“Kinsfolk and archnobles of the Hyperion Kingdom, we come together this day alongside kinsfolk and archnobles of the Aether Dominion to join a Hyperion son and an Aether daughter in the eternal bonds of marriage,” spoke the cleric, once Kadeesha was in place at Rishaud’s side. “Do you accept this lady as your wife, your soul partner, and your queen who will bear the sons that will continue the royal Hyperion bloodline?” he asked Rishaud.
“Not quite yet,” Rishaud replied. Kadeesha was slow to process the three words, slow to truly understand that he’d uttered them and what they meant.
Others weren’t as slow. Audible gasps rang out around the temple. Kadeesha’s eyes widened, joy suffusing her for a heartbeat that somehow she’d gained more time. Then, in the next moment, she saw a rage contort Rishaud’s features that he no longer bothered to hold in check. She tried to tug her hand from his firm hold; he tightened his grip.
“What is happening?” Kadeesha demanded at the same time her father bellowed identical words from his front-row pew.
Rishaud ignored her, pivoting to face Sylas. He gave a jerk of his head, and the attendant stationed at the temple’s doors threw them open. From the vestibule beyond, men in gold-and-white military uniforms—soldiers—poured inside. There were more gasps from the audience as the soldiers brandished swords and formed a circle around the cluster of Aetherfolk.
Sylas shot to his feet. “What is the meaning of this? Is this some kind of trap you’ve woven? For what?” Her father’s shouts were accompanied by dark purple flames roiling over his frame while he vibrated with rage. “Answer me this instant!” Sylas roared.
“You are mistaken,” Rishaud drawled. “Iam high king here.”
No—you’re not, Kadeesha thought venomously.But semantics didn’t matter at the moment, not when Rishaud’s words were as sharp and fileting and ominous as the point of a dagger.
“I answer to nobody,” he reminded Sylas. “Certainly not a vassal king whose court has sworn fealty to me. A fealty that was broken by your daughter, the Aether princess I blessed by electing to marry. A blessing she spurned,” he snarled, “instead choosing toinsultme.”
“What insult?” Sylas asked, bewildered. Further unease churned in Kadeesha’s gut.
“The insult of waking up this morning to reports that shespent the eve before our wedding in some filthy pleasure den. Those are not becoming actions of a high king’s bride, and neither she nor you, Sylas, can go unpunished for this impudence. What if she’s arrived already with child? It would go against the Celestials’ will and bring their wrath upon us all instead of their favor!” Rishaud’s unrelenting hold on her hand tightened as Kadeesha violently yanked against him, snapping the fine bones in her hand. Sharp, radiating pain erupted. She shoved the agony aside. It’d lessen as soon as her hand mended itself and she needed to stay clear-minded and focused on the catastrophe that was unraveling.
“What is he talking about?” Sylas hissed to Kadeesha. “What did you do, girl?”
She stood on the altar, stricken. She’d been so careful when sneaking out and back in, and Oleander House’s privacy wards had been well and truly intact the night before. She’d checked them herself upon entering and exiting to be sure. So how had word of her activities gotten back to Rishaud? He must have had a spy inside the palace. Perhaps someone had followed them to Oleander House, waited until she left, and then followed her back. One didn’t need to venture inside Oleander House to know of its function. Although the wards ensured no one could remember activities other than their own beyond Oleander House’s doors, the establishment was famous Nimani-wide for the general delights it delivered.
Her assessment of how the hell she’d landed in this situation was cut short when Rishaud gave his soldiers a command that turned her blood to ice. “Kill the Aether king and his gathered court!”
No!
Absolute horror made the shriek lodge in her throat. Notthat it would have made a difference; Hyperion soldiers executed the order between one breath and the next. Their swords slid into the flesh of Kadeesha’s people, spilling rivers of blood onto the floor. The ones with aether magic attempted to defend themselves. But Rishaud’s men were skilled and moved as one flawless, cold, efficient unit. Kadeesha growled, finally snatching her hand away from the Hyperion king, and damned herself for having been so selfish and reckless the night before. She heard a bloodcurdling scream, then turned and saw her father on his knees, his body ablaze in golden sunfire. His eyes bulged, and his brown skin was turning a horrific charred black.
Suffocating grief flayed Kadeesha at the carnage. But now wasn’t the time to let it engulf her. She’d face her crimes after she did what she could to help as many as possible survive the massacre she’d caused. She fought the instinct to target her efforts at the soldiers and spare the Aetherfolk who remained alive from their punishing blades. Even if she killed each Hyperion soldier, their liege was still atop the altar, and Rishaud could wipe out every soul in the room by himself if he desired. He was an Ancient fae king, his power was vast, and the only other individual in the temple whose would have even come close was Sylas. Her father might’ve been only a vassal king, but he was an Elder who possessed the strength to rule over a fae court of brutal immortals. That did count for something. Maybe if they fought Rishaud together, if she lent what power she had to aid her father, they could take Rishaud out. To that end, she attacked the Hyperion king instead of his soldiers. She didn’t foolishly let a furious cry rip free and telegraph her intent. She set her roiling emotions to better use and thrust all her anguish, all her rage, all her hatred into the column of aether flames she sent hurtling at Rishaud.
