No wonder. Brindalorns were vicious by all historical accounts—striped hide sharpened to points along its back, patches of its body armored in stone-like plates. Its eyes were pits of pale fire, its jaws wide enough to snap its prey in half. Nearly unkillable, born of cursed magic and a corrupted line of glimfangs, it hunted anything warm-blooded, and it never stopped once it picked up a scent.
“How did you defeat it?” I asked.
“It took every last drop of my Aine magic,” she said quietly, and I could feel her sadness at the loss. “Draining myself that way nearly killed me. I was almost gone when Rydian found me.”
“Wait. Did you say Rydian?” My hands tightened on her arms. “Rydian Nytherra saved you?”
She nodded. “He brought me here a few months ago.”
Her words stunned me. The idea that she’d been a prisoner here while Rydian pretended to care about me was a rageheating my blood, but I couldn’t let myself think about Rydian right now. Not when we needed to find a way out of here.
“I’m so glad we found one another,” I told her. “So much has happened that I have to tell you. And I want to hear more about your time in the south.” I dropped my voice low, leaning in so our captor couldn’t hear. “But first, we need to find a way out of here.”
“Out?” Amanti’s brows knitted. “Why would we do that?”
“You can fly us out and then we can?—”
Her expression fell so far that I stopped, bracing for what she was going to say. “My wings… They don’t carry me anymore,” she said quietly. “They might again, with time. But not yet.”
My chest caved. My mouth filled with bitter ash. Amanti—myAmanti, warrior of the Aine, chosen by the Fates, fierce, indomitable, untouchable—was earthbound.
“It’s okay.” I swallowed back my own panic at the idea of how helpless she was, how trapped we both were. I kept my voice low, hoping like Hel the midnight fae in the corner couldn’t hear me. “We’ll run. South, east—wherever it takes to get out of this gods-forsaken court. They’ve taken my swords, but I’ll find another weapon. I won’t leave you here.”
Her voice cut through my rush of words. “Aurelia.”
Something about the way she said my name made me stop.
Her hand, warm and soft, closed over mine. Her gaze didn’t waver as she said, “I’m here willingly.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me. My mouth opened, but no words came out. For a long, stuttering moment, I thought I’d misheard.
“What?”
Her tone was patient, calm, infuriatingly level. “I’m not a prisoner here. The Midnight Court is our friend.”
“No.” I shook my head so hard that strands of hair fell into my face. “You can’t mean that. Amanti, they drugged me. Locked me in. I— Why?” The word tore out of me, thin and broken. “Why would you want to stay here with these monsters?”
Her expression softened, and that terrified me most of all. She had never looked at me with pity. And now, she’d done it twice in the last two minutes. “Because Rydian Nytherra is my nephew.”
I blinked at her, stunned into silence. “Your…what?”
“My sister’s son,” she said evenly.
“That’s insane.” My laugh was brittle, too sharp. “That’s not—you never said—you never told me you had family?—”
“There are things,” Amanti said carefully, “that could not be spoken of until the time was right.”
The words transported me back to another confession. In another castle. Another time. I’d survived Heliconia’s curse on my people—leaving them all perpetually slumbering while I carried on with only the Aine to keep me company.
Seven years later, as she was dying, Sonoma had admitted the truth: that I was not the Summer fae daughter I’d been raised to believe.
I was the product of a forbidden romance between an Aine warrior and a Furiosity. With the blood of a Fairy and a demon god running in my veins. But more than that, I was the answer to an ancient prophecy, one which promised a darkness that would blot out the light. Heliconia.
Her obsession with power had been foretold Ages ago. And when she’d come—and so had I—the Fates saw their chance to balance the scales. And I became their Chosen One. Fates-blessed and deemed their own personal savior. Destined to destroy the Dark Queen. If and when I ever got around to figuring out how that was supposed to work.
I’d spent the first seven years of the curse protecting mysleeping kingdom from within Sunspire’s walls. Sonoma and the other Aine had provided a ward of protection, using their Fated-gifted magic, and for a time, it had been enough to keep us safe. But then that magic had begun to fail. The Fates had vanished from Menryth altogether, and their power waned in their chosen warriors.
I’d spent the last several weeks banished outside my home after Sonoma’s death, and her bargain with my uncles, the gods of Hel, had sealed the wards around the place. This time, more powerful and unbreakable than before. Until I found a way to break the curse, there would be nothing and no one in or out.
