Her brow lowered. “No, they do that with other people. When other people pick them up, it happens. I’ve seen and heard it.”
“Because you were present. The crystal chalice was present. The other chalices are useless without their prism.”
She tried to back away from him, her mind reeling. “I’m not magical. They tested me to be sure. You’re probably thinking of that diamond stone thing with the hole in the middle. That’s the chalice.”
“That is your amplifier,” he said without hesitation. “Each type of magic has a corresponding chalice that works best with it. Water creatures will lean on chalices corresponding to the sapphire gem. Fire creatures veer toward the ruby. Spirit with amethyst, and so on. That’s how our kingdoms align. The chalices mirror Faerie. Your amplifier is the diamond.”
“But diamond…” Was the throne of the High Sovereign. The Celestials.
“Yes,” he whispered. “With your diamond chalice, and the other chalices arranged around you representing Faerie, you can boost a fae’s power level—mine, in this case—to impossible heights. You can make me as mighty as a god. You can help me free this whole realm of the High Sovereign’s royal influence.”
He paused, and her brow lowered. “Free” the realm…and then take over the humans? Like fucking hell she’d help do that. If he was telling the truth, she had the power to destroy the crystal chalice after all. She had the power to destroy herself, and she would if she was the reason her family was in danger.
His nod was slight, and his lips quirked up at the corners. “Yes, I thought as much. I know you better now, and so I know I can not only trust you with this, but that you’ll help me.” His jaw was set in determination. “I never intended to help the Obsidian Kingdom’s king and queen over the fringe. It was an excuse to give me freedom in my search for the chalices. For their prism. Your realm was never in danger from me. But it is still in danger. I mean to strengthen the fringe. To build it back up. To first free myself of the Obsidian Court, then use the heightened magic to restore the balance of Faerie. When the time comes, you will fulfill your destiny and help me. I’ll be cleaning out the filth and remaking it anew with my crystal chalice. The diamond isyouramplifier…and you are mine.”
“And your claims of breaking me?”
Regret once again filled his gaze. “Unfortunately, the amount of power that will run through you is that of a god. No mortal can handle it, or so the archives say. If you help me, you will safeguard your family and Faerie…at the cost of your life. There is no other way. I must sacrifice two beings to save many. It is not only my duty. It is my destiny.Ourdestiny. As I said…there is no escape for youorme.”
Her brow furrowed as she continually shook her head. This seemed too massive for her to grasp. Too foreign. She couldn’t comprehend how magic could restore balance in an entire realm. Balance, as if that were a tangible thing. It didn’t compare to the human lands. That she’d ever heard, anyway.
Instead she latched on to the one thing shedidgrasp. “Sacrificetwobeings?”
His eyes hardened. The burnished gold aroundhis pupils flared gold before dying back down. “Yes. You…and myself.”
She put her hand on his chest. Despite the situation and all he’d said, her heart ached. “You?”
He was quiet for a long beat. “The history leading to this moment is long and complex. It comes down to this:
“With my birth, I stirred the gods. An experiment gone badly, we’ll say. Through no fault of my own—just by being born—I created a fissure within the High Kingdom.Icreated the rift within the royal family. And when there is rift and instability, the gods sense a game. They seek greater entertainment. To that end, they meddle. Oh, how they meddle. They create favorites and pit them against the favorites of other gods. We are pets, really. Pawns. My existence created the desire for treachery within the royal house…and the gods exploited it. That treachery—a betrayal—saw me to my grave. But on my deathbed, as I was watching the beautiful colors of dusk wash me away, Equilas came to me?—”
“Equilas?” She remembered him using that name but had never asked more about it.
“Equilas, Goddess of Balance. One of three sisters in the Trinity, the most powerful of the gods in Faerie. She sits on the High Seat in the Divine Collective. She pulled me from the abyss and reset my path. But first, while I was delirious and desperate for one more breath, we made adeal.”
Shivers arrested Daisy. It seemed the fae had learned how to make deals with humans from the gods themselves. And by his tone, it sounded like the gods were no less cunning and ruthless, not even with their children.
He nodded. “I am bound to this destiny. I was tasked with finding the crystal chalice and restoring the balance of Faerie, regardless of the obstacles. Regardless of the degradation and horrors I was thrust into. I am a pet of the Obsidian royals…and a pawn of Equilas. A puppet, some think, beholden to the gods while being crushed under the boot of the Obsidian Court. Exiled from my home and lands, and my friends with me, until I can reset what my birth imbalanced. I’m being blamed for the sins of my parents, but still, I must atone.Thatis my life, Daisy. That is my destiny—what I’m up against. Why I need you. For if I can escape my imprisonment in this filthy kingdom and use you to reinstall balance, I will ultimately have to sacrifice myself for the good of the realm. I am entertainment for gods right now, but eventually, I am hope for the realm. We both are. We must be the dawn to end the starless night.”
Cold washed through her at the resignation in his eyes. She wished she could read his mind to find out more. His birth had disrupted the royal family? A birth out of wedlock, maybe? That would be a human reason in the olden days, at any rate. But that was hardly an experiment. Maybe something like the son rising upand overthrowing the father, like what used to happen a lot with Demigods…
“That was the fear, yes,” he said softly. “It wasn’t a desire in my heart, but I had the power to do it, and so it was assumed that I eventually would.”
The cold froze her solid, and her whole body stilled. His gaze was deep and imploring.
“But that would mean…” She let the words trail away as she went over everything in her mind again. All he’d said, what it had to mean. “You’re not…”
“In the Obsidian Court, I was given this title as a mockery of my rightful station. I was trapped into that court with the five obsidian seals. They tempered my magic so that I couldn’t rebel, forced the rules—the curse—onto me, erased my name and existence from the memories of everyone but the Obsidian Kingdom royals, and bled their magic into mine to strip it of its luster.”
“Bled their magic into yours?” She remembered the spectral brilliance that was his glamor, with the warm orange, amber, lavender, cerulean, and golden hues. Then his magic as it had danced and played around her, sparkling and gorgeous, like the sky at dawn. It was only when he used larger degrees of his power that she saw the black cut through or take over. Even then, sometimes it still shimmered with gold.
Another memory flashed through her mind, this time of wings. Delicate dragonfly wings big enough to lift a man. A fae, actually. The colors werethe same, dawn-like…or dusk-like, one and the same. Like his glamor. Like his playful magic.
No, not a fae. A beautiful Celestial.
“Your mind moves so quickly,” he whispered, stepping toward her. His tone was warm, oh so gentle. Grateful. “I am always so impressed.”
She couldn’t stop blinking rapidly. “No. You can’t be. You don’t have wings.”
