Page 2

Chapter Two

R eign

The rare hour of twilight rushed across the Court of Ethereal Light, painting the sky in a canvas of warm ochre and deep plum. How I longed for full night… to bathe in the cool darkness and lose myself in complete oblivion.

But I couldn’t. I had to fight for her .

Pacing the shore of the brackish waters of the Luminoc River, the quickly dwindling tethers of my sanity grew more frayed with each step. An entire month. It had been a gods’ forsaken whole month, and we were no closer to finding Aelia or even a hint of King Helroth and his Court of Infernal Night. It was as if those hellions had been devoured by the earth, all traces swallowed up in that trench that horrible day.

In the quiet of night, in my darkest moments, left alone to ponder my dismal musings, I was certain I’d imagined it all. That my radiant Aelia had never existed, that the beautiful moments we shared were simply an illusion my addled mind had conjured up. Sometimes I wished it were that simple. Because maybe only then could the void that had taken up permanent residence in my chest finally be filled.

I massaged the vacant spot with my palm as I continued to trudge along the shore. My cloak billowed out behind me, dark waves of pure night consuming me in shadow. My breeches slid down past my hips despite how tightly I knotted the ties. This damned cuorem bond was absolute torture. I couldn’t sleep, barely ate, and even breathing felt like hell without her.

A heady surge of nox spun my head across the river to the wall of encroaching darkness. Ruhl emerged from the shadows, an irritating grin on his face. Still, there was a certain hollowness to his gaze, a gauntness in his cheeks. Was this cursed bond wreaking havoc on him as well? Pausing at the riverbank, his piercing irises razed over me. “You look like shit, brother.”

“Always a pleasure to see you too,” I snapped. “Did Gideon discover anything?”

“Sure, he discovered lots of dusty tomes filled with worthless information about the history of the Night Court.”

“But nothing that will help us find Aelia?” I growled.

“I’m afraid not.”

I dragged my fingers through my hair, tearing at the very roots. For the past thirty-one days, we’d poured over countless history books, questioned every inhabitant from here to the end of the realm, and scoured every inch of the border between Feywood and the Wilds. We’d traveled as far as we could into the barren lands to the south before meeting resistance from the Royal Guardians. The king’s alabaster-uniformed soldiers had forbidden us to march farther south. Even Rue had been unable to convince them, despite mentioning her two older brothers who continued to fight somewhere along the boundary.

She had yet to hear from either of them.

Heaton had disappeared that day, along with Aelia.

Sometimes I feared we would never see either of them again. My ribcage tightened, lungs refusing to function at the crushing thought. No. I would find Aelia or die trying. I would raze down the entire fucking continent of Crescentia if that was what it took to be reunited.

I promised her I would fight, just as she had vowed the same all those months ago, and damn it, I would keep my word.

“And what of Mordrin?” I snapped, the frantic edge to my tone overpowering the lapping waves of the river.

“He’s been continuing his nightly patrol per the rotation schedule.” Since the day Aelia vanished four weeks ago, Sol, Phantom and Mordrin had been alternating turns flying the length of the continent in search of any sign of Aelia or King Helroth. So far, they’d come up empty.

“And?”

“And nothing, Reign,” he barked back, his cool demeanor cracking, a twist of shadows climbing across his back. It wouldn’t be long before he was able to summon his shadow wings. I could already feel his power expanding. “Don’t you think if Mordrin had found something I would have told you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have such little faith in me, brother?”

“Honestly? I have no idea what game you’re playing at, Ruhl.” My own shadows buzzed in irritation, coalescing into powerful wings that transported me across the murky depths of the Luminoc to Shadow lands. I dropped to the moist earth, my boots digging into the soil, and jabbed my finger into my half-brother’s midnight tunic. “Why are you helping us?”

“You know why,” he gritted out, exposing pointed incisors in a feral snarl.

“Because of my cuorem bond with Aelia?”

“Well, what else could it be?” He threw his hands up in a fit of frustration before he spun away to pace the length of the river. “Ever since she disappeared, I haven’t been right in the head. Realms, Reign, it’s unbearable. I cannot even find solace between the legs of another female. Every time I’ve tried a pit of disgust forms in my gut and?—”

“Oh, gods, poor you! Whatever shall you do?”

“Shut up,” he hissed, the pacing growing more manic with each turn. “How are you surviving this? How did you manage to be near her for so long without claiming her? This is a torment worse than death.”

