Chapter 1

Disappointingly, the world hadn’t ended while Thysandra slept.

She woke groggily, unwillingly, from the sounds of clanging chains and shouting voices – fae voices, most of them easily recognisable even through the thick alf steel plates on her cell door. Some of them were howling in anger. Others in unmistakable pain. In this underground rebel prison, their presence could only mean one thing: that the war had been lost. The fae empire defeated, the Crimson Court taken at last.

She could no longer manage to care.

A dull headache was pulsing beneath her skull as she pushed herself up from the wooden bench that had served as her bed for the past few weeks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her own chains tingled with the movement. She barely felt their cold weight on her wrists anymore, the white-gleaming alf steel blocking her magic; the throbbing, smarting ache in her chest was a far more urgent injury than the bruises on her skin.

A traitor’s daughter.

She still saw the letters, black ink gleaming on smooth parchment, whenever she closed her eyes.

Outside her cell, the hubbub seemed to be coming closer, doors banging louder and louder as whatever was happening spread to her side of the corridor. She heard other voices too, now, speaking with the distinctive northern accent of alves and the guttural timbre of vampires … It seemed they were rounding up prisoners, taking them all at once from the cells in which they’d been locked up over the course of the last twenty-four hours. Public executions, maybe. Trials. Who even knew what the Alliance might come up with, in revenge for a century and a half of life under fae rule?

Thysandra huddled her knees to her chest and slumped against the wall, her wings shivering as they pressed into the cold stone. Presumably, she ought to feel fear at whatever was happening outside her cell. Grief, maybe. At the very least, some sort of desperate anger. Four centuries of slaving away for the empire, four centuries of unwavering loyalty, and now this was all that had come of it – ashes and rubble?

Still the feelings wouldn’t come. No matter how hard she reached for them, there was nothing but dull, hollow emptiness in the persistent thudding of her heart.

A traitor’s daughter.

Perhaps she should never have tried to be anything else.

The knuckles against her door didn’t jolt her – she was too numb to be jolted, even her battle reflexes dulled to the point of non-existence. The door swung open a long five seconds later, as if whoever stood outside had hoped for a reply or permission to enter.

For one heart-stopping moment, she expected to see the pink, flowery silhouette she would have killed to avoid on this miserable morning.

Instead, the figure stepping into her cell was tall and winged and decidedly male – Agenor, her mind registered a dazed heartbeat later, his familiar face grim, an ink-black snake wrapped around his forearm. She didn’t avert her eyes swiftly enough to miss the way his gaze shot over her dishevelled appearance – her tangled hair, the scrapes and bruises on her wrists, the red dress she’d worn since the Alliance had captured her. But no matter what he was thinking, no matter the painful contrast of his own well-groomed refinement on the edge of her sight, all that left his lips was a perfectly restrained, ‘Morning, Thys.’

She wished she felt enough to punch him in the face.

At the very least, she wished she felt enough to cry.

She sat motionless, hunched up on her narrow bench, as the male she’d once called her ally nudged the door half-shut behind him and crossed the ten feet towards her. The last time he’d visited her in this cell, he’d kept his distance even with the alf steel blocking her magic, likely for the justified fear she might try and scratch out his eyes. There was none of that caution now. Either he trusted that bloody snake of his to deal with any aggression from her side, or he assumed she would no longer feel the urge to commit violence in the first place.

Even her spite at knowing he was right was not enough to make her move.

A glimpse of light reflected off the key between his fingers. For a moment she thought he would free her entirely, but he merely unlinked her metal cuffs from the chains lodged in the walls – quiet, patient motions as outside the door, the clamour of shouting and crying voices swelled to an increasingly loud roar.

‘Can you stand?’ Agenor asked in his deep voice, stepping back as the last chain fell to the stone floor. ‘They tell me you haven’t been eating much.’

She glared at him, unmoving.

He sighed and threw a look over his shoulder, as if to estimate how the rest of the Alliance was faring without him. Then, turning back, he added, ‘We’re taking everyone back to the Crimson Court, Thys. I figured you might want to come, too.’

