Chapter Two Jasalyn

Chapter Two

Jasalyn

"G OOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD! "

My sister's cheerful voice cuts through the thick blanket of sleep and drags me from my nightmare with a gasp. For a moment I expect to find myself in a dark cell, the scent of urine filling my nose, the icy cold of the stone floor seeping into my bones.

But the bed is soft and my blankets are warm. Day has come and, with it, the honey glow of light through the cracks in the curtains.

The bed shifts and I smell Brie's cinnamon and vanilla soap, sense her warmth. And her worry. Always her worry.

"I'm sorry to wake you," she says softly, knuckles brushing the back of my hand. "But I have a meeting in the northern mountains in a couple of hours, and we need to talk first."

Before I was sold to Mordeus and dragged to Faerie from my home realm, the human realm of Elora, I never wasted much time imagining what it might be like to be queen of a faerie court, but I would've guessed it involved decadence and balls and... I don't know, appearing before your subjects like some beneficent goddess. But judging from my sister's experience in the last three years, it's mostly meetings and more meetings. When she's not convincing the lords of the court to assist in her rebuilding efforts, she's mediating petty squabbles between shadow fae, like a schoolmistress teaching children to play nice.

As if dealing with the politics within the court isn't bad enough, she's also left to navigate the politics between courts. While she calls the king of the Seelie Court and the king of the Wild Fae Lands both friends, the subjects of the three main territories of Faerie aren't keen to follow her lead. The Seelie and Unseelie fae were enemies for centuries before Abriella took the throne, and though historically neutral, the Wild Fae were reluctant allies at best.

"Jas?" Brie says, taking my wrist in her hand.

I force my eyes open before I fall back to sleep.

Brie's wearing her riding clothes—brown leather pants with knee-high boots, a soft white cotton blouse beneath a leather riding vest. I catch her frowning at the puddles of dried wax on my bedside table from all the nights I've left candles burning while I sleep. She knows I hate the dark, but I don't talk to her about it because she gets that crease between her brows and guilt fills her eyes.

It's not her fault our aunt sold me to an evil faerie. It's not her fault the darkness reminds me of those long nights in Mordeus's dungeons and the horrible things I endured there.

She gently strokes her thumb over the circular scar on my wrist. It's as wide as a plum and gnarled like a knot on an old tree. I hate the pain and worry that contorts her face when she looks at my scars, and I yank my wrist from her grasp and pull down the sleeve of my sleeping gown.

"Any new marks this morning?" she asks, eyes searching my face.

"I don't know." I yank up my blankets, tucking them under my arms before she gets any ideas and tries to look for herself. There are already more than she knows about, though I'm guessing my maids have told her about the game board of puffy scar tissue that's appeared across my abdomen.

"Perhaps next time Finn and I visit Juliana in Staraelia, you could—"

"Is my appearance so disturbing to you that you need your High Priestess to fix me?" I snap.

She flinches, and I wish I could take the words back. The scars began appearing at random intervals shortly after my birthday. Once Abriella found out about them, I agreed to let her healers look at me, but their salves do nothing to make the marks fade, and they haven't had any answers for their queen about my mysterious scarring. But I fear the High Priestess and whatever magic she has would tell my sister too much.

Abriella is a powerful queen, but with me she acts like a nervous child. And that's all my fault. It's all my fault because I'm broken. It's all my fault because while this life in this world has made Brie grow and thrive, for me it feels like trying to breathe underwater.

I don't need Brie knowing that though the timing of the marks' appearance is random, the scars themselves are not. Each corresponds to an injury inflicted on me in Mordeus's dungeons.

I don't want her knowing about what happened to me during those weeks. What good would it do, anyway?

At least now I have the ring and my nights tracking down my enemies. At least when my heart is cold, I feel like I can breathe.

On the other side of the room, my handmaid draws the curtains, and the streams of golden sunlight turn to swaths that fill the room.

I squint, push myself up, and lean against my velvet headboard.

"It's nearly lunchtime," my sister says. There's no censure in her tone, only concern.

"I had trouble falling asleep." A lie. Once I took my herbs at sunrise, sleep came hard and fast. And the nightmares with it.

The dreams of my days in Mordeus's dungeons haunt me, but worse than those are the dreams where I'm in his body. My mind twists my worst memories until my dreams show our "visits" from his eyes. In those dreams, I have to see the terror in my eyes as he steals all my control. I have to see myself writhing in pain from his brutal torture. But the worst part is how I feel in those dreams. How much I relish the power. How satisfying it is to see myself suffer.

