Chapter 4

Dawn arrived in shades of orange and ruby-red, as if even the sky itself wished to celebrate her wretched rise to power. By the time the sun came peeking over the horizon, Thysandra was out of bed and fully awake – her spine and wings still sore from her prison stay below the earth but her mind almost peaceful , and infinitely clearer with concrete goals to focus on.

Save the court.

Save its people.

And maybe, if she was very, very lucky, save herself as well.

Food would have to be the first priority, she had decided after hours of nocturnal rumination; not even the Mother’s most vehement loyalists bent on reconquering the archipelago would want to do it on empty stomachs. So they would have to take stock of the meat and grain stores. Figure out how much food was coming from their own fae isles and how much more they would need to survive the upcoming winter. Then it would be a matter of rationing and perhaps closing some trade deals with the recently separated territories, who would doubtlessly demand outrageous prices for the grain …

But it would just be for a few months, while they prepared to become self-sufficient. She could probably find support for that. Even if she had no desire whatsoever to start another war, there was no reason to tell the loyalists just yet, and—

Knuckles hammered against her door.

She’d jumped up from the couch before the last sharp thud sounded.

An attack? A warning? With one step, she’d reached her nearest dagger, fingers curling around the worn hilt in a smooth, thoughtless reflex – no one to be seen at the windows, a quick glance over her shoulder told her. Which meant she had an escape route if she needed one. Although of course, she would be more vulnerable in the open air, and—

‘Thysandra?’

She froze.

A hushed male voice. Quiet but urgent, slightly out of breath and … familiar.

‘Are you awake?’ the visitor at her door added after a beat of silence, a little louder now – and it was then, with an impossible burst of panic and relief at once, that she recognised that smooth, elegant lilt.

Nicanor. Commander of the Mother’s third regiment.

Not someone who would be trying to murder her in her sleep, that was the good news … but there was a certain awkwardness to interacting with a male who’d spent time in her bed for entirely different reasons. She’d fucked him only in some desperate attempt to forget about Naxi after the mess of the Last Battle and ended their fling when the effort turned out to be hopeless – but of course she hadn’t informed him of her motives, and worse, she doubted he’d be opposed to resuming the affair.

Why was he here? An attempt to use that shameful bit of shared history to his own benefit, now that she had unexpectedly risen to a position of power?

Did it matter?

He was a potential ally. She couldn’t afford to leave him standing on her doorstep.

‘What is it?’ she yelled, steeling herself.

‘Oh, thank the fucking gods.’ A mirthless laugh, or perhaps more of a scoff. She could imagine the expression on his pale face even with a door between them – the hint of a habitual sneer on his lips, the narrowing of his ice-blue eyes. ‘We’ve got somewhat of an emergency at hand. It’s the Alliance’s demon.’

Her heart skipped a violent beat.

An emergency?

With the Alliance’s demon. But that meant—

‘Which one?’ she stammered, grateful that at least he couldn’t see her face, that at least her words did not betray the savage pounding of her heart. Fuck. Fuck . ‘They seem to have multiple, these days.’

A hopeless, pathetic attempt at denying the inevitable. Nicanor wouldn’t have described Creon as the Alliance’s demon . And it seemed unlikely that anyone else had emerged out of nowhere with those cursed powers, deciding for no reason to haunt the halls of her court and torment the people in it …

When , Naxi had said.

Cold certainty was creeping up her veins.

‘Whatever she’s called. The half nymph one.’ A soft thud suggested Nicanor was resting his lithe weight against the doorframe outside. ‘Apparently Hytherion and the others left her behind when the rest of them ran off a few hours ago. We didn’t realise it at first, but it seems she’s gone on … a bit of a murder spree since.’

The rapid thumps of her heart were blurring to a nauseating drone. I’ll find something else to do , Naxi had said, with that saccharine, meaningful smile. Have it your way.

When.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

‘What happened?’ Her trembling hands fought with the sash of her morning robe, yanked the dark green silk off her limbs. Green wouldn’t do outside these rooms. If she was to be the High Lady of this court, she couldn’t look anything less than frightening. ‘Who’s died? And why?’

‘No fucking clue.’ Again he let out that sharp, joyless laugh. ‘By the time we found the fifteenth corpse clawing out its own eyes, I was no longer really in the mood to go ask her. She’s taken up position in the bone hall right now. Figured you might have a better idea of how to approach her, given your history with her.’

Thysandra winced.

He was talking about the history he knew, of course, the version of events that had earned her this cursed nickname of Demonbane. As far as the court was aware, she’d spent most of the Last Battle valiantly fighting Naxi, keeping her away from the hundreds of others the demon might have killed on the battlefield instead.

The truth …

Naked skin. Heated kisses. Yet another secret the Alliance could spread whenever they felt like ruining her reputation among her peers; she’d lived with the shame for so long that she hadn’t even realised it yesterday.

‘Fuck,’ she said, out loud this time.

