I pull my hands behind my back to hide that they’re trembling. This nervousness, this fear, is new for me. I’m used to being able to handle myself, even in the most stressful of situations. I never let them see me riled up.
But right now, I can’t get that crawling feeling out of my stomach.
“It’s what he wants,” a hissing voice floats through the air. I flinch before realizing I’m the only one who can hear it. The spell book speaks only for me.
I don’t respond to the book because they’ll all think I’m insane. No one other than Rev knows that the spell book is sentient, let alone that it speaks to me.
“The Night Bringer wants to unravel you. You’re letting him win.”
I curl my lip, but I cannot react. These fae already hate me, and I’d prefer not to add certifiably insane to their list of reasons to mistrust me.
The spell book knows what is at the core of my anxiety, though. The Night Bringer is targeting everyone and everything I care about. Kari being injured was not a coincidence. Who is next?
I close my eyes as the council settles into their places. Rai is that last to sit, leave me standing alone.
“Caelynn.” The High Queen nods in my direction.
“I can leave...”
“Not yet,” Rev says quickly. “I have something to say before Caelynn takes her leave.”
“Go ahead.” The High Queen nods to Rev, who stands. Again, his shoulders are back, his chin high. He is so proud to be the High Heir. I’m happy for him, but it still makes my stomach sour because I’m selfish and stupid.
“We are all aware of the shadow rebel attack, and it is an issue we must address, even while we are in the midst of conflict with powerful beings. The Shadow Court has been a topic of conversation for hundreds of years. They were once a powerful court, but that is no longer true, in part due to the action of the High Court and the council. Both Caelynn and I understand the reasons for the dismantling of the Shadow Court’s power, but I am here to declare that it is no longer necessary. The blood of the shadow heirs was the key to the curse that kept the Night Terror chained. But The Night Terror is now free, and there is no longer any risk in allowing the Shadow Court to regain their true rulers, their true power.”
“You want to make the Shadow Court powerful again?” someone whispers.
“No,” the High Queen says, “but we do believe the Shadow Court is at a breaking point, and we must facilitate some healing or these conflicts will only get worse.”
“Your plan, Reveln, is to reward the Shadow Court’s violence?” the Luminescent Court king curls his lip in disgust.
“Not reward,” Rev leans back in his chair. “We are simply going to give back some of what was unjustly stolen from them.”
“Caelynn,” the Crystal Queens says. “You grew up in the Shadow Court. What was your experience there? Did you witness rebellion or discontent? Were you truly as poor as we are being led to believe?”
“I—” I pull in a long breath. It’s been a long time since I spent deep thought on my childhood. It’s a painful subject. “I, technically, am a countess. You all will know what wealth and power that usually entails. However, I grew up in a shack without running water.”
I let that truth sink in for a moment. The room is still, but the expressions tell me they are listening intently. Some give me shrewd stares, others sympathetic gazes, and the rest stare wide-eyed in disbelief.
“My father owned a small castle a few miles from the village where we lived, but we had no magic to fuel it. I assume it remains abandoned. Even in the village, we were poor in the truest sense of the word. I don’t recall ever fearing that I would starve, but I do remember being cold. My whole family would cuddle up in one bed in the winter. It was the only way to keep warm. And my mother took me on trips into the Whisperwood weekly to forage for berries, even during the cold winters.” The shadow sprites would lead us to areas where we could dig up roots to make stew. In the warmer months, we’d harvest blackberries, and that was most of what we ate for months. I’d never thought much about those things, it was simply our reality, but now I assume we needed to forage, or we’d have starved. “We survived only on the natural magic of the Whisperwood. Our natural magic is fairly strong, and that cannot be siphoned from us. But even our farmers were barely able to make enough food to feed themselves, let alone the whole town. Some summers, the harvest was generous enough that we’d hold a festival where food was plentiful, but I only remember two of those in my seventeen years in the court.”
The room is quiet, the kings and queens of the realm shift awkwardly and stare at me.
“Is there no wealth left anywhere? Are they on the verge of magical collapse?” The Crystal Queen finally asks.
“It has been a long time since the Shadow Court has reached out to the High Court for aid,” the queen admits. “We generally assumed the Queen of the Whisperwood finally accepted their place as a lesser court and that their former wealth and power would never be reestablished. But because of that, we are not up to date on the state of their power or poverty.”
“If the entire court is as desolate as it seems, wouldn’t she have asked for help again? Swallow her pride and tell us her people are starving?” the Frost Court Queen asks.
The High Queen locks her jaw, eyes cast to the table. I look up to the ceiling to stop myself from reacting to the realization that the High Queen knew.
She knew the Shadow Court was full of poverty, and she still denied any aid to facilitate rebuilding even basic structures. She knew and did nothing.
“It’s not our fault,” I whisper.
All attention shifts back to me.
I blink. “We are poor. But it’s not our fault. You did this.” I stare at the High Queen. “You forced marriages, taking the most powerful fae from a powerful court until we had nothing left.”
