“I declare this Trial over.”
Talysse
The Pits
The smell of old stone and mold hits me first, pulling me back to reality. Then come the distant sounds. Silence so thick and consuming it distorts reality, broken only by the occasional drip of water and the muffled voices of guards above. I’m lying on the cold, wet rock, its surface digging into my skin.
The dungeons in the Unseelie palace are legendary. Built to contain the rebellious archons—enormous creatures who helped the Elders shape the world but then rejected them and sought to destroy their creations. The archons are long dead, turned to stone and then to dust, but the walls designed to withstand their brutal strength still stand.
I crack an eye open, cautiously taking in my surroundings. A single sconce flickers beyond the rusted bars, casting dim light into my cell. I try to roll over and sit up, but chains pull tight, restricting my movements. With a grunt, I manage to sit, assessing my injuries.
My mouth is parched, but the scratches that once marred my skin are gone. No open wound on my forehead, and oddly, no headache either. I glance down at my torn shirt, expecting to see the pink scar that’s marked me for years. But it’s gone too, replaced by smooth skin threaded with strange purple lines, like—
“It’s an Ancestral Mark, like Aeidas’s,” a voice interrupts my thoughts. Desmond steps into the light, his small eyes gleaming. “I brought you cookies. I’ll fetch some water, too, but I couldn’t carry everything at once.” The rat busies himself, untying a bundle he’s dragged along, while I stare at my skin, struggling to process his words.
“Desmond! What happened? I am so confused. There was a Shadowfeeder in the forest, and they broke my bracelet, then everything changed. I made it to the temple, but something horrible happened—”
“Here, Talysse, let me put it in your mouth—” Desmond interrupts, pushing a piece of cookie at me.
I part my lips to protest, but he takes this opportunity and stuffs the cookie in my mouth.
To get out of this mess, I need my strength. Even if it means being fed cookie crumbles by a rat in a dungeon from the dawn of time. This all looks like some mad dream. A part of me clings to the sweet delusion that Mother would walk into my room carrying hot pancakes, plant a kiss on my forehead, and ask me how the night was.
It passes quickly. Mother is dead. Tayna will have an uncertain fate, and—
“Aeidas?” I ask, chewing thoughtfully.
“He’s busy arranging the funeral for his parents and his coronation.”
A strangled sigh escapes me. The image of Aeidas’s face, twisted with pure hatred as he casts that spell, flashes through my mind. It will haunt me forever.
“Did he ask about me?”
The rodent is suddenly too busy brushing cookie crumbs off his brocade jerkin, ignoring the question.
“And Galeoth—he has wings. He is a Seelie!”
“Oh, sweetheart,” the rat covers his snout with disturbingly human-like paws, “you don’t know?”
“That he’s a Seelie posing as a human? Of course I don’t—”
“That you are Seelie, too. And of royal blood, judging by your Mark. A descendant of the bloodline that triggered the Hex.”
The brittle crust of denial shatters instantly, and the world spins around me. Everything I knew—about myself, my family, my past—is a lie.
Seelie Fae were hunted into extinction years ago.
My parents harbored two of the last ones.
There’s no royal Seelie bloodline anymore. Their last royal family was slaughtered in the last war.
This cannot be.
And how…how was it possible to hide this?
Always hide your treasure in plain sightwas one of my father’s most beloved sayings. I can nearly see him sitting in the chair before the fire in his study, rubbing the large ruby ring with our family symbol. A phoenix. The same symbol carved above the fireplace and the entrance door.
Always hide your treasure in plain sight. Faint memories resurface. Mother’s teary eyes when she grabs the tin pot with milk from the stove and takes a step toward me, murmuring some words that make me sleepy. The agonizing pain when hot milk spilled on me.
