“Oh, but it’s such fun. It gets so boring down here in the dark.” Aquila tilts her head to the side, and it creeps a littletoofar, reminiscent of an owl. “I love to taste the mating bonds. It makes me think of children.” She reaches out and twirls one of Rosalina’s curls around her finger. “We can’t have children down here. We’re not made like you. We’rebuilt.”
Rosalina’s face changes from anger to horror.
“Who are you people?” I growl. “Are you the Chasm Master?”
“No! No. I’m Aquila, priestess of the Elderblood.”
“Priestess? Who do you pray to?” I ask.
She holds a hand longingly up to the rocky ceiling. “Oh, I used to pray to the gods hanging in the sky. The moon and the sun and the great dancing lights. But they abandoned us, so now I pray to the darkness, because that’s never left me.” She turns in one fluid motion, eyes wide, smile crooked up her face. “You can pray to the dark too.”
“Enough of this! There’s only one question that matters,” Rosalina growls. “Do you serve Sira?”
“We do not serve anyone. We will not bow,” that deep, glacial voice says, and Faustrius steps forward. He removes his mask.
I narrow my eyes, observing his face. His skin, the color of blue slate, is weathered but in a way that appears distinguished. Outside the mask, the eyes appear less infernal and more like the embers of a hearth. He has high, jutting cheekbones, a firm jaw, and a mouth set in a grim line. Without the horns, he may well be considered handsome.
An echo begins through Aquila’s troops and is taken up by the underfae around us. “Chasm Master. Chasm Master. Chasm Master.”
“You. You’re their leader,” I say.
“Apologies for the deception. It was a name given to me and one I accept begrudgingly. We have awaited your arrival.”
I take a steadying breath. This was what I wanted: to meet with their leader. So far, this Faustrius has seemed a steady-tempered man. “Then let us be properly introduced. I am Keldarion, son of Erivor and Runa, High Prince of Winter. I seek understanding behind the assassination attempt and a peace between our peoples.”
Faustrius’s eyes fall to the Sword of the Protector. “Tell me, prince or king or whatever you are. Do you know this name? Thrainn. Thrainn the Merciful.”
“Of course,” I say lowly. “He was the first High Prince of Winter.”
Faustrius nods, his gaze drifting further and further away. “Thrainn did not like talking. Not as much as you, prince, pauper, king. This Thrainn wished for a vision of Winter that did not include the Elderblood. And he and that sword had the power to make it happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My people have walked this earth since the first so-called high rulers. And when we dared show our faces on the surface, Prince Thrainn thrust us back into the dark. Froze us. Encased us in ice. No care that we have hearts. That we long for the sun as any fae does. He froze us and left us.” Faustrius’s eyes shimmer, his voice raising to a dark cadence.
I take a step back. “No. There’s no record… A high ruler of Winter would never condemn a people?—”
Faustrius seems to grow taller. “He was disgusted by us. As they all were. For thousands of years, we remained in the ice. Until two and a half decades ago…the cataclysm freed us.”
Twenty-five years ago… A cataclysm in the ice.
Caspian ripping open the chasm.
I shake my head, trying to make sense of everything. “The world has long changed. Let us discuss?—”
“Discuss?” Faustrius roars. “There is nothing to be discussed! Your ancestor condemned us. Your people scorned us. For over twenty-five years, we’ve been eating moss and drinking ice. Long have we forgotten the feel of the cosmic light. Long have we forgotten the kiss of wind.”
Kel, Rosie whispers in my mind,this is bad. We have to act before it’s too late.
No. No, I can turn this around. There has to be something I can say. “Surely, we can come to terms?—”
“There will be no terms,” Faustrius says lowly, sadly. “Only vengeance.”
With a shrug, his mottled jacket falls to the ground, revealing armor, shining like black ice. He places his hand on a hilt at his side. My heart hammers at the sight. I’ve never seen a weapon of its kind before: a massive broadsword made of pure black steel.
No. Not steel. Steel doesn’t shimmer in this way, with cords of light running beneath the surface, like eels slipping in and out of a dark current.
But if it’s not forged of steel?—