Brie stares down at her hands. Her red hair falls forward, a curtain hiding her face. I always loved her hair—an orange red like the lilies in the Court of the Sun. It's grown long again in these last few years, and now the waves flow down to the middle of her back. Once upon a time, I'd sit behind her and weave it into braids.

But that was before. Before the dungeons. Before the Throne of Shadows. Before the person I loved most in the world became what I hate most: a faerie.

"It's normal, you know," she says. "Excessive sleeping is a symptom of depression and—"

"I'm not depressed."

When she lifts her head, I flinch at the pain I see in her eyes. "I know you're not happy here. You can talk to me." Her desperation hurts worse than the many daggers twisted into my flesh while I was Mordeus's captive. "I fight every day for the people in this court, and all the while I feel like I'm losing you. I can't do this if you are the cost."

Then don't. But I can't ask that. Not when leading these people means everything to her. Not when, if it weren't for me, Brie would be happier now than she's ever been in her life.

And besides, what's the alternative? Brie uses her magic to glamour herself so we can go home again? I miss the realm of Elora, the land where we were born and raised, the way I miss the innocence of my childhood. There's no going back, and we both know it.

"You've suffered through so much," she says. "Two major traumas that you never speak of. If you needed to talk—"

"I don't." I tear my gaze from hers and stare at my lap, counting down the seconds until she leaves me alone.

"You don't even want to sew anymore."

"This again? Why are you so fixated on me sewing? You probably have a hundred servants capable of the job." I give her a smile. Not the seductive smile of the Enchanting Lady, and not the satisfied smile that curves my lips when death takes my victims. No, I give her my Princess Jasalyn smile. This is the expression of the girl I'm supposed to be. Meek and scared, but grateful. "I'm truly fine. You've given me a home, and I am content here." Another lie. I've gotten too good at this.

"Nevertheless, I would like you to go stay with Misha for a time."

Everything from last night comes back in a rush. Mordeus is back, and my sister wants to send me away.

But I'm not supposed to know any of that and she doesn't seem to remember, so I cough out a laugh. "I'll pass, thanks." Misha is my sister's best friend. He's a nice enough male, but when he visits, I always feel him poking around in my head. Luckily, he's also the one who taught me how to guard against such mental exploitations. He taught me well, but I find it unnerving nevertheless. I always fear slipping in his presence. What would he do if he knew my secrets? Tell my sister, surely, and then what?

What would Abriella do if she knew her terrified little sister was leaving a trail of her enemies' bodies throughout the mountains?

What would she do if she knew what I traded for that power?

"The Wild Fae territory is beautiful," Brie says.

"I'm sure it is, but I don't want to go."

"You could go riding and explore the village."

"I could go riding here."

"You could start fresh—away from the court where so many terrible things happened to you." She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I flinch before catching myself. She yanks her hand away as if she's been burned. "You could make new friends. New memories."

My heart pinches. She doesn't just want me to visit her friend. When they were talking last night, I thought she meant a few days, maybe a week. "You want me to live there?"

"I think it would be good for you."

"Is it that bad?" The words are out before I can stop them. "Having me here? Knowing that I struggle a little? Is it so terrible that you must send me away?"

My sister's beautiful hazel eyes go wide. "No!" She shakes her head, panic all over her face. "Jas, it's not that at all. I love having you here. Love it so much I wonder if I've been selfish to keep you in the palace when perhaps you'd heal better... elsewhere."

Elsewhere. Further from my mission. Somewhere I will be expected to act as the shadow princess. At least here I'm left alone. At least here I can hunt those who hurt me and feel some sort of purpose. "Well, I won't, so forget it."

She bites her bottom lip—Abriella, fierce and feared queen of the shadow fae—cowering because she's scared of hurting her human baby sister. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

"It's not just that," she says. "There are things happening in this court. Unexplained deaths and rumors that give me pause."

Mordeus. "What rumors?"

"Nothing I want you worrying about. Until I figure out what's happening," she continues, "I'd like you to be with Misha. Away from any potential danger."

My mind skips back to the other piece I didn't hear them talk about last night. "Unexplained deaths? Surely that's nothing new." I can't imagine the few faeries I've killed myself are enough to raise the alarm—especially since these vile creatures were already in hiding.

"This is different. We're talking trails of bodies. Death with no obvious cause."

My pulse stutters into a run. "Where?"

"All over the court." Abriella frowns. "It's been happening for weeks, maybe months—though it's hard to know when it started because not every death is reported to me. It's hard to identify a pattern without all the information, but we're hearing reports of groups of dead fae—from a few to as many as a dozen at once. Every sign indicates that their deaths are magical, as most are uninjured and showed no sign of illness before they were found dead. It seems I'm getting another report every few days, and the numbers just keep growing."

