Crown of Shadows (Court of Midnight and Deception #1) - K. M. Shea Page 0,4
I had no way of knowing that—for me—its presence was a harbinger of the worst kind.
Chapter Two
Rigel
I used a fragile sheet of rice paper to clean my dagger, wiping it free of dust and excessive oil as I waited in the shadows for my target.
A cat pounced on a mouse hiding in a fresh pile of wood shavings, one of the grooms picked up a leather saddle, which creaked as he carried it off, and the quiet tap of footsteps on stone announced two fae had arrived.
I looked away from my blade long enough to peer through a crack in the hayloft I had chosen for my position.
One of the new arrivals was one of the two stable managers. He whipped his baseball hat off and picked a leaf from his hair as he and his companion entered the shadow of the stables.
“It’s as I’ve told you,” the stable manager said. “We set the night mares loose every night, just as we have for the past two months. About a week ago, one of them didn’t come back. Almost every morning since then, a new one has been missing.”
His companion was a fae noble I vaguely recognized as a peon to the previous Night Court monarch, Queen Nyte. Or rather, he’d been her peon, before she’d lost all her sense and picked a fight with the most lethal vampire Family in the Midwest, who killed her for her numerous assassination attempts against their leader and his pet wizard.
The noble tilted his chin back and looked imperiously down his nose at the stable manager. “I cannot believe you are so inept at your job that you do not know where the night mares have gone.”
The stable manager was a dryad, but the green hue to his skin was a sickly yellow-green rather than the usual healthy moss color. “We give them free rein—we have to. They won’t go anywhere if we try to handle ’em, and we can’t keep up with ’em once they set out.”
The noble pressed his lips into a thin line. “If the night mares are congregating it means they’ve finally selected the next monarch of the Night Court.” He convulsively tightened his hands before he got a hold of himself and pressed them against his white trousers. “The Night Court needs a ruler. We’ve been without one since late fall, and it’s already May. The Night Realm…”
He trailed off, but I knew what he’d been about to say.
The piece of the fae realm that the Night Court owned was suffering without a ruler in place to keep the magic flowing.
They should have had a new ruler before the end of last year. But since the founding of the Night Court centuries ago, whenever the reigning monarch and their spouse died, the night mares chose the next monarch.
But the night mares had been ignored under Queen Nyte’s rule and run wild. It had taken months just to capture them all, and just as long to convince the savage horses to look for the monarch.
“I don’t know if they’ve found the monarch or not,” the stable manager said. “They’ve been searching for weeks—much longer than they should have. The missing night mares may have just decided to stay free.”
“A minimum of three night mares are required to choose our next monarch. How many are missing?” the noble demanded.
“Six,” the stable manager said. “The most recent one failed to return with the rest of the herd this morning.”
“Then it would seem they’ve found several candidates,” the noble said. “Find them tonight. Failure will bring consequences you can’t afford to pay.” He swept from the stable with a storm in his face and pompousness biting at his heels.
I blinked, comfortably motionless.
The stable manager rubbed his face and groaned. He shed a leaf or two—revealing just how frightened he was—and went out the back of the stable, to the pastures behind it.
I folded up my used rice paper and slipped it into a pouch on my belt—I wasn’t going to leave any sign of my presence behind.
I wasn’t concerned about the Night Court’s lack of a monarch. The Court had been in a downward spiral for decades. A new monarch wasn’t going to solve anything—we were too far gone for that. Besides, it was our rulers who had gotten us into this position.
But I was interested in the next monarch candidate because I’d been hired to find and eliminate them.