Shadow Cursed by May Sage Page 0,32

send all of their armies right at us.

Vlari’s arms hook around my shoulders when I join her. Among all those gathered here, she chooses me. I wrap my hands around her waist and dance as though nothing else in the world matters. Never mind the humans. I know I’ll never be able to stop. She’ll have to pull me out of it.

Vlari is the one who stops first, her eyes lifting to the sky.

I follow the direction of her gaze and notice that a mockery of the hateful dome is back. It looks exactly right, though all its power has faded from it.

It may fool human eyes. It may even fool a fae or two, so long as they don’t have much magic.

I doubt it’ll fool the usurper, if she comes anywhere close.

Or the immortals beyond our borders.

The danger is real. The danger is close. We’ve ignored it too long already.

Wordlessly, we turn back to Whitecroft Hall.

We have a war council to attend.

A Circle of Crowns

Drusk

Vlari doesn’t pause to ask for directions, her purposeful steps leading us through the maze of corridors.

“I suppose you’ve spied on some council sessions?”

She’s entirely unapologetic. “One or two, when I could.”

I want to ask what it was like for her—being asleep and yet sometimes conscious of what went on around her. I don’t imagine it was pleasant. She must have felt helpless.

We reach what used to be the headmaster’s office when Whitecroft was our school. Professor Veret used to like his study filled with books, every window shut by blinds as he read by candlelight. The smell of beeswax is gone, as are the leather-bound volumes. Like every other chamber in the white stone edifice, it has been transformed. Now, a thick, dark red rug covers the stone floor, and a heavy table made of one tree stump dominates the center of the space. Someone painted a map of Tenebris in the middle.

My mind travels back to that fateful day in Hardrock when Vlari had looked at a map not dissimilar to this one, and asked her grandfather questions about ley lines. Now I know she was starting to devise her plan—her intent to draw on the power of each court to sustain our impenetrable wards—all the way back then. Her intent to sacrifice herself.

At any point between Hardrock and Whitecroft, she could have shared it. She didn’t.

Knowing what we lost, and how close her schemes have come to costing her life, I hate the very sight of this map.

And I stiffen at the sight of one of the fourteen men already standing next to it.

Alven Oberon, the old queen’s consort. Vlari’s grandfather. He’s stroking a bird of prey perched on his arm, his eyes set on Vlari.

I’ve purposely avoided him—even more so than the high queen and her bondmate. The Banes, I stayed away from for sentimental reasons. Alven I simply dislike.

He forced my silence once, demanding I not reveal Vlari saved my life. He could have asked. He could just have ordered me. I was a soldier, bound to listen. He could have explained the stakes, instead of threatening me and my livelihood—and therefore the livelihood of my family. I know the kind of man he is, and I know he and I will never get along.

He can still order me around. I’m a nobody from a family of servants, and he’s the very opposite: a pure gentry from a grand line. A king. Though he stopped ruling it when he married Morgana Lilwreath, he is the rightful monarch of the Court of Mist.

I understand he wanted to protect Vlari. I even respect it. His ruthlessness is likely to be more useful than Ciera’s gentle soul in the days to come. But I’m done with people manipulating me—except for her. Vlari, I can’t avoid, she has me wrapped around her little finger. The rest of them have no place in my life.

The other lords surrounding the table, I've seen or encountered at one point or another. All seven courts are represented by their rulers. The Court of Storm technically belongs to the Stellara line, and its queen is with us, but it is no secret that Queen Luce is more interested in stargazing than the affairs of the breathing. She’s looking out the window, while Genrion Frost, a duke of Storm, stands at the table on Alven’s left. He is accompanied by his son, Wilden, an old friend of mine. We exchange a nod at my entrance. He now wears heavy armor,