"And you think I might be targeted?"

With a heavy sigh, she pushes off my bed and paces. "I think I will worry unless I know you are safe."

"I'll be fine, sister. You've had me trained by the best. Self-defense, mental shields, sword fighting, archery."

"I don't want you to need any of those skills." She peers out my windows, but her eyes are distant, as if she's envisioning an entirely different time and place. "We should never have been so honest with the court. We should have led them to believe that Mab already made you fae."

For months after Abriella took the throne, she and her advisors went round and round about what I thought of as "the human problem." Mab had told Abriella that I would turn fae on my eighteenth birthday, so they had to decide whether to pretend I was already fae in the meantime or to potentially allow Abriella's enemies to know my weakness: mortality.

No one ever pushed me to take the Potion of Life that can turn a mortal fae. Maybe because Abriella experienced it and it really is so excruciating that she didn't want me to go through that. Or maybe because they already knew, on some level, that I dread becoming that which I loathe. I didn't ask, and neither did they.

"Honesty seemed like the best way to begin my reign, but now I wonder if I've left you too vulnerable."

"I'm always at the palace," I say. Which is true, unless I'm wearing my ring, but given the powers that come with that, I'm not too concerned something could happen to me with it on. "Where could I possibly be safer?"

She folds her arms. "You aren't safe in the palace if our enemy knows it as well as we do."

I throw off my covers and stride across the room to stand next to her at the big windows that overlook the palace's midnight gardens. They're filled with flowers that blossom in the moonlight and are rather nondescript during the day. Like me with my ring and me without.

"It is only out of an abundance of caution that I want you to stay with Misha," Brie says. "Not forever, but for now. Once we figure out these deaths and investigate this rumor..."

"Mordeus?" I ask, not looking at her.

She's quiet for a long time before replying. I can feel the tension rolling off her, can feel her stress. "They're saying he's been resurrected. Finn and I are meeting with the palace sentinels today to add extra security to the gates and doors. But these rumors might not even be true."

My jaw aches. I focus on relaxing it before I break a tooth. "Queen Mab was resurrected," I say. The resurrection of the first Unseelie queen is a story Abriella drills into me. In this court, our great-great-who-knows-how-many-greats-grandmother is honored as much as any god. Her blood is the reason Brie sits on the Throne of Shadows and the reason I, born human, am destined to become fae on my eighteenth birthday. For generations before my sister and I were born, the children from Mab's bloodline were born and lived as humans in Elora, their royal, magical blood hidden from everyone—even themselves. It was the best way Mab could protect her progeny from the wrath of her enemies, but it seems that mercy ended with us. "If Mab can return from the dead, why not Mordeus?"

"The gods favored Mab and rewarded her for her selfless love," Brie says. "It is not the same."

I flash her a skeptical glance. If I've learned anything during my time with the fae, it's that they are as clever as they are evil. I have little doubt that Mordeus could've had a plan in place that would've allowed his people to bring him back in the event of an assassination. "What happened to his body—after you killed him?"

Brie draws in a long, measured breath and holds my gaze. "I don't know. But if I could do it again, I would've stayed and watched him burn. If he's back, it's my fault, and I will not let you be a consequence of that failure."

"I want to stay here." I want to find him myself. I want to end him myself.

"I promise that I'll have you back here in time for your eighteenth birthday."

I flinch at the mention of that looming date. When I got the ring, a year seemed like so much time. Now I only have nine months left, and I fear it won't be nearly enough.

Her boots scuff the stone floors as she turns to me. The hand she places on my shoulder is warm and tentative. "Sooner if possible."

Hot, angry tears fill my eyes.

"Don't be scared," Brie says, misinterpreting my emotion. "I promise I'll keep you safe."

She doesn't understand that feeling safe isn't my problem. I'm used to the endless fear. But I'm not scared of Mordeus hurting me. I'm scared that my sister will send me away before I can finish what I started. I only have until my eighteenth birthday. I forfeit any days beyond that when I traded my immortality for a magical ring.

The swamps in the north of my sister's territory smell of rot and festering filth that makes my eyes water.

Gommid curls his skinny lip as he surveys the bubbling greenish muck surrounding the sparse trees. "The human faerie uses her favors in strange ways."

I can't risk my sister sending me to the Wild Fae Lands before I track down Mordeus, so as soon as she and Finn left for their meeting, I donned my magical ring and summoned Gommid.

"The human is not a faerie," I remind him. I hate when he calls me that. Human faerie. That's not even a thing. I pat the pockets of my cloak, reassuring myself that my ring is secure in the hidden pocket where I tucked it away to use when darkness falls. Wearing the ring even for the brief minutes it took me to escape the watchful eyes of my sister's sentries left me feeling weak and queasy.

