And Amarantha just put it around my throat.
“I invoke my right as Seelie Queen.” Her chin lifts with triumph.
“What does that even mean?” Ash’s voice grinds with fury from somewhere behind me.
Just hearing her, alive, angry, fighting, sends a spark through my chest. She’s okay. Furious, but okay.
“The Summer Sword.” Amarantha pronounces the words like they’re a death sentence. Because for me, they might be. “The Seelie Queen’s sworn protector. Bound to her will.”
“And?” Ash presses.
“The Summer Sword is the Seelie Queen’s bodyguard. For lack of a better word.” Moros sounds like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Bound to her in ways that make consort bonds look like suggestions.”
No. No, this is impossible.
“What did you do?” Ash’s voice could kill.
But whatever this means, whatever ancient magic Amarantha has invoked, it’s already enacted. Already rooted. The binding is firm and real and wrapped around my will like chains I can’t see.
I cannot move.
My eyes close. I think I’m going to be sick.
“I simply took back what was owed me.” Her nails break skin, blood welling around her fingertips. “All these years, I’ve built my court carefully. Deliberately.”
What she isn’t saying? She refused to allow what happened to Tatiana to happen to her.
I remember the stories. Amarantha was Tatiana’s handmaid. Her confidant. She turned the queen’s entire inner circle against her, one by one, poisoning loyalties until there was no one left to trust. Then she took the crown and killed them all.
After that, she never allowed an inner court to form around her. Never trusted anyone close enough to betray her.
Until now.
Why now,Amarantha?What changed?
“And I’ve decided to start with my sword.” Her voice lilts as her eyes flicker to mine, drinking in my helplessness.
Her nails dig deeper. Magic flares around us, cold and suffocating, and with the next breath we’re somewhere else entirely, torn through space and deposited in a new room.
Still in the Unseelie Court. Her private chambers.
I don’t stumble as we settle. Don’t react when she breaks her nails off inside my flesh, leaving them embedded in my chest like tiny knives.
The burn grounds me.
My hatred of this woman drives me.
She steps close. She’s always been a slip of a thing, small, dainty by Fae standards. Unassuming. Easy to underestimate.
That’s how she’s survived this long. That’s how she killed a queen.
All of the courts underestimated her. Including me.
“You may speak.” Her voice drips honey.
“What game are you playing?” My anger coats every syllable.
“Game?” She laughs, cold and merciless. “No game, my Summer Sword.” She bites her lip again, that nervous habit that used to seem innocent and now looks calculated. “Did you think defying me wouldn’t come with punishment?”