Back?

To the court ?

It wasn’t surprise, the small spark of interest that flickered to life for the first time in days. It certainly wasn’t curiosity. But it was enough to make her lift her head and frown at him. Enough to make her wonder for a sliver of a moment whether he was joking, or lying, or otherwise tricking her into some elaborate fae scheme only a mind like his could come up with .

He looked fully earnest, though – a glimpse of weary concern breaking through the stoic mask of his face.

‘Why?’ she croaked.

‘Reasons,’ he said, absently lifting his arm a fraction to allow his snake to slither onto a silk-clad shoulder. A small smile quirked his lips, there and gone again. ‘I’ve been instructed to, mostly.’

Instructed – he ? Agenor Thenes himself, former Lord Protector of the Crimson Court, who had promptly become one of the Alliance’s leading figures after he’d turned his back on faekind and joined the rebellion instead?

There weren’t too many people whose instructions he would follow, even fewer he would smile about. Really, she suspected the number of candidates lay very close to one.

‘By that daughter of yours?’ she numbly guessed.

Silly little Emelin of Cathra, who had turned out to be not so silly at all, or even so little. Half fae and unbound mage, with newly acquired divine powers to boot. If the war was over, if the little vixen had killed the Mother …

Her heart squeezed.

Would the Mother have been dead if no one had told the Alliance how to get rid of the magical bindings that had prevented the rest of the world from using magic against her?

‘By that daughter of mine, yes,’ Agenor said, that same smile flickering across his face again. His snake was cautiously slithering into his hair now, black scales blending seamlessly with equally black curls. ‘I would have objected if I’d thought she was planning to harm you, though. So … are you coming?’

She stared at the calloused hand he held out to her.

Was she coming?

It was a genuine question. Not an unfriendly one, even. It made everything worse, that glimpse of his familiar kindness – because the world had been so simple, so blissfully simple, when she’d been sure one faction in the war was good, the other faction was bad, and she was firmly on the right side of that clear-cut divide. And then that gods-damned letter had arrived two days ago, and here the male she’d thought a devious turncoat stood looking like he was still the same person she’d trusted and respected more than almost anyone else in the cutthroat world of the Crimson Court …

‘If you don’t mean to do me any harm,’ she said hoarsely, ‘then why are my wrists still chained together?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Well, just to name one thing – last time we saw each other, you called me a traitor and a disgrace to faekind and threatened to slit my throat as soon as your hands were free again.’

It was hard not to wince. ‘Yes, but … but …’

But that was before I talked.

She couldn’t bring her lips to shape the words, even though there was nothing new in them, even if he knew as well as she did what had happened in the past two days. That was before the Mother abandoned me and cast me away like a used tool. Before bloody Naxi followed me into this cell, all sweet and soothing sympathy. Before I spilled those secrets I should have known would spell the end of the empire.

Before I became a traitor, too.

‘Yes,’ Agenor said, voice flat, green eyes no doubt reading the thoughts straight from her face. His expression didn’t exactly change … but it definitely tightened . ‘If you want to know, the main reason I’m not releasing you is that a certain half demon warned me you might feel inclined to apply your suggested treatment of defectors to yourself as soon as you were able to. Which I would highly regret, in case that needs to be said.’

Fuck.

It was one thing to be sick of your own existence. For others to be aware of the fact was something else entirely, somehow. She wasn’t sure which demon he was referring to, Creon or Naxi, and didn’t even care that much; both options were equally humiliating.

‘Go to hell,’ she muttered.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got a few more urgent things to do,’ he said, unfazed. ‘Might consider the trip in the future, though. For now, are you ready to leave?’

She bit out a curse and grabbed his hand.

Her knees were a fraction unsteady when he pulled her to her feet. She gritted her teeth and stood all the same, unwilling to be carried out of her cell like some damsel in distress; by the sound of it, all fellow army commanders who’d survived the last days of the war were gathered in that corridor now, and she’d be damned if she allowed herself to lose their respect so swiftly and easily. If they didn’t yet know what she’d done …

Oh, gods.

