Chapter 2

By the time she reached the place where the marble floor had cracked open, she no longer knew how she’d ever managed to move her feet.

Tared had unlocked the chains on her wrist without wasting a moment, then nudged her forward, out of the rows of fae and into full view of every mortal and immortal soul gathered in the hall. The audience had erupted in riotous clamour, a hundred shocked, stunned, furious conversations bouncing off the pockmarked walls and ceiling. Thysandra didn’t dare to look over her shoulder. Didn’t dare to look at the gaping hole in the floor either, which was now emanating an eerie red glow – as if even the Labyrinth below was sharing its opinions on this unexpected development, and unhappy opinions at that.

She kept her gaze trained on Emelin instead, for lack of a better alternative. Agenor’s daughter still hadn’t stopped smiling – that gods-damned honey-sweet smile that had once convinced even the Mother herself there was nothing dangerous or worrisome about her.

As if she had not just signed Thysandra’s death warrant.

As if she had not just outed her as a traitor to the rest of the world, and to what remained of the Mother’s most loyal following in particular .

Creon had finally come away from the wall and was now sauntering towards the prisoners, his knife still in his hand, an expression on his face that suggested he was hoping one of them would be stupid enough to challenge him. Thysandra didn’t dare to look his way, either. Instead, reeling to a standstill at a safe five feet from the crater’s edge, she managed to drag in a shaking breath and stammer, ‘But … but I don’t want—’

‘Oh, that’s not really a factor of concern to me,’ Emelin pleasantly interrupted, ambling towards her with still that same unfaltering smile on her face. ‘I can’t remember you caring greatly about any of my wishes either in the past few months. Any other reasons to object?’

Gods have mercy.

She shouldn’t have come here. She should have begged Agenor, Tared, anyone , to just slit her throat and be done with it, before this deadly trap could shut around her – but here she stood, alive and well, and somehow she suspected the girl before her would not be terribly impressed with pleas or self-destructive requests. What other way out did she have? It would help little to point out her terrible chances of success or survival, not when those should be perfectly obvious to any soul paying attention; clearly Emelin didn’t care much about the possibility of having to sweep in next year to restore order once again.

‘Why me?’ Thysandra breathed.

Whiny and pathetic. Spoken like the traitor’s daughter without a dutiful bone in her body.

Emelin shrugged without making that point. ‘Why not?’

‘You … you have no idea whether you can trust me.’ It wasn’t even a lie. She didn’t even know herself whether she could be trusted. ‘I might attack your own court before the decade is over, for all you know. I might only cause you more trouble. I—’

‘Yes,’ Emelin admitted, looking not at all discouraged. ‘Yes, I suppose you might try all of those things.’

Thysandra stared at her.

Behind her back, someone was howling in pain – one of the other fae prisoners, presumably, after having made just too much fuss over these changes for Creon’s taste. Another voice was shouting her name. It sounded like a demand for her to turn around and explain this madness, for her to justify the apparent trust the Alliance was placing in her.

Treason , she would have to say. Turns out I’m the reason you lost that war.

Was that why Emelin didn’t seem in the least concerned? Did she assume Thysandra’s betrayal indicated a complete change of sides, rather than an unfortunate confession blurted out in the throes of emotional turmoil?

Would she be right?

Four centuries of loyalty to the empire, to the courts, to the people living in them … but did she still have a reason to feel so gods-damned devoted to any of it if the Mother had never been loyal to her in turn?

She had no idea where to even start wondering, let alone who to ask. The Mother’s most fervent followers would tear her to shreds the moment she acknowledged her first inkling of doubt. The rest of the empire’s courtiers, those who were loyal only to their own interests, would be just as eager to betray her for any small advantage a change in power might bring. Weakness was not permitted at the top, and she’d never been weaker than she was today – she wouldn’t last the first month on the throne in this state.

Sweat was trickling between her wings, sticking her grimy, ruined dress to her shoulder blades.

‘What if I just … refuse?’ she stammered.

