"Her ladyship's retching. Not dying," Soraya replies. "And her guards will bring the local herb woman to tend her. She'll recognize the smell of Monksflower, and diagnose her with a nice peaceful two weeks in bed to recover. Perfect amount of time for us to get into the court, steal the Dragon's Heart and get out."
"Oh, of course. An easy little trot," I reply snidely. "Nothing to worry about at all."
"Move," Soraya whispers harshly, shoving me in the back. "We haven't got all day."
Poisoning a Fae princess is probably the lowest I'm prepared to sink to avenge my family and protect my people.
Probably.
But then the Lady of Greenslieves has the one thing I need to pull off this entire caper.
An invitation.
The Dragon's Heart is one of the most powerful relics ever crafted, the stories say. It anchors the Court of Dreams to the mortal plane, so that the court can come and go at will, the Wraith King told me. Strong enough to break the curse on my people and vicious enough to turn its wrath upon the Alliance of Light.
We'd no longer be trapped beyond the Shadowfangs. No longer cursed to a miserable half-life.
But if I succeed, this will mean war, and I'm not certain how I feel about that.
A bloody war ahead of me, all for the price of my soul. I shouldn't care. The fae hunt my kind. Long ago, I might have dreamed that they'd spare me for the half of my blood that belongs to them, but those dreams have long since turned to dust.
I'm not fae.
Not with even a whisper of my father's taint in my veins. I'm the monster that cost my mother her life, to be hunted and destroyed.
They'll never forget it.
"Stay here and guard the stairs," I mutter.
"Like a little servant bitch."
"You wanted to come."
Rolling my eyes, I step into the shadows beneath the stairs, and twist through them, until I'm slipping into the shadows inside the Lady Merisel's room.
This is the fun part.
The room opens up around me, draped in veils of darkness that steal all but the brightest light from the world. Nobody can see me here in the shadows, though I dare not step into the patch of sunlight that gilds the wooden floors.
Shadow Walking's an old, rare gift passed down through my father's bloodlines. Few wield it these days. Lucky me.
We weren't always wraiths.
Over three thousand years ago, the Wars of Shadow and Light obliterated most of my people. Those that survived were exiled from the Fair Lands, and found shelter in the harsh, inhospitable mountains they call the Shadowfangs.
The Forbidden, they name us, though we once bore another.
Unseelie.
The Dark Courts of fae and beastkin alike, where no fae was too hideous, too twisted, too imperfect, to be accepted. Unlike the shining, glittering Courts of Seelie, where perfection is revered, and the powerful rule with an iron fist.
Our imperfections cost us.
King Anselm of the Court of Dawn was the first to proclaim us tainted. He urged the Seelie Courts to wipe our "blight" from the world, and formed the Light Alliance against us.
The Unseelie fought to hold onto their lands, but Anselm fashioned a powerful weapon that drained the fae magic from our flesh and cost us the war.
One by one, the Unseelie fell, until my grandfather, Prince Rakulh, used his darker magics to curse us into a new form. Not quite fae. Not quite Unseelie. Faded from our past grandeur, our immortal lives forever lost to us, along with our most dangerous magic.
