Page 12 of Seduced By Darkness
“Because Adaia doesn’t know any other expression.” My gaze hasn’t shifted off my enemy since she arrived in this clearing, but there’s something about the way Thalia says it that makes me glance down at my cousin. She’s on edge. We’re all on edge. But while my cousin might look like the sweetest member of my court, she’s also the most dangerous when she wants to be. “Relax, Thalia. What is it you always say? Information is currency. Patience is its own reward. Right now, we have neither. We need a confirmed sighting of Finn, and then we can set plans into motion.”
“Or I could simply walk across this clearing, draw my knife and drive it through that merciless bitch’s heart,” she murmurs as she lifts her wine glass to her lips and drains it.
“She doesn’t have one.” Alarm spikes through me. There are no knives on her that I can see, but then the mysteries of female clothing are lost on me. Apparently, there’s a long-running vendetta against the lack of pockets on female clothing.
Thalia likes improvisation.
She designs her own wardrobe.
Which means she could be carrying half an arsenal in the folds of those skirts.
“What’s wrong, Thi?” She knows exactly what I’m looking for. I can see it in those wicked green eyes.
“I love you and you know that. But I wouldn’t even send Eris after Adaia, and she can kill anything,” I point out. “You wouldn’t stand a chance. Don’t do something stupid.”
Thalia merely smiles. “Oh, please, Thiago. If I wanted to kill the Queen of Asturia, she’d never see me coming. But I won’t. Because that would prove a considerable headache for us right now. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to retaliate. All I can say is that Adaia ought to be careful how much wine she drinks tonight.”
I look at her sharply.
She taps the side of her nose, her mask obscuring the top half of her face. “Lysander might think my little legion is hardly going to win us a war, but he’s wrong. Nobody looks at the demi-fey. Even if they’re slipping powdered shepherd’s rot into the queen’s wine.”
Shepherd’s rot is a mushroom notorious for bursting the stomachs of sheep. It’s rarely deadly for the fae, but it does cause a bout of indigestion that is extremely painful. The effects last for months too.
On one hand, if Adaia suspects us of being behind it, then she’ll only be more intractable than usual.
On the other hand, maybe it will improvemymood.
If I could bottle Thalia’s rage and send her to war armed with only that, then I’d probably be holding Adaia’s crown in my hands by the end of a week. Thalia takes great joy in fine silks and velvets, and indulging in honey cakes and sweet wine, but mistake her at your own peril.
“I have a better idea,” I say as a hush falls over the gathering, my voice lowering. “Save it for the last night when we have Finn back. A gift, courtesy of Evernight.”
Thalia grins at me and I straighten my mask.
It’s subtle and molded expertly to my face, courtesy of Thalia. A hawk’s sharp leather beak with velvet feathers. The cloak I wear is plain, my doublet made of crushed black velvet. Among all the glitter and glamour of the fae courts, nobody would look twice at me.
It’s perfect.
“Let us all sing to the night,” the herald calls, interrupting our plotting. He lifts his enormous staff and brings it down upon the flagstones in front of the bonfires. “Let us sing to the fires! Let us sing to the coming dawn!”
The three enormous bonfires that stand in the heart of the clearing tower over us. The queens of Aska, Ravenal and Asturia gather before them, prepared to light them, and the crowd hushes.
Right now, Eris and Baylor should be making a furtive foray into the Asturian encampment. I doubt they’ll have much luck. Adaia will expect it. But I want more details about the way the camp is set up, and preferably a glimpse of Finn.
Just because the demi-fey say he’s alive, it doesn’t mean he’s in a decent condition.
All Thalia can get out of them ispoisonandiron sickness. Watching the little demi-fey pretend to choke and fall to the ground would be humorous in other circumstances, but I really don’t know what kind of condition he’s in.
We could kill her, whispers the Darkness.Look at her. It would be so easy.
I lift my gaze to Adaia as I sip my wine, and the clearing vanishes around me as the world becomes black and white.
Death peeks over many a shoulder here. It would be disconcerting to see if I wasn’t in the grip of the daemon within me. I am empty and hollow and my heart stills like a stone sinking to the bottom of a rushing river.
It doesn’t have to beat, for a heart is what stirs life through a fae’s veins, and I am nothing more than Death right now.
It’s quiet here, in the Shadow World.
Hungry faces leer at me, superimposed over the fae beneath them. Shadows writhe as they thicken and solidify. Shadowy arms slide up a young woman’s body. Dozens of them. Threatening to drag her back into her own silhouette.