‘Wouldn’t recommend it,’ Emelin said, her voice quiet and polite in a way that alarmingly resembled her father’s manner of speaking. When Agenor got that pointedly courteous, things were about to get very, very deadly. ‘You see, I have asked the members of the Alliance to remain quiet regarding … certain pieces of information you’ve provided us with, in order not to jeopardise your brand new rule of this court. But of course, if there isn’t a rule to jeopardise …’

She let the sentence meaningfully trail away, still looking the height of well-bred innocence as the shouts of fae and the agitated clamour of the audience filled the silence again.

Thysandra barely even heard it .

If there isn’t a rule to jeopardise …

So that was why the secret had been kept so far – to wield it as a weapon? Leave it to the alves to make sure the news would erupt in the most explosive of ways when Emelin and her cronies thought the time had come. And then it would be a matter of time until a handful of aggrieved fae loyalists hunted her down and took their revenge for their humiliation in battle; even if she took up residence at the Golden Court, even if she hid away in some cave on some uninhabited fae isle, she didn’t think she could hide long enough for them to forget about her.

Death if she refused. Death if she accepted.

She’d thought she no longer cared much about survival, and yet, staring into the gaping maws of that bitter end, she found some last little spark of stubbornness clinging desperately, defiantly, to the drumbeat of her heart.

‘Don’t worry,’ Emelin said, her voice suddenly softer, the forceful cheer moving over for something that looked disconcertingly like genuine concern. ‘We’re not going to fly off in two minutes to leave you with the mess – we need to unbind the humans and make some other arrangements either way. Take a day to recover. I’m sure the world will look less daunting once you’ve had a bath and some time to think.’

A bath ?

Thysandra only just stifled the hysterical laughter welling up in her chest, letting out an involuntary choked hiccough instead. A bath was supposed to save her from a knife in the back or a pinch of hemlock in her wine? A day’s respite, perhaps, but tomorrow she’d wake up and be all on her own. A single traitor among the vying sycophants and the vicious games for power, with no one to talk to, no one to trust—

‘Thysandra.’ A glimpse of steely authority – of the girl who had dealt with gods and demons alike and survived them all. ‘There’ll be time to talk later. Go take a nap.’

Yes.

Gods, yes – sleep .

It was almost embarrassing how easily she staggered backwards, away from the gaping crater of the Labyrinth and this nightmare conversation. But her mind latched on to the image of her bed – her own soft, safe bed – and at once she could no longer think of anything else, scheming and secrets be damned …

‘Thank you,’ she managed, numbly, not sure what she ought to be grateful for.

Then she was stumbling out of this broken hall, away from the former allies she’d doomed to chains, and the crowd of her enemies obediently parted around her.

The castle hadn’t changed since she’d been taken captive, and yet nothing about it still looked the same.

She trudged through the deserted marble corridors, past the splendid halls she knew so well, past the gilded doors and the velvet draperies and the shadowy alcoves, and each and every one of them looked as hollow as a stranger’s face. Behind her, the tumult in the bone hall slowly grew distant, then died away. It left only the quieter sounds of the island, the rushing of the sea and the howling of the hounds down in Faewood – none of them loud enough to drown out the haunted screech of her own unwelcome thoughts.

High Lady of the Crimson Court.

She wanted to cry.

She wanted to scrub the sound of those words off her skin, the grimy, sticky feeling of them, the guilt and betrayal that only grew heavier as she staggered through the castle that could now be hers.

It wasn’t her title – that was the problem. It belonged to the Mother, who’d ruled the empire from this seat as long as almost anyone remembered. It was a fact of life, the High Lady’s presence on this island, no more changeable than the fact that the sun rose in the east. And now the throne was gone, the bone hall had been smashed to pieces, and what was left was a floundering court, like a ship without its captain … and Thysandra.

Traitor.

Winner.

