrock and Whitecroft, she could have shared it. She didn’t.

  Knowing what we lost, and how close her schemes have come to costing her life, I hate the very sight of this map.

  And I stiffen at the sight of one of the fourteen men already standing next to it.

  Alven Oberon, the old queen’s consort. Vlari’s grandfather. He’s stroking a bird of prey perched on his arm, his eyes set on Vlari.

  I’ve purposely avoided him—even more so than the high queen and her bondmate. The Banes, I stayed away from for sentimental reasons. Alven I simply dislike.

  He forced my silence once, demanding I not reveal Vlari saved my life. He could have asked. He could just have ordered me. I was a soldier, bound to listen. He could have explained the stakes, instead of threatening me and my livelihood—and therefore the livelihood of my family. I know the kind of man he is, and I know he and I will never get along.

  He can still order me around. I’m a nobody from a family of servants, and he’s the very opposite: a pure gentry from a grand line. A king. Though he stopped ruling it when he married Morgana Lilwreath, he is the rightful monarch of the Court of Mist.

  I understand he wanted to protect Vlari. I even respect it. His ruthlessness is likely to be more useful than Ciera’s gentle soul in the days to come. But I’m done with people manipulating me—except for her. Vlari, I can’t avoid, she has me wrapped around her little finger. The rest of them have no place in my life.


  The other lords surrounding the table, I've seen or encountered at one point or another. All seven courts are represented by their rulers. The Court of Storm technically belongs to the Stellara line, and its queen is with us, but it is no secret that Queen Luce is more interested in stargazing than the affairs of the breathing. She’s looking out the window, while Genrion Frost, a duke of Storm, stands at the table on Alven’s left. He is accompanied by his son, Wilden, an old friend of mine. We exchange a nod at my entrance. He now wears heavy armor, perhaps a little too heavy for his slender shoulders, which are more used to playing war among friends than risking his skin.

  For all that, Wilden is one of the better lords.

  Silt is a realm of barbarians. As a kingkiller may take the crown, they change monarchs too fast for any of us to bother to remember the names of them all. We’ve taken to calling their kings and queens the Sandman, as they live far enough south that half of their land is made up of white beaches.

  The current queen should be the Sandwoman, I suppose. She looks young, which means nothing for our kind, but somehow, I sense that she is actually young—perhaps even as young as she looks.

  It matters little. She’s clearly a force to be reckoned with. She had the crown when we arrived at Whitecroft, and she’s kept it all this time.

  Ichor is perhaps the one court wilder than Silt. Traditionally, they drink the blood of their enemies to absorb their strength. Their ruler has let himself age—unusual among the folk. I wonder if he’s half human. The curve of his ears, poking out of a crown of silver hair, seems rounder than the rest of ours. It matters not. The blood of the gentry is stronger than that of mortals, and this wrinkled man in a low conversation with Ciera is all fae.

  The Court of Stone is ruled by a bonded pair—Queen Ina and King Liken. I’m told one negotiates with Liken, and that when no agreement can be reached, the king sends Ina, who takes care of the problem at the edge of her twin swords. Surveying them quickly, I don’t doubt a word of it. Like her bondmate, she seems younger than most, but Ina’s blending in far too well with the shadows. She lets her pointed teeth poke out of her lips, instead of retracting them in civilized settings like the rest of us. Most of the folk have fangs. It’s simply not considered polite to show them.