Page 1

One

KURAI

A rter, the Master Guardian, appeared in the arched entrance to the temple’s dressing room that held our ceremonial clothing and where I stood in front of the large mirror, clipping together the closure of my skirt.

“It’s time, Kurai,” Master Arter said. “If you want to say goodbye to the Source of Joy before we leave, you should do it now. We don’t have much time.”

“I’ll be quick, Master.”

A man of few words, he nodded, then left me to finish getting ready.

Normally, I’d come to this room to put on my ceremonial garments in preparation for the morning service.

In the century that I’d been a Joy Guardian, I hadn’t missed a single one.

But tonight, I was leaving the temple with a mission that would keep me away for several weeks.

I was going to travel to Kalmena, the queen’s city, to help the Master Guardian welcome the humans recently acquired for Queen Abeille’s sarai .

With the soft cloth dipped in fragrant oil, I polished the golden collar circling my neck. The collar had become a part of me, like a limb or an inner organ. I’d worn it since I was a child of six as a sign of my life’s purpose—service to the Joy.

A hundred years ago, the Master Guardian cut my hair and placed the plain polished strip of gold around my neck, declaring I belonged to the Joy. As I grew, the collar had to be adjusted to accommodate my increasing size, but I hadn’t taken it off since.

After putting the cloth back into the dish, I took my chest armor from the stand by the mirror. It was a mesh of golden hexagons, linked with each other to represent all Joy Guardians connected in our mission to serve the Joy—the most sacred, divine entity in this world.

I closed the chains of my armor behind my neck and around my chest, then brushed the polishing cloth over the black stones set among the hexagons in the pattern that reflected my status in the temple.

The ten stones marked the century of my dedication to the Joy—nearly my entire life—and there was no better life I could ever envision.

From the first moment my tendrils connected to our sacred Source of Joy in the Temple of the First Priestess, I knew my destiny was to serve it, and my conviction had never once wavered since. I would die without a moment of hesitation to protect the Joy.

I gathered my shoulder-length hair into a knot on the top of my head to keep the back of my neck exposed, then put on a golden robe. In addition to the skirt, the Joy Guardians had to wear a robe when entering the sacred enclave of the Joy.

With a last glance in the mirror, I adjusted the robe and smoothed down my skirt, then left the ceremonial clothing room.

The Temple of the First Priestess had only two sets of doors. The outer doors were never locked. They kept the sand out of the refuge room in the front that provided a temporary shelter to those caught in a storm during the day.

The inner doors opened only once a night, six times a week, when the secular public was allowed to attend our service ceremony and experience the eternal, divine magic of the Joy.

The temple’s expansive library, our bathing area, and the Guardians’ bedrooms were located underground. Our rooms had no doors. The Joy Guardians had nothing to hide from each other. We all had the same mission in life—to serve and protect the one and only Source of Joy .

The main floor of the temple was a large open hexagonal space with the sacred enclosure positioned exactly in the middle. Six walls of golden filigree surrounded our Joy in a column of crystal honeycomb.

Pure, undiluted joy sparkled inside the hexagonal vials assembled into a column that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

It looked as if a ray of light pierced through the roof, hit the floor, and froze forever in a magical, mesmerizing structure.

In the building without doors and barely any walls, the Joy could be seen from almost everywhere, filling the temple with light and shimmer.

Joy Guardian Oria was on her knees inside the golden fence. With her tendrils dipped into the precious vials of the divine honeycomb and her eyes closed, she was praying.

I paused for a moment, taking in her peaceful, reverent expression that I’d only ever seen on the faces of people connected to the Joy.

Opening the golden gate, I entered the space reserved only for the Joy and those who served it.

The outsiders visiting the temple were only permitted to reach with their tendrils through the openings in the golden filigree while staying on the other side of the fence.

As soon as I stepped inside, the rest of the world fell away. Peace settled over me, banishing all strife and worries. I saw the world for what it was—a vast space, bigger than any kingdom could be, holding more wonders than any person could comprehend.

