Page 52
“Was it like this when you did the heir thing?” I ask, and my voice comes out smaller than I mean for it to. “Did you battle through shit or was it just pro-forma because you were born into the ruling line?”
My rockstar shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Daybreak—or should I say, my father—prefers psychological torture. We had to run a labyrinth of sunlight and shadows, and if you fucked up, you’d forget who you were for days, if you were unlucky, permanently. One of my cousins went into the challenge with a large group of us and never came out. My siblings and I were much better prepared because we lived with Oliver’s wrath on the daily.”
Khol’s face turns thunderous as he spits, “That’s some bullshit. You and your siblings were obviously the heirs. Why bother with that torture? It wasn’t needed.”
Rev’s smile is thin as wire as he shrugs again, pretending it doesn’t matter to him. “They call it ‘proving worthiness’. I call it ‘thinning the herd’ with extra paperwork.”
“Your father wanted to make certain the only possible heirs to the throne were ones he’d ground up, so no one would rise up,” Dezi clarifies. “So he made certain all the others in your generations were too damaged to try.”
“Yep, that’s dear old dad—always thinking ahead.”
I suck in a quiet breath as I add Oliver Puck to the list of shit I’m going to deal with after we finish our current quest and save Midnight.
The list is getting far too long for my liking.
We round what I hope is the final corner, and the path ends in a wall of thorns. There’s a shimmer in the air—a force field, or maybe just a really aggressive glamour. The only way through is forward, and the only person who can open it is me, I’d wager.
“Ready to bust out of this joint?” asks Tiernan wryly. “I sure as fuck am.”
“We shall see,” I say with confidence I don’t feel.
I step up to the wall, and the mark on my hand pulses. The shimmer grows brighter, and I see faces inside it: my mother, for a split second, then Khol, then all of us, but fractured and weird, like we’re being viewed through a thousand broken lenses. I press my palm to the thorns, and the world flashes white.
When I can see again, the hedges are gone. The others are beside me, intact but shaken. The moon is full overhead, so close it looks like it’s about to crash into the earth. In front of us is another clearing, this time with a tree at the center of it. It’s old, black, and ringed with blue fire at its base. The roots are above ground, snaking out like the arms of an octopus, and each one is studded with crystal fragments that pulse in time with my mark.
Khol lets out a low whistle. “These bitches are just begging to be digested, aren’t they?”
Rev is already cataloguing every feature, like a nerd at a museum. “That’s the Worldroot. Every court has one, but Midnight’s is supposed to be the most—” He stops, staring at the tree like he’s seeing a ghost.
“What?” I say.
He points. “Look at the trunk.”
I do. It’s covered in carvings—some ancient, some fresh. But what catches my eye is a pattern that runs from the base to the highest visible branch. There’s a sequence of crescents, full moons, new moons, and gibbous moons all inlaid with silver. At the dead center is a space, empty except for a faint glow.
I know, without being told, that’s where my mark goes.
Dezi’s voice is a whisper, but it carries. “Don’t touch it until you’re ready. This is the endgame. Once it starts, there’s no stopping.”
Tiernan steps closer, his arm brushing mine. “If you want to bail, this is the last chance.”
I look at all of them. Khol, who’d die before he showed fear, and Revelin, trying to play it cool while he holds his breath. Dezi, unreadable except for the faintest line of concern between his brows, and Tier, grimacing as he waits for me to make a move.
These men are my future, and they’re all in with a destiny that was assigned to me. I can’t let them down, nor can I let this bullshit continue at Midnight. Finishing this means we can close out the quest to find out who murdered my guardians—this time and likely every time—and then I can come back to right everything that’s wrong here.
“Let’s do this,” I say, and I mean it.
We approach the tree together, and I don’t look back.
Twenty-Six
FIADH
I’ve always hated the smell of anticipation—it’s coppery and sharp, like the nosebleed after a sucker punch. The Worldroot clearing has that scent and more. My skin is crawling with magic and every breath is costing me more than oxygen, as it increases with each step I take towards the damn thing. The last hedge parts as I’m almost there, not gracefully, but like someone tearing open a seam that’s been stitched shut for centuries. The opening is a perfect oval, ragged at the edges, and right in the center of it is a shimmer. It’s blue-white again, vibrating at a frequency that makes my teeth ache. I know, even before Rev opens his mouth, that it’s bad news.
I cannot stress enough how much I’m going to tear this shit apart if I have to come back and take the damn throne here.
“It’s stripping glamours,” he says in confusion. “It’ll rip every shield and borrowed spell down to the bone. I don’t know why they’d need this; it feels unnecessary because those who were raised in Faerie wouldn’t need a glamour to approach their Root.”
