Prologue
Two Thousand and Forty Years Ago: Post Blood Wars
“Oh my chickadee, what have you done?” My mother’s sorrowful tone was like poison in my veins, burning and searing, and the disapproval on her regal face was the bitter aftertaste of that poison.
Standing behind her, in shadows that flickered in and out, my brother Kade’s disappointment was more direct—it’s sharp sting stealing my breath from my lungs, leaving behind nothing but a sickening ache.
Opening and closing my mouth, I was momentarily lost for words before the anger set in. Gritting my teeth, I raised my chin. “I have done nothing wrong. You said yourself that I needed to come here, the sightsawme here. Maybe this waswhat it was for.” My shadows wrapped around me, their darkness soothing the gaping wound of my family's reproach.
I knew what my mother was thinking, I was young, just barely past my centum—fully recognized as an adult fae and no longer a faeling, I was also untried. Except now that I was fresh out of my final stages of training, I was tired of being locked away from the Blood Wars. I wanted to heal this land, banish the haunting ghosts the Blood Wars had created within the souls of all our people, and restore us back to our former glory. But more importantly, I wanted to protect the remaining shreds of my family and court.
Staying in the City of Light allowed that and my oath finalized it.
“You would align yourself withher…abandon your own court,” Kade spat, his face full of dark anger.
Kade would never understand my decision. He was still a baby in the fae’s eyes. My brother loved the City of Night and all of the shadow fae court. He would be an excellent leader to our people one day and I was immensely proud of him, but there was nothing for me in our homeland, nothing that I could add by staying.
Ever since I was born, I had either been admired or feared for the shadows I wielded. My power was isolating just as much as it was revered, and so an outsider I became. It did not take my mother’s seer ability to know that this great power, unknown in its origin, was meant for something more, and if using it to protect my family was one way of achieving this then so be it.
Biting back the words I wanted to say, knowing they would not be accepted, I steeled myself against Kade’s anger and glared back.Play the game Rem. “I have given my oath already and accepted the position as the Queen’s War General.”
“Your oath—your oath was to our own court!” Kade hissed. He took a threatening step forward but my mother’s hand reached out, stopping him, her green ringed sapphire eyes never leaving mine.
I held her gaze. I would not be made to feel less. I knew what I was goddess damn doing.
Pursing her lips she shook her head, her long dark hair falling around her delicate and petite frame, moving like the shadows that rolled off her in the moonlight of the City of Light. “This path you take, it is a dark one.”
Bristling and hurt that my mother could not see my true intentions, I snapped. “Yoursighthas been wrong before. You sawthat I should have been in Atlantis, to save it, and look how that turned out. I couldn’t even save them all, let alone the city, and I barely escaped with my own life doing it.All because your sight said so.”
My mother didn’t often flinch at biting words, she never showed weakness, and she never ever revealed her sadness even though Kade and I both knew she suffered. Unable to remember the fae she loved but knowing that a huge piece of her soul was somewhere out there, lost.
But this time she did, her face paling and her shadows sucking into her as the breath left her lungs, never exhaling.
Kade snarled, pulling her into his warm embrace and glaring at me through sudden hate filled eyes.
Eyes that spoke of abandonment and betrayal.
How could they not understand?
And just like that, the poison was quick, killing and severing the relationship between me and my remaining family. A sacrifice I was willing to make if it meant they were safe.
“So be it,” my mother whispered in the cocoon of my brother’s arms, a broken look on her face that I knew would haunt me for years to come. “We will always be here for you and we love you, my little chickadee.”
Then they were gone, shifting through the shadows.
I watched silently as the shadows settled, revealing the moonlit glow of the city’s splendor, and my hands fisted at my sides. Finally, releasing the words I had refrained from saying.
“I am doing this for you because I love you too,” I whispered brokenly into the night.
For my mother was not the same, the shadow court was not the same, and I was one of the few fae left that was not constantly haunted by the ghosts of a war. Being in the crown's favor was the best way to ensure their survival, I was sure of it.
***
“Mother?”
I watched the low sun sparkle over my mother’s bronze skin as she stood on the newly built balcony my father and I had constructed for her. Following her gaze eastward, I could see that evening's darkness was spreading across the valley as the day surrendered to the night. There was something so peacefully calm yet foreboding about it tonight. As if the night was here to stay, blanketing us in armor for what would come next.
Queen Skylar of the shifters turned towards me, her light brown hair swept to the side in an intricate braid falling over her exposed shoulder, her stunning caramel eyes softening with happiness, replacing the worry I had seen there moments before.
