She would have to be, to get those monstrous creatures to take pity on her and send her home.
But shewouldget them to do it.
She would come home, and then she and her sister could exchange places once more. Sephia would refocus on the throne she was set to inherit, and Nora would live out her life in peace, pretending to mourn the fae prince she had never truly had to marry.
Simple as that.
“I don’t doubt you, Seph,” said Nora, quietly. “I’m just afraid for you.”
Sephia opened her mouth, intending to give a soothing response, but…
Wasthere a way to soothe her sister, considering the frightening precipice they were approaching?
She couldn’t think of one, so she just kept riding.
Chapter 2
They made good time.
They turned only a few heads as their horse’s hooves clopped against the stone of the sacred pavillion—and only human heads, at that; there were no fae to be seen yet, which meant that Sephia and Nora were not catastrophically late.
But now the hum of Sephia’s anxious thoughts gained new lyrics:Too soon, too soon, too soon…
All too soon, they had reached this edge of their old life: the so-calledUnbreakable Bridgestretched off to their right, ominous and golden and waiting. It had been built as a symbol of that ancient bargain between the human and fae— and the everlasting connection that bargain had forged. There was a second, identical bridge on the western side of the kingdom, stretching from Middlemage intoNocturne, the Shadow fae lands.
Forty-five years ago, the woman who would have been Sephia’s aunt was taken across that second bridge and into Nocturne, never to return.
Today, the Court of the Sun would emerge to take their own bride acrossthisbridge and back with them to Solturne.
The original bargain had been the idea of one of Middlemage’s ancient kings. It had put an end to the constant warring between these two fae realms and turned Middlemage into a buffer, a neutral territory that neither the Sun nor Shadow courts had rights to cross. That king who put forth this treaty had twin daughters, and he had promised one to each of the fae courts as a show of faith and balance.
Some said that the fae had tricked that king into giving more than he’d meant to— that no future daughters of his bloodline had truly been offered in this bargain. The details of the event were shrouded in mystery, and they varied depending on who was telling the story.
But however it happened, here they were, approaching the tenth ceremonial taking of a Caster daughter.
There were paintings depicting this ‘Taking’ scattered throughout the Central Palace in Ocalith. Most were bright and airy, depicting a shining sacrifice and movements of magic that resulted in benevolent feelings between all of the involved parties.
But there were other, older paintings hidden away that were…darker.
Sephia had stumbled upon a stack of these other paintings once. Well, not so muchstumbled uponas discovered them when she snuck into one of the library’s off-limits storage rooms, much to the dismay of the old records-keeper. These earlier works were far more gruesome, depicting human brides with ripped dresses and crooked crowns stained with blood.
Ten years had passed since her discovery, but Sephia still remembered a particularly striking image of a young, bloodied princess sitting astride a great black horse. Her head had been high, and the look in her eyes had been piercing, defiant in spite of her shackles, even as she was being led away by two fae warriors.
Sephia did not know what to expect from the fae thieves coming today, but she knew there would be no blood spilled during this stealing. She would go quietly, as her kingdom expected Nora to.
And soon she would kill her target just as quietly.
No need for dramatics.
Along the banks of the river were shrines that were meant for offerings to the fae. They were all full. Almost every family in the capital city had a personal shrine, and in it they left the finest of whatever items they were best known for; there were priceless garments, various jewel-studded weapons, and food…so much food. The cloying scent of rotten fruit and the tang of spoiled vegetables mingled with the river’s fishy smell.
Sephia’s nose wrinkled, partly from the smell, and partly from an inward disgust toward it all.
The fae never touched any of the gifts left for them.
But if those gifts stopped being given, strange things always seemed to follow soon after. Crops failed. Children ran away and didn’t return. The usually plentiful deer and other game in the forest thinned.
These things may have been coincidences, but the people of Middlemage had long been convinced that they were punishments—and so the gifts were a necessary ward against those corrupt and easily-offended creatures they calledneighbors.
