18

Mycra Sentorious

A layer of frost coated the classroom desks the day the Brotherhood of Assassins came. They swarmed the Sisterhood's training castle like bugs in navy and black-shelled skins, taking hostages and killing those who fought back. The entire resistance rang out with the sounds of fairy roars and buzzing fairsabers.

Mycra Sentorious stood stone-still as they rushed into her classroom. As they tossed over desks and dragged her sisters away. She took in the faces and movements of the males, counting their attacks, catching their habits. Finding their leader.

"Mycra! Help !" Quiver screamed back as the fair girl was pulled into the hall and enchanted vines were slapped onto her wrists. Quiver tried to fight—she kicked, she screamed, she bit.

Mycra calculated. She could save Quiver. She could save one or two others and help them escape. But that wouldn't stop their enemies from taking over the castle and rounding up everyone as hostages.

However…

Taking down their leader might be enough.

Mycra climbed onto the nearest desk and leapt over the feud in the hallway. She sprang off the far wall, drawing her half-spear as she came down, and driving it through a male assassin in her way. She raced toward him —the young, deadly-looking fae wearing the signet ring of the ward Prince. She dropped two more male bodies, sweeping down the hall like the deadly siren of the seas she claimed not to be, and she brought her spear down upon his fairsaber.

The leader looked up at her, his cold, turquoise eyes calm and focussed. He was unalarmed, even as he took her in and calculated every inch of her worth. He stabbed suddenly, and Mycra dodged. When he swung his arm toward her, she blocked and prepared a strike of her own, but she wasn't ready for the weight of faestone to knock her upside the head. Mycra slammed into the wall, going dizzy for a spell. She pushed herself up in time to see Rosa waging war upon the males at the end of the hall. It was her against three. And suddenly Mycra no longer cared for the male leader.

She spun away from the ward Prince and stabbed her way toward her mentor—barely seeing the bodies fall at her own feet.

"Rosa!" she shouted. "Hang on! I'm coming!"

She tried. With everything she had, she tried. She fought skin and bone and flesh and blood; she conquered strength and steel. But Mycra did not make it. She watched the fairsaber drive into Rosa's body. And, forgetting all the careful practice she had endured to contain her emotions since the day she joined the Sisterhood, Mycra screamed. A male assassin tore his fairsaber from Rosa, and the only other dreamslipper Mycra had ever known fell to the floor; an unmoving, beautiful body.

Time stood still. The fight around Mycra became nothing more than shifting shapes and colours. And then… it was war.

It took twelve of the male assassins to bring Mycra down—five of those she killed. They dragged her away with her sisters who had survived, only thirty in total.

A long, cold, silent day later, Mycra found herself on her knees before Queene Levress. The very Queene she'd been meant to destroy. Mycra boldly lifted her gaze to look the Queene in the eyes. She wondered if she should avenge Rosa, and the rest of her sisters, and simply finish the Queene now. She wondered how well the Queene slept at night. If she dreamt of nice things. If she was strong enough to endure nightmares.

But Queene Levress's chilled, pale smile spread like she could read Mycra's mind. Like she could feel the story coming off Mycra's burning flesh. "This one will be trouble." The Queene's high, icy voice crawled over Mycra's skin. But Mycra didn't bat an eye, even as the Queene's long silver nails reached toward her and took her chin.

Mycra stared back at her dully. Nothing could scare her anymore. She'd already lost everything. Several times.

"Give her to me as a gift, Your Majesty." A fairy of some importance lounged across a modest throne that wasn't nearly as lovely as the great thrones at the head of the room. His pure white hair and wide smile didn't dilute the devilish look in his eye. "If you don't want the trouble, that is. I'll take her as a gift for my heir."

Mycra finally tore her eyes from the Queene of the North Corner and settled them on the middle-aged Lord. He wore a long crimson robe with a crest carefully stitched over his chest in expensive thread. When he stood, his robe unrolled, revealing a name amidst the artwork: LYRO.

Lyro …

Lyro. She'd heard that name before. Back in the village—the same day Dranian Evelry was sold.

Mycra's gaze shot back to the Queene to see what she would do.

"If you wish. I don't need any more powerful slaves." Queene Levress flicked her hand, passing Mycra off without care.

"Queensbane," Mycra whispered, biting down on the word. It was the first thing she'd said since entering the Silver Castle. But she could hardly believe her fate. Could hardly believe her years of trouble had led her here.

She was going to the House of Lyro where Dranian Evelry—the quiet boy who'd saved her in the river—was sent all those years ago.

Mycra was optimistic when she arrived, her gaze searching every court and patio as she was dragged through a great set of red-painted gates. She walked behind a crossbeast carrying the High Lord of the Lyro House, enchanted vines tightly binding her wrists. Servants crowded around her, and Mycra strained to see through them. They passed a tall pagoda of many levels, came across a glass-floored courtyard with a great crystal fountain in the middle, and entered an enormous mansion half as large as the Silver Castle.

