“I’m not supposed to be here.” My breathing begins speeding up again, dread constricting my throat. “I was at school. That’s where I’m supposed to be—”
“School?” She tsks. “We aren’t allowed to learn. You know that.”
“This isn’t real.” I rock a little, the hard floor grinding into my hip. “None of this is real.”
She taps her fingers on the cold, grubby stone. “What’s your name?”
“T-Taylor.”
“Taylor of?” She gestures for me to go on.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m Lenetia of Granthos. You are Taylor of your master. So, who’s your master?”
“I don’t have a master.”
“Of course you do,” she coaxes. “Give me a name. Maybe I can talk to the guard and tell him you need to see a healer. If your master is high up enough, it may even work.”
“I don’t have a master.” My voice begins to rise, panic infecting me. “I’m a college student. I’m majoring in chemical engineering. I don’t know how I got here, or where here even is!” I run my fingers over the lump on my forehead. It feels like a golf ball.
“Shh!” She scurries back toward her hiding place.
“This isn’t real.” I edge out from beneath my shelter and stand. “None of this is real. So that thing can’t hurt me. It’s just a dream.” I grip the frigid metal bars. “Hey, ugly! Let me out!”
“Stop, for your own good.” She buries herself under the moldy hay.
A metallic clang shoots down the dark corridor, and then that rhythmic rustling sounds again.
“Get down,” Lenetia hisses. “By the Spires, stop courting pain and death.”
“Open this cage!” I yank on the bars. They don’t move.
“I’m trying to help you, girl.” She peers out from her hiding place. “Changelings should stick together. Now come hide with me before he—” Her words end in a horrified squeak.
The creature appears. I back up involuntarily. Even if it’s a dream, it’s a terrifying one.
Fangs bared, it pulls a ring of keys from the side of its tunic.
“Oh no, no, no,” Lenetia whispers from her hiding spot.
The monster says something in that foreign language as he swings the bars open, but he doesn’t come in to get me. Maybe it worked. Maybe I’m on my way out of this nightmare. I just need to wake up.
It hisses again and motions for me to come out, then speaks again in an unintelligible rant.
“Go, girl. He says your master Tyrios has come to free you,” Lenetia’s urgent whispers catch the monster’s attention. “Tyrios is a powerful noble.”
The creature glowers and moves to enter the cell. The stranger squeals, the hay rippling as she scurries back.
“I’m coming.” I step out quickly, cutting the monster off and bringing its attention back to me.
“Too bad we didn’t get to play.” He reaches toward my face with a dirty claw.
“I’d like to wake up now.”
He cocks his head to the side and lets out a rusty laugh. “Wake up?” Slamming the cell door shut, he grabs my arm, his grip cold and unforgiving.
“I’m going to wake up!” I cry as he drags me down the dank hallway toward another barred door. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” I shake my head hard, but nothing happens. Everything feels too real—the hard stone, the chill in the air, the rough hand holding me too tightly. No, no, no.
The beast shoves me through the door and into what must be a guard room. Two other creatures—one feathered like a bird but with the body of a man and what can only be described as a scorpion with a beautiful woman’s face—play cards in the corner near a small fireplace. They don’t even look up as the creature drags me through the room, down another hall, and finally into a room with high windows that show an impossibly starlit sky.
The snake-like monster throws me at the feet of a tall, blond man with silver eyes and speaks to him in the fae language, though its tone is markedly more respectful than it ever was with me. The man’s face turns cross, and he gestures at the lump on my head as he talks.
I climb to my feet and try to find an exit, an escape. But there are only two doors in this stone hall, the one at my back and the one behind the tall blond man.
After a harsh flurry of words, the blond man takes my arm—not gentle, but not as hard as the beast—and pulls me toward the other door. I resist, yanking back against him. With a move so swift I almost miss the movement, he backhands me across the face.
When I taste blood, I know it’s real. All of it. And it’s not a dream. It’s a nightmare.
4
Leander
A scent lingers in the air, something I can’t quite place. I didn’t smell it before. Only now. Only when I’m walking through the summer palace with my ancestral sword at my side and Gareth at my back.
I turn toward him slightly. “What is that?”
“What?”
“You don’t scent something?”
He lifts his nose. “Nothing except the usual floral nonsense that coats this realm like a plague.”
I turn back, regaining my stride as we approach the main wing of the castle where the meeting is to take place. It’s not cloying floral. It’s something else, something pleasant. Like a warm fire, but it isn’t a smoky smell.
Whatever it is, I have to get it out of my mind. This conclave could very well determine the future of the realms. My peace with the summer fae is contingent on mutual respect of borders and customs. If I were to discover that they were responsible for the rash of disappearances or in league with those who were, it would be war all over again. A return to the days of the necromancer Shathinor, the brutal former ruler of the winter realm who killed every summer fae he could get his hands on.
So, in the name of peace, I continue down the corridors with walls of ivy and night-blooming jasmine, fairy lights twinkling overhead. The guards we pass tilt their heads in recognition, but their eyes remain wary. After all, summer and winter were enemies not that long ago.
“My lord.” The courtier from earlier greets us as we enter the main hall. It’s already filled with the clatter of summer realm nobles, many of them turning to stare as I march in. I smirk. The winter realm fae don’t douse themselves in jewels and overdone finery like these peacocks. I wear the customary black tunic and pants, my silver crown atop my head and my sword at my side. An array of knives are concealed all over my person, and Gareth is practically a walking armory. At home, we would have fewer weapons but more clothes—furs from our kills or soft leather draped over us as we talk around a roaring fire. But here, where the weather is oppressively pleasant at all times, we have to adjust. Even so, we stick out. Our dark eyes, black hair, and large size all reveal us as males from the winter realm. More than that, our weapons and battle-hardened features mark us as warriors, not the pampered courtiers that surround us as we pass.
“The queen will be with us shortly. Dinner will be served during the conclave.” The courtier, Pilantin is his name, practically prances ahead of us as the socializing nobles give me deferential nods. It isn’t lost on me that many of them whisper amongst themselves or cut their eyes at me. In the summer realm, the rulers are all chosen via a bloodline that goes back for millennia. They believe that makes them above reproach—and also immune to rebellion. The winter realm is ruled by might alone. Any high fae with the strength to take the throne can have it. One-on-one combat is the only way, and it’s how I became king. I haven’t been challenged yet, but I look forward to a day when a fae seeks to prove their mettle against me.
We pass out of view of the gawking nobles and into an ornate dining room. The table is decorated with bejeweled centerpieces and golden plates. The chandeliers overhead sparkle from a million facets, and I have no doubt they are made from precious diamonds.
“I see they’ve set out the good dishes for us.” Gareth snorts and swaggers along behind me.