“Oh, I assure you, this has been anything but boring,” Lady Mossi said as I gnashed my teeth, resisting the urge to kick Einar in the shin. She tapped her bottom lip with the pad of her index finger, deliberating. “Helping you two would be a direct action against the king, so it’s not a decision I can make lightly.”
I bit my own bottom lip, feeling as if this opportunity was slipping through my fingers. Grasping for something, anything, I blurted out the only thing that came to mind.
“Does the name Gelsyne mean anything to you?”
The entire atrium went still, as if divine fingers had reached in and plucked this moment, this scene, straight out of time. I held my breath as Lady Mossi stared at me, wondering if I’d said the wrong thing.
“Gelsyne is my granddaughter,” Lady Mossi finally said, her voice sharp as crushed glass. “She died in the Dragon-Fae Wars. What would her name mean to a youngling like you?”
I swallowed hard, feeling Einar’s eyes boring into me, but I pressed on. “General Slaugh called my mother by that name earlier, before she sent me away. She used powerful earth magic, magic that only a Greater Fae could have wielded.” Even Dune wouldn’t have been able to send me that far away, that fast. And if my mother really was a Greater Fae, that made her a member of House Ithir and a relative of Lady Mossi. “I… I think that might be her real name.”
Lady Mossi’s eyes filled with tears. She was out of her throne in an instant, closing the distance between us, taking my pale hands into her dark ones. The scents of sage and honey enveloped me in an instant as her amber eyes searched my face, clearly looking for traces of earth fae heritage.
Traces I’d never managed to find, no matter how hard I’d looked.
Finally, she cleared her throat and stepped back. “I find it hard to believe that Gelsyne would have birthed a child with no earth magic of her own,” she said, “but if she raised you, then you are her daughter regardless of where your bloodline comes from.” Her eyes hardened with determination. “If General Slaugh has my granddaughter in his clutches, I will do whatever it takes to get her back.”
Hope surged within me, a brilliant ray of warmth that pierced shadowy fear and uncertainty that had clung to my insides since this started. “So you’ll help us rescue her?”
“Yes.” She gripped my shoulder, and though her fingers dug in hard enough to bruise, the touch was a comfort nonetheless. “You have my word.”
14
Lady Mossi
The bolt of Lady Mossi’s bedroom door tumbled with a loudclickas she turned the key in the lock. The sound seemed to echo in the loud chamber, and she jumped a little, like a youngling caught with her hand in the honeycomb jar.
It was a ridiculous reaction, considering that she was the queen of Domhain, safe and secure in her own chambers, in her own castle.
Of course, she wasn’t allowed to use the title ofqueen.Her family was forced to drop all royal titles, eons ago, when the dragons first invaded Hearthfyre. The other fae realms—earth, water, air—had come together into one realm in order to solidify their forces and band together against the monsters who had slaughtered their fire fae brethren.
It had been Lady Mossi’s own grandfather, King Edrin, who had convinced the others. We would be stronger together, he’d argued, stronger than we would trying to fight the dragons from three fronts.
And for a long time, that was true.
But things are different now,Lady Mossi mused as she crossed the vast space, passing the sitting area, the bathing chamber, the enormous bed piled high with pillows, fragrant, blossoming vines hanging from the top of the gilt four-poster frame. The dragons were gone, and King Aolis had only a tentative hold on Ediria, too tied up in fighting off the shadow magic infection to pay attention to the everyday minutiae of actually running a kingdom. Meanwhile, the earth kingdom continued to supply food to the rest of Ediria, even though the water and air fae were no longer holding up their end of the agreement, or at least not with the frequency that was once promised.
Lady Mossi pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the headache brewing there. The headache that crept up on her every time she thought about the injustice that was the power balance in our kingdom.
Like everywhere else in the castle, an abundance of plants thrived in her bedchambers. The atrium boasted a wide variety—trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers, vines, magical, decorative, poisonous, and practical—and was meant to show off the verdant wealth and power of the earth realm.
But the plants that grew here were her personal favorites, and she kept them for her pleasure alone.
Sitting down in front of her vanity, Lady Mossi reached out to touch one of the flowers blooming along the vine that clung to the bleached wooden frame of her mirror. The petals, a shade of violet so dark that they were nearly black, opened in response to her skimming fingers, revealing the starry brightness within. A thick perfume wafted out, and she breathed it in deeply, allowing the narcotic fragrance to work its way through her system, calming her frayed nerves.
Gelsyne is alive.
Anger and joy blazed inside Lady Mossi. Unlike the other fae races, earth fae were incredibly fertile, and she’d produced many children. But out of all the grandchildren they’d given her, Gelsyne had been her favorite. Her fascination with flora had bonded them, and the two had spent long hours in the atrium, tending to the plants, discussing all the different properties of the flowers and herbs and ways they could be used, both to heal and to hurt.
She’d grieved when King Cyrian, Aolis’s predecessor, had summoned her to court to serve as Princess Olette’s companion. But Gelsyne had wanted it, and Lady Mossi had never had the heart to refuse her anything.
When Lady Mossi heard that Gelsyne had been killed, every single plant in the atrium had wilted beneath the devastating weight of her anguish.
It had taken her years to build it back up to its former glory. And now, to hear that Gelsyne been alive all this time, and had never once reached out to her?
It was like a poisonous thorn, shoved straight into the center of her barely-healed heart.
Lady Mossi took in another breath, settling herself a little more, then pulled open one of the vanity drawers. Inside a small box of sandalwood lay a primal stone, but unlike the one at her throat, this one was corrupted, dark shadow magic swirling within its circular depths.
