Hoooo boy, that was a different basket of crazy.
Not that I care. My personal goal is to destroy these games of power. They only divide the fae and make everything worse.
But saying that out loud would make Skye guzzle all the antacids in her mint tin in one go. So, I kept the conversation a little more…limited.
“Yeah, I’m counting on the other monarchs playing mind games and skipping my banquet,” I said. “That’s why I’m actually planningfunstuff. But with my personal guests it’s still going to be a pretty large party.”
I helped Skye pull the oversized door open, then let Indigo through. When I turned around to close the door behind us, I saw Lady Chrysanthe.
She was sitting on one of the crumbling stone bannisters, the picture-perfect night fae with her blond hair, tapered ears, olive toned skin, and expressive hazel green eyes. She was wearing a dress—shealwayswore a dress—that was artfully ruffled and accented with fresh flowers, and was gazing up at the moon like a heroine from a tragic ballad.
I furrowed my eyebrows as I studied her.
Lady Chrysanthe had been downright antagonistic to me for most of our acquaintance. She and her family thought she would be named the next Night Monarch, and they hadn’t taken kindly to a half human occupying the throne instead.
But she’d been…weird ever since I’d uncovered a plot laid out by one of her so called “friends” who tried to take her down by making it look like she was attempting to killme. Yeah, fae went for nine layers of confusing with their plots and schemes. It’s what made them stretch the truth and interpret it differently since they couldn’t outright lie
I’d seen her at least half a dozen times since I’d been married/crowned. She was always standing or sitting by herself, looking beautiful and soulful. She must have had some kind of goal in mind—fae didnotact without a reason—but there was nothing logical about her actions that I could see.
Fae are weird.
I shut the door and followed Skye and Indigo through the massive ramshackle ballroom.
Indigo held her two orbs of magical light over her head, illuminating the inch of dust that coated the place, the broken glass spattered everywhere, and the gouges in the fancy wooden flooring which was cut in zigzagging patterns.
Most of the castle was decrepit and dirty. Only a few rooms were kept relatively clean—and I was certain it was only because they were required by “tradition.” Ugh.
“Here we are,” Skye announced after leading me through a puzzling maze of hallways. She stopped outside a set of fancy glass doors—which were framed with polished wood and covered by wrought-iron moon and star designs—and nudged them open.
Magic, triggered by our presence, lit up the magic-fed wall sconces, brightening the place up and creating spot lights on all the glass cases arranged in the space.
There were so many of those glass cases and displays that it felt like a museum.
A single glance through the wood paneled room revealed weapons, armor, a few faded robes and dresses, some books, and a huge variety of magical artifacts, the closest being a monkey statue with glittering jade eyes, and the biggest being a gigantic claw that hung on the wall and was almost as tall as I was.
Skye expectantly looked to me, and I obliged her.
“Wow—this is really cool.” I slipped far enough into the room to admire the row of halberds bolted to a wall. “The craftsmanship on this stuff is incredible.”
“Elf work,” Skye said, sounding greatly satisfied. “Though those halberds were made by dwarves, if I recall correctly.”
While the four major supernatural races were werewolves, vampires, wizards, and fae, there were lots of less populated species—like dwarves, dragon shifters, trolls, etc.
Trolls, pixies, and the like were technically fae, so they swore themselves to a Court which they served and in return were protected by.
Intheory.
The wizards had their own subspecies—like the oracles, hunters, and slayers—and the werewolves typically spoke for most of the shifters. Except the dragon shifters, anyway.
There used to be elves, but they died out over a century ago—it was around then that magic started to die out, too, and the various supernatural races stopped working together as each one struggled for its survival.
It was only relatively recently that we’d even remotely started to work together, and that was all because our community had outed ourselves to the humans. It had happened before I was born, but not much before then—supposedly the upper crust supernaturals looked at human pop culture and saw how popular vampires and werewolves were, and decided it was the ideal time to reveal ourselves.
The humans didn’t mind us—mostly because together the supernatural community did everything we could to appear beautiful and interesting rather than cutthroat and desperate like we really were.
But no one wanted the humans to fear us—outnumbered as we were, they could wipe us off the face of the planet.
“The original king’s artifacts are down here.” Skye strode to the far end of the room, her stilettos clicking on the floor. “I think you will enjoy seeing the real thing, instead of the drawings in your textbooks.”