She looked for Dranian Evelry everywhere. She looked for him day and night, even after she was shoved into a large golden cage meant to be her living quarters. She didn't dare speak to the nobles, but she asked one of the servants about him the next day. "Is there a fairy guard here by the name of Dranian Evelry, by chance?"

The servant raised a brow at the question, studying Mycra through the thick golden bars. "There was," she said, "but he left."

Mycra's soul dropped to the floor. "He… left ?"

"Yes. The heir original got kicked out of the house and sent to the Silver Castle a while back. His fairy guard followed him. I think they've joined the Brotherhood of Assassins now. At least, that's the rumour the young Lords of Lyro have been laughing about these last months—that the heir original is now a slave of the Queene."

Mycra stared. Even when the servant left, she continued to stare at the same place the servant had been. She could hardly convince herself to keep taking breaths.

Dranian had been at the Silver Castle, where she just was.

He was a member of the Brotherhood of Assassins who had just attacked and killed so many of her sisters. He might have been there. He might have passed by her. He might have seen her and not known who she was. Oh, sky deities, what if he was one of the ones she'd killed during her capture?

Mycra's hand slowly lifted to her dull, thudding heart. She'd missed Dranian at the raid of the Sisterhood's training place. She'd missed him at the Silver Castle. She'd missed him here.

In the fifth year of Mycra's confinement at the House of Lyro, she was sitting in her golden cage, plucking the petals off a fresh flower, waiting around for something exciting to happen. There had been chaos upstairs the last few days—yelling and fighting. Something was going on at the House of Lyro. She was relieved it didn't involve her this time.

Mycra tossed the petals to the floor and pulled up her silk pillow to lean her head back against the bars. Everything in her cage was perfectly neat, stunningly beautiful, and very rich. They treated her like a queene. If only the Lyros didn't imprison their queenes behind gold bars.

She'd heard all the rumours over the past year from her confined perch. The residents of the great house seemed to forget she was there when they walked by, talking loudly. It was a skill she was relieved she still possessed from her childling years—to be invisible.

There was talk that the Prince of the North Corner had vanished. Presumed to be dead. That the Brotherhood of Assassins had gone into turmoil trying to replace their former leader. Princess Haven was betrothed a new fairy now—Lord Bonswick of the East. Their wedding would be taking place soon since the year of planning was finally coming to an end.

It was all boring.

A handful of fairies flooded into the basement. The tension in the air was thick, but there was a new fairy with them Mycra had not seen before. He had white hair like the Lyro family, but his overall presence was different. While the Lyro fairies had clean faces and pure bodies, this new fairy had small scars over his shoulders, a few scattered tattoos, and fingers that looked as though they'd been broken then melded back together like he'd been in battle. It made Mycra curious.

The new fairy looked around as if recalling old memories, and his pretty blue gaze fell on her. A wide smile broke out across his face, and he moseyed over to her cage. Mycra lazily lifted from her plush bed and stretched, deciding she'd take a nap soon. But she came to the bars to meet him because her curiosity got the best of her. He was handsome too, but that didn't move her much.

"Queensbane, who exactly are you ?" he asked in an amused voice.

She glanced down at his bare feet. "I'm a weapon. Don't get too close; I bite," she whispered with ample threat, and his smile widened.

"How delightful," he said. Then he glanced up and around at her bars, seeming to question their sturdiness. "Can I interest you in a kiss, pretty fairy?" he offered, taking hold of two bars and shaking them a little. They didn't budge an inch.

Mycra laughed. "You must wish to enchant me and turn me against my masters. You'll be killed on the spot if you try."

"I am one of your masters," the fairy promised with a twinkle in his eye, and Mycra's face changed as she thought about that. She knew all the masters of this house but one. That meant he had to be…

"I'm Shayne." He reached a hand through the bars for a handshake, and Mycra blanched. "I think we may get along well here," he added.

Lord Shayne Lyro, former heir to the House of Lyro. Returned after five long years.

He would be dead by sunrise.

And he'd asked her for a kiss. Was he insane?

"Don't you know who I am?" she asked, taking a small step back from the bars. "Don't you realize we've already met?"

Shayne didn't bat an eye when he said, "I imagine you're the dreamslipper who's been haunting my nights, calling me home."

Mycra's smile was long gone. She could never smile about the nightmares. She rarely came face-to-face with the victims of them. And this was no ordinary victim. This was a fairy who was in close vicinity of another fairy she once knew.

"Is your fairy guard here?" Mycra asked before she could remember to hold her secrets close.

Shayne's face changed. "My fairy guard? No. I left that grumpy latte addict at home," he said without missing a beat. He studied Mycra as her shoulders dropped. "But I'm dying to know why you're interested in my Dranian," he added, appearing a smidgen wary.

Mycra swallowed and collected herself. "Never mind," she whispered. She stood a little taller and took the hand Shayne still extended through the bars, waiting.

"You shouldn't associate with me unless you want trouble, Lord Lyro," she warned him, and his smile grew. She cocked her head, looking him up and down, calculating his strength, his stability, how he might perform in a fight. How easy it might be to kill him and escape if she had to—just for curiosity's sake. "But I agree. I think we may get along quite well."