Prologue

Magic crackled like sparks through the dry tinder of a summertime forest, bursting and popping across the pavilion with the zing of an electric storm. The overwhelming scent of petrichor clutched at Allarion’s throat as magic swirled in blue spirals through the marble columns and decorative cypresses.

For one horrible moment, everything stilled—the petals from the many cherry and apple blossoms hung in midair, the magic whorls stopped to sparkle with a macabre gleam, even the stars in the night sky seemed to cease shining.

Then, with all the force and devastation of a thunderclap, a crimson drop of blood fell from the vicious Fae Queen’s claws.

Her eyes, darker than a starless night and deeper than the bottomless pits that haunted this world, tracked as Maxim fell to his knees before her, a hole the very size and shape of her clawed hand gaping in his chest. Allarion watched his dearest friend’s heart beat one last time, exposed to the air and ripped to shreds by the Queen’s claws, then—

A horrid gurgling escaped Maxim’s throat, and the Queen swiped her wicked claws across that, too. Blood dribbled down his ruined front, and finally, Maxim slumped back onto the white stone pavers. His final breath was an agonized groan, and with the last of his last strength, he reached out to his human mate, dead already on the ground beside him.

The Queen had begun the day and her cruel plan with Aine, capturing her after years of trying to discover Maxim’s secret. The human woman had suffered torment after torment as the Queen’s plaything, but she refused to forsake her mate and child. Her bravery was seared across Allarion’s soul, having witnessed every terrible moment as the day passed and they waited for Maxim to come for his mate.

He indeed came. Alone.

Maxim stood before their Queen and declared her a traitor and a tyrant.

“You should have passed the crown long ago, crone. No one may say it, but all here know I speak true.”

The glamour veiling the Queen’s true face trembled, revealing a glimpse of a skeletal, haggard visage. Those perfect red lips had smiled just below sockets sunk deep and a shriveled nose. Black veins stood in relief against papery skin, and eyes gone milky with too much seen glared out.

In that moment, any who may have doubted it knew for certain—Maxim was right. Their Queen was corroded by magic, rotting from the inside.

The fae were the only folk left who could wield magic. It imbued everything, the ground, the trees, the rivers—it wove through the very fabric of the world.

Magic gave dragons and manticores their dual forms. Magic gave orcs their superior strength. Magic gave sirens their songs.

Yet none of them could see it nor even remembered it was magic that made them. Only the fae now could see these threads and harness them.

It was a gift and a burden. They had lived alongside it so long, used it in so many ways, the fae were now inextricably tied to magic. They needed it to sustain not just their long lives but their very existence. They did not drink. They did not eat. Magic and air were the only sustenance they needed.

Yet, this came at a terrible price. Magic would eventually corrode every fae from the inside out, like blades left too long to rust. Even the most powerful among them, their Queen, wasn’t immune. Exposed to the many tendrils and tethers that tied every fae to their ancestral lands, the raw power of magic was more dangerous to those who wielded it most.

The magic was shared amongst every fae, a circuit of shared burden that spread the tremendous strength of it. But that circuit needed a center, and that center had to be replenished for the health of them all. A Queen, no matter how powerful, couldn’t rule forever.

Century after century, for millennia, each Queen had passed her rule to a daughter or niece before sailing to the Twins, a set of islands off the coast of the faelands. There, she took the stone sleep, returning to the earth and rejoining the magic that threaded the world.

Amaranthe hadn’t.

She refused to give up her rule. She slew her own daughters, nieces, and sisters. Allarion had to wonder—had the magic corroded her, or had the rot always existed inside her. In the end, it didn’t matter, for the Fae Queen had long since outlasted her rule, festering magic and acidic ambition melding into a toxic sludge that inhabited the throne.

The fae withered as the magic soured within them, but none dared speak against her, the hub of every spoke in the faelands.

Until Maxim and Aine.

Allarion couldn’t turn away from their forms, their sightless gazes fixed on each other. Aine’s torture had lasted for agonizing hours—Maxim’s battle with Queen Amaranthe had lasted perhaps a handful of moments.

He’d known he stood no chance against a Fae Queen, not one as old and ruthless as Amaranthe. Magic oozed from her every glamoured pore, and she didn’t hesitate to use it viciously.

