Master of Shadows Read online

Finn did remember her. Old Hadley had been kind to him whenever she had the chance, and he’d repaid her during their escape from the castle. His route out took him through the servant’s quarters and the kitchen, where he’d found her hiding in the larder. He’d grabbed her bony hand and pulled her from where she hid, frozen in fear, and led her out the back entrance where they were quickly separated. He’d always assumed she’d been captured. So many were on that long trek...

  Hadley’s shaky hand closed on his ankle, eyes glistening with the promise of tears. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you. Any friend of yours is a friend to Rilvand. I’ll see to it that you have all the food and beds you need.”

  “Wait a minute...” He tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t have it.

  Hadley put her hand to her mouth and shouted up to the wall, “Prince Finnegan has returned! Open the gates and make way. The prophecy is at hand!”

  The gates opened wider and a small company of armed guards filed out, lining either side of the road.

  “Come,” Hadley said and gestured for them to follow.

  Finn didn’t dare look at the others as he urged his horse forward. They already hated him. With the news that he was some long-lost prince, they’d hate him even more, especially since he hadn’t been open about it.

  Gwen rode up to join him. “Prince?”

  “It’s not like it sounds. I don’t have any real claim. I’m a bastard.”

  “Doesn’t sound like that’s what they think.” She nodded ahead.

  A small crowd of dirty, tired looking people had gathered just inside the gate. Men, women, children all stared at him with big hopeful eyes. At his approach, some of them shifted forward, placing small candles on the ground to light his path. The tiny flames flickered and danced, lighting up an ancient cobblestone street.

  Finn swallowed. A lighted path was supposed to be a sign of respect, reserved for visiting nobles and powerful lords. He was just a thief, a coward who ran away and left them all to their fate. Surely, he wasn’t worthy of their love and respect. Yet the crowd stretched on, placing their candles at regular intervals, even going so far as to fetch more when they ran out.

  The candlelight procession led them to a large house at the end of a street where a grim-faced man in worn armor stood. He removed his helmet and limped down the wide stairs to greet them in the street after they dismounted. “Your Highness,” he said in a deep voice as he bowed.

  “I’m really just Finn,” Finn said. “All this isn’t necessary.”

  The man stood back up with a frown. “You are the last legitimate heir to the Shadow throne. It is the least we could do. I am Commander Lance Adrix, the elected leader of Rilvand.”

  Finn nodded and gestured to the others, introducing them as best he could. It felt incredibly awkward to be put on the spot and asked to remember all the courtly etiquette he was supposed to have learned. The words and gestures belonged to some other life.

  “Commander Adrix,” Gwen said after the introductions were complete, “I hope this isn’t too forward, but since Finn’s safety falls to us, I must ask.”

  Adrix folded his hands behind his back and stood straighter. “You wish to know why our city hasn’t fallen to the blight.”

  Gwen nodded.

  “I promise all will be explained. But you must be tired and weary from your long journey. We don’t have much in the way of luxury these days, but I hope a hot bath and a warm meal will do.”

  “Absolutely,” Finn chimed in before anyone else could decline. He would’ve given his right arm for a shower and a sandwich.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Remy sank further into the wooden tub. The tub wasn’t quite large enough to accommodate a proper soak. Reclining left her feet propped over the end and her chest exposed, but she still couldn’t find cause to complain. After so many days on the road with three men, it was good just to be alone for once.

  I wonder how Jessica’s doing. She closed her eyes and let the thoughts slip away. There wasn’t anything she could do all the way out there to assist Jessica, and she knew that Jessica could handle anything. Jessica was smarter than she gave herself credit for.

  “You take longer baths than anyone I know.”

  Remy’s eyes snapped open to find Finn standing over her, grinning. In her hurry to slip back below the water and present herself decently, she nearly drowned herself in the tub. Water sloshed over the side, leaving a dark, bubbly stain on the wooden floor. She clutched her knees to her chest. “What the hell do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  He pulled a chair from the other side of the room, spun it around and sat on it backward, folding his arms over the back. “We need to have a little chat.”