‘Succinct but accurate,’ Nicanor sourly agreed. ‘Mind opening the door? I promise I don’t have anyone else with me, if that’s your concern.’

Promises were worth about as much as mud at the Crimson Court … but it didn’t make sense for him to lie if his report of events was true, and the story fit her conversation with Naxi too well for it to be a fabrication.

‘Give me half a minute,’ she said.

It took a little longer to find her favourite dress from her bulging wardrobe – an ankle-length, mulberry-coloured creation with sparkling red flower patterns stitched up along the left side. The skirts hid two niftily placed dagger sheaths. She filled them both, then opened her jewellery case and snatched out the ring that she’d worn on the day of the Last Battle as well: gold, with two razor-sharp spikes curling elegantly around her finger.

The perfect tool to slash one’s own wings, among many other uses.

Her hair was passable, she decided with a single glimpse in the mirror, and she should probably not let Nicanor wait any longer without a very good reason. She swept a last trace of down off the gold-black surface of her left wing. Pulled on a clean pair of boots on her way to the door. Drew in a last deep breath, then braced herself and opened the lock – instinctively scanning the full length of the stairwell before she moved even an inch past the threshold.

Nicanor was alone as promised, leaning against the wall in a most decorative manner, frosty blue wings folded meticulously against his shoulders. His long, silver-white braid was unruffled. His half-smile held its usual unimpressed, derisive edge. But there was blood on the cuff of his silk shirt, and more on his leather boots; the mere fact that he hadn’t bothered to pause and restore his usual pristine appearance was in itself a sign of the greatest alarm.

His eyes slid over her in a single impassive – albeit undeniably appreciative – glance as he straightened, adjusted his wings, and added, ‘And good morning, Thys.’

She gave him a look.

‘Thysandra,’ he amended, lips curling ever so slightly into a smile that was somehow both remorseful and full of mocking amusement. ‘Or do you prefer the title these days?’

‘The title can go to hell,’ she muttered.

He sniggered and turned his back towards her as she shut the door – a request she’d made ages ago and that he’d never tried to argue against, even in the midst of their one-sided love affair. He, too, knew how to play the game at court. Trust was a currency, and one far more expensive than simple physical desire or even respect; they could be friends, allies, partners, and there was still not a single reason for him to know the mechanism of her locks.

‘Alright,’ she added in a low voice as she finished and joined him, heading for the winding stairs. The tower seemed deserted apart from the two of them, although there was plenty of shouting to be heard in the distance. ‘Any more details on what’s happened?’

‘I was alerted some two hours ago,’ he said, shifting seamlessly into his no-nonsense soldier’s demeanour as he shook his braid over his slim shoulders. ‘Took us all a while to realise what was going on, because Bereas and his friends were making the rounds and killing a bunch of Alliance sympathisers at the same time … but then one of them got killed and it became clear they were not the only ones at work.’

Traitor’s daughter .

She forced herself to breathe slowly. ‘Do you know how many she killed?’

‘At least forty, from what I’ve heard so far. We may be finding more of them.’ He grimaced. ‘By the time we managed to locate her at the end of the trail of corpses, she was already making her way down to the hall.’

Good gods.

Should she have seen it coming? She was the one who’d spent decades studying demons – yet another doomed attempt to demonstrate her superiority over Creon and the very blood in his veins. Of course she should have realised that Naxi’s ruthless mind would always come up with some new dramatic plan to draw all the attention back to herself. A few lives lost … well, those were of no consequence, were they? Not for demons. Not for creatures that, by their very nature, could not care about anyone else’s feelings.

‘Did you find any pattern in the identity of the victims?’ she made herself say.

All the right, sensible questions. As if she wasn’t half to blame for this catastrophe herself. The Mother’s trusted do-all, looking into yet another run-of-the-mill court crime. Who cared that this time the perpetrator was the same female who’d held her as she sobbed in her cell two days ago, the same female whose pretty pink lips she’d felt in her dreams for decades ?

‘Still looking into that,’ Nicanor was saying, his footsteps inaudible against the polished tiles as they hurried down the stairs. Around them, shadows lurked in every bay and niche. ‘There must be some pattern, I figure, because she didn’t just take down everyone in her way – she seems to have entered specific bedrooms over the course of the night. The only common factor we’ve found so far is that most of them were in the army at some point, but there are plenty of soldiers she didn’t —’

Thysandra stiffened.

He almost bumped into her, wings flaring out as he swivelled off-course just in time to avoid her. ‘Thysandra?’

Soldiers.

Oh, gods help her – how could she have been this fucking blind?

‘None of them were very young, were they?’ she choked out through the roar of her thoughts spiralling into more and more alarming conjectures. ‘Old enough to have been in the army three centuries ago, at least?’

Nicanor frowned. ‘Now that you mention it, I think so? But—'

‘And do you know’ – she had to fight the urge to close her eyes and crawl away into the nearest dark, dusty corner – ‘whether any of them were members of the sixth regiment around that period?’