All these years she’d dreamed someone, anyone , would finally acknowledge the sacrifices she’d made for the empire, that for once no one else would be credited for her own hard work … and now here it was, the recognition she’d sought, and it felt like a kick in the face. Her betrayal stung worse, somehow, now that she was profiting from it. If she’d simply been banished to the dungeons for the rest of her life …

Behind her, a door slammed.

A voice she vaguely recognised but couldn’t identify from this distance shouted, ‘ Thysandra !’

Fuck.

Decisions made themselves in a single panicked heartbeat, the impulse of flight the only reflex still alive in her limbs. Without thinking, she lurched into the nearest room and shoved the door shut behind her wings, reflexively scanning her surroundings for threats and dangers. Some imperial archive, it turned out, mahogany filing cabinets rising to the ceiling around her. Not a place where anyone would look for her. Then again, not a place where she could safely take a nap, either.

Outside the room, the same voice shouted her name again. Who was it – Bereas? The volume gave the impression that the male on her trail was used to shouting across the full length of a racing track.

Had the Alliance allowed their other captives out of the bone hall as well?

Cursing under her breath, she made her way to the window on the other side of the room, drawing a smidge of red from her dress to make the glass vanish. Red for destruction. She didn’t have the blue at hand to heal the damage again, and couldn’t care much about it either; for the first time in weeks, she unfolded her wings, unable to suppress a groan at the cramped stiffness of her shoulder muscles.

Best to take the short route, then.

She clambered onto the windowsill as a handful of doors banged open close-by, her pursuer shouting her name once more. Beneath her, the cliff on which the castle was built descended steeply into the dizzying depths. The tangled, gnarled trees of Faewood stretched out beyond, running from the bare rocks all the way down to the southside beach – a sight that hadn’t made her wince for centuries, and yet on this cursed morning, she couldn’t even glance at it without remembering …

Father.

Wings clipped, legs broken, shouting her name again and again as they threw him to the snarling hounds below.

He should have known better than to betray us, Thysandra , the Mother had told her afterwards, so sweet and gentle, stroking her head as she sobbed in the High Lady’s lap. His death could not be avoided. But we won’t let him drag you down with him, sweetheart – we’ll find you something to do around the court …

And then after centuries of loyal servitude, after she’d fought and bled and wept for the empire every single day of her life, that gods-damned letter had arrived, written in the Mother’s hand.

A traitor’s daughter.

She gritted her teeth and jumped.

Her scarred wings were stiff and cramped against the cool morning air, stinging her shoulders as she swept them wide and found her balance on the gentle breeze. But at least she was out of that room, away from Bereas, and—

A cry went up beneath her.

Two winged silhouettes launched themselves from a lower terrace, soaring her way.

Fuck. Perhaps she’d been too quick to celebrate.

She slapped her wings against the air currents with a desperate effort, cursing at the agonised cramping of her muscles but unwilling to slow down and find out what the two fast-approaching fae thought of her recent rise in the ranks. Never mind about the short route, then. If people were looking for her, she was too visible flying. Better to make it to the nearest floor of her tower, take a sprint up the stairs, and hope she didn’t run into anyone else before she reached the safe haven of her rooms – assuming, of course, that no one was unhappy enough to break through her defences to have a word with her …

Worries for later. Her assailants were close enough to be recognised now – gods-damned Orthea and some fae girl whose name she didn’t know – shouting about traitors and urgent strategies to deal with them.

Not the moment to find out if it was herself they were talking about.

Her landing on the nearest balcony was more of a crash, clumsy to the point of humiliation. She refused to care. A flicker of red into the lock and she swung the double doors open, bursting into the space behind without spending a moment’s thought on whoever’s private quarters she was entering. She realised her mistake only three steps into the room, as the stark white walls and the stark white floor finally registered themselves in her conscious mind.

She’d stepped into the nursery.

The fucking nursery .