What if they knew ?

But she was paid no particular attention as Agenor hoisted her out of her cell, into the throng of alves and fae and vampires. The familiar faces all around her looked more than occupied by their restraints and injuries; she saw Bereas shaking his fist at an unimpressed vampire, saw Imbros clasp a bleeding arm to his chest, saw Nicanor glare his icy glare at the alf female holding the chain attached to his wrists. The few fae who seemed to notice her at all did not bother to greet her. One or two brisk nods were all she was granted at their first confirmation of her survival since she’d been taken captive.

It turns out , the Mother’s letter had said, that Thysandra is perfectly redundant to our court …

Her body went numb again.

Had any of them been aware of it? She couldn’t help but glance around as Agenor positioned her by the wall and strode off with a last muttered apology – couldn’t help but let her gaze wander over the sea of faces she’d known for decades, centuries. Had they ever realised just how little the Mother truly cared about her, or for that matter, about any of them?

Would they still have fought for the empire, had they known?

Perhaps they would have. Perhaps only traitor’s daughters threw aside centuries of loyalty as easily as she had, ignoring duty for some friendly words and something uncomfortably close to reckless lust.

For the first time, she was glad for the alf steel on her wrists. The weight of the cold metal was unpleasant, of course, but freedom would have been much, much worse; every single fae would have known the truth of her treason immediately if the Alliance had singled her out in such an obvious manner. Now at least there was some limit to the damage Naxi and her soft little hands had done. If she simply never told anyone …

A coward’s thought. She clung to it all the same.

After all, perhaps not everything was lost yet, if the Alliance wasn’t planning to publicly shame her as a traitor. Perhaps she could just … keep her head down for a while. Make sure to avoid any blue-eyed half demons causing trouble. Try not to get noticed as she gathered the shards of her old life and figured out what was left for her in this Mother-less world without love or purpose, if there was even anything left for her …

And then she’d see.

It wasn’t a plan – not really. But it was enough to set her mind turning again, and for the first time since she’d sobbed out those words she really should never have spoken, the numb hole in her chest seemed a little less bottomless.

Around her, the rebels were finally done lining up their prisoners, nothing but open doors along the length of the corridor. She saw Agenor issue a few quick instructions, and then the first alves took the arms of the fae beside them and disappeared into nothingness – transporting their captives to the Crimson Court in the time it took to blink an eye. A helpful sort of magic to have, Thysandra was well-aware, and the Mother had focused years of experiments on attempts to give fae those fading powers as well … but even after all this time, the sight of living bodies vanishing into thin air always sent a small shiver down her spine.

‘Ready to go?’ a voice said, suddenly close behind her.

She almost shrieked as she whipped around.

Gods-damned Tared Thorgedson had appeared out of nowhere in the open doorway of her cell – tall and blond like all alves, albeit admittedly a fraction more even-tempered than most of his kind. Blood-spattered and soot-stained though he might be on this morning, an unmistakable edge of triumph glinted in his steel grey eyes, and there was no denying the contentment in his casual stance against the doorframe.

Nor did she think she imagined the hint of satisfaction in his voice as he added, ‘You’ll be glad to know that I’ve been told to keep a good eye on you. Need to make sure you don’t miss any of the proceedings.’

Oh, gods help her.

She’d been there, after the Last Battle a hundred-and-thirty years ago, when the Mother had forced him to kneel at her feet and taken his magic and the memories of his parents. She’d assisted – eagerly – at his downfall.

Clearly, she was not the only one who remembered.

Why you, of all people? she wanted to snap, that tendril of almost-curiosity stirring again. I don’t need to be singled out like this in front of my former allies. Couldn’t you have given me another alf – any other alf, really – rather than the bloody leader of the Alliance himself?

She swallowed the question. In all likelihood, he simply felt like gloating, and who else would he gloat to now that the Mother was dead?

‘Where exactly are we going?’ she tried instead.

‘Bone hall.’ He stood straighter and wrapped his hand around her arm. A small, skewed grin slid around his lips. ‘Or what’s left of it, anyway.’

