“Are you hurt?” I ask her.
She’s unlucky I’m the one who found her. I’ve never been accused of gentleness. I read fear in her eyes as she takes me in, and I don’t attempt to defuse it.
I don’t detect any wounds, but I don’t like making assumptions.
The girl shivers, but she shakes her head. I’m glad of it. I’m capable of administering basic remedies when the circumstances call for it, but I’m not much of a healer.
She needs something warm to eat, and a place to sleep. She probably also needs someone to speak to, and that someone isn’t me, so I gesture behind me. “Choose your court. You’ll be cared for.”
The lower kings and queens of Tenebris have found refuge in Whitecroft, with a part of their courts. As we could hardly all fit inside the building that used to be our school, we’ve built seven halls, with small but comfortable apartments, each representing our seven courts. Ash, Mist, Stars, Storm, Silt, Ichor, and Stone. Whitecroft Hall itself houses the royalty, and whatever is left of our government—the leaders of our armies, our politicians, our lawmakers.
The one good thing to come of our ordeal is the fact that we aren’t defined by where we were born. Not anymore.
Before, a fae born in the Court of Stars could only join another court if the king or queen requested it. For the first time in generations, we’ve been able to choose where we belong.
My family was born at the border between Stars and Mist—technically on Stars lands. They’ve chosen to remain with the Court of Stars, in order to be close to their friends.
I haven’t chosen. Not officially. I sleep in my parents’ quarters, though my position means I could have an apartment of my own, should I request it.
Requesting lodgings would mean actually picking a court. A lord. I can’t bring myself to kneel to anyone. I don’t believe in the lords of Tenebris. Had they been powerful, we wouldn’t be stuck behind these walls, cowering before mortals. I don’t trust them. I don’t respect any of them. None of the elders, none of the queens, none of the warriors saved us.
Vlari did.
Vlari, who’s little more than a child to the folk. As the gentry don’t fade with age, we’re considered too young for responsibility under the age of a hundred years. Vlari wasn’t even seventy when she placed herself between us and immortals, with none of the lower monarchs by her side.
Just me and her grandfather. Another lord I don’t quite trust.
And she paid for their inability to protect us.
I don’t think I can ever forgive the kings and queens of Tenebris for their helplessness. Their weakness. They’ve lost my respect, and how could I serve a leader I don’t respect?
I can only kneel to a power greater than my own.
“What about the girl of light?” the child asks, making me stop in my tracks.
A girl of light? I try to make sense of the words. I might have been too quick to dismiss her injuries. It sounds like she hit her head too hard. Before I can ask a few pointed questions, the child carries on. “The pixie with purple hair. She helped me get away. Is she still out there?”
I turn to face her, watching her eyes, scanning for the first sign of a lie.
And suddenly, the void is gone. The emptiness, the lack of feeling that has been my constant companion. I am fire. I am rage.
If she’s lying to me, I’ll take great pleasure in making her suffer.
Apixie.
Pixies are creatures of the seelie courts. The legends say that they’re the children of gentry and the shy folk of the wilderness, given the beauty of one race and the bloodthirsty ferocity of the other. They moved to settle south of the wilderness centuries ago, and bowed to the high queen of Denarhelm. When the line of the queen failed, they founded a lower court.
There may be a handful of pixies scattered across Tenebris, but I know of only three within the walls of Whitecroft. A full-blooded female. Her half-blood son. The son’s daughter. A quarter-blooded pixie, yet so dainty and small her origins can’t be denied. She blends the features of a gentry with those of the pixie, managing to look almost innocent, like an ingénue. A neat trick for the most powerful fae among us.
Only one of them has purple hair—violet at the tips, gray at the roots.
The shade of the royal line, running through the entire bloodline of Nyx.
Vlari.
I say one word to the exhausted, terrified girl I can’t bring myself to reassure. “Talk.”
Stone Cold