  “About how you failed to mention to anyone you were royalty, you mean?”

  “Guess that makes two of us then, doesn’t it?”

  Remy blinked, her blood chilling, despite the warm water all around her. He knows. No, that’s impossible. He can’t know...Can he? “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Finn rolled his eyes. “Don’t insult me. I figured you out before we ever left the palace, Queen Remy.”

  “Keep your voice down. No one else knows yet or else Foxglove would be dragging me back to the palace.” She grabbed the towel next to her and pulled herself out of the bathtub, wrapping herself up as quickly as possible. He’d already seen everything, but she might as well make a pretense at modesty. “How did you get in here anyway? It wasn’t through the door. I’d have heard you.”

  Finn shrugged. “Same way I got into Oonagh’s tomb. I walked from one shadow to another.”

  She finished tucking in the towel and ran her hands through her hair. “You can walk through shadows?”

  “Sometimes. Only if the shadows are deep enough, and I have to have been at one end or the other once before, and the distance can’t be too great. It takes a lot of energy.”

  “So you couldn’t move from here back to Summer for example?” Remy asked drying her hair with a second towel.

  “The longer the distance there is to travel, the more likely something will go wrong.”

  “None of this explains how you figured me out.”

  “You gave yourself away with that kiss.” He smiled at the incredulous look she gave him.

  “You can’t tell just from a kiss.” She turned away and stepped behind the screen to dress, grateful to be where he couldn’t see her blush.

  “If it’s the right kiss I can,” he boasted. “The kiss the queen gave me before we left, it wasn’t meant for me.”

  Remy would’ve laughed if it wouldn’t have undone the laces on her leather breastplate. “Oh, and the one you blackmailed me into giving you the night before was?”

  Fabric rustled on the other side of the screen. “Admit it. You like me. You don’t have to put a show on now, Queenie. Nobody else is around.”

  Remy finished dressing and stepped out from behind the screen. “What are you doing?”

  She stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she saw him. He’d shrugged off his shoes, shirt, and the long riding coat he’d been wearing, but it wasn’t all the exposed skin that gave her pause. It was his scars. He wouldn’t be the first scarred fae she’d ever seen, though most chose to use magic to heal them. The only time scars couldn’t be healed were when they’d been made by iron. Even then, they could be hidden with a good glamour so long as all the iron had been removed from the wound.

  She’d never seen scarring as widespread and intensive as what covered Finn’s back. Bulging fractals of raised skin crawled from his right shoulder to his left hip, a spiderweb of scars so terrible, the pain must’ve nearly driven him mad.

  Remy swallowed. “What happened to you?”

  “Oh, that?” Finn glanced over his shoulder with a frown. “That’s what happens when the Winter Queen injects molten iron under your skin. Not pretty, is it?” He turned around and, for the first time, she saw some of the same scarring on his chest. “I normally keep it all glamoured ov
er. Auryn doesn’t like to see it. But since she’s not around and glamour’s scarce...” He shrugged as if it were nothing.

  “That’s terrible.” She tried to imagine what it must’ve been like to go through that torture. “Why would she do that to you?”

  “I didn’t really get a chance to ask, but it seems it was special treatment. None of the other prisoners got all the attention she gave to me. I always assumed I annoyed her. Figured maybe if I annoyed her enough, she’d kill me and it would stop.”

  “Or maybe she knew who you were.”

  He shrugged again. “Maybe. She wasn’t interrogating me. That much I knew for sure because she never asked any questions. She did oversee my torture personally, so maybe...”

  Remy took a step forward, shaking her head. “This is what Queen Noelle was doing to you before she brought you to me? I can’t believe she would...It must’ve been horrible.”

  “It’s not so bad. After a while, your body goes into shock and you stop feeling it as the iron goes in. The sickness that follows as your body tries to purge it is worse.”