He faded before she could ask what in the world that was supposed to mean.

The colours of the prison blurred together, as if the canvas of reality crumpled around them – a nauseating whirlpool of black and grey and the palest blue, the scent of mouldy earth and brine, the sounds of waves whipping against cliffs. Thysandra clenched her eyes shut and tried not to feel gravity tugging her stomach in all the wrong directions at once, tried not to hear the eerily loud thuds of her heart as the world whizzed by.

Then, just as abruptly, it was over.

The ground went solid beneath her feet so suddenly she almost stumbled. The noise of a crowd roared into existence around her. Blinking against the blinding sunlight, she forced open her eyes, finding herself standing in an all too familiar antechamber. Red marble and gleaming gold. Open arches looking out over rocky, olive-covered hills and the endless stretch of azure sea beyond.

Home.

Even that coveted sight failed to light so much as a spark of joy within her.

Tared’s hand gave a tug at her elbow, and she followed him numbly as she and the other prisoners were guided deeper into the castle, their heads bent, their wrists still cuffed together. Through the rows of alves and rebel fae standing guard around the hall. Past the copper-plated doors hanging askew on their hinges. Into …

The bone hall.

Or what was left of it, anyway.

The heart of the Mother’s reign had been a grand, majestic place, built by the god of life and death himself, the walls decorated with thousands upon thousands of bones of the enemies he’d vanquished. The battle of the previous day shouldn’t have touched it, having been fought on the other side of the archipelago. And yet the hall was unrecognisable now, looking more like the ruins of the Cobalt Court than the glorious home of her recent memories – arches crumbling down from the ceiling, two large breaches gaping in the walls. A small army of humans – humans , for the gods’ sakes – was hacking away at the last bone decorations with clubs and crowbars, whooping vigorously at every skull to come tumbling to the ground.

By her side, Tared’s grin had broadened to face-splitting proportions.

Around them, the other fae prisoners were looking as dazed as Thysandra felt.

The humans were not the only intruders, although they were the most numerous. She caught sight of a handful of grim vampire kings, nymph queens in their colourful dresses, phoenixes gleefully burning piles of shattered bones to ashes. Allie, Agenor’s human lover, stood chatting with a blond, pointy-eared half fae in the corner. Farther into the hall, Lyn, Tared’s … something, was hurriedly rescuing a pile of books before the other phoenixes’ flames could reach it, her small body teetering under the weight of the stack.

Everyone of importance to the Alliance … except for the one little demon Thysandra would give an arm and a leg to avoid.

She was pretty sure it was relief, that tense, sinking feeling in her lower stomach.

The alves wasted no time ushering her and the other fae forward, through the glaring, hissing crowd, closer to where the Mother’s throne had towered over the hall in better times. It had vanished now, and in its place a crumbling hole gaped in the marble floor – large enough to offer a glimpse into the hollow, blue-glowing cavity that had always slumbered below the foundations of the castle.

The Labyrinth.

Her heart went cold. Surely the Alliance wasn’t planning to sacrifice their captives to whatever unholy magic lived in the underground maze beneath the court? No harm , Agenor had said, but then again, even Agenor had lied before.

It was only then, as muffled curses and hisses of spite went up among the ranks of her fellow prisoners, that she realised she’d overlooked the biggest problem of all before her.

Emelin.

Daughter of Agenor’s house, godsworn mage, and worst of all, new High Lady of the fae empire.

The girl still looked so deceptively fragile to the casual eye, the way she was standing there at the back of the hall – short and wingless and wearing a blue dress with so little red in it that it might be a deliberate insult to the rest of the gathered company. But Thysandra had seen her look harmless before, stumbling through this very hall in nothing but a nightdress and a coat, spinning doe-eyed flattery at the Mother with artful courtier’s skill … and there was something in the smile on her face now, in the tilt of her head and the path of her green eyes over the rows of chained fae, that was nothing less than a deadly warning.

