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The Queen gave the duke—or possibly a duke’s brother—a nod of appreciation. At her side, the little Princess mirrored the gesture, saying in her soft lilting voice, “Thank you, Lord Cameron. Your generosity is much appreciated. You have my leave to enjoy the party.”
A Lord? Oh, I was way off, Fey thought with a sigh.
After their trip to the training yards this morning, she’d barely made it back in time for Princess Amalia’s party. It was a meaningless show of strength to require the Blades to attend, and Fey wished she’d had an assignation like Lilith just as an excuse to miss this. But, alas, she hadn’t had an assignation from Dameon all week, so she was stuck here tonight, standing with Joy behind the Queen’s throne. Twin specters, silent and deadly.
Silent, deadly, and very bored specters.
The party itself filled the expansive throne room, spilling out into the hallways beyond. Tables lined the white marble walls, full of food, sweets, and games. Princess Amalia’s peers were gathered in all corners, voices shrill with excitement as they enjoyed the festivities and food. Their guardians, after paying due homage to their Queen and presenting their gifts to the Princess, watched on with wry amusement, gossiping among themselves and picking at the expansive spread of food around them.
It seemed cruel that the Princess was stuck here on the dais, receiving their well wishes and their gifts but unable to join in her own party. Fey couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen the Princess play with someone her age. Wasn’t sure she ever had.
Another Lord approached the dais, and Fey was pleased to find she recognized this one. Lord Cyanean—or Lord Cinnamon, as Joy teasingly called the ruddy-faced, red-haired man. Joy’s eyes flicked sideways to hers for the briefest moment, and Fey knew they were sharing the same memory. Beneath her mask, she grinned.
It would be another few hours of this before they would be dismissed. Joy, at least, never seemed to mind guard duty—playing the role of an object, propped up behind the Queen like a piece of art—but Fey found it mindlessly dull. And Lilith, somehow, always managed to find ways out of it.
Traitor, Fey thought.
The line of well-wishers and present bearers continued their procession to the throne, showing no signs of slowing. It had already been hours, and guests were still arriving and joining the line. Boredom gnawed on Fey’s attention, and she found herself watching the Queen and her heir if only for something to occupy herself.
Princess Amalia did look a little like Dameon, Fey thought, chewing her lip. In a certain light, her brown hair was a near enough match to his, and her skin had a more golden cast than her mother’s. But if she was anything like her mother, that brown hair wouldn’t last much longer. Queen Edelin’s hair had begun to fade and lighten in her late teens, and by her mid-twenties, her hair was a perfect snow white. Now, in her early forties, it struck a contrast with her lightly lined skin, giving her the ethereal appearance of a woman both aged, and unageing, young and old all at once. The hair was a throwback to some of the oldest and strongest Queens, Lilith had told her once. Proof that she could trace her ancestry back as a direct line to the First Witch Queen.
Queen Edelin was beautiful and intimidating, and the combination of her regal air, white hair, and dark eyes reminded Fey of an ermine in its winter coat. Princess Amalia could be an ermine, too, one day. But she was young, and she still had the brown cast of an ermine in the summer. She was a soft, fragile thing, completely lacking the hard steel of her mother. It was hard to imagine she would be Queen one day, gentle as she was.
The procession continued, and momentarily lost in her thoughts, Fey didn’t notice the danger in the room until he reached the dais and spoke.
“Thirteen years old,” said a cold, dignified voice. Fey tensed, instincts flaring to life. Next to her, standing at the Queen’s other side, she felt Joy do the same. “What a magical year, Princess. I wish you the joy of it.”
Salvatore deSanguine spoke with a lilting accent from a time long before Witches ruled the realm. Three hundred years ago, after the War of the Fallen had left him the strongest remaining patriarch of the great Vampire families, he had declared himself a king, or so the stories said. As far as Fey knew, he still called himself that, and only a man as stubborn and arrogant as the Vampire King would be foolish enough to attend a royal event while wearing a crown.
It was a simple thing—a thin band of iron resting on his silver-gray hair—but the meaning was clear. Salvatore deSanguine still considered himself the Fallen King, even now, so many generations later.
And he saw fit to rub it in the royal family’s face at every opportunity.
Salvatore didn’t kneel before the Queen, but he did hand Princess Amalia a box wrapped in gold paper, ignoring the pile of presents at her side. Amalia reached her hand out to take it without thinking, blind to any danger.
The air in the throne room stilled and went quiet as Fey drew her blade. It made a sharp metallic noise as she unsheathed it, and the sound cut through the din of the party, silencing the merriment. Joy hadn’t drawn her blades, not yet, but she took a step forward toward the Vampire King, her hands resting on the hilts.
Salvatore glanced up at them, surprised, and seeing Fey’s blade in her hand, he smiled. If the Queen were an ermine, Salvatore was a shark. His hair was silver to her white, and while he was unmistakably handsome in the hard-lined way of most Vampires, everything about him screamed danger.
The Queen’s gaze drifted from the box in his hand, which he still held out for the Princess, to Fey’s blade, before she casually shook her head. The blade disappeared back into its sheath without a sound, and Fey stepped back to position, returning to her statue-like state.
“Go ahead,” the Queen ordered her daughter, nodding to the present Salvatore offered.
With hands shaking only slightly, the Princess took the box from him.
“It’s a necklace,” Salvatore said. But he wasn’t addressing the Princess or even the Queen. He spoke to Fey, and she nearly raised her hand to make sure her mask was still fastened. He looked at her, as though he could see straight through the mask to her face. “You may open it if you wish to check?”
“That won’t be necessary,” the Queen said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. But Salvatore didn’t leave. His cold silvery eyes looked slowly from Fey, taking her in as though memorizing every part of her, then to Joy, and then finally to the Queen.
“Aren’t there normally four of them?” he asked, his voice casual. And hungry. He smiled as he spoke, wide enough to show his set of fangs, sharp and lethal. He was a predator circling, looking for any weakness, any avenue of attack.
“Of course,” the Queen said. Nothing in her voice or demeanor gave anything away. “They are on assignment this evening. Keeping the peace of the realm.”
“Naturally,” Salvatore replied. His smile widened, and Fey’s fingers itched to draw her blade again. “Enjoy your special day, Princess,” he said, inclining his head to Amalia. And then he was gone, joining the rest of the party as though he were just another guest. The line moved forward, and the Queen’s twin sister Cassandra replaced him. Fey breathed out slowly, forcing her shoulders to relax, watching the Vampire until he disappeared in the crowd, heading toward the exit.
“Niece,” Cassandra crooned, placing her gift on the pile. Though twins, Queen Edelin and her sister Cassandra were near opposites, in both appearance and power. If Edelin was made of snow and ice, Cassandra was made of coal. Her hair was raven black, and she stood nearly four inches taller than her sister.
The real difference, though, and the reason Edelin sat on the throne while Cassandra knelt, lay in their gifts. Edelin could command all four pure elements—holding mastery over Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Cassandra held power over only two, and even in them, her gifts were weak. The royal line followed strength, and only those blessed with all four elements held the right to rule. If not for that one thing, that one difference between them, Cassandra would have been Queen.
