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The wraith fae raised an arm, covered in tattered, soiled clothing, squinting at the light. One of his horns was broken and one of his eyes had been gouged out, a large scar trailed over the puckered flesh of his socket and down his face.
“Keffa?” My voice was hoarse with emotion as I wondered if the thin, pale gray fae peering up at me with one orange eye could possibly be my former mentor and dearest friend from so long ago.
“By the gods,” came his deep raspy voice, “is that you, my boy?”
“It’s me, Keffa,” I answered, joy and desperate relief making me move quickly.
I set the torch in the sconce beside the door and found the keys on the opposite wall. I quickly unlocked the door and pushed open the heavy, creaking panel. He hadn’t moved from the floor as I approached, extending his hand for me to help him up.
I hauled him carefully to his feet, finally recognizing the proud lines of my friend’s face. His features had sharpened from starvation during his incarceration. I expected to be scorned for having taken so long, for leaving him to rot in this dismal hell. I even expected madness to shine back at me from the depths of his one good eye. What I did not expect was the wide smile as he gripped both my shoulders or the words he spoke.
“You did it, didn’t you? You killed him.”
“I did, Keffa. Your Vayla was right.”
His eye slipped closed. “Then she did not die in vain.”
“No, my friend. She did not.”
He opened his eye, and it seemed to shine even brighter here in the dark, reminding me of the intelligent fae who’d taught me so much in my youth.
His expression was tight and grave, his voice gruff as he said, “Then let us begin the work undone. Let’s put you on your throne, Gollaya.”
Chapter 5
UNA
I pacedthe bedchamber I’d been put in days ago. Gollaya had tossed me in that small parlor and left me there with two guards outside the door, I hadn’t seen him since. For some time, I heard the echoing yells of fighting in the palace halls, the marching of feet, calls of orders by one wraith fae to another, then eventually silence.
I’m not sure how long I stayed in that dark parlor, but I’d drifted off in a chair, awoken by the door unlatching and the bright streak of light through the opening door.
The wraith fae with two horns, his head shaved on the sides with a long, braided tail down his back stepped inside. Pullo was his name.
“Follow me, my lady.”
For a moment, I was shocked with how respectfully he’d spoken to me. I worried what would become of me now. Gollaya obviously had staged a coup to kill his father and to take the crown himself.
Gollaya.
A shiver trembled down my body. I’d never known that the young wraith fae who’d saved me from certain death in that dungeon had been the lost son of our enemy, King Xakiel. The Prince of Northgall had saved me from that dungeon. Back then, I’d thought he must be a high noble, related to the wraith fae royal family. His unusual eyes told me as much. But I never knew he was the lost prince.
Baelynn had told me there had been rumors that King Xakiel had killed his only son and heir for some unknown reason, while ambassadors had reported there were tales that he’d fled the palace and was still alive somewhere.
It had never mattered because our sole enemy had been King Xakiel for these past five years of war. The war my father started when I’d returned home battered and bruised, my luminescent white wings cut off.
My wings fluttered at my back at the memory. When they had grown back, I’d believed it a miracle of the gods. Lumera was shining her divine light upon me. But as they unfurled—at first the deepest purple giving way to black as they dried and stretched bigger—I knew I’d been cursed. Besides being the shade of the palace where I’d been tortured, they were useless. I could not fly.
And here I was again, a prisoner in the infamous Black Palace of Näkt Mir.
At least I wasn’t being held in a dank pit. I wasn’t quite sure where I was, but the room Pullo led me to was certainly a space most likely meant for an honored guest.
The chamber door was made of blue-gray wood with gold filigree painted around the edges. The black obsidian walls of the corridors extended into this room as they apparently did through the entire palace.
Along one entire wall, a giant tapestry hung. It was filled with sprites and nymphs and bursting with flora, all in lovely shadesof green, gray, and blue. There was a female skald fae—one of the sea fae who lived in the luxurious blue waters of Morodon—sunbathing nude on a rock. Her beautiful green hair hung over her porcelain skin and down the rock into the water. Her webbed feet dangled in the transparent water, one of her webbed hands rested on her rounded belly, the other arm bent beneath her head.
In the water, a male skald fae watched her, his entire body and half of his face hidden beneath the surface. Only his dark, expressive eyes and his blue hair curtaining sharp cheekbones could be seen. He worshipped her with that gaze. I thought it a strange tapestry for a dark fae bedchamber, though it was beyond lovely.
A giant four-poster bed, double the size of my own in Issos, was draped in a pale blue counterpane. The rest of the room was furnished in rich blue velvet chaise lounges and chairs, carpets sewn with threads of silver and gold, giant black iron candelabras, a beautiful golden dressing screen in one corner, and a golden tub peeking from behind a semi-transparent screen covered in white muslin.
