Shadow Cursed by May Sage Page 0,30

as we can now.” Vlari gets to her feet, dusting off her light blue gown.

Part of me wants to tell her how little I care for the folk's opinion. I almost lost her. I need her all to myself, if only for another moment. I wish I were that selfish, but I can also imagine the hysteria. A real threat looms in the distance without our barrier.

I reluctantly rise too.

“Could the air folk forge a golden dome? So we have an illusion of our shield. I’m sure the enemy spies will have seen it collapse, but if it comes right back, they may believe it just flickered on and off. They may hesitate to attack. It'll buy us some time."

Ciera nods without questioning the suggestion. Nor should she—we need to act immediately, if only with a temporary solution, and this idea is as good as any other.

“I’ll give the command. You need to show the folk you're alive and well. Seeing you safe will rekindle hope. Then, join us in the war room. With Rystan, naturally.” The queen grins wickedly. "You children can play later."

I've always assumed Ciera Bane, daughter of Morgana Lilwreath, child of the blood of Nyx, would have a thing or two to say against my sniffing around her daughter.

I've always assumed Vlari wouldn't ever be interested in the son of pucks.

Yet here we are, in the palace that serves as the royal court of Tenebris, and the high queen is telling me I can play with her daughter—just as soon as she’s done planning a war. With me. I am welcome in the war room, along with princes and generals.

Everything I thought I knew is wrong now. Our kingdom irrevocably changed the moment Queen Morgana and her antediluvian ways drew their last breath.

Vlari returns to the corpse next to the fireplace, and bends down to retrieve the dead fae’s dagger.

She inspects it for a moment. "Human made, I think. Iron." She grimaces in distaste.

“How could he get in here?” the queen asks. “Before the shield went down.”

Vlari purses her lips. “He may have been here all along, waiting for orders to act. But his clothes are wet. It’s possible he swam deep under my shield, in the river. My power never quite reached the Sea Lands. I don’t think an irrelevant assassin with nameless blades would have known to do that by himself, however. You’ve been speaking about reaching the Sea Lands in council?” The queen nods. “Did you mention you hoped to be able to see merfolks because my shields should be weaker around water?”

Ciera swears, realizing Vlari may be right.

“There may have been more than one traitor under the dome,” Vlari muses.

Unlike her mother, she doesn’t sound upset or shaken by the notion. As if she thought so all along.

She turns away from us to stare at her reflection in the mirror on top of the mantel. Vlari twirls one of the short strands the assassin trimmed around her fingers. "I never was allowed to cut my hair, did you know?"

I’m guessing she’s asking me—her mother would have known that. “I hadn’t. Why?”

She shrugs, feigning indifference, when I feel something entirely different boiling underneath. “One of the many ways the queen liked to make me understand my life wasn't mine, I suppose.”

She gathers all of her hair in one twist at the back of her head, and slices the sharp dagger through it, cutting feet of silver and purple off.

I watch the tips of her squared locks darken, as if dipped in purple ink. Then she turns back to me, beaming. “Much better, don't you think?”

And it is.

She's always been the most beautiful thing in the world to me, but the long locks had given her an air of cold elegance, like that of a proper princess. A stench of court pageantry that had never suited her.

The woman in front of me looks playful, mischievous. Free. In her long pale dress, splashed with her would-be murderer's blood—or mine—she's also fierce.

I could tell her she was always the most glorious thing in Tenebris. Instead, I tease her. “Is it? I had a thing for long hair.”

I'm not capable of holding a serious conversation about what she means to me. Not with her. If I ever do, she'll run screaming the other way, when she understands the depth of my obsession. Or she'll play with my heart and tear me to pieces, as is the way of the folk.

Love is the sharpest of weapons, and each