He was the sort of male who didn’t even register her as a threat, and she used it to her advantage, launching the assault swiftly. He was still focused on burning Sylas slowly—toying with drawing the vassal king’s grisly death out—when her flames crashed into him. He staggered sideways, but then blinding sunfire wove itself through the ribbons of her molten aether flames and Kadeesha’s flames vanished, obliterated by Rishaud’s greater magic.
“You will pay for that,” Rishaud spat, an endless agony promised in his decree. Still, Kadeesha breathed a little lighter because she’d granted her father the lull he’d needed. Desperate hope that the two of them, along with some of their people, would somehow make it out of the temple alive bloomed as Sylas got to his feet, his own aether magic having snuffed out the sunfire that had been riddling his body. Kadeesha fervently thanked the Celestials that Sylas had several centuries in age under his belt, for his scorched skin was already beginning to heal.
Sylas’s growl shook the temple. When he sent aether flames barreling toward Rishaud, Kadeesha added her own to the counterassault. If they both pressed him from different sides, forced him to split his focus, perhaps it’d create an opening Sylas could take advantage of.
Rishaud the Conqueror, however, lived up to his reputation. He kept to only deflecting Kadeesha’s flames—a task that maddeningly took him little effort to achieve—while he and Sylas traded attacks of sunfire and aether flames back and forth. As the two kings fought, Rishaud fully shed any pretense of the refined deportment that power players among faekind liked to mask their true viciousness behind and shifted into a nightmare of pure savagery. For his part, Sylas moved as fastas lightning as he rained aether flames on Rishaud. Sylas sent purple streaks of fire arcing through the air and spewing down all around the Hyperion king. Sunfire ignited around Rishaud, enveloping his body in a protective shield. He chortled as a burst of sunfire, which left Kadeesha’s heart in her throat, barreled toward Sylas with unerring accuracy. The solar fire that burned hot as the sun’s energy, which Rishaud’s brand of magic drew upon, encased Sylas’s entire frame faster than he could counter or dodge it.
Kadeesha stood frozen, paralyzed, as Rishaud forwent delighting in dragging Sylas’s imminent death out this time. Her father screamed at a pitch that shattered the glass of the temple’s windows as his skin re-blackened, melted, and sloughed off him. He collapsed to the ground and writhed, continuing to burn. Soon after, he stopped convulsing. The Hyperion king’s sunfire that had ravished his body vanished, and not even her father’s ashes were left behind. Kadeesha swallowed, fought back the world-tilting grief that was like a hatchet to the gut. If Sylas had fallen, had been wiped off the face of Nimani, there was no hope left for any Aetherfolk who remained alive. And beyond that … like with her mother, she and Sylas had a complex relationship, but hewasher father, and she’d wish the gruesome death he’d suffered on nobody.
Well, one person did deserve it. No, actually a few dozen assholes deserved it—along with Rishaud and all his soldiers, each and every one of the Hyperion fae inside the temple who perched primly in their pews while her people were slaughtered.
Wildly, Kadeesha scanned the room for Leisha and Samira. Relief washed over her when she spotted her sisters alive and fighting. The women fought back-to-back, each cutting down Hyperion soldiers with swords they’d snatched from the enemyto arm themselves. Temples were supposed to be sacred spaces. Bloodshed and weapons inside them were supposed to be sacrilege.
Celestials forgive them, then.
Kadeesha whipped around to the liege lord who was responsible for her father’s murder and the deaths of so many others today. A ball of aether fire formed in her hand. She sent the purple sphere hurtling toward Rishaud. He might be leagues older and stronger and more powerful and more experienced in battle, but she couldn’t stop fighting. Shewouldn’tsimply step aside and resign the remaining survivors, her sisters included, to their fates. Golden flames surrounded her aether bomb, though, then disintegrated it. She emitted a ragged cry and flung another aether bomb at him. A third, and a fourth, and a fifth. But he was a fae monarch, a king who’d grown in his power over the centuries. She’d only been alive for a mere flicker of time; her magic was no match for his.
Her attacks did nothing. A weapon; she needed a weapon. It was one last, mad, likely impossible hope, but if she managed to get her hands on a blade, she might be able to drive it through Rishaud’s vile heart. It was obvious that he hadn’t leveled any lethal blow at her, no matter the attacks she initiated, and the reason was clear—he couldn’t use her or any prophecy if she were dead. Perhaps she could wield that to her advantage and get within sufficient range for a fatal blow. But she didn’t glimpse any weapons on Rishaud himself and his armed soldiers were far enough away that he’d certainly intercept her before she took one of them out and seized their sword. Still, she had to try.
She ran for the nearest male in a gold-and-white uniform.
Her foot touched down only on the first step before Rishaud’sbruising grip squeezed the back of her neck and yanked her back onto the altar.
“Stop this!” she snarled, twisting out of his grasp. She cast a frenzied glance at the Aetherfolk bodies that kept collapsing to the floor. His soldiers were sparing no soul, not even the striplings among attendees. The little girls who’d carried her train … Her stomach roiled violently when she looked upon two of them that had already been slain. Their small, lifeless bodies had blood staining their purple gowns at spots that covered their hearts. The remaining two girls, who couldn’t have been any older than six, clung to each other against a wall not far from where their peers had been killed. The sight broke her.
