“We’re clear.” He sighed in the dark tunnel. “The Brightwatch don’t know about this passage, and they didn’t see us enter. We’re safe.”
“Safe for how long? Or was all of this just some elaborate setup to piss your father off?” Ariana shuddered badly with fevers and cold now as she struggled out of Lucca’s arms. Though a terrible icy chill flooded her, she was too furious at Lucca to pretend things were fine. Pushing away from him in the darkness, Ariana was shaky, though she found she could stand on her own.
“Never.” Lucca spoke soberly as Ariana shuddered hard and he caught her close again, supporting her from collapsing. Too fatigued to push him away, Ariana set her jaw with fury as Lucca manifested a light in his palm, then cast it into the air in a swirling globe – not too different than Devi’s in the catacombs, though his was blue-gold rather than hauntingly violet. Gripping Ariana close as she shuddered with flushing fevers, he held her as his summer blue eyes pierced her, sincere.
“I didn’t think my father would double-cross you today, Ariana, nor me.” Lucca spoke with a deep anger now, though it wasn’t for her. “But now I know where his heart truly lies. He would rather be a tyrant than listen even to the wise counsel of his Magistros. They didn’t want to convict you; they wanted to hear your story, and help you. But for hundreds of years, my father has hamstrung the proper avenues of the courts with his heavy-handed laws. It’s why so many other Lineages, particularly those he has deemed Forbidden, hate the Summer Fae now. Something I would change. And it’s good to know that the Magistros are even partially willing to listen to me. And you.”
“So this was all a test. A fucked-up test for your father and his courts.” Ariana huffed, still furious at him as she pushed him away with her hands on his chest, struggling to get free though he held her fast.
“Not just.” He spoke quietly now as he held her, not letting her get away quite yet. “I wanted your case to be heard today, Ariana, truly. I didn’t intend everything that happened on the promenade, but in a way, it’s better. Now, every noblefae present saw what a brute my father can be, and how far he goes to overturn the rule of the courts. They’ve seen, and the Fae rumor-mill will begin asking questions now of why I support you against my father, who you really are, and how much power you may have to make their lives better. I want to help you, Ariana. And contrary to how it seems… today was a powerful start to doing just that.”
“Right. So you can help yourself get your revolution started. Yeah, got it.” Ariana snarled at Lucca as she managed to push free of him at last. He reached out to snag her again, but she made a sudden cutting motion with her hand – and a snap of her power surged out, striking him back like she had slapped him.
Prince Lucca’s blue eyes fluttered wide in shock, but Ariana didn’t care. Bitter rage fueled her as she stormed away down the tunnel, turning her back on her Summer Fae Prince and all his devious plans. But she was vastly unsteady now from that last slap of magic; and like the straw that broke the camel’s back, she was suddenly so flooded with hot and cold shivers that she had to reach out fast as she collapsed against the wall.
But though Ariana was being overtaken by exhaustion now, she didn’t reach out to Lucca. He had made it clear where his loyalty lay, and Ariana was wondering who was worse; Quinn with his schemes to use her for Vampire progress, or Lucca with his vendetta against his tyrannical father and his agenda to free the Summer Fae. She was so angry that another fierce wash of midnight-rainbow power flooded from her, flashing in the dark hall like a thundercloud.
Before Ariana sagged – and darkness flooded in.
As she fainted, she felt herself scooped up in Lucca’s arms; cradled once more to his strong, sculpted chest. Feebly, Ariana pushed against him, but consciousness was waning now as she shuddered with a horrible sickness. Pressing his cheek to her forehead as he carried her, Lucca gave a florid curse. “You’ve got magical exhaustion. Dammit! I thought that blaze of power you unleashed on the promenade was too much…”
“I’m fine.” Ariana spoke stubbornly though it was weak, her throat dry now as her body burned.
“You’re not. Dammit!” Lucca spoke tersely as he moved them faster down the narrow corridor, wherever they were headed. It had delved deeper into the earth but was straight as an arrow, dark and endless. “Exhaustion sickness can be deadly for a young Fae who uses up too much of their power, in a way that’s too instinctual or untrained. Yours is bad right now, Ariana, almost worse than I’ve ever felt. You feel like… like you’re being drained by a Vampire Revenant, actually.”
“My magics are both Vampire and Fae.” Ariana croaked, forcing herself to respond to Lucca even though her head swam now and she wanted to pass out. “Do you think my Vampire power is draining the Fae side of my magic to make these surges of energy… like I performed at the palace?”