Fury singed my veins at the very notion that my brother was having these thoughts about my cuoré. “I’m not speaking to you about this, Ruhl.” A growl vibrated my chest, echoing through my darkest depths. “And for gods’ sakes stop thinking about Aelia that way. She’s mine .”

He halted abruptly and spun around, bottomless orbs meeting my own. A wild, dark cackle erupted between us. “Is she, though? If you were truly meant to be, don’t you think you would have acted upon it when you had the opportunity? There were numerous times you could have completed the bond?—”

“There were countless reasons why we couldn’t.”

He moved forward, and this time, it was he who jabbed a finger into my chest. “I can tell you that there aren’t enough reasons in this world that would keep me from claiming her.”

My eyes widened, raw, ravenous anger poring through my veins in the form of shadows.

“If I wanted to…” he added before taking a measured step back.

The wild whipping tendrils of darkness eased back as I sought to control the building wrath with a deep breath. How dare he? “You have no idea of the depths of my restraint, Ruhl. I’ve controlled myself, kept my most overwhelming urges and desires at bay, for her . To protect her. That’s what true love does to a male?—”

“Relax, Reign,” he whispered. “I have no desire to steal your cuoré.”

“You don’t?” Gods, I hated how insecure I sounded. I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, but he cut me off.

“Why would I possibly wish to tie myself to one female for the rest of my life?” He smirked. “It sounds horribly tedious. Even for someone as exquisite as Aelia.”

“So you have no interest in her?”

He slowly shook his head. “I do not.”

Why didn’t I believe him? I blew out a frustrated breath, forcing the anger back to deal with another day. At this point, what did it truly matter? I needed all the help I could get, and my brother was a formidable ally, loath as I was to admit it.

“I should get back, early class tomorrow, and Malakar is on a rampage.” He signaled over his shoulder to the towering citadel.

“Why?”

“Only the gods know.” He shrugged, twirling a murky tendril of shadow between his fingers. “Perhaps, it has something to do with the newly resurrected Night Court king? Maybe he’s only pretending to know nothing about the extinct court.”

Gritting my teeth, I shook my head.

“I still don’t understand why you haven’t allowed any of us to speak of it.”

“To protect Aelia, I already told you!” I ground out. “It’s far better for everyone to assume she’s dead.”

“How can you protect her when you don’t even know where she is? If everyone knew of the return of the Court of Infernal Night, it could provide us with more resources to find her.”

“Don’t you understand that if Father discovers why King Helroth has captured Aelia, it will only paint another target on her back?”

“Reign, we don’t even know why the king has taken her,” he growled. “We assume it’s because of the prophecy, but perhaps he merely has a penchant for gorgeous Fae females.”

The word gorgeous tacked along too closely after exquisite rankled my nerves, despite knowing full well Aelia’s beauty was an objective fact. I shoved the irritation down, reminding myself he was only trying to rile me up. And it was working. “Do not tell our father anything, Ruhl. I will decide when the time is right.”

“Why do you get to decide?” he roared. “Need I remind you that my fate is at stake here, too?”

Realization sailed through me, and I nearly chuckled aloud at my own blindness. “Is that why you’re helping? You believe that somehow by saving Aelia, you can thwart your own dire fate, the one your mirror-self spoke of?” That fury I’d been trying so damned hard to contain pulsed at my veins, dark shadows curling around me, then drawing my brother into their lethal web.

He dug the heels of his boots into the earth as the velvety coils tightened around him, reeling my younger brother closer until I towered over him. “You’re pathetic,” I spat, venom lacing my words. “I was a fool to consider that maybe, just for an instant, you had changed. Aelia believed in you. She thought you had become more than the simpering heir to a brutal king, but she was wrong.”

His eyes grew large, nostrils flaring. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but his jaw slammed shut at the last instant. With his turbulent gaze locked to mine, he summoned an umbral blade to each of his palms. The murky twists of darkness gleamed like obsidian beneath the moonlight. Neither of us moved for an endless moment, my shadows circling around us like ravenous beasts and his ghostly blades poised to strike.

There would be no winner here today, and we both knew that.

“It is not only about me,” Ruhl finally rasped out.

I scoffed, recalling my shadows into the folds of my cloak. “You would do well to remember that, brother.” My wings unfolded, shooting up over my shoulders and propelling me into the night sky, not waiting for a response. Instead of turning toward the Conservatory, where every inch of the campus was a painful reminder of Aelia, I whirled toward the mountains to the north.

I would spend the night patrolling the skies in search of my cuoré, and I would spend every other night for the rest of my life doing just that until she was back safely in my arms.