Inhaling deeply, I let my tendrils unfurl. They extended from my arms and my spine, curling into the six rope-like appendages. Their unraveled ends reached for the column of glass vials, then plunged into the golden shimmer of the Joy.

For a moment, my breath left me. Joy filled my limbs with a tremble. My knees went weak, and I sank to the floor in awe. I bowed my head in awareness of my own humility when faced with the Divine.

Bliss filled me. It seemed to lift me into the air, above all the suffering and sorrow. Divine pleasure tingled my skin and sent a shiver through every part of me, relaxing my body and elating my soul.

Nothing compared to this, and I would do anything to protect it.

Absolutely anything.

“Good evening, Sweet One,” the Master Guardian greeted the first of the queen’s new Joy Vessels, who was about to be fitted with the leilatha harness in the queen’s palace in Kalmena.

Each harness consisted of six loops that held six leilathas shaped as golden rosettes with openings for every filament of a shadow fae’s tendrils.

We created the harnesses, using the description and drawings left for us by the First Priestess of Joy, who taught our ancestors how to gather and preserve the emotion of joy many millennia ago.

Through the harness, the shadow fae would be able to share all human feelings, including any joy they felt because we couldn’t feel it on our own.

Such was the great injustice of this world—the weak, mortal humans, void of magic, turned out to be capable of feeling joy when the shadow fae could not.

The Source at the temple held the joy collected from the fae of the Above over the past centuries.

But that world was closed to us now. The sky fae fought our shadow tunnels with their light magic and closed our portals, banishing us for good.

The human realm remained the only place where we could still visit through our shadow tunnel magic, but the access to it came with limitations.

By the queen’s order and with the help of an ancient spell, we’d opened a shadow tunnel to the River of Mists that took us to the human realm.

Through it, the queen’s guards were able to bring in twenty-four human Joy Vessels for the personal sarai of Queen Abeille.

In addition to the limited and highly regulated access to the Joy Source in our temple, the queen’s royal court now had the human joy to use whenever and however they pleased.

“Come closer,” Master Arter implored the human woman who lingered at the entrance to the royal chapel as the six of us waited inside. “We won’t hurt you.”

We wouldn’t hurt her, but it didn’t mean that fitting the harness was going to be painless for her. As the harness embedded itself into the human’s flesh and soul, it would take her through the entire range of emotions, including pain, grief, and sorrow.

The woman hesitated, flanked by her escort of two newly appointed Joy Vessel Keepers and several royal guards. Turned sideways to us and staring blankly at the wall, she didn’t even appear to understand what the Master Guardian asked her to do.

Language barrier couldn’t be a problem for her.

When crossing from the human world into the Alveari Kingdom, humans gained the ability to speak our language the moment they first heard it.

In this world, speaking it was more natural to them than their mother tongue.

Yet the human woman’s expression remained vacant, as if she didn’t understand a word and didn’t even try to understand it.

Unlike shadow fae, who were all of a similar build and height, humans came in many shapes and in a range of hues.

This one’s skin was dark brown. Her long, pink hair was braided into thin plaits that reached almost down to her waist. Dressed in only a beige, ankle-length skirt, like all Joy Vessels, she had her braids draped over her bare breasts, as if attempting to conceal them from view.

From what I could see, her body looked harmoniously flawless, with not a line or a curve out of place, which proved soothing for my eyes.

“We won’t hurt you,” Oria echoed Master Arter’s words, taking a step toward the human .

The woman cautiously retreated until her shoulder hit the doorframe.

The impact seemed to jolt her awareness.

She lifted her head. Her gaze crossed with mine, and my breath hitched at the sight of her golden-brown eyes.

Dark eye color was rare among my people who normally had yellow, orange, blue, or more commonly green eyes, like mine.

I’d never even seen brown eyes before, and hers mesmerized me.

The golden flames of the candles in the pyramid holders reflected in the darkness of her irises, making them look like wild honey.