When the witch I bought it from warned me to only use it at night, her explanation was that all magic must be balanced. Apparently, my ring's magic is balanced by making me ill if I try to use its power in the daylight.

The swamp belches, sending a putrid breeze my way, and the lingering nausea surges in my throat.

Gommid extends a hand. "I do not work for free, Princess."

I dig a tooth from the pocket of my cloak and drop it into his waiting palm.

His already bulging eyes widen. "A fine incisor from an Unseelie sentinel. You did not remove this yourself." It's not a question.

I shrug. "The guards who were sparring on the practice mats next to me this afternoon were a little aggressive. When one spit out a bloody tooth, I claimed it as my own."

He tucks it into his pocket. "Mine now."

"What do you do with them?"

He grins, showing off his own mouthful of pointy teeth. "What will you give me for that information?"

"Never mind. Thank—" He's already gone. I sigh. "You."

I survey the rancid swamp. There's not a soul in sight, but I've spent enough time in the company of Mordeus's followers and heard enough chatter to know they have a training outpost near here. When night falls, I'll put on my ring and ask every one of his disgusting sycophants where I can find the resurrected king.

The wind rustles through the trees, and the sun sinks toward the horizon. I don't have much daylight left to find what I'm looking for, so I hike up my cloak and start walking.

The farther I walk from the swamp, the more the rancid smell fades and is replaced by the scent of the forest.

I love this time of year in the mortal realm—the changing colors of the leaves on the trees and the crunch of the dry grass beneath my boots as I walk. I ache for it—ache to return to Elora and stay.

But I don't belong there anymore. While the truth of my ancestry might not be known among the mortals of Elora, I know, and I feel like a fraud when I'm there. As if the humans of my home realm can see the faerie lurking beneath my skin. My sister's station comes with so many rules, and while I've resented many of them, resented this world and the way we were shoved into it, the Midnight Palace is the closest thing I have to a home.

And she wants to send me away.

I lean back against a thick oak and close my eyes, enjoying my reprieve from the watchful stares of my sister's sentinels.

I wonder if they're noting my absence back at the palace. I hope the words the Enchanting Lady whispered to my guards will keep anyone from checking my chambers until morning.

I won't let myself think about what I will do if I don't find Mordeus tonight. I can't.

A hand slaps over my mouth, and hot breath hisses in my ear. "Silence." A masculine voice, low and rough. He's too strong, too big for me to escape, and I feel myself shutting down, feel the panic making me freeze when I need to fight.

I throw my elbow into my captor's gut, and he grunts softly before tightening his hold and pinning down my arms.

I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.

Rough fabric is shoved over my head, and horrible darkness envelops me. I try to scream— try and try and try —but there's nothing. As if I never had a voice.

Then I'm flying through the air. My breath rushes out of me with an oomph as I'm thrown over a shoulder.

"Easy," a feminine voice says. "He said to be careful with her."

"I'll be easy when we're out of here."

I'm jostled more, like an inconvenient sack he's forced to carry, and then we're running—the crunch of crisp leaves underfoot and air winding around my legs, cool even through my riding leathers. I want to flail, to struggle, to injure with all the maneuvers my trainers taught me, but I can't move. My arms and legs are as paralyzed as my voice.

There's a low braying, and I'm hoisted up and over—a horse?

"Let's go!" Then we're off. Flying. My stomach pummeled by the jostling of the horse.

I thrash violently. Or try. I can't move my limbs, but if I squirm enough, perhaps I'll fall off.

This is why Brie wanted to keep me locked up. This is why she has her rules. Because she knows. How many times did she tell me that they would come for me, that there was always a risk of someone wanting to hurt me?

And here I brought myself to our enemy's doorstep during hours not fit for my ring, and now some sort of wicked faerie magic is stealing my voice and strength.

What if they're taking me to Mordeus?

My heartbeat stutters, and bile surges up my throat. I can already feel his hot breath in my face as he taunts me. Can already imagine the wicked curl of his lips as he draws out my torture.

"Would you please make her still before she falls off?" the male says.

"Fine," his female companion says.

Panic has me by the chest. I can't breathe. I can't—

I hear a puff and then... sleepiness falls over me. So heavy. I fight it. Try to keep my eyes open. I can't be weak if I'm to face him again.

I focus on the sound of the hooves on the path, the feel of the wind snapping the exposed skin at the back of my neck, and the smell of the swamp in the distance. I make myself describe each of these things in my mind as I cling to consciousness, but it's too late. I'm pulled deeper.