He stared at her.

‘ Nicanor .’ Her voice cracked.

‘I’m not sure—’ He interrupted himself with an impatient, agitated headshake and started again, eyes narrowing in frustration. ‘Well, Theone was, of course. And Cercyon, now that I think of it, and—’

She cursed, resuming their descent twice as fast.

‘What the hell is the matter with the sixth?’ Unusual, for impassive, calculating Nicanor to let so much of his frustration show as he hurried after her. The ugly sight of demon deaths hadn’t been enough to throw him off-balance. Ignorance, on the other hand, was doing the trick flawlessly. ‘What do you know that I don’t—’

‘Mirova,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘What?’ He caught up with her with two agitated slaps of his icy blue wings. ‘The island?’

‘Yes. The sixth was the regiment that destroyed it during that retaliation attack three hundred years ago.’ An infuriating sign of weakness, to admit she’d looked up every detail she could find after Naxi’s accusations during the Last Battle – but then, the male beside her didn’t need to know why she’d gathered the information. ‘I suppose she must have looked up their names in our archives while the Alliance was here and then simply … worked down the list.’

‘But why in the world would a demon care about some nymph isle that— Oh .’ The last word came out breathless. ‘Oh, fuck. A nymph isle?’

Thysandra didn’t even bother to answer.

They had reached the foot of the stairs, finally, and hurried into the frescoed corridor that lay beyond. Wild, violent, chalk paintings on the walls, images she knew too well to even glance at them … and on the black marble of the floor, as if to mirror the artist’s vision, the carnage Naxi had left behind.

Ugly didn’t begin to cover the sight.

There were six bodies in this corridor alone, lying curled up on the red-veined marble, their blood smeared across the tiles. Most had been killed by blades, their own dead hands clutching the hilts of their swords and daggers. One seemed to have ripped out her own throat in her hurry to escape the agony of demon torture, and one had apparently bashed his own head against the wall until he died. Their faces, no matter how different their features, were all the same: lips wrenched open in soundless screams, wide eyes gaping unseeingly into the pits of hell.

Demon victims. No doubt.

She’d seen so many of them over the years of her research. She’d read every book in existence about demon magic, the manipulation of emotions that could reduce the bravest of warriors to a wreck pleading for death within a matter of seconds.

Gall welled in her throat all the same.

Other fae were standing around the victims, their hunched postures and haunted glances a jarring contrast to their sparkling clothes and decadent jewels. The looks they gave her as she passed … Caution. Envy. Distrust. Resentment. Nothing she hadn’t expected from the scheming courtiers who’d still been her peers yesterday, and yet she suspected this hadn’t helped – the explosion of violence under what was technically her rule and protection.

When.

To think that, ten minutes ago, she’d believed food stores would be her greatest problem.

She kept her expression stony as she strode down the halls and staircases, a shield against every accusing glare, every muffled curse. No one spoke up – not yet. It was a test, of course, all of this. An assessment, even through the shock and the dismay, of just how well she would deal with this unprecedented threat, and how much of a threat that made her in turn, whether she’d be best approached with violence or flattery. If she made the mistake of coming across as weak or helpless …

It would be a matter of days before the vultures descended.

‘Could you do me a favour?’ she muttered to Nicanor.

She’d pay for it later. Former lover or no, he was too savvy to ignore a promising opportunity like this, the obligations that came with services rendered to the crown. But for now he nodded without hesitation, his expression cool and composed again – the usual haughty, elegant indifference, as if they weren’t walking past a handful of corpses with their own nails in their eyes.

‘Please keep everyone away from the bone hall,’ she said, taking care not to move her lips for the benefit of the gathered fae around her. ‘Out of hearing distance, at the very least. Tell them it’s to protect them from her demon influence, if necessary.’

His quick side-glance was proof enough he’d noticed the half-heartedness of that explanation. ‘You don’t want anyone to hear you?’

‘I don’t want anyone to hear her ,’ Thysandra said, which was true, although he was admittedly not wrong, either. But her own words she could control, at least. Gods knew what Naxi would blurt out, and with a castle poised to turn against her, she didn’t need any true accounts of the Last Battle to leak. ‘I would like to understand her motives here, and she’ll speak more freely if she can’t sense anyone near.’

‘I see.’ If he was suspicious, he hid it well – but then again, of course he would hide it well. Yet another factor to worry about at a later time. ‘I’ll keep them away from the hall, then. If she does attack you, though …’

‘If she does attack me,’ Thysandra wryly said, ‘all of you put together wouldn’t be able to save me. Best to stay far away and send a message to Creon if you hear me scream.’

The expression on his pointy face could not have been unhappier if she’d pushed a rotting fish under his nose. But he nodded once again, tapping a slender finger against his temple in a swift mock-salute, and sourly said, ‘As Your Majesty commands.’