Without any to support him and stand against their Queen, Maxim had been dead the moment he entered the pavilion. All of them, a representative of every family residing in Fallorian summoned to witness Aine’s destruction, knew it. Still Maxim came for his mate, to be with her in their last moments. It was a sacrifice he’d predicted long ago, and both he and Aine accepted it.

With them would die their most precious secret—the location of their child. A half-fae child who’d foreseen the demise of Amaranthe and her court.

Or so the Fae Queen thought.

It’d been a carefully laid ploy Maxim and Allarion made years ago, one Allarion hadn’t liked making or speaking of. Sitting in the kitchen of the seaside home Maxim kept for Aine and their daughter, it hadn’t seemed like danger lurked close enough to make such plans. Sitting in that kitchen, listening to the women laugh and the waves crash against the cliffs below, Allarion hadn’t wanted to believe anything could touch this little sliver of paradise, even Amaranthe.

That was Allarion’s folly.

Maxim had known. Perhaps he always had, or perhaps his daughter had foreseen it.

In the end, Maxim and Aine played their parts, dying so that their daughter might live.

Allarion now had to do his—and it’d begun that morning, watching poor Aine’s torment and doing nothing.

The punishment for his foolish hopes lay in pools of crimson blood on the pavilion, a fate far worse than he could have imagined unspooling before him.

Maxim had been his friend for longer than humans had kept histories, for longer than the courses of rivers and the span of forests. They had been boys together, those precious few years when fae were young, scampering through the reeds that lined the Lune River to catch dragonflies. They had trained together, claimed their dread-mounts together, fought the orcish hordes together.

Everything, together.

So when Allarion had discovered Maxim’s secret fifty human years ago, the very foundations of his being quaked.

A hidden, veiled house by the sea on the border of the faelands. A human mate, pregnant with their halfling child.

To be trusted with such a secret had honored Allarion, but he’d never been able to completely shed his jealousy and resentment. For the life Maxim had hidden from him. For the life his friend had.

Those died with Maxim.

None of it mattered, not anymore.

Allarion’s gaze skittered up from the lifeless bodies of Maxim and Aine, watching as the Fae Queen straightened. Her glamour fell back into place, swathing her in perfect beauty. Long ringlets of hair so white it shone like starlight swept slender shoulders and lissome arms. A graceful neck, delicate swooping collarbones, a rosebud mouth, and glittering eyes of sapphire blue complemented a supple body draped in midnight velvet. And four oval wings, more delicate than stained glass and gleaming like pearls, folded at her back.

If the moon could walk this world, it would look like Amaranthe did then.

But she was nothing but a beetle-bitten acorn, hollow and rotten.

His rage burned hotter and brighter than the sun, pulling him toward collision and violence. The sword strapped at his hip hung heavily, and the magic under his command shuddered and whispered encouragement. Do it, said the air, end this. All would be better without her.

Oh, he wanted to.

He vowed in that moment that no matter the cost or time, he would be witness to Amaranthe’s destruction.

But he remembered his vow to his friend.

This wasn’t the end but the beginning. And Amaranthe’s end wasn’t his to have.

That was now Ravenna’s.

It took some days for Allarion to escape the seaside court of Fallorian. The gleaming city was full of winding cobbled streets, juniper and poplar-shaded courtyards, glittering reflection pools and steaming mosaic-tiled baths, and gardens of flowers and crystal—a place of immeasurable beauty that felt every day like a trap closing in around him.

He was watched everywhere he went within the city, the limestone towers and coral arches not hiding him for long from the Queen’s spies. The harbor, crowded with white oak ships that hadn’t sailed out in centuries, offered no opportunity, nor did the serpentine curtain wall that snaked around the city itself. The five great towers of Fallorian gleamed in the daylight, pink and green with the iridescence of abalone shells, their light seemingly following him at every turn.

Fae did not mark the passage of time like the other folk did—yet, Allarion felt it keenly, a knife in his chest with every day that passed without success.

He kept to his duties, aware that all within the Queen’s court watched him and anyone ever associated with Maxim. There were whispers in the courtyards, deep in the shade of the poplars, that even the most distant cousin of Maxim’s line was being hunted for information.

