“It could work,” Mab said finally. Her eyes snagged on mine as she turned to look at me, the depths of them churning as she thought through her options. “But who would I choose?”
Malazan slid her hand over Mab’s arm, stroking her skin in that affectionate, almost sisterly way that she’d adopted to manipulate her Queen. Her gaze remained fixed on me, a knowing there that said so much that we had never spoken in words.
We saw one another for what we were, for the ways that we guided Mab in directions that served our purpose. She knew exactlywhat I’d intended when I started this line of thinking, and she could derail me entirely.
“There is only one logical choice, my Queen,” she said, her voice practically a purr. I tensed, waiting for the moment of truth and not knowing which direction I hoped she took. Her support of me as Fallon’s husband would come at a cost. “Etan is your most loyal Summer Court Fae. Should something happen to Rheaghan, it only makes sense that his chosen heir should be married to Maeve. Now that she’s returned, she is the rightful heir to the Summer Court. You would erase any conflict that may arise if people were to question who should rule under these circumstances with Maeve being so newly returned to us,” Malazan added, her smirk meant only for me.
“The heir and the spare,” Mab said with a returning grin.
“Me? I never had any intention of marrying—” I argued, wanting to dissuade any preconceived notion that this might have been an intentional result on my part.
“It’s settled. You will marry my daughter. The bonds of marriage have long since been used to establish and strengthen alliances, and you will solidify my claim to the Summer Court through Maeve. I’ll inform my daughter of your pending nuptials soon enough, and after the Tithe is complete you’ll be able to take her home.”
I swallowed, bowing at the waist with a flourish as a sheepish smile claimed my face. “You honor me, my Queen,” I said. My gaze met Malazan’s for a brief moment when I straightened, her gaze knowing.
Well played,she seemed to say.
She’d need to be dealt with eventually, but for now, I let myself revel in the victory of the moment as I returned to my room to wait for the announcement to be made.
For Fallon to know she’d be mine.
FOURFALLON
I worried the bridge of my nose between my fingers, hating this relentless game we played. As far as Mab knew, there was no magic within me—making me a complete abomination to everything she believed her daughter should possess. I didn’t own her penchant for darkness or her cruelty, only an extreme distaste for the place that was destined to be my home.
I was Mab’s only heir, but she was too far lost to her disillusion to see that I wouldneversit upon the throne. Even if she’d known about the magic Imelda kept at bay, the only way Mab would hand down her rule was if she lay dead and her soul was lost to the Void. She would have no control over her heir continuing to hold power in her death, and the Court of Shadows would return to the rightful line of inheritance.
The throne would belong to Caldris, and I wouldgladlyhand it over. I might not have known where I belonged or if such a place even existed, but I knew it wasn’t here.
Estrella entered the throne room behind me, everything in my being sensing her proximity. She and I were the same, some gnarled and twisted-up bond. Opposites, but in a way that felt like two halves of one whole.
I turned to the side, letting our eyes meet as she took in the situation before her. I watched that all-seeing gaze track over the male across from me. I’d seen him only in passing moments in the halls of Tar Mesa, aside from the two times he’d offered aid in the throne room, but that stare always seemed to study me too intently. Even now, with Mab to witness the curiosity that could never mean anything good, his head tilted to the side in thought, as if I were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.
Estrella’s eyes narrowed into a glare as she raised her chin higher, that protective streak making everything in her go taut. In this place of darkness, enemies were everywhere and nothing andno onewas innocent.
I resisted the urge to laugh, knowing that Estrella would think nothing of severing his head from his body if she thought he meant me harm. It wouldn’t matter to her that the man was Rheagan’s second-in-command—placed in his position by Mab herself to spy on her brother when he remained in the Summer Court. Etan’s mouth curved at one corner, the faintest hint of a smirk rising in response to the smile I quelled. His deep auburn hair hung around his shoulders in choppy, layered waves—his brown eyes cold and unyielding in spite of the amusement to the curve of his mouth.
As if he could feel Estrella’s disapproval, he turned to face her finally as she came to stand beside me. She stared down Etan and his master, my mother, like the queen I knew she was meant to be. One day she would have that title—would rule at Caldris’s side, not as a pretty ornament, but as an equal, because there was no one and nothing in this world that could put Estrella Barlowe into a cage.
I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. She’d been born to break her chains and use them to strangle her abusers.
“You summoned me?” she asked, refusing to bow where any others would quiver in their boots at the thought of showing Mab such disrespect. We hadn’t been in Tar Mesa for long, but I knew Estrella was the only one who could get away with such insolence.
She was a curiosity to Mab, a game she very much enjoyed playing with.
“I tire of having two incompetent children beneath my roof. You cannot seem to summon the magic that we both know you possess,magic that would make youuseful. Maeve cannot seem to summonanymagic at all. Both are unacceptable to me,” Mab said, running her tongue over her teeth in dissatisfaction. She made a sucking noise in the side of her cheek, as if her annoyance was not already obvious.
“Her name is Fallon,” Estrella corrected, holding Mab’s glare with one of her own. It would never cease to amaze me that after centuries of separation from her own flesh and bone, I was nothing more than something to be used. There was no love in Mab’s heart for her long-lost daughter.
Only disappointment.
“But I fail to see what you would like either of us to do. Magic cannot be forced. If it does not come when summoned, then perhaps we are not fit to control it,” Estrella continued, utilizing her unique ability to come very close to outright lying. I hadn’t retained that skill after my transformation upon arriving in Alfheimr. I had very much become defined by and limited to the rules that the Fae had to navigate, hinting further at the fact that we did not knowwhatEstrella was. Theonlyreason I’d been able to tell Mab I possessed no magic was because it was a half-truth.
There wassomethingstirring within me, but Imelda suppressed it before I could ever touch that magic and allow it to breathe.
Mab sneered and huffed a laugh at Estrella, a grim, bitter smile transforming her face. She should have been beautiful,wasbeautiful, but the ugliness within her shone through her every expression and the crazed, desperate look that always seemed to linger in her eyes. “I might have believed that to be true if I hadn’t heard rumors of all the things you’ve done. If I hadn’tseenthem in your memories and for myself, Little Mouse.” The Queen of Air and Darkness’s voice was low and soft, for she had no need to raise it to invoke terror in most who came into her presence.
“I think I have proven myself to be more than a mouse,” Estrella said, smiling in the face of what most feared. After her battle with the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, no one could deny that she’d proven herself to be far more than a rodent scurrying in the dark. I wrung my hands together, one fingertip touching the teardrop mark that bound Estrella and me to one another. I could only hope that some of her bravery would bleed into my skin, become mine as much as it was hers. Most of my life had been spent waiting and hiding, tolerating uncomfortable situations but never risking myself.
