Page 145 of Promise of Darkness
Eris crouches and watches. The lights bob and flicker. Torches. I think they’re torches. And someone is singing, though the song has a ribald flavor that reminds me of a tavern.
“Unbelievable,” Eris breathes. “It’s Raven’s Flight.”
Raven’s Flight is the night the Unseelie—and any Seelie who still worship the old ways—celebrate the Raven King. There are masks and bonfires and feasts. Dancing and fucking and ribaldry.
We edge closer.
Our luck couldn’t have been better.
Yes, there’s hundreds of Unseelie flocking to the castle to celebrate, but on the other hand, there’s hundreds of Unseelie flocking to the castle to celebrate. Two more travelers might be overlooked.
The trickle of travelers stretches along the road, where they laugh and cavort and threaten each other in loud, leering voices.
Most of them are masked already, and I realize I’m staring at a basilisk. To see its face is to know death, so they cover them at all times, only revealing them when they intend to kill. Behind it, a trio of fae wearing large black cloaks and polished silver masks keep a respectful distance.
“I have an idea.”
Eris follows my gaze. “This is abadidea.”
“We need a way in, don’t we? I don’t think relying on your charm and grace is going to cut it.”
She snorts. “If we get caught, I can’t protect you.”
“Who said I need protection?”
“Does a goblin like gold?”
One of these days…. “If you have a better idea, I’m open to it.”
Eris and I stare each other down. She finally looks away, the muscle in her jaw flexing. “Fine. Those three.” She points to the masked fae trailing behind the basilisk. “You distract them. I’ll kill them.”
* * *
The ploy works well.Too well.
We’re inside the castle, and the guards barely glanced at us in our borrowed finery. Something’s going to go wrong. This is too easy.
Blaedwyn’s the least dangerous of the Unseelie queens, though one should never underestimate her.
She’s over five hundred years old, and there are tales of her heroics—the ones that cost her soul. Fair Blaedwyn, the Seelie princess who buried the Sword of the Mourning in the Erlking’s chest, vanquishing him into an Otherworld prison. The princess who sacrificed herself in order to ply the ancient relic of power and trap an Old One.
Wielding the relics comes with a cost.
The sword warped her and turned her into this… creature.
Now she’s cruel and vicious and far more powerful than she ever was. The sword still hangs at her hip, and even from here, I can sense its malevolence vibrating through the air. It binds her to Mrog the Warmonger, who is said to bring turbulence and hatred wherever he rides.
She’s never been defeated whilst she has that sword in her hand.
The Unseelie of her court howl and rampage through the ballroom in celebration, flinging horns of mead everywhere. They’re the misshapen brethren of the fae, mixed breeds and monsters alike.
Blaedwyn herself sits on her throne, one leg crossed over the other as she watches her court revel. Her raven hair is braided in myriad little plaits that are all bound together, and raven feathers hang from the end of each plait. Kohl darkens her eyes, making her look like some sort of bird of prey.
Hanging above her in a gilded cage is Thalia, though there’s no sign of Finn or Thiago. Every now and then, one of their Unseelie captors stabs a spear through the bottom of the cage, cackling as Thalia’s forced to dance to avoid being skewered from below. Though it’s unkind to leave her there, at least she’s alive.
“Where is he?” I whisper, trying to blend into the vines that snake their way up the walls. I’d know if he was dead, wouldn’t I?
If we were written in the stars as he claims we were, then I would feel something so monumental as his death. Surely.
