Beside me, Therin’s mount takes shape. His comes slower than mine. He hasn’t been free as long. The magic seeps out of him, coalescing into form with aching slowness. Where mine is moonlight given form, his is the darkness between the stars, with eyes of obsidian.
When he finally swings into the saddle, his jaw is tight. The summoning cost him more than he’ll ever admit.
“Ready?”
He answers by touching his heels to his steed’s flanks.
The forest blurs past, trees streaming by in dark ribbons. Our steeds move without sound, covering ground in ways that don’t obey the rules of mortal distance. They eat miles the way flames eat kindling. Each stride bends the world slightly, taking shortcuts through space that only exists when something like us moves through them.
If you heard their hoofbeats, you were already dead.That's what the humans used to say about us. Mothers used stories of my warriors to frighten children into obedience.No one outranthem. No one hid from them. And no one who saw them ride ever saw anything else again.
The stories were true, once. They'll be true again.
By sunset, the forest has given way to farmland. Neat rows of crops stretching toward the horizon, farmhouses glowing with lamplight, and roads cutting through the fields. We keep to the tree lines, the hedgerows, and the spaces between.
By moonrise, the palace sits on the horizon.
It’s larger than I remember. Sections have been added since I was last here. Towers that didn’t exist, walls that stretch in new directions. Human architecture sprawls where fae would soar, everything built outward instead of upward, everything afraid to leave the ground.
We slow at the edge of the fields, and let our steeds dissolve back into mist with a thought. In the darkness, two fae stand in human territory, preparing to walk into the seat of their power.
“How strong a glamour can you make?” Therin asks quietly.
I test the magic. “Strong enough to pass casual observation. Maybe more, if no one looks too hard.”
“And if someonedoeslook hard?”
“Then we kill them and keep going.”
His mouth curves. “Just like old times.”
I weave the glamour around us both. Not invisibility. That will take far more power than I can spare yet. Instead, it’s a suggestion.We belong here. There’s nothing unusual about us. Look away.
Human eyes slide past, dismissing what they see.
The palace grounds are well guarded. Patrols move along the walls in predictable patterns, torches marking their progress. But torchlight creates shadows, and shadows have always been easy for us.
We scale the outer wall where the patrol pattern leaves agap. My fingers find holds in the stone, muscles burning in ways they shouldn’t after such a minor exertion. My body is still weak, remembering how to be what it was.
Inside, the glamour does most of the work.
A servant passes without glancing our way. Guards share a joke at their post. We wait in the shadows until they’re distracted, then pass behind them close enough to touch. One of them laughs, a low sound that scrapes against my ears. The urge to silence him is almost physical—a blade across his throat, the look of surprise as he realizes too late what kind of predator has been watching him.
I let it pass. There will be time for killing later.
Finding her chambers is the hardest part.
Before we left the hollow, I reached through the bond again. She was awake, sitting on the edge of her bed with her wounded arm cradled against her chest. Through her eyes, I noted what I could. The view from her window, the layout of the room, the position of the door. East wing, third floor, I guessed based on what I could see of the grounds below, and the direction of the sun.
It’s enough to narrow the search.
Endless hallways branch into more hallways. Stairs lead to identical floors. Doors that all look the same, all leading into rooms I don’t care about. But we move methodically, checking each hallway until we reach the east wing’s upper floor.
Hers is the third one we check.
Therin positions himself against the wall, watching both directions. I test the handle. It’s locked. I push a thread of magic into the mechanism until it clicks.
The door swings open, and I go in alone.