Perhaps it was that look that stifled the grumbling among the ranks of the prisoners within moments. Alternatively, it was the black-haired, black-winged fae male by her side, who stood lounging against the damaged wall among small heaps of bones and could not have looked harmless if he’d tried.

Not that he appeared to be trying.

Thysandra hastily averted her gaze, swallowing something bitter. Defeat was one thing. Being defeated by Creon bloody Hytherion, who’d first robbed her of the Mother’s love and then gone forth to betray the both of them … that was another level of hurt entirely. She wasn’t yet sure what to make of his claim that the Mother had in fact abandoned him , too – and surrounded by vengeful enemies and allies she was hoping wouldn’t notice her, this seemed an exceptionally bad moment to start thinking harder about it.

Better to stay numb and invisible. She could feel and wonder later.

A ripple of excitement spread through the crowd as Agenor reappeared, black snake wrapped around his shoulders now, his largest red snake slithering after him as he made his way to where his daughter and son-in-law were standing. A few quick words were all they exchanged. Then the former Lord Protector nodded and ambled off, joining Allie and her half fae friend on the other side of the hall; around him, the humans hastily ceased their hacking, and the phoenix fires sizzled out at once.

Eager, expectant silence flooded the hall. As if every last human knew exactly what they were waiting for, except no one had informed—

‘Thank you,’ Emelin’s dry voice rose, the sound echoing back from the marred walls and ceiling. ‘Lovely to see you all gathered here. There are a few things I’d like to say before we all return to the far more pleasant order of the day.’

She wasn’t even speaking Faerie.

Standing in the heart of faekind, speaking as the High Lady of all fae, and yet she was blatantly rejecting even the language of the empire she’d just inherited – using a human dialect instead, likely the language of the island on which she’d grown up. Thysandra didn’t need to look up to know what the fae around her thought of it; the whispers of outrage told her more than enough even while she stubbornly kept her eyes trained on the floor around her boots.

‘First, the formalities,’ Emelin continued, unfazed – sounding amused , if anything. It took a mighty effort not to look up and see the expression on her face. ‘I’m officially claiming my position as your new High Lady, having killed the previous one, et cetera, et cetera – I’ve been told I ought to give all of you a chance to dispute the claim, so here we are. Does anyone wish to offer any objections, challenges, or other attempts to make life harder for themselves? If so, this would be the perfect moment to let me know.’

Deafening silence settled over the hall, as if even breathing too loudly might be taken as an act of rebellion.

Thysandra glanced up anyway, in spite of all her wiser intentions – too tense to keep herself blind to her surroundings when even the sounds no longer gave any hints of possible dangers approaching. To either side of her, clenched fists and tight wings suggested shouts barely kept inside … but Agenor’s eyes had narrowed to a threat on the other side of the hall, and against the back wall, Creon was smiling with saintly sweetness as he leisurely turned a knife around between his fingers.

Five, then ten seconds of breathless paralysis ticked by.

‘That’s settled, then.’ Emelin’s beaming smile at the prisoners was too bright to be sincere. ‘I’m glad you’re as thrilled as I am. In that case, since you have so trustingly placed your empire in my hands, I would like to make use of this heart-warming occasion to announce a couple of decisions I’ve made.’

Tared stifled a chuckle behind Thysandra’s back.

‘First of all’ – an edge of disconcerting hardness snuck into their new High Lady’s voice all of a sudden – ‘effective immediately, the empire relinquishes its control over all islands not inhabited by a majority of fae. Taxation and tribute obligations are ending as of this moment, too. For your convenience, let’s just say I’m handing over the authority to whoever was in power before the Mother’s invasion, or to whoever inherits that power according to local customs. Then all of you can sort out for yourself who those lucky rulers might be, alright?’

A few muffled cheers and breathless peals of laughter rose from among the crowd, although most of the audience remained quiet and motionless. They must have known this was coming; even the few nymph queens dabbing away their tears didn’t seem particularly surprised .

‘Second of all,’ Emelin added, her smile at the horde of humans much more genuine than her previous one had been, ‘all human slaves living at the Crimson Court are free to go. I’ll figure out how to remove your bindings to the island later today, and of course we’ll have a few alves available to return you all to your homes as efficiently as possible.’