Allarion had already been squeezed by the Queen’s hand for that information, before Aine was captured, and he hadn’t broken. He insisted he knew nothing, and that was what Amaranthe got from him. He might have been kept longer had his mother, Idrisil, the matriarch of House Meringor, one of the oldest aristocratic houses alongside the royal line, not intervened. Ever the politician, despite her retirement, Idrisil had made her veiled threats and half-promises.

For now, Allarion was free. But his name and mother wouldn’t spare him from another interrogation should he give Amaranthe any reason to send out the long reach of her arm. His first detainment had been painful enough, and as the Queen continued to go without her ultimate prey, her temper only worsened.

The city seemed to hold its breath, awaiting whatever cruel blow would come. Even before she slaughtered her heirs, Amaranthe’s temper was legendary. Many knew to keep indoors and quiet. Those with estates outside the city fled in the night. His mother and older sisters had begged him to return with them to the Meringor estate, but Allarion refused. Doing so would inspire more suspicion, incite further royal animosity toward his family, and ultimately keep him further from his goal.

Escaping the faelands.

For days, the agony of waiting alone in the city—entertaining no guests in his family’s villa overlooking the sea, releasing all their staff, writing no letters and talking to not a soul—ate at him like the fevered diseases that befell the humans. In the echoing caverns of the villa, surrounded by luxury and wealth but alone with his own company, Allarion nearly went mad with it.

He dared not even speak with his trusted dread-mount, Bellarand the Black, who awaited him outside the city walls.

Instead, he kept to himself. He walked the city as any other scion of a great house might, talking to no one. Awaiting an opportunity.

The one that found him finally was the barest chance, a change in shift of the border guard. Without needing sustenance, fae could go for long periods without flagging—but the two things that kept them tethered to the mortal world were death and sleep. Even fae needed to sleep.

After observing their rotations, Allarion made his move. Sliding through the murkiness of dusk, Allarion came upon a border guard preparing to leave. A young warrior, he’d likely never known a life without Amaranthe—nor was he a match for Allarion. He took the young warrior easily, forcing his magic down the man’s throat, subjugating his magic with sheer force.

The warrior went limp in Allarion’s arms, forced into the long sleep they all had to take every so often or when severely wounded. Dead to the world until the sleep ran its course, the young guard lay defenseless before Allarion. The sleep was perhaps their only weakness, like sharks rolled onto their backs, and to use such tactics against another fae was considered the highest offense.

There was a day, not long ago, that Allarion would’ve been disgusted with the very idea of forcing the sleep on another. Even today, a part of him shuddered with horror at what he’d done and had yet still to do.

But the warrior’s honor he’d so prided himself on, which had first called him to a life of warrior’s service to the crown over a millennia ago, served no purpose here. He’d given it up when he laid down his sword, as so many had, after Amaranthe’s slaying of her kin.

Now, his only duty and honor were to family and friends. His mother and siblings were safely out of the city, and their family name would protect them. Now, his only purpose was his promise to Maxim.

With the guard’s helm pulled low over his brow and just enough glamour to trick the glancing gaze, he joined the squadron leaving for the city outskirts.

As they walked, warriors peeled off to their assignment, and Allarion kept pace.

It was how, finally, he ended up alone in the forest outside the curtain wall. With a touch of his magic, he tracked the steps of the others on the forest floor, accounting for each and how far they were.

Then, with the love of his friend hastening his steps, Allarion ran.

By midnight, he’d reunited with Bellarand. Without breaking stride, he leapt onto the stallion’s broad back and they galloped north.

It’s done? Bellarand asked through their bond, the one shared between every fae rider and his dread-mount. It was forged after a grueling trial of physical exertion and magical stamina, a duel of wills between fae and unicorn, where bonds were tested and decided. Only the strongest and truest warriors were worthy to ride the dangerous, magical beasts, for a dread-mount would never accept a weak rider.

Yes.

I grieve for him, too.

Allarion could hide nothing from Bellarand, not with the bond they shared. The unicorn saw everything, every raw shred of fear and dread. There was no hiding from the truths Bellarand could find, and so Allarion did not hide them, but he did turn away.

It took two days of hard riding to make the northernmost edge of the forest, which he followed for another two days as it rimmed the narrow bay.

