“If I may, m’lord,” Claudius steps closer, lowering his voice, “there are people in the city who will fight. Whowantto fight against the Green Rule. A resistance is brewing.”
The Green Rule—that’s what Kairyn’s calling his occupation of Summer, sanctioned by the Below. I look around. Most of the soldiers are occupied with ushering people into the arena. Inside, Kairyn has imprisoned half the legionnaires of Summer, forcing them to fight in his twisted games. The rest of our army is imprisoned in Soltide Keep, the prominent fortress in Hadria and my childhood home. Whatever resistance Claudius is speaking of would be comprised only of the common folk of Summer. I can’t risk my people like that. “No one hates this more than me, but it’s not the right time. It would only get more people killed.”
Claudius nods but can’t hide the disappointment on his face as he slinks back into the crowd. He doesn’t understand. I can’t lead anyone. I don’t even have my magic.
There’s a faint crackle, like an echo beneath my skin, but I can’t summon anything. It’s been too long since I’ve returned to Castletree. The damned Prince of Thorns stole my token and even being in my own realm isn’t enough to restore the Blessing.
Another roar echoes from the crowd, and I peer through the pillars, catching a glimpse of the sacred sands of the arena. The stands rise around them in an oval shape. The Emperor’s Box sits at the very top, an elevated seating area with the best view of the fights. Within the box floats a glowing, brilliant object. The Bow of Radiance. Kairyn has it.
The way he’s treating this sacred space, this sacred object … It’s perverse. My people, my legionnaires, are forced to fight in his games and if one gladiator or a team wins three matches, they are allowed the privilege to try and wield the Queen’s own bow.
Everyone’s burned up on contact with it.
The only way to wield the bow is to wear the Queen’s token, and that was lost five hundred years ago when she left the Enchanted Vale.
Leaving the arena, I turn a corner and come face to face with someone whocouldsave the city.
A mural of my family painted onto the wall of the Sun Colosseum. Or my family how it once was before the War of Thorns. There were seven of us, and we were so close. My mother married twice, a custom common among fae in Summer. They weren’t mates, but there was so much love between all three of them. My two fathers treated each other like brothers, and bothadored my mother, Sabine. In the mural, Delphie is a newborn, and Mother cradles her tightly. My mother has her blond hair curled in loose knots around her face. Even in the painting, her gaze is still intense, eyes like chips of turquoise. Gauzy pink fabric twists down her tan arms.
Delphie’s birth father, Ovidius, stands over them. He may not have been my blood, but he was still my father. The mural depicts him just as I remember, tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown skin and full lips in a stern line. His long, black hair is pulled into tight braids that fall over his chest. Ovidius taught me to fight and to know when patience is warranted.
On his other side is Decimus, his other biological child. A smile brightens on my face looking at him. I can hear his voice offering advice, teasing me, or giving commentary on fights in the arena. The dimple in Decimus’s cheek is straight from my mother Sabine’s face, while his dark brown skin, black hair, and shining eyes all came from Ovidius. I see so much of him in Delphie now.
My fingers trail over the mural, to the other side of my mother, to Cenarius, my birth father. His long blond hair is depicted in thick curls. He was always in the ocean, always finding some way to make us laugh. I learned all of my best jokes from him.
My hand drops before I let it touch Damocles. It would feel like a betrayal to even do so after what I let happen to his city.
What I let happen tohim.
Damocles, the eldest-born son of Cenarius and Sabine. Damocles the hero. Damocles the wise. Damocles the perfect.
He stands there with the seashell token of the Queen around his neck and a stern line to his mouth. I don’t think I ever heard him laugh. There isn’t time for jokes when you’ve got a realm to run.
“It’s the royal family!” a light voice says, and a young girl runs up to the mural. Quickly, I back away behind an archway, but for some reason I can’t help but watch.
The girl places her hand over the image and whispers, “When is Damocles coming back to save us?”
A woman walks up and places a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Damocles is dead, you know this. Daytonales is the High Prince now.”
The young girl tilts her head at the mural. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Summer has not seen him in a long time.”
“Maybe Princess Delphia will come back and save us.”
My heart near shatters in my chest.
A shadow falls over the girl and her mother, and it’s suddenly so quiet. The kind of quiet that only fear brings.
The crowd parts as Kairyn struts forward, tall and broad, adorned by his metal helm and a swishing black cape. Fuck, the bastard must be sweating buckets—just more proof of his insufferable pride. Maybe if I’m lucky he’ll boil away in that walking chamber pot.
Dozens of Spring soldiers flank him. Even if they didn’t, there isn’t a single person in this city that could fight him and win.
Not while he wields Spring’s Blessing.
I pull my hood lower over my brow, resisting every urge to rush into the street and confront him. To demand to know where Rosalina is. Order him to let her go.
But I’ll be no use to Rosie dead.