“I don’t know, Ariana.” Lucca spoke as he glanced at her soberly, his blue eyes dark. “The histories and annals of the Dark Fae were all burned in terrible fires when my father decimated their citadels. In his wrath with them after the War, he wanted all traces of them wiped off this earth. Much knowledge about the Dark Fae and how their power works was lost – and I was too young to know much about it at the time.”
But before Ariana could respond, Lucca suddenly sharpened, watching the tunnel ahead with a fierce intensity as his blue-gold globe of light swirled. Suddenly, he prickled with a vicious magic, a blaze of his rainbow-light rising in the tunnel. But it was weak, and Ariana wondered how much power Lucca had expended whisking her away – even as she wondered how far a Fae’s power went underground in darkness.
But as Lucca prickled, a shimmering presence emerged from the shadows ahead. Firming into the shape of a man as silver-green shadows finally coalesced, Ariana recognized Alleno before them in the tunnel. She didn’t even know she’d been holding her breath until she sighed in relief, and Prince Lucca with her. Slouching against the wall with an equally relieved exhalation to see them, Alleno shuddered as he gave a wry grimace.
A terrible wound in his side seeping blood.
“Alleno!” Lucca startled as his eyes fixed upon that wound. Setting Ariana down so she could support herself on the wall, Lucca rushed to his cousin. “Goddess of the fields! Let me see!”
“It’s fine, Lucca. It’s a scratch; it’s nothing.” Alleno protested weakly, holding a hand to the wound as Lucca rushed to him. Ariana watched the familial tenderness between the two men as Lucca helped Alleno to a seat in the tunnel with his back propped against the wall. Covering the wound with his hands, Lucca raised his magic until rainbows shimmered with a fiery brightness in the dark around him – and then poured all that power into Alleno with a bright light of healing under his hands.
Taking a deep breath, Alleno looked relieved even as he winced. As Ariana watched, she saw Alleno’s numerous scratches and cuts from his fight with the Brightwatch healing; rippling with Lucca’s white light as they closed like magic. And when the Prince finally removed his hands, Ariana saw Alleno’s mortal wound was also closed beneath the rent in his ornate waistcoat.
But Lucca shuddered now with a fatigue not all that different from Ariana’s as he blew out a deep breath. Giving Alleno a wry smile, he clapped his cousin on the shoulder and helped him rise; but Ariana could see how much that healing had taken out of the Prince. As the two men nodded at each other, gripping each other’s shoulders, Ariana knew the cousins meant far more to each other than a lord and his bodyguard.
A deep friendship that was tender and important to both of them, as they stood together in the semi-dark.
“Save a little something for healing next time when you face off against thirty of my father’s Brightwatch single-handedly.” Lucca joked with a chuckle now as he shook Alleno gently, then released him.
“Try sixty. And let’s not repeat that act anytime soon.” Alleno grimaced now, rubbing his side as if the healed wound still hurt. “They almost had my ass. I know it’s not yet time to reveal your own Brightwatch, Lucca… but damn, that was close.”
“You have your own Brightwatch waiting for your revolution?” Ariana shivered as she kept herself braced upon the tunnel wall.
“Yes. I have fighters who are loyal to me and not my father.” Lucca held her gaze fiercely now as he turned to her. “Though like I told you, I hope to overthrow my father with far less bloodshed than insurrection would bring. But only a fool makes no preparations for worst-case scenarios.”
“You truly mean to go through with your rebellion, then. Whether I’m on your side or not.” She spoke back as she shivered with a harder chill now.
“I have been meaning to go through with it for six hundred years, Ariana.” Lucca spoke softly now as he watched her in the quiet darkness of the tunnel. “Meeting you a few days ago gave me ideas, and a sudden hope that perhaps a real revolution for the Summer Fae had an opportunity at last. Though I have made quiet preparations all this time, I have been waiting for the right moment. And I have learned many things being under my father’s boot all these years – most importantly, that my people deserve better than what he gives them. But make no mistake; Iwillcreate this revolution with or without you. Because my father should not be leading the Summer Fae. I do believe you saw why today.”
Ariana paused then, thinking back over what she had seen of the Summer Fae King at the Palace of Light. Though Archivolio Bellari’s stature was elegant and his face handsome, he was a brute – and a man like that had no business leading a nation. Leaders could be firm and strong, but King Bellari was a warlord rather than an inspiration, Ariana knew now. His overbearing, wrathful might technically operated within the law, but she had seen today how he was pushing the rule of law aside and taking that power for himself. Inhaling, Ariana felt something churn inside her heart for Lucca, wanting to support him.