As he neared Aine’s cottage, the hundreds upon thousands of wards that Maxim had lain over the years passed over Allarion like a cool fall of silk. Maxim had thought of everything so carefully, hiding away his human mate on the western outskirts of the faelands, along the sea. No Fae Queen, no matter how powerful, held any sway over the sea, for its magic was too frenetic, too wild. There, on the borderlands by the sea, Maxim had kept his family safely in a blind spot, guarded with layer after layer of wards.

Passing through the inner sanctum of them, where the thickest layers of magic were, Allarion felt a pleasant hum buzz in his ears, Maxim’s remaining magic recognizing him.

Heart aching, Allarion resisted trying to reach out to touch that which couldn’t be held.

Inside the wards, past an apple orchard glamoured to look like overgrown brambles, stood the lovely seaside cottage Maxim had built his Aine decades ago.

The sight of it, the tableau of peace as puffy clouds floated in an azure sky above and turquoise waves lapped far below along a narrow strip of beach, nearly broke him. How many times had he come here? How many times had he watched the little family laughing and living in this very place?

The door of the cottage flew open, and out ran Ravenna, her inky black hair flapping like a banner behind her.

Allarion dismounted, the weight in his chest dragging him down.

Ravenna came to a halt before him, her narrow chest heaving, those large purple-blue eyes, Maxim’s eyes, staring up at him.

A woman of nearly fifty years, she was a child no longer, not even by fae law. She still had the vitality of youth, and her life would extend far closer to a fae’s than her mother’s people.

Her cheeks, tanned from days in the sun, colored as she watched him closely. Neither of them moved, save for the gentle, salty breeze that picked up her long waves of black hair. Her four wings flitted at her back nervously, the membranes glinting in purples and pinks in the sun. All female fae had wings, but as a halfling, Ravenna’s had always been too small for flight.

She was all dark, moody colors—so like her father. Her control over magic wasn’t as strong as a full fae, but it still obeyed her. The only true trait she inherited from Aine was her healthy red blood.

Where she’d gotten her gift of foresight none knew—perhaps from the Twins themselves.

Tears gathered along her lashes, but her face remained rigid, as if she prepared to refuse what he’d come to do.

“It’s been weeks —” she choked.

“I couldn’t come sooner.”

Striding past her into the cottage, Allarion quickly found the provisions she’d packed.

Ravenna followed close on his heels. “What’s happened?”

The words burned Allarion’s throat. “Your father was right.”

“Where are they?” Ravenna demanded. “Allarion, where are my parents?”

He paused only long enough to glance at her, unable to hide his grief from her. “They are with you, crow. Always.”

Her rosebud mouth parted in shock, and she stood in the middle of the cottage’s solar staring at him. She looked so broken in that moment, so young, so alone. She may have been a child no longer, but Allarion only saw the girl he’d watched grow over the years.

The love her parents had for her was achingly apparent—in her every feature, in every nook of the house, in all that they had done.

Allarion suspected it was as much of a cold comfort to her as it was to him.

Ravenna’s face cracked, and a sob that ripped at his guts echoed from her chest. He reached out a hand and she took it desperately, clutching it with both of hers. Allarion pulled her into him, sheltering her with his much bigger body.

He took her few things and led her back outside to where Bellarand waited.

Neither of them looked at the house as they mounted and rode away. The lives lived there were over. The memories it held were warm and dear—and all the harder to bear because of it.

Ravenna buried her face between his shoulder blades, her tears wetting his cloak as they rode away from the home Maxim had built.

It took seven days to reach the last part of Maxim’s plan. His one last gift to his child.

They left the faelands behind, losing themselves to the forest that was at once in the human kingdom of Eirea but also within orcish territory. The fae could touch all magic that wove through the world, but they had cocooned themselves within the faelands, a hard shell that kept others out—and the fae in. They weren’t blind to the outside lands, but their sight was as milky as Amaranthe’s true eyes.

The growing distance from the faelands began to nip and gnaw at Allarion, the strain of his bonds to his homeland fraying, but he’d counted on this. He had to cut the ties completely, but first, he had to make Ravenna safe.

Through a grove of trees, beside a clear stream bordered with berry bushes, sat the bower Maxim had made. Built into a shallow hill, timbers insulated with moss formed the outer facade. The size of a bedchamber, it had a door and window to allow fresh air. Within a cavity cut into the hill beside it sat dozens of baskets and amphorae laden with supplies for when Ravenna would need them.