The cheers were louder this time. Close by, the first disconcerted mumbles rose among the fae prisoners – thousands of servants, their quiet work in the background of crucial importance to the daily operations of the court …

One of the alves snapped a warning, and the grumbling died away again, leaving only thin-lipped glares behind.

‘Thirdly,’ Emelin continued, a little louder now to reach over the elated whispers of the newly freed humans, ‘and perhaps most importantly, I have decided to split up the empire.’

Thysandra had never heard a silence fall so abruptly.

Breaths caught and jaws sagged throughout the hall, even those who had been grinning in triumph two heartbeats ago – this was news, then, true news, an announcement not even the kings and queens of the rebelling islands had been aware of beforehand. The alves around them had stiffened, too. Only Agenor smiled, and next to him, Allie was biting her lip with— Wait, was that—

A fang ?

Good gods.

Everything was happening far, far too quickly.

‘More specifically,’ Emelin was saying at an immeasurable distance, ‘we will install the three courts as three independent administrative entities. All smaller fae isles may choose for themselves who they will ally with, in terms of taxation and infrastructure and such. The Golden Court will of course be in good hands with my dearest father over here …’

Agenor’s smile broadened into an uncharacteristically wide grin.

So he had known, hadn’t he? Thysandra risked closing her eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of the meagre hints he’d given her during that short conversation in her cell. Perhaps he’d been trying to tell her she was welcome to move into the Golden Court if she wished to? Which would mean leaving the Crimson Court behind, of course, the home she’d invested every single hour of her time in for the last four hundred years – but then again, if staying at the Crimson Court meant living under the rule of Creon fucking Hytherion …

‘And since I’m already losing my patience with this gods-forsaken place after spending half an hour in it,’ Emelin cheerfully continued, ‘Creon and I will be taking up residence at the Cobalt Court.’

Thysandra’s eyes flew open.

The Cobalt Court?

Around her, the whispering among the gathered fae was growing into unmistakable muttering, and this time even the alves guarding them seemed too baffled to do much about it. The Cobalt Court was in ruins . Who in the world would choose three crumbling walls and half a tower as their home for eternity? And more importantly …

If the two most powerful mages currently alive were not planning to stay here and keep an eye on the court the Mother had left behind, then who the hell would?

Who even could ?

‘As most of you appear to realise, that leaves the hellhole we’re presently standing in.’ Emelin’s gesture at the bone hall had the air of a vexed parent confronted with the room her child hadn’t cleaned in months; the look she exchanged with Creon was more than a little exasperated. ‘To tell you the truth, I strongly considered burning the whole court to the ground – but apparently you’ve got a nice library, and also, Zera told me to play nice whenever possible. So we’ll have to find someone else to take care of it.’

What in the world?

Thysandra couldn’t help but stare now, no matter how determined she’d been to stay far, far away from this mess – because even a twenty-something-year-old, almost-human peasant girl had to know this was an outrageously bad idea, didn’t she? Or at least Creon or Agenor must have warned her of the risks? Madness, to think any other fae ruler she might choose wouldn’t be rebelling within months or years – although that wasn’t Thysandra’s problem, of course, and all the more reason to keep her head down —

‘Thysandra?’ Emelin’s voice cut in.

It took her half a heartbeat to realise the sound of her name hadn’t merely existed in her own mind.

Another one to realise the rows of hand-cuffed fae had abruptly gone very, very quiet around her – no, that the entire hall had gone quiet around her.

Hundreds and hundreds of bulging eyes, staring at her wherever she looked – as if she was some unexpected novelty they had never truly noticed before. As if she hadn’t wandered this court for four hundred years, as much a part of it as the hills and the hounds and the twisted trees of Faewood …

‘What?’ she managed to force out.

Too loud. The word echoed in the baffled silence.

‘The Crimson Court,’ Emelin said, her tone alarmingly sweet, her smile alarmingly wide. ‘You know it well, don’t you? I thought you might like to take over the management of it.’