  As he spoke, she studied the pattern. It looked familiar somehow. That was it! Like the vines the blight brought into Summer. That was probably just coincidence though. She closed the space between them in a few short steps, reaching toward the blemished skin but stopping short of touching it.

  His hand closed around her wrist and he brought her palm to his chest.

  Her fingers slid over the uneven skin, feeling his heartbeat under her fingers. With just a tiny spark of magic, she could stop it, end his life and end a dynasty. Nyx’s blood flowed through his veins, the Shadow Queen who had first sought to kill her in her mother’s womb. When she couldn’t finish the job, it was one of her generals who tried to murder her. Finn had fought under Kellas when he brought his army to Summer. He was her enemy and with a thought, she could crush him.

  That was what Titania would’ve done, crushed her enemies to dust and erased their names from the history books. To be forgotten was worse than to have never lived at all.

  She needed him to help save Faerie, but once that was all over, then what? Now that she knew he had a claim to the Shadow throne, that changed everything, didn’t it? How would she deal with him, this bastard thief king of Shadow? A message had to be sent or else Shadow might have ideas of rising up again. It was clear the resentment was still there. Both Summer and Shadow needed to heal, and uniting the land under one ruler would achieve that.

  I am better than the woman that raised me. She met his eyes. I don’t have to kill him. This can play out another way. She moved closer, the space between their bodies barely a sliver. “Does it hurt?”

  The corner of Finn’s mouth tilted up into a smirk. “Not anymore,” he said and leaned in to kiss her.

  She gave his upper body a push with all her strength, shoving him into the tub. “That’s for interrupting my bath,” she shouted over his splashing and cursing. “And if you tell Foxglove or Declan who I really am, you’ll wake up tomorrow morning a eunuch.”

  Finn spat out a mouthful of water and pushed limp strands of hair out of his face to grin at her. “So what you’re telling me is I’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance of you handling my balls?”

  Remy let out a frustrated growl, picked up the bar of soap, and threw it at his head before storming out of the bathroom. Maybe I should just kill him. That would be easier, wouldn’t it?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Verbena, Cian’s wife was as plump as her husband, though much prettier. She wore her hair in tight ringlet curls. Her mascara had smeared with all her crying.

  Jessica pulled out another disposable tissue and offered it to Verbena who took it and blew her nose loudly.

  “I’m sorry,” said Verbena. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”

  Jessica nodded empathetically. “It’s all right. Take all the time you need.”

  Verbena grabbed another tissue and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “It’s just that I know he couldn’t have done this. Infidelity, yes, but treason? He loved the Summer Court more than anything. I know he was difficult to be around sometimes and downright rude, but I tell you he wouldn’t have done it.”

  Jessica sighed and patted the woman’s hand. She’d hoped Verbena would offer something more concrete than that. As it turned out, she knew about the affair Cian was having, but she refused to accept that her husband was a traitor. No matter how much Jessica pressed, she just kept saying it was impossible. “Why didn’t you testify in your husband’s defense, Verbena? Surely if you feel this strongly about it, you should’ve given your testimony.”

  The other woman sniffled. “I wanted to, but when I went to Sir Malcom to notify him of my intent, he told me it would be better for Cian if I didn’t speak on his behalf. He seemed very concerned about my safety. He thought...” She paused a moment to wipe away more tears. “Sir Malcom thought that if I testified, I would have to speak about all of Cian’s affairs, and that would just make him look more guilty. It might also make me a target if people wanted someone to take their frustrations out on. Those men who were killed, they had families. Those poor people must be very angry.”

  Jessica retracted her hand and frowned inwardly, though she worked to keep her outward expression sympathetic. Sir Malcom had talked Cian’s only character witness out of testifying, though it was Verbena’s word against that of an anointed knight with dozens of expeditions under his belt. No one would believe Cian’s wife over Sir Malcom, even if it was true.