The place where her life had fallen apart a second time, forty years after her traitor father’s death – where she’d stood beside that stark white cot and stared at the uncannily powerful child sleeping in it, with his rumpled little wings and soft white gloves to prevent him from drawing colour and blowing up the whole damn tower. Cooing courtiers around her. Gifts piling up on the shelves. And no one, not even the people she’d thought her friends, had given her so much as a glance now that the Mother’s favour had moved elsewhere …

It was here, in this very room, that she had wondered whether perhaps the High Lady would notice her again, show her even a fraction of the praise and attention she’d been given before, if someone were to smother her gods-damned son in his cradle and feed his little body to the hounds down the hill.

It didn’t matter how swiftly she fled the room. There was no escaping the memories the sight of it brought along, so laughably skewed after all she’d learned in the past few days. She’d been so sure – so unerringly sure – that Creon was to blame for her downfall, that Creon had cut off her way to the top and stolen the love that was rightfully hers … And so it was Creon she’d hated. She’d worked harder, sacrificed her sleep and her scruples and her sanity, all in the stubborn hope the Mother would one day realise that her son was a spoiled little arsehole, and that Thysandra was the only person she would always be able to depend upon.

Except it turned out that there had been no love to steal in the first place.

Worse, that the Mother had never really loved Creon, either.

Of course she knew , Naxi had said sweetly as Thysandra sat shaking and crying in that underground cell, the words from the letter echoing through her mind. Of course she saw exactly how desperate you were to regain her favour. But why would she save you when ignoring your pain was only motivating you to work harder for her? Why would she tell you she was the one to blame when you were happy to loathe Creon instead and continue to be her useful doormat?

And why was she thinking of gods-damned Naxi again?

The twisting staircase and mosaic walls blurred to smudges of black and red and gold around her, tears stinging in the corners of her eyes as she forced herself to keep climbing. Naxi, who had noticed her when no one else had. Naxi, who had understood her pain so impossibly well. Naxi, who had soothed and coaxed and tempted, until at long last Thysandra had talked and told the little vixen exactly what she needed to know …

And then she’d vanished.

Like demons did.

It was a miracle she didn’t stumble as she floundered up the last stairs, hands slipping on the cold golden railing, knees shaking with exhaustion. The voices crying out her name downstairs had gone quiet. Perhaps they had realised she might very well slit their throats if they made the mistake of coming too close now; perhaps they had realised she was a traitor after all, and had tiptoed off to make their plans for violent rebellion elsewhere.

She would find out tomorrow, presumably.

If she even survived the night.

There it was, finally, the door to her rooms – its red wood and carved frame looking no different from any of the other doors in this tower, and yet she almost sobbed with relief at the sight. Finally, finally , she could at least get out of this fucking dress. Take a nap. Think things through. Sleep some more and then consider her options without any so-called allies attempting to use her for their own ends …

High Lady of the Crimson Court.

The idea still sounded like a joke.

Casting a last cautious look over her shoulder, she pressed her left fingers to her dress and drew a spark of red, aiming the magic at the secret spot between door and frame. Three soft clicks from beneath the wood told her the lock mechanism had survived the weeks of her absence, that unique piece of fae craftmanship the Mother had commissioned for her when the nightmares wouldn’t fade in the months after her father’s death.

A single nudge was enough. The door swept open as if she’d never been gone.

It was as unchanged as anything else about the castle, the safe haven of the room waiting for her beyond. Her plants still stood rustling in the high-arched windows. The sunlight still glinted off her green quartz wall. Her half-read books on the table, her slippers on the plush white rug, and—

Her gaze hit the worn velvet couch.

Her feet froze mid-step.

For one last fraction of a moment she could still tell herself it was the tiredness, the shock, her wrung-out mind playing tricks on her. Of course there was no little half demon sitting curled up on her very own couch. That was patently impossible. The door had been locked, and the windows had not been tampered with, either. She must be seeing things, already half in a dream, and if she just pinched herself—

The phantom image moved.

Smiled .

Stretching out lazily in the cushions, looking not unlike a contented housecat after a long day of catching mice, Naxi cooed, ‘Morning, Sashka.’