She slid down Bellarand’s flank, taking in the bower with puffy, dull eyes.

Allarion came to stand beside her. “This is how it must be for now, crow. I cannot protect you yet.”

A wet, shuddering sigh left her. Wrapping her slender arms around herself, she said, “It’s preferable to missing them.”

Allarion watched as Ravenna inspected the bower, running her fingertips over the baskets and crockery—all of which her mother and father no doubt had made. She touched the mossy rooftop and oak door, a diamond cut into the top.

Beside him, Bellarand’s long ears twitched, and the unicorn turned his head toward the forest.

They are here.

Allarion looked to his right to behold more than a dozen unicorns emerging from the trees.

They ranged in color from black to dappled gray, and most were female. The mares were too fierce to ride, and it was they who led the herds of unicorns along the western coasts. They were much like the fae in that way, the fae themselves led by females. The males of their kinds were able to bond to protect both their peoples.

Their untamed energy filled the grove, but Allarion sensed no malice—just a deep, abiding sadness.

One unicorn strode forward. Oberon, Maxim’s mount.

The gray stallion touched his horn with Bellarand’s before turning to Ravenna, his head bowed low. Ravenna embraced him, burying her face against his neck.

Their shared grief was too much to bear, and Allarion had to look away.

It was Oberon’s mother who had led her herd here to watch over Ravenna in her sleep. Not even orcs were foolish enough to trifle with such a large herd. Under their protection, Ravenna would take the deep sleep, one in between the long and stone sleeps. Not unlike torpor, it would dull and hide away her powers until Allarion could return for her.

Breaking from the faelands would take time and effort, sapping him of his strength and leaving him vulnerable—and unable to completely protect Ravenna from whatever dangers might await them. Maxim had decided Ravenna would take the deep sleep while Allarion recovered and sought a place to establish a new life. He would search the human realms for something suitable, and when the place had been imbued with his magic, free of Amaranthe’s taint, Allarion would return for Ravenna.

It’d all seemed logical when Maxim explained it.

Knowing what he had to do, knowing that it was all Maxim’s wish, did not make watching his daughter and dread-mount mourn him any easier.

With one last solemn whicker, Oberon pawed the earth, leaving his mark in the dirt and claiming the land for his herd. This place and everything within it were now under their protection.

Ravenna regarded the herd in the trees silently for a long while, and Allarion didn’t rush her.

He watched on silently as she slowly went about making up the bower to her liking. She piled it with pillows and blankets, digging through a basket of them until she found a particular one. Allarion easily recognized her baby blanket, a faded blue now, the flowers embroidered on one corner beginning to fray.

Holding it close to her chest, Ravenna settled onto the bed inside the bower, staring back at him with unseeing eyes.

Chest tight, Allarion approached. Kneeling before her, he covered her in blankets.

“Will I dream?” she whispered.

So young, she’d never had reason to take the deep sleep. She asked without fear or nervousness, just a single tear slipping down the bridge of her nose.

“No,” he said.

“Good.”

Ravenna’s eyes slid closed.

It was in this last step, this final moment, that Allarion hesitated. The weeks trying to escape Fallorian had been long, but now everything moved so fast. In a moment, he’d leave her there, hoping she would go undisturbed while protected by unicorns and her father’s many wards.

It was time to leave the last remnant of his friend, of his life, behind.

For a moment, Allarion couldn’t do it.

The tide of his grief swelled, strangling his conviction. He faltered, tears he’d never let escape gathering in his eyes.

I can’t, his heart cried, I can’t, I can’t.

Then Ravenna reached out to take his hand. Her skin was so warm compared to his, and he clutched that hand.

She gave him the strength to complete his dearest friend’s final wish.

He reached out with his magic to help guide hers. She struggled for a moment, her mind resisting the unfamiliar task, but with a little nudge from him, she found the ancient path that led the fae into the deep sleep.

It took only a few moments, and when Allarion opened his eyes, Ravenna lay still on the bed. Her chest barely rose with the faintest of breath, and her face went slack with oblivion.

For now, she was free.

For her sake, for Maxim’s, he left her there.

Allarion stood, closing the bower door behind him. The herd stood silent witness as he mounted Bellarand. They turned east, toward the rising sun and their fate.