  “I understand how hard this is for you,” Jessica said, “but the only thing that will exonerate Cian now would be hard evidence. An alibi. Can you think of anything that would prove Cian didn’t open the front gate?”

  Verbena tapped her chin with a finger. “How does the gate mechanism work?”

  “There’s a large wooden wheel. It spins clockwise to open, counterclockwise to close.”

  “And this is at the top of several flights of stairs?”

  Jessica nodded. “Three.”

  “So you and everyone else believe Cian ran up three flights of stairs, spun a heavy wheel, and ran to find cover, all before anyone noticed?” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Then it couldn’t have been him. It’s no secret that Cian can barely make it up one flight of stairs when he’s having a gout flare. He has a medication that helps, but it still leaves him with some swelling.”

  She’s right, Jessica realized. She supposed it was possible he could’ve accomplished all that, but it was unlikely. All the evidence Malcom had gathered was circumstantial and meant to inflame people’s opinions of him rather than to prove his guilt. That Malcom had suppressed Verbena’s testimony was also suspect. She couldn’t sentence a man to die on such flimsy evidence, and she was certain Remy wouldn’t either.

  While she was considering it, a knock at the door interrupted them. The door cracked open after she answered and one of her guards leaned in. “I was sent to inform you that King Lazarus has arrived.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be down shortly.” Jessica leaned forward and placed a hand on Verbena’s knee. “Thank you for your testimony, Verbena. You may go.”

  Verbena nodded and rose, gathering her skirts and gliding through the door.

  When she was alone, Jessica jumped to her feet and rushed to the vanity, tearing open another dose of glamour and sprinkling it onto her tongue. The previous dose hadn’t worn off yet, but with Remy’s father here she couldn’t risk it fading. Remy had said her father was one of the Four Horsemen, which gave him special powers. She’d neglected to mention if he could see through glamours or detect them, which would’ve been helpful to know.

  After giving the glamour a moment to kick in, she adjusted her hair, checked her dress and makeup, and went out the door.

  All the way to the throne room, she forced herself not to fidget with her fingers while she reviewed all the facts about him Remy had made her memorize. Necromancer, Pale Horseman, and King of the Court of M
iracles. Foxglove was technically his Knight, though he didn’t keep Foxglove very close. He was happy to lend Foxglove to Remy whenever Remy asked, or whenever he wasn’t needed. Most recently, Remy had made a deal with Lazarus, trading Finn for a favor. Lazarus was supposed to return to Summer when he was finished with his previous task and help deal with the blight.

  That’s probably why he’s here, she thought and pushed some hair behind her ear. If he’d arrived a little sooner, he could’ve gone with the others and Remy could’ve told him herself. The whole thing left a bitter taste in Jessica’s mouth.

  It wasn’t that she disliked Lazarus or filling in for Remy. Actually, it was the opposite. Lazarus came to court frequently and exchanged regular letters with Remy while Jessica’s parents had been difficult and distant. Every time she met with her father and mother, they just looked at her with such sad expressions. It’d become too much to bear, and Jessica had broken off their regular visits. She couldn’t stand to see them so miserable every time they got together, and accepting two strangers as her parents was just awkward. Summer had become her family, not Nathan and Leah Frieder.

  The doors to the throne room groaned open and she stepped in without the fanfare and announcements that had accompanied her during the trial. The room looked so much larger without all the fae royalty crowding it, though it wasn’t completely empty. A handful of guards occupied positions along either wall, heavily armed. Not that their weapons would do any good if the palace were attacked again. They’d sent away their only real weapons against the blight, Remy and Finn. It was a good thing no one knew Remy was gone, or else they would be particularly vulnerable to outside attack.

  A man in a printed t-shirt, jeans, and unflattering work boots paced back and forth. He didn’t look much older than Declan, though Jessica understood looks could be deceiving when it came to people who had spent their entire lives on Earth. Time passed differently between the two realms and it wasn’t always predictable how much difference there would be.